ZGram - 10/13/2001 - "We carry emotional genes"

[Ingrid Rimland]

Copyright (c) 2001 - Ingrid A. Rimland

ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny

October 13, 2001

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

Mackenzie Paine sent me the message of a little Palestinian boy last night
that simply wrenched my soul.

Please take a look.  http://cache.stonekitty.net/cache/palistin_school.jpg
What kinds of monsters live among us?

I get chided for running too many Palestinian voices - but to me, as a
disowned, displaced-by-ethnic-cleansing and demonized descendant of Germans
who sacrificed a generation to stop what plagues us now, and who has
watched the country of my ancestors become spiritually much more than
geographically suppressed, distorted, blackmailed, robbed and
intellectually lobotomized, the Palestinian struggle strikes a resonance
within me.

Read the following, written by a medical student living in Jerusalem, with
that in mind.  Invasion, subjugation and NOT liberation came to Germany in
1945.  The occupation by the victors still continues.  The German people
work for the tormentors and killers of their parents' generation and have
been made to think that such a travesty is quite all right.

We, too, carry emotional genes!

[START]

Between the hammer and the anvil

By Samah Jabr* =20

Our grandparents lost our real world 52 years ago. Now our dream world is
being negotiated.

The international community looks at this as a political dilemma, a
historical and moral problem. To most of us Palestinians, it is our life
and future in one single word. =20

Some of us departed in exile, and others had no other choice but to remain
refugees. In so doing, all of us became sensitive to any action that might
imply resettlement or change.

=46or two generations, Palestinians have lived in misery, adhering to that
required of one still seeking refuge.  For many Palestinians, refugee
status is far more important than living a good standard of life. This is
because being a refugee sustains a candle of hope - a hope that one day
justice will be done. =20

    Those who have not lived in the West Bank or Gaza Strip cannot know
what our days and nights are like. Americans and Europeans who come here
are horrified when they see us pushed around or harassed at checkpoints,
our homes demolished, our children killed. We lament that we see a power
like the United States speaking for us - as if we don't even exist - or
hear a Zionist say he will never back down and that this land is all his
because his God says so.  We marvel at the Zionists' arrogant
misperceptions that lead to "other destructive" behaviour that kills and
maims.

But there are also some Palestinian leaders trying to take credit for and
to invest in our victimization. They associate our continuation of our
struggle with grants given from the Arab countries floating on the lakes of
oil. They expose our painful wounds and our very private emotions to the
media that keeps playing the tapes of violence and victimization on and on.

It is one thing to raise the awareness to what is happening on the ground
and it is another to brainwash your people and feed the conflict in order
to catch up with the rights our leaders willingly gave away on the
negotiating table.

How can any of us survive that? Don't we as a people realize what pawns we
are in a game of States who care little about us as a nation? Do we not
realize that in Silicone Valley or on the ski slopes at Vale or on the
flowered streets of Lucerne or in the British parliament few are those who
care about us? We ourselves are our only hope. =20

Betsy, my American friend, sent me this quote: "The 90 to 95 percent of
humanity no longer living have made us who we are, but we may, and in some
ways we must, ignore them if we are to find a way to make peace among all
of us who share the planet now."

This is from The Life of the Cosmos, by Lee Smolin, a man whom she suggests
has nothing whatsoever to do with the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. His
words caught my attention. I want to shake my people in Palestine. I want
to say, "Get up and get going."

We have had enough already!     =20

=46inally, the Israeli public - with its doves and hawks - made their choice
and brought to their government the man who they believe "will bring
stability to the region." The Israeli democracy brought the hero of the
Sabra and Shatilla massacres to the Prime Minister's chair possibly because
of his bloody history.

One cannot help but wonder: 'What about the Palestinian democracy?" The
people who were "elected" 5 years ago are still in place in spite of all
the dramatic changes in the political climes that required concomitant
changes in our representation. Instead of giving a chance for a change and
asking for the participation of different people with different views, our
leaders push for an immature peace deal whenever they find the ground
shaking beneath them. =20

What if a peace deal is finally signed? Will the Palestinians have a
suddenly new and happy life? I don't think so. First, our Palestinian
government-to-be, in conjunction with the Israelis, will forget and dismiss
all our shuhada=92 our national martyrs. Our kids with stones will be rename=
d
as troublemakers and punished for their acts.

Everyone will be shoved back into his or her place, and the deal will
require the "cooperation" of the two partners in the eradication of
"terrorism" to achieve 'peace."     =20

=46ew will care that our martyrs and children were brought up believing that
they could save Palestine with their lives and their stones.

We will have peace for a time, but more than likely - as happens to most
countries coming out of a war - it will be a corrupt peace that will crush
the euphoria of freedom between the hammer of occupation and the anvil of
autocracy. We will not be free, and to soothe our souls, we will again hark
back to the past, to our pain, to our wrenching poverty, and to our anger.
=20

The Zionists have not been kind. How can a conqueror be kind?

But what about our own leaders?  Why is it that we are expected to work
without pay and eke out our lives with nothing but misery? Why is it that
our children are brought up to be angry and at a moment's notice be ready
to fight for their rights and then, when the peace papers are once again in
place, be punished because they did what was expected of them?

Why is it that we Palestinians talk about development but put little or
nothing into the education of our people? Instead, we go against all that
is holy and moral and build a gambling casino in Jericho, ignoring the
desperate needs of our developing nation.

How many Palestinian labourers are impatiently waiting for the political
situation to settle down so that they can go work in 1948 Palestine -
so-called Israel today - for their killers and conquerors? Where are the
alternative Palestinian factories and institutions that are supposed to
spare our labourers that kind of slavery and grant all of us a genuine
feeling of independence?

My questions are many, but the answers pale over the ugliness of the reality=
=2E

I lament that the world dismisses our refugees as not worthy of help. But
in any case, we Palestinians should not mire ourselves into our own ruts.
When I see problems within our struggling government, trying to survive
under inhuman pressure with a great deal of the world watching and judging
us, I am not alone in becoming critical and angry.

Perhaps, I think, it is not our enemies alone who have put us where we are
today, but some of us as well.  We're dealing here with humanity, not
destiny alone. We have to cope with those who conquer, those who steal,
those who urge others on while watching from the safety of wealth and
power. I'm sorry to be so negative, but I'm looking for the hope behind all
the wrong and all that I see is that liberation starts from within.  =20

We carry emotional genes and we cannot live in this war-like atmosphere and
not feel the pain of all those around us, but I know so many young
Palestinians who try to leave the mourning behind and keep going.

It is time that we Palestinians incorporate the take-charge-of-yourself
spirit that freedom requires. It is time to stop wallowing and allowing
actions that affected our grandparents and parents and are affecting us
today to suppress us, rather than deciding to focus on our own lives and to
move on in a reality of our own making.       Our challenge is to get up
and to make life count for us in spite of everything.

I will start with myself and work at it. I will do what I can to dispel the
onus of patriarchy and racism and intolerable circumstances. I will work to
rid ourselves of occupation and injustice, regardless of where it comes
from.

There is a use for anger, but it is not rage or self-pity. It is a channel
that can bring forth the energy within that gives each of us an incentive
for living. Such determination may cost estrangement from tradition, the
loss of family or even a life, but, as we all know, the prize of freedom is
worth it. =20

=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D


=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D

Thought for the Day:

"He who would give up essential liberty in order to have a little security
deserves neither liberty, nor security."

-- Benjamin Franklin