Opinion Editorials, September 2010

Al-Jazeerah, CCUN, September 13, 2010

Over two years ago, I wrote a message (reproduced below) explaining why I decided to leave the comfortable life in the US to Palestine. Accomplishments were made (http://www.qumsiyeh.org/accomplishments20082010/) but I did want to share with you some personal lessons learned in the process (and such personal lessons are more important than accomplishments):

Appearances may be deceiving: When I lived in the US and came here only in short visits of 2-4 weeks, I was able to discern certain behaviors and individual characteristics.  But perceptions after long term interactions on the ground can reveal much more.  I have stopped admiring some individuals I used to admire (although still respect them) and developed a much better appreciation of many others whom casual interactions do not do justice to their humility, suffering, and persistence.

Life goes on even in the most dire of circumstances: Here in the West Bank over the last two years, I shared with you positive stories of normal life mixed with popular resistance, sumud (persistence, steadfastness, determination), and hope. Similar stories exist for Palestinians in Gaza, inside the Green Line, and in the refugee camps. Our friend Anne Paq just produced this amazing and uplifting video from her recent visit to the besieged Gaza strip (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vYVI1PWBzU) and see this about how Gazans are building Sand Houses to defy Gaza blockade http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsk-zSzwF3M

Giving of your money is easy, giving of yourself is a lot more difficult.  But by giving we get so much more in return.  Even when making the mistake of giving to individuals who do not deserve it, many more fold blessings come back.

Shortages (e.g. water, food) or difficulties (e.g. transportation, checkpoints etc) can be overcome even by the most disadvantaged individuals. Wise use of time is the only thing we have real shortage of.   

I never expected the extent of time and energy to fulfill social obligations here but tradition and customs have both advantages and disadvantages.

People need to be taught early to treat public space in the same way they treat private space (e.g. in terms of cleanliness and social responsibility). Adults can do a lot more on this.

How and with whom to interact are not easy decisions: Here there are people driving SUVs and living in mansions and others totally destitute.  The gaps are getting wider. Corrupt people are around and they are the ones most miserable here.  Their material well-being cannot hide their insecurity.  They know in their hearts that they gave-up on human goodness and all that is left to them is to justify their behavior with make-belief/lies they tell themselves and others.  Since time is limited, you have to decide how much time to spend and with what people but most importantly HOW to do this.  Jesus interacted with all people (including the lepers, the poor, the rich Pharisees and Romans etc) and did it well.  But this is not easy for us average people and goes with a lot of trial and much errors.

Corollary: Politicians are the same whether they are Americans, Italians, Israelis, or Palestinians. Unfortunately they run governments and parties and determine how much damage to do. They must be dealt with wisely (but beware of being infected, power corrupts).  No need to expand here.

Those with less can give a lot more than those with more: I rather spend my time with the destitute families in refugee camps, marginalized villages, and the invisible poor in cities like Beit Sahour and Bethlehem than with the well-to-do families. There is so much more to learn from those individuals. They bless us in ways many of us do not understand.

Activists for human rights and justice develop the best friendships regardless of their backgrounds. That is because they have remarkably similar attitudes about fellow human beings and have shed tribalism and other negative group think. We honor those Israelis, Palestinians, internationals from all over the world, Christians, Muslims, Jews, Atheists, Buddhists etc who struggle together and even get arrested together.  

Corollary: those with hate and racism in their hearts are unable to connect except in their very narrow circles (tribalism).

Those who come here and see it for themselves are transformed for life.

Savor the moment: It is easier to do things and much more difficult to take the time to savor the moment and really appreciate every station and event we pass through.  To do that requires us to stop dwelling on the past or the future for some time and really enjoy the moment. The present moment can never be retrieved. That is what the Buddhists say “having joyful participation in the sorrows of this world.”

Mazin Qumsiyeh

7 September 2010

================

8/14/08

Leaving the US For Palestine

After such knowledge; what forgiveness?

Think now

History has many cunning passages,

Contrived corridors

And issue, deceives with whispering ambitions

Guides us by vanities.

