I’d never actually been to a protest rally until this weekend.
By and large, I try and keep a policy of not commenting much online on affairs happening in other countries. Little good comes of it, usually, and fuck knows the UK is a house that needs its own cleaning before its residents look into others and criticise (especially if Britain used to colonise it). I’m wary of those who call merely not discussing something a deafening silence.
The slaughter in Gaza is different. That is my problem, actually. My mother made it my problem, though I cannot say why in much detail. As a child I would see Israel and Palestine on the news and if I asked, she always told me not to engage in conversation about it with people. More trouble than it was worth and nothing good would come of it, apparently. Which was odd, really, given that she was generally happy to discuss most issues of history and politics with me as a child. Later, I would recognise this impulse of hers as a defence against anti-Semitism – and I don’t doubt that she felt it necessary, given some of the bits and pieces I know about her father and her life growing up.
But with the things I’ve learned in the past few weeks, and things I knew before but dutifully ignored - I can hear that deafening silence, a barrier deliberately constructed so I don’t hear screams.
So I went to the protest in town calling for ceasefire this past Saturday, along with many other people. There is a strong Palestinian community here, and the very least I can do, the very fucking least, is go out and listen when they tell me that more of their friends are dead now than alive, that they fear the news that comes because it means they will never again speak with their family, that the people who survived this happening before were killed this time.
I’ll go again this weekend. I can stand in a crowd, and hold a sign, and shout along with them when they shout for freedom and peace. It’s the absolute least I can do, since I’ve been holding my tongue so long.
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