Today, my body was a TV’d massacre.
Today, my body was a TV’d massacre that had to fit into sound-bites and word limits.
Today, my body was a TV’d massacre that had to fit into sound-bites and word limits filled enough with statistics to counter measured response.
And I perfected my English and I learned my UN resolutions.
But still, he asked me, Ms. Ziadah, don’t you think that everything would be resolved if you would just stop teaching so much hatred to your children?
Pause.
I look inside of me for strength to be patient but patience is not at the tip of my tongue as the bombs drop over Gaza.
Patience has just escaped me.
Pause. Smile.
We teach life, sir.
Rafeef, remember to smile.
Pause.
We teach life, sir.
We Palestinians teach life after they have occupied the last sky.
We teach life after they have built their settlements and apartheid walls, after the last skies.
We teach life, sir.
But today, my body was a TV’d massacre made to fit into sound-bites and word limits.
And just give us a story, a human story.
You see, this is not political.
We just want to tell people about you and your people so give us a human story.
Don’t mention that word “apartheid” and “occupation”.
This is not political.
You have to help me as a journalist to help you tell your story which is not a political story.
Today, my body was a TV’d massacre.
How about you give us a story of a woman in Gaza who needs medication?
How about you?
Do you have enough bone-broken limbs to cover the sun?
Hand me over your dead and give me the list of their names in one thousand two hundred word limits.
Today, my body was a TV’d massacre that had to fit into sound-bites and word limits and move those that are desensitized to terrorist blood.
But they felt sorry.
They felt sorry for the cattle over Gaza.
So, I give them UN resolutions and statistics and we condemn and we deplore and we reject.
And these are not two equal sides: occupier and occupied.
And a hundred dead, two hundred dead, and a thousand dead.
And between that, war crime and massacre, I vent out words and smile “not exotic”, smile “not terrorist”.
And I recount, I recount a hundred dead, a thousand dead.
Is anyone out there?
Will anyone listen?
I wish I could wail over their bodies.
I wish I could just run barefoot in every refugee camp and hold every child, cover their ears so they wouldn’t have to hear the sound of bombing for the rest of their life the way I do.
Today, my body was a TV’d massacre
And let me just tell you, there’s nothing your UN resolutions have ever done about this.
And no sound-bite, no sound-bite I come up with, no matter how good my English gets, no sound-bite, no sound-bite, no sound-bite, no sound-bite will bring them back to life.
No sound-bite will fix this.
We teach life, sir.
We teach life, sir.
We Palestinians wake up every morning to teach the rest of the world life, sir.
(via bodohgila)
So last year I spoke at the Young and Muslim in America event, one of ICNYU’s Shuruq events, and I did so by preparing for it only hours beforehand (I mentioned this a few post ago under the video from that event). This year, they had a similar program called Muslim Stories, and though I knew I wanted to speak, I figured I had told my story the year before, and I couldn’t think of anything worth sharing. I had no plans to speak. Then, like maybe an hour and a half before the event started, I was hanging out with my IC pals, and I was saying how jealous I am of hijabis getting to be all cool wearing hijab, and we brothers have nothing to compare to that. Then I started thinking of all these stories of me trying to be visibly Muslim and failing, and I realized it would make a great little speech, so I grabbed one of the computers and started jotting down ideas, and then right as the event was starting I took pictures of the screen with my phone so I could save what I’d written. Oh, also, I was filing the whole event, so while this is being recorded, the camera is left on the tripod unattended, and I flipped the screen forward to I could at least make sure I was centered in the shot while speaking. Everyone seemed to like my “Muslim Story,” and despite a couple of funnily awkward spots (eg. “the blacker the berry”), I think it was a success alhamdulillah. Well, you decide insha’Allah.
PS- Thank you hijabi sisters. There is so much fitna out there, especially in summer, and we really really appreciate you for wearing hijab. You are all amazing and wonderful and great, and stronger than so many of the brothers, especially those who easily “pass” for non-Muslim, when you don’t have that option. May Allah bless you and strengthen you, and remind you that all those girls out there got nothing on you, and you are the best dressed wherever you go! Allahu akbar!
Oh Allah, if we are meant for each other in this world & Hereafter then bring us closer and helps us to complete half our deen with ease & patience, and if we are not meant for one another then guide us away and onto the paths You have chosen for us both.
ameeeen, sister. :)
President Obama (via soulful-seductress)
I can’t reblog this quote enough. I know specific people who really need to hear it.
(via grrspit)
i’ve been awake for about 18 minutes, and it’s already pissing me off to see Muslims partial quoting Obama as only saying “Osama wasn’t a Muslim”. of least importance is the fact that it is a misquote and misrepresentation (which is pretty bad). of more import is the fact that no one has any right to say he wasn’t Muslim. i don’t care how horrible he was, when a Muslim declares another self-identified Muslim (no matter how “bad” a Muslim, no matter what their twisted interpretations of Islam happen to be) as “not a Muslim” they are committing a major sin. “When a person calls his brother (in Islam) a disbeliever, one of them will certainly deserve the title. If the addressee is so as he has asserted, the disbelief of the man is confirmed, but if it is untrue, then it will revert to him.”
[Al-Bukhari and Muslim]. It is sufficient to say that Osama was not representing Islam well. Sufficient to say that he was harmful to Muslims. No need to say he was not a Muslim at all, and no need to misquote or half quote other people’s strong-enough statements. You also can’t distance yourself from people whose interpretations you don’t like by simply throwing them out of your religion all together. We don’t let Christians do that, we don’t let Jews do that. Muslims can’t do it either. You can speak against someone and the way they represent your religion without pretending you have some inner insight into their heart and soul. No, he was not a “Muslim leader”. Yes, like it or not, he was a Muslim.
i am also really quite disgusted to hear my local news referring repeatedly to the U.S.ian civilian (including locally - notice they are just talking to regular folks on the street, but no Muslims) response as “celebration of the confirmed death of Osama Bin Laden”. Both the media and all the people they are interviewing (politicians, folks on the street/in the airport, etc.) are smiling, laughing, speaking fast & excitedly.
i don’t really care who the person is. Celebration of death is pretty gross and hypocritical.
and this whole “we’re all united” bullshit… let’s just see how many brown people are attacked in the streets…
(via atapestryofdisasters)
I thought this was a lovely Arabic typography. It says ‘Allah’ in all His other 99 names, that are present in the Quran.
Give it a read.
