Thursday, May 21, 2009

Palestina On My Mind

From Nin's blog.
Palestina On My Mind
I'm 28 years old.

And I cannot remember precisely, when I first heard the word "Palestine". Perhaps it was at my elementary school, because I read too much then. I raised some eyebrows with an article about the collapse of the USSR for the school magazine.

I was raised as a Muslim, in the world's biggest Muslim country. As I child I remember someone, perhaps a teacher, saying something about Jews and Christians. Yes, there was a lot of racism inside our community too. We're good. They're bad. And sometimes minorities didn't receive the respect they should have.

I am glad I decided not to believe those stereotypes, that I can teach my children to treat others as the way they want to be treated.

When Rachel Corrie was killed it changed my worldview. More than the way she died, I was shocked by the hate towards her and her family by Israeli's supporters. In Indonesia, Palestine was always connected to our Muslims identity. And for some Islamophobics and Zionists, Palestine was always connected to terrorism. And the stereotyping continued. Jews and Israelis and Zionists are all the same. Just like Muslims and Al Qaeda and Terrorists are all the same thing.

When I read about Rachel Corrie, I thought: "Hey, she's an American girl. And she's not a Muslim. Almost the same age as me. And she's dead defending my brothers and sisters in Palestine."

After that I began to learn Breaking the Silence from Daniel Bunuel "Don't tell my mom that I'm in The Holy Land" on National geographic channel, October 2008. And then Courage to refuse, ISM, Machsom Watch and Jews Against the Occupation are some of the best sources.

While blogging and reading, I found great thoughts from great people around the world, including Israel. Chet, Julia, Leila El Saba, and Young Activist in the US. Bob Birch and Antony Loewenstein in Australia. Yarra in Israel. And some amazing blogs, from Gaza with love, Oranges and Olives, Jerusalem Syndrom, Raising Yousuf and Noor, Munich and A little bit of everything, Tikun Olam, Mondoweiss and Jews san frontieres. I read "From Beirut to Jerusalem"'s dr. Ang Swee Chai and Palestinian walks's Raja Shehadeh.

Too many to mention.

But from them I knew one thing for sure. That Palestine (or Palestina in Indonesian) was never about religion. It was about humanity. It was about peace, justice and freedom. No matter what your religion is.

Lets face it. This is something that some people here in Indonesia need to learn more about.

I would finish with some words from Remi Kanazi.

I envision Palestine in my mind
With the “chosen” frozen in time
To realize their morality’s blind
To take back generations of crime
And put an end to Apartheid

How many kids sit and wish
They could be labeled other than a terrorist
To exist is to resist!
Reads the graffiti in their cities

Give them chalk instead of rocks
They’ll use the blackboards
If you let them go to school

Give them chalk instead of rocks
Instead you bulldoze the block
Destroy their homes
Palestine is what you call the “no building zone”

But you can’t bulldoze our minds
Every time we’ll rise through ashes
Like Cassius Clay
We’ll bob and weave for infinity
There is no divinity
In bombing our cities
Setting up committees to treat us differently
We’re from Falasteen
The land where dreams are made

So just remember one thing
One day the bells of freedom will ring
And you’ll see me smiling
Loving life in Palestine



This post dedicated for Blog About Palestine day 2009

11 comments:

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Progressive Pinhead said...

Hate speech will be deleted.

nina said...

Terima kasih kembali!
You're the most welcome :)

Thanks for the correction.

Avi said...

This makes an interesting counter-argument. Sultan Knish is quite articulate (even more so than yours truly).

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2009/05/who-needs-palestinian-state.html

Tell me what you think.

Happy Shavuot!

Progressive Pinhead said...

This has nothing to do with states, it has to do with human rights. Bar, you know if you were able to come up with some other way of expressing your Jewish identity than clinging to a racist, exclusivist, ideology you would find that you would not run into so much opposition from the rest of the world.

Avi said...