Think now

She gives when our attention is distracted

And what she gives, she gives with such supple confusion

…..

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time

T. S. Elliot

I graduated from Jordan University with a Bachelor degree at age 21 and then taught in Palestinian Schools (Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Jericho).  In those year and a half as a middle and high school teacher (Jan 78-June 79) I worked very hard at two jobs (extra teaching at private school in Jerusalem) so as to save money for higher education. I saved enough for the airline tickets and an extra $1500 for the first few months in America. I came to the US in August 1979 to pursue higher education and ended up making it a home while maintaining a home in Palestine.  Since then I got my doctorate, medical boards in genetics, and served on faculties at the University of Tennessee, Duke, and Yale Universities.  I published over 130 scientific papers and three books. Here I also met first my wife, built a family, made thousands of friends, and chose to become a citizen. Thus, my journey in the US was wonderful and highly successful.   Much of my activism was driven here by the desire to improve this country (e.g. stop it from committing war crimes and crimes against humanity).  I strongly believe that unless all of us work together to change US foreign policy (a policy shaped by Zionist lobbies), we are all doomed.  We see that millions of US citizens are also concerned about the way this foreign policy is damaging our economy and reputation around the world. I think it must (and it will) change.  There are many good signs (e.g. the books of Carter and Mearsheimer and Walt became best sellers). Yet, today with the new laws that shred constitutional protections, government intrusion on every sphere of life, the US has been more Israelized.   These things, restrictions on students coming from the Arab world, and the war economy in America (that devastated higher education here) makes a repeat of my story much more difficult if not impossible. My own journey has not been easy.  Racist Zionists tried to block us at every corner and racism in a society shaped by Hollywood films that villify Arabs is rampant.  Some take their positions  at institutions of higher education and at funding agencies (e.g. March of Dimes, National Science Foundation, National Institute of Health) as a license to advance their racist ideologies.  This situation continues although I did notice that in the past 12-15 years things have become more opened up.  This is a function of a) numbers: Zionist ranks are dwindling and populations of all other people in the US are growing, b) the internet opening up the dialogues and increasing exposure to the truth, and c) more Arab and Muslim Americans taking on their civic responsibilities and asserting their rights and their responsibilities in this society. But perhaps it is always a struggle anyway.  

But the difficulties I faced (including a major health issue) are nothing compared to what other Palestinians face under occupation or in exile (e.g. in refugee camps in Lebanon and Syria).  I consider my challenges/difficulties in life as blessings.  I would not want them changed if I had the power to change them. Difficulties in life make us who we are and help us improve.  In this I am thankful even to those self-declared enemies and protagonists who sometimes succeeded in what they aimed to do and sometimes failed but always provided me with good lessons.  So perhaps a tinge of me wants more difficulties.  I look back with nostalgia at my upbringing under Israeli occupation.  I look with nostalgia at the time I was teaching in the West Bank.  I talk to my elderly diabetic mother every week and she tells me stories of what is going on on the ground.  Her stories include things like people dying because of being prevented from going to health clinics, students denied the right to go to school, lands confiscated, children shot in the back of the head, extra-judicial executions, further acts of ethnic cleansing, and more. I also go to Palestine every year and I see the apartheid system getting worse.  Walls surrounding towns and villages, US weapons that killed or maimed friends and colleagues, economic strangulation, and much more.  But both mother and I see so much good work being done by good people of all faiths and backgrounds.

Thus, every year when I go visit Palestine, I cannot wait to come back even though life there gets worse (checkpoints, the violence of the occupation, the economic deterioration).  My last visit was of July last year.  The hate I witnessed from settlers, from occupation soldiers, and yes from some natives, was so thick in the air and permeated everything.  The racism, the segregation, the apartheid walls... and all the other things I occasionally share with you through this cyberspace.  BUT, there is also lots of love.  Love is not usually expressed in words in Palestine. Even among family members it is rare to hear the words "I love you".  Love is expressed at a far more meaningful sense in caring, asking how your health is, offering food, hospitality, offering your clothing and what little you have etc.  These are acts of love.

