I'm trying to be happy...

31st December 2007, a good friend of mine is spending yet another night in prison, another night away from his wife and children. Only God knows when he will be released to play with his kids, listen to his music and teach children in his village to dance dabke and love their national heritage. For three months now he hasn't walked the hills, looked out of his window over olive groves and mountains or earned money to support his family. Why? Because he took illegal work in “Israel” after being unable to secure work in the Bethlehem region of Palestine. So he broke the law? I guess so, but if it were that simple the people taking advantage of an imprisoned nation increasingly desperate to feed their families would be in prison with him. The Israeli man employing black market labour for next-to-nothing wages is not, tonight, behind bars. Neither is the bureaucrat who gave permission for a developer to build housing estates on stolen Palestinian land. Nor are the people living in these houses, deemed illegal under Article 49 of the 4th Geneva convention. Come to that, the contractors building the ugly Israeli wall are still free, as are the soldiers beating farmers trying to prevent more of their land being stolen. As are the politicians allowing this to happen and the high court judges not implementing international law. Tonight they are all free.
They are all complicit in creating the situation that forced my friend to break a law, in order to earn money to feed his family. They should all be imprisoned and my friend should be free.
His village is surrounded by illegal Israeli colonies, they have lost almost all of their agricultural land and aren't allowed to build houses on the land that is left, even though they own it. If and when they do build, those houses are bulldozed. Even if they could build, there isn't enough room for future generations, not to mention those villagers still living in hellish refugee camps in Jordan and around Bethlehem- should they choose to try and exersize their right of return given under international law including the Geneva convention and set out in the UN General Assembly Resolution 194. Here, of-course, I am being fanciful as this right doesn't seem to apply to Palestinian refugees...why? Good question.

This year when me and my mum were decorating our Christmas tree there came a point when we both stopped talking and sat down, tears immediately coming to our eyes- I had just hung up two decorations carved out of olive wood and bought in Bethlehem two years ago. My celebrating felt hollow and in bad taste, knowing that this holy city is today being strangled by Israeli colonies, Israeli only roads, Israeli army checkpoints, the Israeli wall. Without exchanging a word we both shared a moment of horror and frustration at this huge injustice, made all the more personal by my imprisoned friend.
On Christmas eve, the new vicar at the village church my mum attends gave a sermon speaking of children caught in the cross fire and how, as Christians, it wasn't enough to attend church, we all had a responsibility to do all we could to protect the innocent and stand up to injustice. I wish more people agreed with him and were prepared to actually DO SOMETHING. Even if that is just to go and bear witness for themselves, to make their own minds up.

I'm about to go out to see in the new year with some friends. I'll try not to think about my friend in prison, or his lovely extended family. I will of course, and will carry on being the one who doesn't quite join in with the revelry. I've been that person since I first witnessed the truth in Palestine and I'll be that person until justice is done.

We’ve got it all wrong. Many of us seem to be so intent on proving our non-racism that we’ve eroded all of our beliefs and cultural practices so as not to offend anyone, something that no one ever asked us to do btw. The practices we’ve given up were never the things that offended people. We've lost our centre of spirituality amid a climate of secularism and political correctness without addressing the problems within society that really do offend people of faith, myself included: alcoholism, violence, promiscuity, rising abortion rates and teenage pregnancy…In Leeds now on a Friday/Saturday night the council actually have to wheel out portable outdoor urinals to try and stop drunk men peeing up against the walls of shops. I do not want to see this (either men peeing against walls OR into outdoor urinals) when I’m walking about the city centre. Last year, abortion rates peaked in the early new-year, linked to festive binge drinking.
The other half of us believe absolutely that we’ve got it right, our religion is THE right one and as one church member said to me today…we aren’t interested in getting to know non-believers…
Maybe it just means that my own faith is weak, but how can anyone dismiss so many other peoples belief systems? Especially when you look back at the history of the Christian church and realise that for a long time we couldn’t even agree on what we believed! I’m annoyed because of the call I took from the above church member whose church isn’t interested in even learning about the faith of other people, never mind actually interacting with them. Can you imagine what the reaction would be if an Imam said that to some tabloid journalist, sorry, we’re just not interested in non-believers….or if I, next time a church calls me tell them I can’t help their organisation as they believe that Jesus is the son of God or God incarnate, rather than a man and a prophet as I believe.

Maybe I’m wrong, maybe we should all just live in our own separate enclaves never interacting with each other, not bothering to try and reach any kind of understanding. Maybe we in the UK just aren’t civilised enough.