Please explain to me how I am a racist if there are black, white, brown, yellow, etc. Jews. Racism is hatred based on ethnicity or skin color. If a non-Jew converts according to Jewish law, he is as Jewish as Moses.

Judaism is by definition exclusivist. The Jewish people is meant to be "a people that dwells apart and is not counted among the nations". The Torah says that we are supposed to be a "a kingdom of priests and a holy nation... a treasured people." This is the essence of anti-semitism, that the nations cannot accept a people chosen by G-d to be His messengers, and since they hate Him, they hate His people.

Judaism is for Jews- yet it says that non-Jews, if they behave morally and follow the 7 Noahide Laws, merit the World to Come. The Prophet Isaiah says that the Temple in Jerusalem (may it be rebuilt speedily in our days) will be "a house of prayer for all nations". The concept of world peace (quoted on the UN building in NY) comes from the Prophets of Israel who speak of a world where "nations shall not lift swords up against other nations, neither shall they learn war anymore." Yet this messianic utopia can only come when the Jewish people are firmly planted in their Land and "from Zion will come forth Torah, and the word of G-d from Jerusalem".

Human rights is a Torah basic. The Western idea of human rights has its basis in the idea that each person is created "in the image of G-d". I, as a religious Jew, am completely opposed to any human rights violations, especially those that deny Jews the right to live anywhere in their own land.

Progressive Pinhead said...

Racism is colloquially understood to include racialist bigotries based on factors other than race, so hatred of Jews for example is often described as racist.

Given your views that Israel should expel the indigenous population you are a rabid racist. If human rights and world peace are key Jewish values then I seen no way in which you, or any of Israel's leaders, have any claim to being Jewish.

To suggest that Jews, or anyone else, have an inherent right to live in a land which has been cleansed so as to free it from the ethnic contamination of the local niggers is the epitome of genocidal racism.

Avi said...

YA, you are engaging in the most despicable form of historical revisionism. Israel is the homeland of the Jewish people. Whether or not you believe in the divinity of the Bible (both the Jewish and Christian), you have an ancient historical document testifying to the right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel.

The modern State of Israel draws its legitimacy from the ancient Jewish roots in Israel and the permanent presence that Jews have maintained since the time of the Patriarchs until the modern day. Long before England was English, when Rome was still a collection a villages on the Tiber, Israel was Jewish and Jerusalem was the center and capital of the Jewish people. To say that Jews have no right to Israel is a falsehood even more obscene than Holocaust denial. The only three sovereign states in Israel have been Jewish: the Davidic monarchy, the Hasmonean dynasty, and the modern State of Israel. There has never been a sovereign Palestinian country, nor a distinct Palestinian nation or entity. "Palestinian" nationalism is a product of pan-Arab, anti-semitic propaganda, artificially created in the 1960s.

You, YA, are the worst racist as you deny the right of the indigenous Jews to their own land. If you are against what you call "ethnic cleansing", then why do you support the eviction of Jews from their homes and the uprooting of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria ("the West Bank"). And you are the anti-semite for having the chutzpah to say that a Jew living in his homeland is "illegal". We don't need to ask anybody's permission to live anywhere in the Land of Israel. We are the owners of this house.

Progressive Pinhead said...

Such statements are so absurd that they require no rebuttal. Only a racist could be convinced, and a racist will never be persuaded by logic.

Your definition of anti-Semitic racism is so broad as to include a majority of the world's Jews, this has nothing to do with Jewish people enjoying the same rights as other people, it has to do with anyone who rejects Jewish supremacy being labeled anti-Jewish, much like all opponent of white supremacy were dubbed anti-White, this paranoid hysteria merits no further response.

nina said...

YA, I've seen the blog Bar Kochba told us. And like I've told him, sultanknish is just another racist and Islamophobic blog. And I'm not surprised, when it came from BK. He thinks he represent Jews just like Bin Laden or Imam Samudera represent muslims.
Btw, thanks for stopping by today. You wrote in Indonesian better than I in english :)

Anonymous said...

Free Palestine! Death to Zionists!