The Unwritten Rule: No Arab activist is allowed to speak on any regional injustice except Palestine
August 19th, 2009This is not the first time, and certainly not the last time I and several other Arabs here would be attacked and apparently “boycotted” because we chose to do what very few other Arabs in this region usually do, and that is tackle an injustice other than Palestine – a “sin” in the world of activism.
First and foremost, let me make one thing clear. I fully recognize and stand against the Israeli occupation of Palestine and Israeli war crimes and if you read my comments here, I never fail to mention that. I have been so critical of the attacks on Gaza that I was banned from entering a speaking engagement in the USA for being “anti-American” and potentially a “terrorist.” Mideast Youth’s podcasts with Gazan activists made it to the CNN, The Guardian, the BBC, and were streamed often enough for these voices to be heard at a time when Gazans didn’t even have electricity. Don’t claim we do nothing for the Palestinian cause out of sheer ignorance of our efforts; we work just as hard as anybody else to make their voices heard and have never rejected giving them this platform.
That said, this site often gets attacked for being “terrorist-run,” and most recently an accusation of us being “Hamas apologists” for publishing articles by Israelis against the occupation and by Palestinian academics and students alike. Look at the recent articles by Mazin, Eva, Sami, Orly, and many others. Not a single ardent “Zionist” site would consider publishing such content. Do we publish other stories that may be offensive to Arabs in support of Palestine? Sure. It means we are ready to share a platform with critics so that we can challenge these opinions. If you are scared of doing that, we aren’t, so don’t expect us to follow your lead claiming what we do is “inapprorpriate.” Our mission goes far, far beyond the Israel/Palestinian conflict and that is why none of our campaigns do or will ever revolve around that.
Now to the heart of the matter:
There are other issues plaguing our region. Deadly issues, some of which rightly qualify as genocide, and some as critical as modern day slavery. And if you are sitting in the comfort of another country (in Europe/USA) claiming that we are “diverting attention” away from the “REAL crime” (Palestine), then you have no idea what we go through in our own countries, no clue whatsoever. In fact, if you feel this way, chances are you have no idea that Baha’is or Kurds are even being historically oppressed, or aware of the fact that 2/3 of all labor workers in the Middle East are migrants being enslaved, and 500,000+ return home each year either without pay, completely handicapped, or in body bags.
But if you’re someone within the region making that same claim, there are serious problems with this mentality.
My colleague Kawthar, who is active against Baha’i human rights abuses and honor crimes, wrote this letter to critics who felt we were “un-Arab” and “not Muslim enough” simply for focusing our efforts in other fields that deserved our utmost attention, but were ignored and in fact belittled by those who rejected the urgency or even the existence of these issues. That alone is a human rights violation. No one can claim otherwise. It is an abusive “unwritten rule” amongst activists (or name-calling Twitter “slacktivists”) to claim that only a select few are deserving of any activism at all, and that no Arab activist is truly an “Arab” unless the Palestinian cause hijacks the entire agenda.
Hear that, Kurds, Baha’is, migrant workers, victims of honor crimes? You are undeserving of our time. In some instances, you qualify as Zionists, making it more of a “sin” to campaign for you. In other words, please disappear into the ether and continue watching people deny your existence. Apparently, that is what many activists here want.
Oppression against ethnic and religious minorities are societal, not merely governmental. Our campaigns recognize that because we deal with these people on a daily basis, these self-proclaimed “human rights activists” who are offended by our attention towards minority rights.
Aside from this tragedy amongst activists in the Arab world, the fact that 90% of foreign AND local nonprofits in operation have either everything to do with Palestine, or almost everything to do with Palestine, means our efforts in the field would be ineffective. We chose not to campaign for it because the majority of activists already do, which is fine and admirable, but the expectation now is that we’re not welcome to do anything different.
In the Middle East, there are other pressing issues that deserve our attention and no one was stepping up to the plate to get it done. When we did, we practically got stoned for doing so. Quite the opposite reaction of what we were expecting. We thought people here were not used to the concept and will wake up to it in the future, and emerge as supportive allies, perhaps realizing the true diversity of this region instead of swimming in that pool of self-pity and intolerance. Some people have come through, a lot of them, and that’s great. But in our experience it’s the clear majority that continue to stand in opposition to what we do, because we didn’t “join” them, we didn’t “follow,” we did something wrong.
