The "Tragedy" of Gaza
By Anonymous | October 23, 2023
We are grateful for this submission to AAPIRC’s Visibility Blog. The submission is a letter from a Gazan and UNM community member. They have asked to remain anonymous. No image was submitted. AAPIRC added the emphasis to some of their statements.
To my UNM and New Mexican community,
The word “tragedy” is not enough. Indeed, no words can even begin to relay the amalgamation of vehement rage and devastation that has swirled within me for the past week. I cannot hope to convey the feeling of watching your family murdered as retribution, and it being hailed as “self-defense.” I cannot share with you what it is like to witness your friends turn a blind eye to your suffering, or worse, promote it. To attempt to describe the genocide of my people is like trying to touch the sky; impossibly far, yet everywhere I look. I can give you statistics or provide you with a century’s worth of evidence to provide context, but such attempts have yielded little empathy from those who sit within the comfort of their own safety. Nothing is ever enough to prove the humanity of my people. Nothing is enough.
Shall I quote Nelson Mandela? Perhaps Angela Davis? For Americans, I must bring the plight of my people to them. I must serve it to them on a recognizable, non-disruptive platter as though it were my duty, and my people, the Palestinians, must play the perfect victim. If we ever hope to garner support or empathy, we must be worth our designated humanity. Otherwise, our humanity is up in the air. Are we animals? Barbarians capable only of hate?
Every day, I wake up to people around me and online arguing that the 1 million children of Gaza must answer for the crimes of Hamas. I eat, sleep, and breathe justifications for apartheid and ethnic cleansing. But this is not about me or any of the 7 million Palestinians in the diaspora struggling every waking moment. This is about the millions of Gazans with no water, food, or electricity. This is about the Gazans who live in a fenced-off death camp under constant missile fire. They sleep not knowing if they will wake. Half-alive families wander the streets with whatever belongings they might have left. They try to find safety in a place where no bomb shelters, no Iron Dome, and no stable medical structures exist.
I am not interested in making the humanitarian crisis of Gaza digestible for those who are uninterested or uneducated because I am not interested in wasting precious time. I call on my UNM community and fellow New Mexicans to stop arguing semantics and to start taking action. Donate to medical aid campaigns, call your legislators to demand a ceasefire, and spread awareness. To those who denounce violence but cannot bring themselves to analyze the apartheid, ask yourself why. Why have you chosen to be so vocal about your condemnation of violence now? Be honest with yourself and if you detect even a sliver of complacency with the killing of one group and not another, interrogate it. It is a scary thing to see ourselves and perhaps our family and friends as complacent or partaking in the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. However, it is incomparable to living under apartheid and constant drone strikes. Doing the right thing is rarely synonymous with doing the easy thing.
“Make no mistake-- hand wringing about both sides and whataboutism, equivocation, even silence, isn’t neutrality. It’s taking a stance without the spine to call it that.” -Dr. Hala Alyan
Till liberation and return.