No Racism Here..?

A couple of weeks ago I organised an event for Islam Awareness Week. A member of the local Islamic Society came and gave a presentation on the basics, addressed some of the “hot topics” and invited questions. About 35 people came to the event which pleased me- we're talking about a very...un-diverse town known for small town mentalities and unfriendliness to strangers.
Anyway..this guy volunteered to come and give this talk. He was the only non-white person in the room, the only Muslim, out numbered 36 (including me) to 1. His presentation was interesting and entertaining, yet... when it came to asking questions or making comments the people there reacted with a defensiveness that shocked and embarrassed me. People twisted his words and mis-understood very simple concepts. It felt to me that most people there had come with pre-defined ideas about Islam and were twisting his words to fit their prejudices. The discussion quickly turned to Muslim women and how oppressive it must be to have to wear the headscarf. Personally, I think it says more about our own attitudes towards women that when we talk about their oppression we focus on what they're wearing...but it also illustrated our lack of empathy towards, or willingness to even listen to those from different cultures or faiths. Most people had come to that talk with their minds made up that all Muslim women are all oppressed...
It kinda depressed me...luckily the speaker seemed un-fazed and we're planning our next event sometime in the new year...inshallah...

The Tyger

When I was about 11 years old, my English teacher set the class a task of memorising a short poem that each of us would then recite at the school assembly. I think the teacher was expecting nursery rhymes or a bit of Pam Ayers...My mum, being the woman she is, talked me into learning William Blake's “The Tyger”. Despite the near traumatising effects of trying to rhyme “hand or eye” with “symmetry” in front of the whole school...i was hooked...and became an instant new favourite with the English teacher who was known for throwing board-rubbers at students he didn't like.
Without knowing it, my mum (a working class woman whose real aspirations were taken from her and replaced with those deemed more reasonable for a girl of her background) always encouraged her two daughters to reach higher than anyone else thought we could. I thank her when ever I can, I just wish she believed what an inspiration she has been.

THE TYGER (from Songs Of Experience) By William Blake
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare sieze the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art.
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

Israeli Medics Appeal for Gaza

29.11.07
Physicians for Human Rights-Israel

The prolonged siege imposed by the Israeli government on Gaza, the closing of its borders, the tightening of policies regarding permission to exit Gaza for medical purposes, and the severe shortage of medications and other medical supplies all severely damage the Palestinian health system and endanger the lives and health of thousands of Palestinian patients. This severe crisis calls for an extraordinary response on the part of Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR-Israel) that is separate from our routine activities. For this reason we intend to implement the following emergency actions:
* Emergency aid dispatch of humanitarian supplies and a delegation of doctors from Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR-Israel) to Gaza. The aims of this act: emergency aid, even if limited; documentation and dissemination of reliable information regarding the medical situation in Gaza; expression of protest and solidarity with the residents of the Gaza Strip under siege. In order to receive permission for this act we will probably also need to use legal action.
* Advocacy: representation of dozens of patients applying to our offices each month, whose access to Israel or passage through it for purposes of medical care is denied for "security reasons;" a campaign against the policies of the General Security Service (GSS, shabac) whereby patients are compelled to inform on others as a condition for permission to access medical care.

These campaigns will be implemented using litigation and media, targeting Israeli and international audiences.

Deaths in Gaza due to denial of access of medical care:According to the records of the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza and the World Health Organisation (WHO), 44 people have died since June 2007 in connection with denial or delay of access to medical care by the Israeli authorities. Thirteen of these patients died in November alone. The number of deaths is rising each month, as the policy of siege tightens.

Shortage of medicines:Hospitals and medical centers in Gaza suffer a severe shortage in medicines and medical supplies that are essential to minimal functioning of the health system. According to data collected by the WHO, 85 types of medicines defined as essential are out of stock, including medicines for cancer, heart conditions, kidney disease, as well as 12 different types of medicines for psychiatric conditions. 138 other types of medicines will be out of stock within a period ranging between one and three months.

Although these materials are quickly running out, the State of Israel is preventing their entry, claiming that they are not considered part of the humanitarian needs which it publicly undertook to meet. Due to this severe medical and humanitarian crisis, PHR-Israel is planning an emergency dispatch of humanitarian supplies and a delegation of doctors, in order to supply limited emergency aid, to witness and report on the medical situation in Gaza, and to express protest and solidarity with the residents of the Gaza Strip under siege.