We, lovers of Palestine, we are better than you

 We, lovers of Palestine, We are better than you.

 

We do not instrumentalise our holy scripture to rob people of their houses,

We are better than you.

 

We don’t pollute the noble history of victimhood of our ancestors, 

and use it to treat people like shit,

We are better than you.

 

We do not like thieving, exploiting, aggressive, fascistic, violent states,

We are better than you.

 

We who grieve the dead as human beings, not as superior ethno-national subjects, 

we are better than you.

 

We who do not feel pain at the sight of a suffering child according to where the child comes from, 

We are better than you.

 

We who have refused to master indifference in the face of injustice and genocide,

We are better than you.

 

We who do not love ourselves by hating others, 

we are better than you.

 

We who acknowledge that we can be better than we are and work on ourselves to be so,

We are better than you.

 

We who recognise that history is full of injustices that we need to acknowledge, 

and where possible rectify, 

rather than ignore, hide and deny, 

we are better than you.

 

We are

 

We are more loving, we are more caring, 

we are more sensitive, we are more receptive 

and we are more perceptive,

 

There are only two reasons why, we might die suffocating in your self-serving, hating, thieving, blind with narrow and short-sighted self-interest, world.

You are better financed and you are better armed.

 

But we are better than you.

Israel-Palestine: The Endless Dead-End That Will Not End

When the Zionists occupied Palestine and the Palestinians resisted, the Zionists decided to teach them a lesson by upgrading their occupation and make it a hard occupation, and the self-congratulatory transnational consortium of colonialists acquiesced: Israel has the right to defend itself they said.

And when the Palestinians continued to resist, the Zionists decided to teach them a lesson by upgrading their occupation and make it a hard and unyielding occupation, and the self-congratulatory transnational consortium of colonialists acquiesced: Israel has the right to defend itself they said.

And when the Palestinians continued to resist, the Zionists decided to teach them a lesson by upgrading their occupation and make it a hard, unyielding, and strict occupation, and the self-congratulatory transnational consortium of colonialists acquiesced: Israel has the right to defend itself they said.

And when the Palestinians continued to resist, the Zionists decided to teach them a lesson by upgrading their occupation and make it a hard, unyielding, strict and brutal occupation, and the self-congratulatory transnational consortium of colonialists acquiesced: Israel has the right to defend itself they said.

And when the Palestinians continued to resist, the Zionists decided to teach them a lesson by upgrading their occupation and make it a hard, unyielding, strict, brutal and severe occupation, and the self-congratulatory transnational consortium of colonialists acquiesced: Israel has the right to defend itself they said.

And when the Palestinians continued to resist, the Zionists decided to teach them a lesson by upgrading their occupation and make it a hard, unyielding, strict, brutal, severe and unrelenting occupation, and the self-congratulatory transnational consortium of colonialists acquiesced: Israel has the right to defend itself they said.

And when the Palestinians continued to resist, the Zionists decided to teach them a lesson by upgrading their occupation and make it a hard, unyielding, strict, brutal, severe, unrelenting and ferocious occupation, and the self-congratulatory transnational consortium of colonialists acquiesced: Israel has the right to defend itself they said.

And when the Palestinians continued to resist, the Zionists decided to teach them a lesson by upgrading their occupation and make it a hard, unyielding, strict, brutal, severe, unrelenting, ferocious and callous occupation, and the self-congratulatory transnational consortium of colonialists acquiesced: Israel has the right to defend itself they said.

And when the Palestinians continued to resist, the Zionists decided to teach them a lesson by upgrading their occupation and make it a hard, unyielding, strict, brutal, severe, unrelenting, ferocious, callous and merciless occupation, and the self-congratulatory transnational consortium of colonialists acquiesced: Israel has the right to defend itself they said.

And when the Palestinians continued to resist, the Zionists decided to teach them a lesson by upgrading their occupation and make it a hard, unyielding, strict, brutal, severe, unrelenting, ferocious, callous, merciless and heartless occupation, and the self-congratulatory transnational consortium of colonialists acquiesced: Israel has the right to defend itself they said.

And when the Palestinians continued to resist, the Zionists decided to teach them a lesson by upgrading their occupation and make it a hard, unyielding, strict, brutal, severe, unrelenting, ferocious, callous, merciless, heartless and cruel occupation, and the self-congratulatory transnational consortium of colonialists acquiesced: Israel has the right to defend itself they said.

