#raising palestinian voices up is the best we can do

[shenyaanigans]

going from twitter to facebook and feeling the eerie silence from IRL people on the state of our like. state backed genocide is... interesting.

[comicaurora]

Sorry to drop a hella irl-political question on your mostly webcomic blog, but have you/any of the OSP gang heard of/been participating in the week-long strike for palestine that's been (presumably) all over tumblr/the internet?

For some background info: Following the attack on Oct. 7th by the hamas militant group (a terrorist org. Or resistance group, depending who you ask), the state of israel (which is practically a mass colonial settlement on Palestinian land since '48) has taken the attack as an excuse to indiscriminately bomb the homes of thousands if not millions of homes while forcebly displacing almost all of the ~2.3 million people crammed in the gaza strip with no escape.

'Israel' has also tightened it's blockade on the strip of land such that a growing majority of people there are experiencing catastrophic starvation, disease from sewage-infested drinking water (as water aid is too scarce). Soon even deaths by preventable causes such as diabetes will occur since insulin pens for children have been blocked from entering by israel, who controls gaza's borders, water, power, food supplies, and shoreline. Civilians in Gaza are very frequently and indiscriminately killed often in places they were told were safe zones to evacuate to. It's agreed upon by both experts and laymen worldwide that what is happening (and has BEEN happening before Oct.7th) is nothing short of genocide.

In the occupied Palestinian west bank, where there is no hamas whatsoever to use as an excuse, Palestinians are still arrested without a fair trial for years, abused, prevented from using certain roads, shot, and often straight-up have their houses stolen by armed or military-backed israeli settlers (many of whom have no ancestral connection to the land at all) in a system often compared to or outright stated to be apartheid.

Very recently, a journalist in Gaza by the name of Bisan Owda called for a strike from January 21st to January 28th. The conditions of the strike can be paraphrased as:

Cease all unnecessary purchases or payments, avoid generating ad revenue when possible

Do not go to work or school if you can possibly avoid it

Pay for things only in cash if you must

Use social media exclusively to flood the internet with palestinian voices and resources about the ongoing genocide against the palestinian people

Attend protests if you can

Be visible.

It's the 26th now, but joining late would be far better than to not join at all and stay silent.

I figured I'd ask since since OSP has covered various topics about history and/or politics and we're kinda watching some awful history unfolding, the kind of history where neutrality doesn't really work and a side needs to be taken.

Opinions? (Sorry if I'm coming across as condescending! I just really want my favorite blogs to be aware and take a stance rather than being silent hhhghf)

Okay, here's my answer.

OSP has been supporting calls for a ceasefire for months, and we were fundraising in direct support of it via Doctors Without Borders all through November and December. Total, we raised over $30,000. If we include the UNICEF fundraiser we ran on the Spider-Man streams, the total is over $40,000.

During our charity livestreams, we have made our positions clear – we support a ceasefire, Israel is perpetuating settler-colonialist violence and has been for decades, Hamas is a terrorist organization that endangers Israelis and Palestinians alike, the innocent people of both Palestine and Israel deserve safety and peace. We concluded that the best thing we could do under the circumstances was empower those who are in a real position to actually help by providing funding for their work. We believe this is significantly more beneficial than adding Another Angry Internet Post to the pile of insular outrage on Internet Land. Fundraising for the organizations with boots on the ground feels like it does a lot more good than being loud online for the benefit of other online people.

This is not the first time I've heard reference to the strike, but it is the first time I've seen the parameters of the strike laid out, which to me indicates that it wasn't spread as widely or effectively as it could've been.

I understand and appreciate why you sent this ask, but your premise worries me. I know this may surprise and startle us denizens of the internet, but being extremely loud on the internet is not the only or the most effective form of activism, and people not being extremely loud on the internet with every account they have is not the same thing as silent complicity in war crimes, and people acting like those two things are the same thing has been unbelievably frustrating to watch.

If we act like everything is a binary moral choice between "scream your loudest, most angry opinions online every time you feel angry about them" and "not doing that is literally the same thing as participating in genocide", we are creating a very strong pressure to flood the internet with our angriest, most unformed thoughts, lest we be branded as complicit in war crimes. Social media sites live and die on engagement, hence why twitter has rapidly trended towards doomscrolling and encouraging inflammatory clickbait - angry shouty people are traffic and traffic is money. The cynical part of me is utterly unsurprised that social media encourages the idea that the only true form of activism is being loud on social media.

It sounds like you had the feeling that sending me this ask was weird and a boundary overstep, and you were correct. My platform is not world-changing or in any way politically powerful beyond our ability to create charity fundraisers for causes we believe in, and we are doing what we can to help in the tiny ways that we can from halfway across the world, from a position of absolutely zero political weight beyond emailing our representatives. You are just asking me to also shout about it online loudly enough that I measure up to an artificial loudness metric, because my existing shouting was not already loud or omnipresent enough.

You are not entitled to know every thought in my head or every action I take in my life. I am not online to perform outrage and live up to an arbitrary moral standard of Shouting Enough. I am especially not online on my fantasy webcomic blog to do those things. Please understand that what you see of me is what I choose to share, and I am under no obligation, moral or otherwise, to share more.

