This morning I dropped my daughter off to nursery. Bought a coffee (pumpkin spice latte). Walked up the stairs to my flat, threw myself on our sage green Ikea sofa full of food stains - some from my baby, some admittedly from us adults. I unlocked my phone even though I needed water. Never got that water. Scrolled social media and saw a video of a child my daughter’s age without a head, because it had been blown off by a bomb blast. Palestine. Palestine. Palestine. This month has been heavy. We can’t sleep. Palestine. I saw a tweet ~
I still don’t know what to do. I wear my keffiyeh around my neck, I make Palestinian dishes in what feels like a pathetic form of remembrance - I eat Palestinian falafel from my local halal supermarket, put knafeh in the oven as my baby sleeps and accidentally eat the whole thing before my husband gets home, feel gluttonous, sick and sad as I lick the syrup off my lips. I attempt musakhan, roast pine nuts and get sumac under my fingernails. I crush garlic with a pestle for salad; mint, parsley, olive oil, cucumber, sea salt and vine tomatoes. I don’t go to protests for the first time, because I don’t want to take my baby yet. I donate to the Palestinian emergency fund and wonder how the resources this money will buy will get to the people who need it when they’re barricaded in, what was once a piece of heaven on earth where olive trees bloom; lemons, guava, mangoes and peaches. I order some Palestinian olive oil. Check on friends. I go to the bathroom and breathe out and let myself cry, dry my eyes and take a deep breath before I flush because grieving in this way feels useless, I feel useless, I am useless. I want to be strong for my family, I want them to be happy. My baby needs new clothes, autumn arrived so quickly, overnight it became dark and cold. She needs attention, she deserves me at my best, it’s the least I can do; after all, I brought her here. To feel such grief and such privilege to be alive and comfortable at the same time. Such guilt.
I listen to podcasts on Palestine as she and I take long walks in the rain, my baby napping in her buggy, protected, safe, sound. I read about the history of Palestine once again, reminding myself of life there in the age of the Ottoman Empire, how the British took control in WWI, how they promised the land to people who didn’t live there and then walked away. I think of the creation of my parents birthplace, note the similarities; how they had control of India, drew lines on a map for this new place called Pakistan, and walked away leaving (reportedly) over 15 million people uprooted and over a million people dead. There are the Palestinian people, scholars and authors and activists who articulate the story of Palestine far better than I would ever dare to try; I wouldn’t give them justice if I tried to detail history. So I won’t*. But what can I tell my baby?
When I was young, I suppose I was lucky. I had 12 years of childhood before 9/11. Not that everything was perfect for us before then, of course not. Palestine has been occupied for decades. But that day shifted how we - we as in brown people - were seen on a (western) global scale forever. My childhood home was my sanctuary; I lived there for 31 years. A two-bedroom terrace on a cul-de-sac facing Farthing Downs, surrounded by miles of greenery. You could see neolithic chalk cliffs in the back garden. All sorts of little creatures, slow worms, bats, wood mice and ginormous spiders would sneak in from the garden that would make me scream and tremble. None of them seem to exist on the high street where we live now, and I suppose I’m grateful for the spider bit at least. My childhood neighbour K called me Maz when I was around 10 years old and at the time, K was the coolest, most popular person I knew, so I ran with it, happy to be given a nickname by someone I wanted to be. Never really thought it’s because she couldn’t be bothered to say my real name properly; never thought actually, it’s a bit of an insult that she thinks she can just change my name because it doesn’t sit well on her tongue, but you know, she was a kid at the time too, so maybe it wasn’t that deep. But it feels deep now because I became Maz from then on to everyone I met, only started referring to myself as Maryam 20 years later. K’s mum would pick me up from high school when my mum was working. I’d plonk myself on her sofa and watch TV while she made me my post-school snack - white bread pooled in salted butter (which, is still my comfort snack to this day, only now with a cup of tea).
