Alhamdulilah I've never felt at home in any religion but I do believe in God I know it's irrational and I'm okay with that Maybe one day I can say my own story to an audience that can understand nuance But at this moment the world has conscious and unconscious biases against Muslims and Arabs So I want to say there's a lot of beauty in Islam When I hear people say alhamdulilah, praise God/thank God... Their homes are rubble, their children are in pieces, they have no way out and they say alhamdulilah When I hear that, I feel ashamed to cry They say it because they believe their families are now martyrs and martyrs go to heaven They aren't afraid of anything but God They've been rebuilding and burying their people for decades They say alhamdulilah, this is the land of jihad There's another word that strikes fear in westerners hearts Jihad means holy struggle, it's meant as an internal struggle The belief that we aren't entitled to things -- that hardships are an opportunity to act with faith and honor The hardest struggle is against ourselves, the lesser one is against a physical foe It's why they keep going When really, they should've been broken a long time ago It must be unnerving to others I've seen it before, that kind of faith I've seen people bare their chests to snipers here during the revolution What's happening isn't because of religion Maybe about religion The line between religion and politics Culture and colonialism It's so stupid than in 2023 we're still affected by skin colour That a nation is still trying to grab land What's happening is sick, a sickness War crimes White phosphorous in the dark And I don't know if you're dead or alive but I hope you know I love you At work, O has Palestinian family too He was talking to N, the half Palestinian girl I wrote about before They talked about their family trees Their towns They knew them so well, the different branches -- the neighborhoods and streets And they were smiling and so affectionate It occurred to me that I only heard about family trees with this much detail when they were about wealthy white people And those conversations feel very different, those conversations are about bloodlines and inheritances and property O and N were talking about their family tree like I talk about my sea grannies, and my childhood house They keep them alive that way Everyone and everything I don't know if you're dead or alive but I remember how you wrinkled your nose at store bought olive oil And I remember that bottle you carefully hid away-- a treasure from Palestine, I remember how you taught me to look at it, smell it and then taste it I didn't say enough about Yemen, the Congo, Sudan and Haiti I regret that Nobody hears about them because they're black At work, there's a whole department of mainly Sudanese refugees It's painful for them to hurt for Palestinians but then see the difference in coverage and support The difference between Palestinians and Ukrainians It's a color hierarchy We're so backwards People are campaigning for satellite internet for Gaza And we're so backwards It hurts, I'm so heartbroken |