“Stop doing this, stop wasting time,” they say. There is a “more urgent” cause. And just that one.
Just. That. ONE. Otherwise, you’re a Zionist. A terrorist. An anti-Semite. A Hamas apologist. A Muslim militant. A “beetle-browed cavedweller.” All of these are attacks we received in a single week by two very opposing groups of people, whose reactions to what we do are precisely the same. Running around in ironic little circles. We refuse to join that marathon. It’s pathetic and insignificant. No one likes to see it, no one likes to hear it, except for those that participate in it.
We did something different. Something never attempted before. And for that, the reaction we get is “you aren’t Arab,” an identity that is constantly being defined by what you believe, not who you are.
But no one questions my patriotism without being challenged. I am an Arab, I am a Muslim, I don’t want Baha’is to be abused in the name of Islam, I don’t want Kurds to be abused in the name of Arabs, I don’t want migrant workers to be enslaved in my neighborhood.
Please let me and my colleagues who are just as frustrated campaign for these causes in peace and without your bullying. Please make an exception to your unwritten rule and understand that other human beings deserve equal human rights as well. You abused minorities by stifling their voices for decades, we won’t sit back and watch you do the same to those who stand up for their rights.
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Esra’a,
Thanks a lot for the clarifying article of which I could tell how much you feel depressed of those voices and emails that are trying to silence the oppressed. I do appreciate your free voice and your endeavor to let all speak up their free-minds and to stand for their rights.
I have been in the Israeli Jail for several times and several years but that never broke my sense of revolt nor would never stop my free heat from venting the voice of the oppressed street. I was tempted to serve the corruption but I would never replace mt skin nor betray my beliefs.
I consider this form to be my window to the world to be heard as a humble Palestinian living the hell of occupation and humiliation daily and, and I say it hear again, I can never be silenced, bought nor deceived.
I will keep using my window, my vent here to breathe my free heart. I will keep in mind to write and comment in help for my cause and all the oppressed all over the world, that HUMANITY cant be split into white and black, arabs and jews, east and west…. Humanity is one, and this is my way that I will fight for.
Thanks again
Sami, the bedouin.
Esra’a,
Thank you for this post. That’s all I wish to say.
Dear Sami, thanks a lot for your words. The suffering you and your family endure is disturbing and you should never submit to oppression. Speaking your mind based on your experiences and personal struggles is a right you should practice for as long as you possibly can as it helps people realize the severity of the situation.
This website is yours to vent and to express your thoughts, and I only wish people would stop claiming that we are either “Palestinian terrorists” or “Zionists who must be boycotted,” as clearly we are neither. Personally I do think it makes a difference when many Israelis and Americans can be exposed to your story in first person, when you tell them how you live your life day by day. This is why a lot of them are commenting on your posts. They may not agree with you today, but one day they will realize the damage caused in their name and remember your stories, your words, the story of your son. Beause they heard it. But if you never expressed it, they would have no reason to doubt what isn’t true.
A shared platform between all of us is necessary, because it’s a first step in recognizing another person’s existence. Banning participation based on race or religion is a human rights violation of its own, and it’s something we don’t believe in.
I hope you, Mazin, Eva and everyone else will contine your work. As you yourself say there are some Israelis who are fighting for Palestinian human rights and for some people to “boycott” them because of their identity is discouraging and insulting to their efforts, and only invites them to question their mission. I believe Palestinians like yourself who can accept and welcome Israelis against the occupation are part of the solution.
Thank you Michael.
Great post. What you’re doing is tough and is bound to get you a lot of enemies that you’ll have to face and fight back. Good luck.
Honest, passionate and well-reasoned. Keep it up!
You deserve great admiration, I wish I had the dynamic energy as you have to run Mideast Youth.
Thank you for giving people a vital platform to express themselves be it an issue of political background, moral values or simply a human being’s mere right to exist as it is; in freedom and liberty.
Esra’a you are completely on target. It is not the first time that I have heard my arab friends here in Kuwait for example, gripe at what a distraction the Palestine-Israel issue can often be manipulated to be. Everything else is sanctioned discourse.
Its unfortunate that you should have to perpetually justify your raison d’etre with the causes we support at Mideastyouth
Thanks Samah, Martijn and Mend! I really appreciate your encouragement.