And when the Palestinians continued to resist, the Zionists decided to teach them a lesson by upgrading their occupation and make it a hard, unyielding, strict, brutal, severe, unrelenting, ferocious, callous, merciless, heartless, cruel and brutish occupation, and the self-congratulatory transnational consortium of colonialists acquiesced: Israel has the right to defend itself they said.

And when the Palestinians continued to resist, the Zionists decided to teach them a lesson by upgrading their occupation and make it a hard, unyielding, strict, brutal, severe, unrelenting, ferocious, callous, merciless, heartless, cruel, brutish and inhuman occupation, and the self-congratulatory transnational consortium of colonialists acquiesced: Israel has the right to defend itself they said.

And when the Palestinians continued to resist, the Zionists decided to teach them a lesson by upgrading their occupation and make it a hard, unyielding, strict, brutal, severe, unrelenting, ferocious, callous, merciless, heartless, cruel, brutish, inhuman and heinous occupation, and the self-congratulatory transnational consortium of colonialists acquiesced: Israel has the right to defend itself they said.

And when the Palestinians continued to resist, the Zionists decided to teach them a lesson by upgrading their occupation and make it a hard, unyielding, strict, brutal, severe, unrelenting, ferocious, callous, merciless, heartless, cruel, brutish, inhuman, heinous and hideous occupation, and the self-congratulatory transnational consortium of colonialists acquiesced: Israel has the right to defend itself they said.

And when the Palestinians continued to resist, the Zionists decided to teach them a lesson by upgrading their occupation and make it a hard, unyielding, strict, brutal, severe, unrelenting, ferocious, callous, merciless, heartless, cruel, brutish, inhuman, heinous, hideous and barbarous occupation, and the self-congratulatory transnational consortium of colonialists acquiesced: Israel has the right to defend itself they said.

And here we are today. And the Palestinians, like all colonised people, are still proving that their capacity to resist is endless. They don’t only dig tunnels. They can fly above walls.

And the Zionist response is to say: we’ll show you! No more Mr. Nice Guy! We’re going to further upgrade our occupation to at least monstrous, homicidal and diabolical.

And does anyone among the self-congratulatory transnational consortium of colonialists think of saying: Don’t you think we need to find a way out of this infernal cycle? 

No, for indeed, the self-congratulatory transnational consortium of colonialists is part of the infernal cycle, and all it has in it to do is to acquiesce and say: Israel has the right to defend itself 

 

Letter to a Lebanese Relative About The Indigenous Voice to Parliament (with Arabic translation at the end)

 

An elderly Lebanese relative asked me over a family lunch if the Voice meant that Indigenous people will have the power to kick her out of her house. She is a lovely and loving person. I have known her since I have come to Australia and I love her too. She doesn’t do social media. She watches the news on commercial channels, and she has long conversations with other people about social issues. I have not seen her read anything other than the Daily Telegraph. I tried to imagine what I would write to her.

 

 

Dear L,

 

Australia is like many parts of the modern world, a country born out of Europeans taking over regions of the earth that were the homes of other non-European people. When you arrived in Australia in the 1960s and even when I arrived in the mid-1970s, we were not encouraged to think or even know about the fact that we are living on land that was illegally occupied and taken away from its indigenous inhabitants. The people who originally occupied this land, like many occupiers around the world thought that they got away with it. They thought that the people from whom they stole the land will simply disappear and no one will remember what happened. They created beautiful stories about the achievement of the settlers and what a great adventure it all was and left out that dark part of the settlement.

Today, it has become increasingly clear that the peoples whose lands were stolen have not disappeared. And they are more than willing to tell us all about that other repressed story of violence, theft and exploitation. At the same time, they are increasingly demanding various forms of economic reparations, moral acknowledgements, and various types of institutionalised political representation to make up for their stolen sovereignty. This is happening everywhere, and it is inevitable: we are not going to get away with living on stolen land without paying a price, without returning some kind of sovereignty to the Indigenous people who were the rightful owner of these lands. Please remember: this is inevitable. It is going to happen sooner or later. There will be conflictual ways in which it will happen and there will be nice ways in which it will happen. It can happen sooner or much later. But it is going to happen. It is going to happen not because the settlers have decided to be nice and give back the land. It is going to happen because Indigenous societies are witnessing a revival. Because their resistance is fierce. And because they are creating too many legal uncertainties with their demands for truth and justice. Enough uncertainties to make many businesses and institutions that are at the core of our society unable to plan for a sustainable future without some legal, moral, economic, and political settlement of the fallout from the original illegal occupation.

