Happy new hijri year, merry Christmas, happy new year, and happy birthday for everybody!
Two years ago, when I was having my last semester as an undergraduate student, I had a discussion with a religious professor (about the way Hamas deals with people in Gaza, violates their human and civil rights, and tries to impose backwarded laws). After listening to my opinion the professor called me a heretic for opposing the Islamization of laws, and calling for a secular state. He said I was an unwelcomed misfit, that day I smiled and laughed, I understood he was right, I am a misfit where everybody is trying to show more religious fundamentalism.
For this so called university Prof. it is forbidden for a citizen to question the divinity of Hamas government and blessed taken actions. It is not allowed to question or criticize shooting people with opposing ideas or opinions in the knees causing them eternal disability, since Hamas takes orders directly from Allah to attack any peaceful demonstration, to break bones with sticks and stones, to arrest your wife if she smokes cigarettes, and to close your shop if you don’t cover your plastic show models.
It is 12th of December, my annual evaluation date of personal and society achievements!. This time unlike the years before, I want to start with the society, politics, and religion. I remember reading some of Regis Debray that violence always exists as a side effect of militant revolution among revolution society. Though I don’t define the Palestinian situation in terms of revolution, I prefer to study the case from a psychological aspect. How much damage has been achieved since 80s, I remember being a kid once, I was born in a refugees camp in the central part of Gaza strip called Buriej – the name came from the English word “Bridge” – I was born in the year 1985, until the year 1994 we had soldiers in towns, you can imagine how it was for young kids, to watch fire-shots every day, and from night to night to see soldiers come to the house and take your father to jail, or just for routine checks and take the father for at least a night, to watch the clashes downtown, and have soldiers running after you. In those old days I remember hiding behind the door or in the closet when soldiers come at night. Those children were traumatized so was I, that’s why we have a traumatized society with high rates of violence among themselves and others. It became worse from the year 2000, the so called Al-Aqsa intifada started, and Israel increased the level of violence, murdering Mohammed Al-Dora an unarmed child hiding behind his father, and introducing F-16s and tanks to the territories for the first time since the 1967 war. From the year 2000 until today 12.12.2010 getting killed is not a thing to question, you might question time and place, if you were a Gazan you would understand that the day you were born you get two certificates, one is filled with date and time, it is your birth certificate, and one is yet to be filled, it is the one of your death. Many Gazan youth saw their friends or family members being killed, or saw tore-apart corpses of adults and children after every airstrike, every Gazan adult, or child, has faced death at least three times. Their trauma became worse, but I am not putting all the eggs in one basket. I can’t blame trauma for everything.
During my years as a student, I observed and questioned the whole educational system, and the evaluation criteria and methods. The US funded curricula doesn’t seem to be enough, at least for me. You can’t raise your children to take decisions wisely without teaching them initial principles of philosophy and logic, the current curricula dropped philosophy and so was the dramatic end of logic. It sounds to me like asking your students not to have any different way of thinking or questioning anything. Mentioning evaluation criteria, I also sometimes wonder about the manner in which teachers are chosen, only a written exam and an interview, neither the exam nor the interview focus on the teacher’s real ability and understanding of what he is saying. It is the usual medieval method of remembering blindly and repeating like a parrot, this goes for both of Fatah government in west bank and UNRWA schools. It is worse when we discuss divine Gaza; a friend of mine applied for a job in the public sector, in the interview he was asked about “the prophet of Allah who lived the longest” “how long did Jonah stay in the whale’s stomach” they asked also for a recommendation letter from the nearest mosque!… my friend didn’t say “what the heck” but I said it when I knew: “what the heck, are you applying to become an accountant or the next Khalifat? Would Jonah stay in a whale’s stomach longer than sardines?”.