[velandvithestarlightgullwings]

To the Pro-Palestine Protestors...

So, I've noticed that everyone has been so angry in regards to Gaza and looking at people voting for Kamala (never Trump btw) and excuse them every which way of being Zionist, colonizers, and how people don't care about Gaza.

In all honesty, I think people are missing the forest from the trees. Americans of all sides of the political left spectrum live in a place of privilege. And to be more specific, white lefties and liberals' live in a place of privilege.

When you bring up Gaza and voting, you hear a lot of white liberals crying "How can you vote for "Killer" Kamala? I'm not voting! I'm voting third party! They have to earn my vote! BLUE MAGA! BlueAnon!" Not aware that many people are scared about where the country they were born and raised are going through.

Many people have just "woken" up to the devastation that was caused from Trump's presidency after refusing to vote/voting third party in 2016. From getting rid of RvW by forcing through two Supreme Court Justices, removing Affirmative action, actively targeting trans people with horrible laws, trying to control women's bodies, targeting protections for Climate Change, the rise of incels culture (ask South Korea how bad that's going for them), the gutting of the Postal service, book burning, the gutting of pandemic response (right before COVID), turning D.E.I into the latest dog whistle. People are finally understanding the damage don't want to lose any more, especially with Project 2025 on the horizon if he wins again.

And a lot of these things often hurt minorities to a crippling degree and will hurt them if Trump wins again.

Because of this, when Kamala stepped in when Biden stepped down, people threw their weight behind her because they don't want to live in a world where Trump wins again.

On the flipside, you have Palestine.

The Israel-Palestine conflict has been ongoing for 75 years now, with the recent attack by Hamas inflaming things to a full on genocide for the Palestinian people by local colonizers, Israel, led by Benjamin "I have to fight so I don't go to prison for crimes" Netanyahu.

Many aren't aware that during Trump's four years of horror, he actually caused October 7th to happen. On December 6, 2017, President Trump formally recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and moved the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

In the age of the internet, people are more connected than ever to the plights of those around the world, Ukraine being one, Congo another, and Palestine, which the latter eclipsing the first two.

Israel's anger over October 7th, which many Israeli's compare to 9-11, caused them to lash out at the many innocent people of Palestine. Because of Biden's lackluster response to trying to quell the continuing of a 75 year old issue, many have taken to the streets in protest of the conditions and indignities that Palestinians have gone through.

With the threat of another Trump presidency brushing up against Palestine supporters, its caused a divide with many pointing fingers.

As a black woman, who is engaged to another woman and has a trans brother, I am deeply aware of what a Trump presidency can do and the harms that have come from it and what will come from it. I've posted plenty of articles, both writing by myself, along with those from reputable sources, going over what we can expect if Trump wins while also showing my support for Palestine and her people. I've done protests, I've donated and I do the best I can to uplift their voices.

With that said, I've recently realized that the Pro-Palestine movement has been invaded by influencers, bad faith actors, those that believe in accelerationism, and those that are deep in the Antisemitism sauce. Vultures, essentially, and what was a just case has morphed into a case that would rather see the United States and those who live there perish so that Palestine can stay alive.

So when you have a group that doesn't want their rights being taken away just after realizing how bad it's become because of one party vs a group who are protesting the rights of another, things will get a little hard.

Here's a little story.

My grandparents was part of the Civil Rights movement with my Grandfather quickly going to Vietnam in the short time they overlapped. I've heard the horror stories from them for years.

How they were beaten, hosed, bitten by dogs, called all sorts of slurs, spat on, just the absolute worse that humanity can offer. Not to mention the many lives that were lost around them.

But, because of their sacrifices, and the sacrifices of those around them, they were able to succeed in their mission and now we have civil rights for not just black people, but for all people in the united states.

Black people are aware of what our elders had to fight for and when my grandparents, people who are on the last years of their lives, heard the rhetoric Trump and his party were saying, they were horrified. It took them back to that turbulent period in their lives.

I remember shortly before Biden stepped down, my grandmother busting into tears, asking how this country could elect a monster like Trump and how he could even be in the position he is now where he could win and how all they fought for was about to be ripped from them.

I argued in the defense of Palestine, but my grandfather asked me a question. "What good is trying to fill a cup from your cup when your cup is empty?"

It was at that time I realized that despite Gaza going through the trauma and pain they were going through, I couldn't just withhold my vote because of my feelings. Because he was right. America, whether people disagree or not, influences the world. We've seen it with Civil Rights, we've seen it with Gay Marriage, we've seen it with MAGA. we do, everyone else shortly follows. It's why a lot of people despise the United States.

We're the stone and the rest of the world is the water. We cause ripples with everything that we do. and if we allow ourselves to fall to Facisim, the rest of the world will follow suit. You may think it's arrogant, but it's not. It's a factual observation of the world.

As I mentioned before, black people know what is at risk. All of us aren't voting for Kamala because she's black or because of the "Vibes." For some, that may play a part, but for the majority, we do it because we know what is at risk if Trump wins and we know who will be first to feel his dictatorship.