In Australia, we non-Indigenous people are very lucky. Indigenous Australians are one of the least resentful cultures in the world. Like all Indigenous people they have clear sense of what has happened to them and what they are owed. But they have a particularly gentle and non-vindictive way of going about getting some sense of just resolution to that matter. The Voice is one of these gentle, non-vindictive ways that the dominant leadership of the Indigenous people have proposed to deal with this situation. (There are dissenting minorities. There are always dissenting minorities).

Australian settlers on the other hand, that’s us, are largely divided into two groups (There are also dissenting minorities. There are always dissenting minorities). The first group continues to think that they will get away with doing nothing at all. They bury their head in the sand and refuse to see that there is an inevitable reckoning coming. They continue thinking that another coat of paint made from beautiful stories that simply ignore the history of land theft, murder and appropriation of sovereignty will work. That is the group made from members, or people hovering around, the Liberal Party and the No campaigners.

The second group are willing to look at the history of theft and exploitation. But they also know that what the dominant leadership of the Indigenous people are asking for in terms of political representation is less than the bare minimum of what Indigenous people ought to be offered politically and economically in atonement for the history of murder and the continuing theft of their land. This second group knows that if the Yes vote is to succeed, the non-Indigenous people who have settled this land whether as colonists or as immigrants are literally getting away with murder.

Nonetheless, and despite all this, to vote Yes is before all else to accept a gift. It is a very generous gift, some might say too generous, made to us non-Indigenous Australians by an as close as can be to representative leadership of the Indigenous Australian communities. It is the gift of a small step towards a possible new future where Indigenous people will have a voice in shaping the path that we can all take together in the making of a new Australia.

I know that you have a very high opinion of your own views and I know that you don’t like to be taken for a fool. It has been a dark century for us Lebanese as far as Lebanon is concerned. We have lost many material and immaterial things that are dear to us. But we have not lost our sense of decency: You don’t turn your back on someone who is offering you a gift from the bottom of their heart.

 

 

 

 

سألتني قريبة لبنانية مسنة أثناء مأدبة غداء عائلية عما إذا كان الصوت(the Voice) يعني أن السكان الأصليين سيكون لديهم القدرة على طردها من منزلها. إنها شخص جميل ومحب. لقد عرفتها منذ قدومي إلى أستراليا وأحبها أيضًا. إنها ليست على وسائل التواصل الاجتماعي. تشاهد الأخبار على القنوات التجارية، وتجري محادثات طويلة مع أشخاص آخرين حول القضايا الاجتماعية. لم أرها تقرأ أي شيء آخر غير الديلي تلغراف. حاولت أن أتخيل ماذا سأكتب لها.

 

 

عزيزتي إل،

 

تشبه أستراليا أجزاء كثيرة من العالم الحديث. فهي دولة ولدت  من رحم سيطرة الأوروبيين على مناطق من الأرض كانت موطنًا لأشخاص آخرين غير أوروبيين. عندما وصلتي أنتي إلى أستراليا في أوائل الستينيات، وحتى عندما وصلت أنا في منتصف السبعينيات، لم يشجعنا أحد على معرفة ألحقيقة والتفكير بأننا نعيش على أرض تم احتلالها بشكل غير قانوني وانتزعت من سكانها الأصليين. لقد اعتقد أوّل الذين احتلوا هذه الأرض، مثل العديد من المحتلين حول العالم، أنهم أفلتوا من العقاب. لقد ظنوا أن الأشخاص الذين سرقوا منهم الأرض سيختفون بكلّ بساطة، ولن يتذكر أحد ما حدث.ابتكروا قصصًا جميلة عن إنجازات المستوطنين ويا لها من مغامرة عظيمة، وتناسو ذلك الجزء القبيح من عملية ألإستيطان.

 

