It is Personal
I had this piece in the making for a couple of weeks now. I am not sure if I succeeded at showing the strange juxtaposition I and many find ourselves in daily since the war on Gaza started. On the one hand the day to day life seems to be moving forward around here, on the other hand, entire families are incinerated or buried under the rubble. War is personal. Genocide is personal. The loss of life is personal. Often when we speak of any war, we speak about the collective suffering. The displaced refugees, the starving population, the tents, the camps…etc. While that is necessary to convey the breadth of suffering, I think it dilutes the depth of individual suffering and ultimately reduces the human story to numbers. It is important to remember that the numbers are of real women, men and children. Mothers, sisters, brothers, fathers who were loved and precious. The suffering is not more because of the sheer number, it is more because it is suffering. In the coming few paragraphs, I share with you my a short scene/vignette/story from May 6, 2024. The sentences practically wrote themselves. You will find the piece strained, but that is only a reflection of the strain we are living…The distance you feel, yet the closeness is what has kept me up nights on end…Gaza is not a separate entity from the West Bank, yet the decades long separation often makes us forget just how geographically close it is, and how intertwined we are together. We are, after all, one people. Almost all of us have family and friends there, and increasingly it feels like we are all waiting in line to be expelled from out homes. It is a matter of when and how will it happen.
On Monday May 6, 2024 I woke up to the sound of wind, rain and thunder. Spring rain is not exactly normal weather for Ramallah, Palestine. May is usually when the temperature takes a large hike and leaves all of us Earthlings grasping for air. Today, however, climate change symptoms were on full display, gusty winds, low temperatures and pouring rain. I sat in my home office, hoping that the sound of rain will liberate my writer’s block and get me moving on several assignments.
The thunder exploded above me, and the sound of rain went from distinct dribbling to a gushing downpour. My mind kept running back to Rafah, Gaza. I have friends there. They were now evacuating for the eighth time. Maybe ninth? I could not remember, I lost count. Surely, they did not. I was sure they remember every time they moved. They will recall, for years to come, in detail every minute of the war; the first explosion; the last one, before they decided to pack and evacuate their homes the first time, still holding on to the hope that this will end soon. The first tent, and every tent after the first they built hoping it will be the last. The first time they did not find flour on the shelves in the supermarket; the day the market was bombed. The destroyed empty shelves. The first time they woke up under the rubble, and the second and the third…. I am sure they will play every moment over and over in their heads recalling what belongings they were forced to leave behind every time they moved, and which family members they got to keep.
My friend who evacuated from the North to the South passing through the Center of the strip, and from the center to the west near the coastline, and then on to Rafah, was dismantling the tent he just built so he can move back to the center.
Just as soon as he had put the tent up and the children were settling into this new scenario, he was now moving again, back to Khan Younis and then on to Nuseirat, or Zawaydeh or wherever there is a small square to put up a tent on. He should have been on his way to Egypt, but fate would have it that the Rafah crossing was taken over and now closed indefinitely. The hope to at least get his children to safety was crushed under the weight of his soggy tent as they waded their way through the wet streets.
What a privilege it is to be able to see the rain but not feel it? How nice it is to have a warm cup of coffee on an unseasonably cold day? And how lucky is it to have one’s children tucked away in warm classrooms learning, exploring, laughing and feeling safe. On the grand scale of the universe, the distances that separate countries are finite, yet the individual lives we live are worlds apart. And in war, we forget that people lose everything in the most intimate and personal way possible.
Wars are senseless. Period. Wars leave us wondering why, but never lend an answer. They gnaw at flesh greedily, and leave behind shadows of lives once lived. Wars do not end. They are shape shifters, changing from one form to the other. No sooner than the bombing stops, the monsters within wake up. Hunger remembers its ferocity. Poverty slithers its bony body around its victims and squeezes determinedly. We do not recover from war, even if we are able to move forward. We carry the pain with us, and pass it on to our children. The trauma is accommodated but never forgotten.
The memories of repeated expulsion will occupy my friend and his children’s minds forever. Their lives will continue to be defined by that one fateful night, when a decision had to be made; leave and die a slow death, or stay and die a fast crushing death under the rubble. It is these moments that the political collides with the personal, blurring the lines beyond recognition, much like the incinerated grey bodies under the remnants of buildings. Genocide is personal.
I imagine my friend painstakingly dismantling the tent, the tips of his fingers slipping on the zip ties, colliding with the wooden planks he used to erect the plastic covers. Perhaps the younger child is crying loudly, perhaps he snaps at him in that moment only for the child to stop momentarily in shock then to resume crying, louder this time. Perhaps a pang of guilt paralyzes him for a second and he is overcome by fury. Fury at the loss, fury at the world for ignoring him. Fury that he cannot sooth his child, or make him feel warmer, or less wet, or less in pain. War is personal, genocide is personal. Expulsion is personal.
The rain subsided outside, and just as abruptly as it began, it stopped; the wind settled and the clouds cleared. The sun peaked its shy rays through the heavy clouds, I thanked God for the respite from the rain, and hoped that my friend and his family were kissed gently by the sun, ever so briefly…The words stop flowing… This piece that started to flow out of me is done.
In the last six months, the helpless feelings are overwhelming. I am out of tune, almost paralyzed, unable to live a normal life while my own kin face genocide and inevitable death. Forced to keep moving through my daily routine, I am unable to get used to the strange, painful juxtaposition I am in. The sense of helplessness I have felt more days than I can count is crippling.
I would love to sit here and write about love, and laughter and marriage, but every time my pen hits the paper, I find myself struggling with the idea that as I type this next sentence, another child is killed, another mother is killed, another man is killed. And every time I want to write to describe the suffering, the heinousness of it all, words fail miserably. So I revert to silence… Or small fragments of writings like today’s piece. I am inviting you to explore my thoughts with me, and share your own feelings and thoughts in the comments or direct messages. Unsupportive messages and comments are not welcome. Comments on the writing are highly encouraged!
Aww dear Riyam, my heart is aching for you all 💔 For your friend and his children, and all of the precious people and homes being destroyed. Thank you for sharing your beautiful writing. 🙏🏽🤍