Victoria, I knew I would be getting into a mess when I started these networks, and when my colleagues started joining them they also knew the risks involved. We figured it was mainly the governments that we were up against. What we didn’t think would happen is us being the target of other “human rights activists” who spend a great deal of time attacking us because we founded this network and didn’t join theirs, which was limited to of course, one conflict that dominates people’s concerns here.
It doesn’t slow us down at all, we’re as active as ever and this kind of criticism inspires us to do more to help prove them wrong, what’s depressing is that more and more “activists” here are going public with their common argument that some people deserve attention and are thus worth campaigning for, while others don’t because they are not truly “Arab” or they’re not relevant to our “Arab cause” and future, which is far from the case. Denying people the right to exist here is the primary cause of widespread discrimination that people so blindly accept or justify.
And the whole insanity that Baha’is and Kurds are Zionists, and that migrant workers deserve what they get because they came from poverty-ridden areas anyways, just adds to the depression. I mean, again, this claim is coming from “activists” themselves – not average people, but people who literally think they are achieving human rights activism with such self-importance and attacks.
We shouldn’t have to be dealing with this. It scares me that we do. It really, really does. We have a huge problem beyond our oppressive regimes, and that’s people’s mentalities, which makes our struggle 10 times more difficult than it should’ve been.
Bravo, Esra’a and everyone else at MEY.
Based on all the cmoments on this site from people in USA and Canada, Europe, ect – your voice and message is reaching far more than just those in your region; and changing mentalities there, too. It is, after all, not just “Arab” human rights activists that are choosing which rights to uphold and which ones to ignore.
Excellent post Esra!
We saw the Palestinian issue get very cynicaly used here during the 2008 conflict in Gaza. Before, the Palestinian issue was never a focus in Turkey. We were more concerned about Bosina, Kosovo, Chechnya, (some of us) Kurdish issue, Azerbaijan-Armenia, covered women at university etc. But the Gaza fighting happened right before local elections and AKP was afraid of doing bad. So sudenly it is all Palestine every day, ending with our Prime Minister walking out of Davos (but of course maintaining all good relations with Israel….the government isn’t stupid). After election, nothing in the news about Palestine.
Because AKP lost some provinces, I hope during next election this won’t happen again. We should care about Palestine, but not more than other problems. Especially our own problems
The problem I have with you Esraa is not that you speak about injustices in the Arab world other than Palestine. I, like you, believe in minority rights (be them bahai’is, kurds, christians, athiests, homosexuals), migrant rights, freedom of speech and all the other important issues that you discuss. My problem with you is simple – you are a zionist. You only are against “extreme zionism” whatever that means. It is hypocritical to believe that somehow Jews have some divine right to be in that land.
Not the first nor the last time I’ll hear this claim, it is indeed what Arabs call anyone they disagree with.
Please, continue humoring me.
“My problem with you is simple – you are a zionist. You only are against “extreme zionism” whatever that means.”
Sara, ironically, your attitude confirms everything she wrote about in this post.
If you are trying to make a name for yourself then you failed miserably. Your claim that it is a “sin’ to talk about any other injustice other than palestine is nothing but a failed attempt to attract some ill informed readers. Had you had a shred of credibility you would have mentioned that thousands upon thousands of people either died or in jail because they dared to defy the injustice inflicted by the failed Arab regimes in the ME. Can a blind lead another?
This is sort of a testament to the fact that you haven’t understood a single statement about this post, and have decided to take offense out of your lack of understanding. The facts remain: Show me a single NGO in the Arab world whose mission is to defend Kurds against oppression. Show me a single rally that took place in the Arab world for Darfur, for the Kurdish genocide, for the Baha’i oppression, for Christian persecution. You will find little to none. But then dare to fight for the Kurds, Baha’is, migrant workers and anyone else other than the Palestinians and you will be mocked and ridiculed by the masses, which is how people have been treating us for years now – because Palestine was not our raison d’être and we chose to look at the other injustices.
An alarming number of Arabs call me a Zionist because I defend Baha’is and Kurds (whom many associate with Israel) who have been long abused in our names without justice, and they use the fact that I don’t campaign for Palestine as “proof” of that. This is what inspired the post in the first place. If you feel this is normal, then continue shutting your eyes and claiming that I wrote this post to “make a name for myself,” but that wouldn’t make you any different than the others who bully and abuse activists that struggle for things that said bullies themselves don’t believe in (religious freedom and ethnic human rights.)