Such low quality education, doesn’t in any case produce good citizens, not in Gaza, and not in Mars. Going back to violence, after the elections, which for many might appear as the peak of democracy in the middle east, and might be considered as the achievement of the century for many Palestinians, for me is nothing but an incident taking a little place in the margin, elections to elect a leadership “the leading gang” of the prison, so many thanks should go to the election process, thanks to Fatah for corruption, thanks to Israel for pushing people towards desperation, and mainly thanks to Hamas for playing the cards of people emotions who lost their jobs, homes, and hopes. The end of that democratic process, Hamas took over Gaza by gun and sword and lied to the naïve population that would believe every word as long as it is combined with Allah!. Allah said believe those who pray in the mosque … why would I believe anybody blindly? Why would I believe anybody anyway?
“a democratic choice” doesn’t kill its own people, the problem lays there in the heads of those who accept an agreement under the pressure of Saudi oil money in Mecca, and doesn’t accept the very same agreement here in Gaza even though the price was much more expensive than oil Riyals and Dinars, the price was the blood of hundreds of innocents. Fighting for what? Who would bite the worn-out pair of shoes, the dog treat first, Hamas or Fatah. The purpose of any elections is to produce a functioning government that would work to provide better services, better life etc … but when the winner fails the mission regardless the reason, and turns into a tyrant, an oppressor of those who elected him, we need to stop and think again, what has gone wrong? Both (Hamas-Fatah) claimed being here to protect the Palestinian rights, defining rights, I find the most crucial right for a Palestinian is the right to live in dignity and safety, and when a government or a political party fails to protect that rights it as a whole fails. I find myself not proud to say the truth I have lost faith totally in any Palestinian political party or intellectual. I think Youth groups and lobbies can make a difference, opening eyes wide at respecting the right to be respected, be seen as a human being with soul and mind, with the right to vary and to differ… but thanks to Hamas once again lobbying is considered an act of crime now in Gaza!, many lobbies had been dissolved, even restaurant were closed for many silly reasons women smoking cigarettes or hookah are the main reasons!
Regarding the Palestinian-Israel Conflict, I would say everybody needs peace, but it is clear that there is a difference between what you need and what you really get or achieve, some people would define the conflict based on metaphysical religious analysis "promised land, holy land, etc", but I think it was never about religion, and it was never about politics, it is rather about what we call humanity and morality. it is not human to kill a helpless child, and it is not moral to keep silent watching him being killed, it is even worse sometime as some try to find excuses saying the child was the son of his daddy. Forget not many Palestinian and Israeli children who paid for the stupidity of the “grown”. peace can be achieved when every little child has the right to live his life safely, and when every father enjoys watching his children growing up day by day, peace can be achieved and will be achieved when the Palestinian people are granted the right to live, to live in dignity. Give the children a chance to sing with Emily Dickinson .. Hope is that thing with feather ...
I remember .. two weeks ago witnessed the memory of 30.Nov.1973 when United Nations assembly declared racism and apartheid a punishable crime. But reading the universal declaration of human rights, I could read clearly “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” The declaration doesn’t need to state “except Palestinians” and I don’t need to read that to understand that I am an exception. Others have the right to live and raise children, we get killed and our children get buried alive under rubbles. Others have the rights to work, security, free movement and travelling, education, electricity, clean water, medicine, love, … etc … I sat motionless and silent thinking … oh do we have any of that? I don’t need to tell you about electricity and polluted water, education? Some schools and universities were targeted during the war!. Housing watch news there is homes demolishing process everyday! Security? Ha!.
Tried to understand this unique case of complete violation of any human rights, I thought oh wait; Desmond Tutu, what did he call this when he visited Gaza two years ago! Ah .. APARTHEID, and he said it is a worse situation than former apartheid South Africa.
White South Africans that time defined South Africa as a democratic country “white democracy” from the white towards the white only, which was considered internationally blatant racism. “The white democratic South Africa” = “the Jew democratic Israel” denying all the minorities = “the democratic Islamic republic of Iran” hilarious and interesting! The international community is achieving so much SH!T.
Did I mention any personal achievement? Ah this would be another time I guess!
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