In the US, I witness acts of love perhaps two or three times a day in person (I see many more on the emails and other news sources).  In Palestine, in my last visit, I witnessed acts of love in the dozens in some days.  In one day of a nonviolent demonstration in Bilin and then in the Hospital where Ibrahim Bornat was taken after being shot, I witnessed hundreds of acts of love.  They came not just from Palestinians but from Internationals and even Israelis who were with us. In the US, writing a letter to the editor or demonstrating in front of a congressman's office are acts of resistance (and yes love). In Palestine, teaching a child to read, eating, drinking, breathing living, and everything we do in life there are acts of resistance (and love).  This is because that is not what the colonial Zionist movement wants (they want us all out to create a more uniform "Jewish state" that is cleansed "nichsayon").

Of course without the US support of Israel, Israel can't survive as a colonial power.  That is why work in the US has been and must continue to be a center of focus.  We simply must change US policy in the Middle East (if nothing else than to save the US from economic collapse!). Work must be done both in Palestine and outside of Palestine.  Indeed that is part of the reason why I have not relocated to Palestine earlier. There is something indeed about fate and destiny.

I also have a home in Connecticut and will maintain that for the time being [now sold]. It is our destiny as Palestinians to be so conflicted and separated.  I have relatives in 40+ countries. I have friends and colleagues in over 100 countries.  So I guess, the world is my home. The corner of it that received a lot of oppression deserves a lot of attention/activism.  

Activism for human rights is not only a duty but it is one of the most rewarding things to have done myself (marriage, having a son, writing books are others). Activism falls truly under the category of enlightened self interest which is what philosophers and sages of old have encouraged us to practice. So in that sense I am still going to be doing acts similar to here.  My focus will shift though.  I will be doing something:

- Teaching at Bethlehem University (a new masters program in Biotechnology, course in human molecular genetics)

- Working on environmental/conservation issues (see http://www.qumsiyeh.org/nature/)

- Building a laboratory for clinical genetics that employs Palestinian graduates

- Doing other activities that create job opportunities (see for example by going to http://www.pcr.ps/ and click on outsourcing Palestine project at right)

- Writing more books (the next one on my agenda to complete is on history, theory, and practice of Palestinian non-violent resistance over the past 128 years)

- Giving help where I can (my dream is to start a "food not bombs" chapter)

- Continue the never-ending work to improve myself and fight the demons within.

- Having fun!

And as our newly departed poet Mahmoud Darwish wrote: "I long for my mother's bread, and my mother's coffee, and her touch. Childhood memories grow up in me Day after day. I must be worthy of my life. At the hour of my death, worthy of the tears of my mother.”

I have a home in Beit Sahour, a lovely town despite the colonial occupation.  Please look at these two videos of my hometown

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-D2jy1knHs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXFd48-W7JQ

It also seemed the right time on the 60th anniversary of the Nakba (the ethnic cleansing of Palestine) to focus more on helping in Palestine while still maintaining a base in the US.

With humility and serenity, I will try to be positive, productive and helpful as one of millions struggling under occupation/colonization.  My regular email messages may slow down or get way shorter.  These emails will also undergo a change away from posting things from secondary sources.  Since I will be on the ground more, I will report more of what I observe in Palestine and occasional suggestions for unique and inspiring actions for peace with justice we can all support.

If I slighted any of you, I apologize.  I want to thank all of you for your kind support (especially those who took the time to act on action calls).  I also want to thank those in Connecticut who helped make the state a great place to live.  You all will be in my thoughts always.

If you ever want to take a trip to Palestine, please drop me a note and come visit!

In the meantime, stay tuned and best of Love to all.

Mazin Qumsiyeh

PS: Lessons I try to remember about life (most learned from mistakes :-)

http://www.qumsiyeh.org/lessonslearned/

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editor@aljazeerah.info & editor@ccun.org