اليوم، أصبح من الواضح بشكل متزايد أن الشعوب التي سُرقت أراضيها منها لم تختف. وهي على استعداد تام لإخبارنا بكل شيء عن قصة العنف والسرقة والاستغلال المكبوتة. وفي الوقت نفسه، تطالب هذه الشعوب بشكل متزايد بتعويضات الاقتصادية، وأنواع مختلفة من التمثيل السياسي للتعويض عن سيادتهم المسروقة. يحدث هذا في كل مكان وهو أمر لا مفر منه: لن نفلت من العيش على أرض مسروقة دون دفع الثمن، دون إعادة نوع من السيادة إلى السكان الأصليين الذين كانوا المالك الشرعي لهذه الأراضي. يرجى تذكر: هذا أمر لا مفر منه. سوف يحدث ذلك عاجلاً أم آجلاً. ستكون هناك طرق عنيفة سيحدث بها، وستكون هناك طرق لطيفة سيحدث بها. يمكن أن يحدث عاجلا أو آجلا. ولكن ما لا مفرّ منه هو أنّه سيحدث. لن يحدث ذلك لأن المستوطنين قرروا أن يكونوا لطفاء ويعيدوا الأرض. سيحدث ذلك لأن مجتمعات السكان الأصليين تشهد انتعاشًا. لأن مقاومتهم شرسة. ولأنهم يخلقون الكثير من الشكوك القانونية بمطالبتهم بالحقيقة والعدالة. هناك ما يكفي من عدم اليقين لجعل العديد من الشركات والمؤسسات التي تقع في قلب مجتمعنا غير قادرة على التخطيط لمستقبل مستدام دون بعض التسوية القانونية والأخلاقية والاقتصادية والسياسية لتداعيات الاحتلال الأصلي غير القانوني.

في أستراليا، نحن ألسكّان الغير أصليين من مستعمرين ومستوطنين ومهاجرين محظوظون  جدًا. يعدّ السكان الأصليون الأستراليون من أقل الثقافات  المشاكسة في العالم،قلما تكن بالبغض نحو من أذاهم في الماضي. مثل جميع السكان الأصليين، لديهم إحساس واضح بما حدث لهم وما يستحقونه. لكن لديهم طريقة لطيفة وغير انتقامية في الحصول على نوع من الحل العادل لهذه المسألة. يعد الصوت (the voice)من هذه الطرق اللطيفة وغير الانتقامية التي اقترحتها قياداة السكان الأصليين للتعامل مع هذا الموقف. (هناك أقليات معارضة. هناك دائما أقليات معارضة).

 

من ناحية أخرى، ينقسم المستوطنون الأستراليون، و نحن منهم، إلى مجموعتين إلى حد كبير (هناك أيضًا أقليات معارضة. هناك دائمًا أقليات معارضة). تستمر المجموعة الأولى في الاعتقاد بأنهم سوف يفلتون من عدم القيام بأي شيء على الإطلاق. إنهم يدفنون رؤوسهم في الرمال ويرفضون أن يروا أن هناك حسابًا قادمًا لا مفر منه. ويواصلون التفكير في أن طبقة أخرى من الطلاء مصنوعة من قصص جميلة تتجاهل ببساطة تاريخ سرقة الأراضي والقتل والاستيلاء على السيادة ستنجح. هذه هي المجموعة المكونة من أعضاء، أو أشخاص يحومون حول حزب الليبرلز ونشطاء حملة "لا".

المجموعة الثانية على استعداد للنظر في تاريخ السرقة والاستغلال. لكنهم يعلمون أيضًا أن ما تطلبه قياداة السكان الأصليين من حيث التمثيل السياسي هو أقل من الحد الأدنى مما يجب تقديمه للسكان الأصليين سياسيًا واقتصاديًا للتكفير عن تاريخ القتل والسرقة المستمرة للممتلكات. كما تعرف هذه المجموعة الثانية أنه إذا كان للتصويت بنعم أن ينجح، فنحن السكان الغير الأصليين الذين استوطنوا هذه الأرض، سواء كمستعمرين أو كمهاجرين، سوف نتجنّب دفع الثمن الذي علينا حقّاً أن ندفعه.

ومع ذلك، ورغم كل هذا، فإن التصويت بنعم هو قبل كل شيء قبول هِبَة سخية للغاية، وقد يقول البعض أنها سخية قدمت لنا نحن الأستراليين الغير أصليين المجتمعات الأسترالية الأصلية. إنها هبة تتمثل في خطوة صغيرة نحو مستقبل جديد محتمل حيث سيكون للسكان الأصليين صوت في تشكيل المسار الذي يمكننا جميعًا أن نسلكه معًا في صنع أستراليا الجديدة.

أعلم أن لديك رأيًا عاليًا جدًا في آرائك وأعلم أنك لا تحب أن يُنظر إليك على أنك أحمق.لقد كان القرن الحادي و العشرين حتى اليوم قرناً مظلماً بالنسبة لنا كلبنانيين بما يخصّ لبنان. لقد فقدنا أشياء كثيرة عزيزة علينا، أشياء مادية وغير مادية. لكننا لم و لا يجب ان نفقد إحساسنا باللياقة: نحن لا ندير ظهرنا لشخص يقدم لنا هدية من أعماق من أعماق قلبه