In 2001, a K’s house, we only had five channels. I flicked through every one that afternoon and was confused, because they were all showing the same thing. Two towers in a city I didn’t recongise, crumbling to the ground as fast as gravity. K’s mum was on the phone talking about it. I was sitting on the front stoop playing with the ants on the step a couple of weeks later because I was lonely and I quite liked playing with ants, imagining them as a family on an outing in my garden. (I don’t think they felt the same.) “Bin Laden!” a boy on his bike said as he rode past my house. Who was that? I’d heard that name on TV, but I wasn’t sure. I got on a bus with my dad that same week; he was moving to a new flat and had bought a microwave from Argos for his new place. “It’s a microwave,” he said to nobody and everybody on the bus, and I realised it’s because everyone was staring at us.
As the years went by, I started to get it. The invasion of Iraq. Over a million people protested against it, but people who looked like my daughter died in the hundred of thousands anyway. Afghanistan was invaded, and hundreds of thousands of civilians were murdered there, too. The media commentary was pretty blase about them dying. Our lives didn’t matter on the news. Someone at school said “why can’t we just nuke Afghanistan?” Just eliminate the problem, get rid of them all. The ‘war on terrorism’ - the war on West/Central Asia, more like - has shaped so many of our lives. It’s shaped how we’re seen by the world, how much we matter, how much compassion we receive. It’s compromised our peace, it’s compromised our self-worth. The war on terrorism is a war on brown people. Put the word terror in a headline and it excuses our deaths. If I hear another reporter ask a Palestinian who has lost their family to Israeli airstrikes to condemn Hamas one more time I may lose it.
The colonisation of south Asia affected our grandparents, baby - your great grandparents, your great great grandparents. I need you to know that in part, we are who we are because of everyone who came before us. We are who we are in part because of what has happened to us. Colonisation is always violent. We are where we are because of what happened to the place our ancestors were born.
What shall I tell my baby?
I tell my husband but I don’t know if he’ll ever get it; and that’s not his fault - I tell him yes, you’re a brown man, but we, we are brown women. That means something else all together. Women in Palestine are taking birth control because they have no water to clean themselves, a shortage of sanitary products. They need to stop their periods. What do I tell my baby about being a brown girl? It’s not all bad. There is so much joy, so much flavour, so much culture, so much substance, so much magic, to be us. But.
In the aftermath of 9/11, what kids heard their parents say affected how these children behaved, how they treated other children. I felt a wave of disgust from some of them at school. It was confusing, to be treated with disgust when you’re just a child. In 2009, I searched for my high school crush on Facebook, just in a moment of curiosity, just to see what he was up to. “Bomb all da mosques” he had written on his last status. Well, okay then. I started to see white boys, white men as a threat to my safety.
What can I tell you, baby? That you’re the light of my life. That to be a woman is a very powerful thing. You’re beautiful, and beauty isn’t determined by western constructs. You deserve to be safe, you deserve to be treated softly. Vulnerability isn’t weakness, and you deserve to rest. Yes, you deserve to rest and restore yourself. You don’t deserve to be stuck in a cycle of fight or flight, like so many of us were raised to be. Don’t let anyone dictate to you who you are, or how much your life matters. Don’t let a man talk over you. Don’t let a man walk over you. But don’t feel ashamed if it happens, because you’re only human, and you’re doing your best to survive in a patriarchal world. Just know I’ll be here if you need me. Don’t be afraid to go against the grain of popular public opinion. You know what is right. Trust your gut, trust your heart, trust your mind. Yes baby, we are very lucky to live somewhere ‘safe’, but it could have been us. We always have to remember that we are them, they are us. Empathy plus action are major keys. Yes baby, we will say it loud: free Palestine.
*Resources - feel free to comment / message me for resources, or I’ll add some on notes as and when.
For now - a newsletter I recommend is Fariha Róisín’s substack on Palestine.
Donate - Palestine Emergency Appeal