Posting from a cocoon of privilege

Our tax dollars are incinerating the Middle East. The least you could do is pretend to care.

This is literally a rant/stream of consciousness. Probably the least put-together thing I’ve ever released into the world, but I’m tired. I’m sorry.

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Celebrating my birthday in Syria with family <3

The Gist:

I can’t find anything to make matter. I can’t find much worth sinking hours and hours into, churning it over in my mind, or maybe in my hands, and then letting it leak from my fingertips onto a page to take up more of your very-divided attention. I’m writing this just moments after a bomb was dropped on Damascus, minutes after the invasion of Lebanon and just days before the one-year anniversary of the commencement of the genocide in Gaza, all committed by the same force. I’m unafraid to call these connected travesties what they are. I’m unafraid to admit my devastation, and the guilt I feel any time something has brought me joy or I’ve taken part in something deeply frivolous these past few months. And I’m unafraid to say how deeply in disbelief I am at how easy it is for an entire collective society to avert their eyes, despite, I hope, the momentary sensation of shame.

As my fellow Palestinian, Lebanese, MENA, POC and minority friends march, and sometimes get arrested at, protests and post in horror — screenshots of their conversations with their parents in Beirut, translations of their cousins essentially accepting their deaths in Gaza, mourning over loved ones who’ve been martyred or trapped under rubble or missing for months on end — the society we’re stationed in clacks on. Slacks ping, emails with the most ridiculous subject lines I’ve ever seen roll through and some fashion outlet very earnestly posts about some random celebrity’s $1.5 million dollar engagement ring. ?????? And who the fuck cares if Sabrina Carpenter and Barry Keoghan are still together!???!!??!? My tax dollars are dropping bombs on children hiding in schools while my friends are talking about getting their wisdom teeth removed, without anesthetic, here in the U.S. because their insurance won’t cover it! WHAT THE FUCK IS ANYONE TALKING ABOUT!!!!!

American society is built on the expectation that discussing “politics” (in this instance, these are blatant war crimes and violations of human rights) is impolite, and as a result so many of us end up lacking critical thinking skills as adults and the ability to push through the discomfort of either disagreeing or simply not knowing how to cross that threshold into clarity. We are reared into cushy, cushy lives in the heart of the empire while our far-reaching iron fist causes death, destruction and destabilization in country after country and region after region. Do you know what it’s like to lose a loved one in an airstrike? To wonder if they were in pain, even for a split second, before they passed over to the other side? To wonder if they felt fear? To watch your father get their mail forwarded to our family home even long after their death and set each of their letters to the side, in a neat pile, where they’ll remain unopened because the person they belong to won’t ever come to get them? Do you know what it’s like to go 15 years without seeing your aunts and uncles and cousins as a proxy war rages on and off in the land they’re already refugees in? To wonder what they all look like now? In my mind, they’re all as I left them — my family is unfragmented, piling into a cab to get shawarma in town at our favorite restaurant, my grandparents are both still alive, waving down to me from the balcony I dangled my legs from all summer, and the apartment my mother grew up in still exists, untouched by the missile that struck the building where it resides. I want to go home, wherever that is. I want to speak Arabic with someone other than my parents. I want to hear the merchants call out of their vans in the morning, peddling their fresh produce through the city, and the adhan blanket the town in the evening. I want to feel the heat of a Syrian summer and watch the sun duck coyly behind the mountains, leaving a wake of pink sky. I want to hug my mother’s sisters so very much. I want my mother to hug her sisters even more. I want to stop worrying if they’ll be next. I want to stop feeling sorry for myself because none of this distress or concern is even remotely close to true suffering.

How can I even be Palestinian if I’ve never had to be steadfast like they’ve had to in Gaza and the West Bank and ‘48? How free can this society, here in the U.S., truly be if a majority of us are shouting, quite literally, and begging for this carnage to stop, and all our elected officials do is, at best, ring their hands and then send literal billions worth of military aid (the most recent package was worth $8.7 billion) so children can continue to be blown to bits? How can you literally not pay attention when our nation is the money bag causing all of this suffering? Who knows what I’ll be writing about next week, for work or for this Substack, I’m not going to act like I’m holier than thou, but I will continue raising money and awareness about Palestine and beyond. I understand life here won’t come to a halt, I’ve read that fucking poem about how somewhere in the world someone clinks a glass of champagne while someone else gets a bomb hurled at them or something like that. But for God’s sake, have some decorum. Care a little bit. Go to protests. Raise awareness. Text your MENA friends. Do fucking something.

Consumption Junction:

Below are links to a FEW orgs on the ground raising money in Lebanon in Palestine. Give if you’re able. 

Lebanon:

• Lebanese Food Bank: https://www.instagram.com/lebfoodbank/?hl=en

• The Zahra Trust: https://www.instagram.com/thezahratrust/?hl=en

• Beit El Baraka: https://www.instagram.com/beitelbaraka/?hl=en

• Animals Lebanon: https://www.instagram.com/animalslebanon/?hl=en

Palestine:

• Grassroots fund for displaced Gazans in Egypt: https://www.instagram.com/dylankforster/?hl=en

• Healing Our Homeland: https://www.instagram.com/healing.our.homeland/?hl=en

• Palestine Children’s Relief Fund: https://www.pcrf.net/

• Watermelon Relief: https://www.instagram.com/watermelonrelief/?hl=en