As much as I hate to say it, white LGB people can always return back to the closet. They are white first, and their orientation second. It would hurt them deeply to do it, especially after living free for years, but they can always hid who they are. Trans people and minorities, not so much.

We have to protect ourselves and a lot of people on the Pro-Palestine side are upset by this fact. Maya, a known pro-palestine supporter and Palestine herself, came out with two videos.

Basically calling black people (especially black woman) colonizers and to let ourselves die to uphold Palestine. She resorted to bigotry and in turn, spat in the face of many of us who not only was down with the cause, but also used our voices to defend it.

I use this as an example because this is what many of the protestors want for the American people as a whole who are terrified for the rights they are losing by telling them not to vote or vote third party.

"To hell with your worries and fears risk of losing everything wanting to save yourself! What about them?! Both sides are evil! This is 1st world problem! River to the s-"

Stop.

So many people live in a place of privilege thinking that what happened to Germany can't happen here so they feel that they can sit it out or actively hurt the only way people can fight back against Trump and his RNC rule but they literally aren't paying attention.

Every day, the RNC and the Supreme Court Trump set empowered are stripping away our rights.

I'm not saying not to care.

Protest for Gaza, donate to their causes, uplift them every chance that you can get. Because Israel is doing evil and is actively committing genocide and colonization on a group that they have hurt for so many years.

But you can't condemn people wanting and needing to protect themselves as well. Especially when you have someone who is promising to become a dictator day one. Not voting or voting third party is not an option. If we start toa grassroots option for someone third party the second the election ends, then show up four years later, then we might have a shot. But until then, we only have two choices.

Kamala.

Trump.

They are the two that will sitting as president when the election is over. and there is only one choice in order to protect ourselves.

Because Trump is in record wanting to give police immunity. He is on record wanting to deport pro-Palestinian protestors and protestors of any kind.

He already even tried a Muslim ban.

This man is evil and this is our only shot to defeat him.

Make the right choice.

I posted two videos that TL:DR my thoughts on things by two beautiful women. At least watch those.

[onyxisnotuniqueenough]

i have 35 followers on this account.

and while 35 is not a lot, this is the most amount of people i can reach. i should have been doing this sooner but have been FUCKING STUPID about it and have kept silent about it on tumblr to maintain some kind of semblance of escapism for myself here. but my escapism doesn't matter. can palestinians enjoy the luxury of escaping their situation right now? are they LITERALLY able to escape the bombing. nevermind escape, survive any of the tactics pulled by israel to ensure their genocide?

there's a sense of guilt looming over my head telling me that i should be doing more, but in truth, there is not much i can do to help. telling me that i shouldn't take for granted the roof over my head, the safety of my loved ones, food, water, electricity, the ability to literally communicate with the outside world. so let me do the best i can and spread the message with as many people i can.

if you're also wondering what you can do to help, here are some things i am doing and am in the process of doing :

- follow news about gaza through livestreams from the outside : multiple sources have provided access to a livestream of what's going on in gaza. israel has cut off all communication and electricity in gaza and i have a pit in my stomach telling me that they just want no eyes on them for whatever they want to do. all we can do is watch from afar. stay updated.

- watch tiktoks from people who have signed up for the creativity fund on tiktok or similar stuff on other platforms : if you're not able to donate yourself, you can find lots of creators on tiktok using their 5 seconds of YOUR watchtime to donate to help palestine.

- continue sharing, promoting, and "liking" content about palestine : israel is literally doing its best to keep us and palestinians in the dark, metaphorically and literally, from what's happening and what they're planning to do. raise palestinian voices, help them grow, share their stories. everything is forever on the internet ? great. take advantage of that. sharing is a way to ensure that all information we have on the situation stays alive and can't be shadowbanned or deleted or anything. the more people palestinian voices reach, the harder it would be to silence them. it also makes it accessible to anyone and everyone to see the horrors committed by the state of israel, and debunk any fucking idiotic shit their twitter accounts is trying to spew with their photoshopped cartons of milk, their very false infographics and their general flow of lies and propaganda.

- if you can, email or contact your elected representatives. they're...well...supposed to represent you, and their position is more advantaged to get something done. here's a video on tiktok that i found explaining the importance of emails (specifically in canada, bit i'm sure it applies to other places too) :

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMjsax5Qj/

- boycott brands that support or fund israel. now first, let me tell you : the 729 or 871 you find at the beginning of a barcode is not a certain sign the product has been manufactured in israel. this has been debunked since the origin of this lie in 2021 :

https://factcheck.afp.com/social-media-posts-share-misleading-claim-barcode-prefixes-can-show-if-product-made-israel

https://www.google.com/amp/s/thelogicalindian.com/amp/fact-check/barcode-israel-28806

if you have a doubt, fact-check whatever company owns the product to buy, it only takes a few clicks.

second, if you think that boycotting is useless because you're just a grain of sand in the universe : that's absolutely not true. humanity is just a bunch of grains of sand. humanity is a COLLECTIVE. stop thinking your actions don't have an impact. they absolutely do. that's how we've been capable of making such an imapct on companies' stock already!

you probably already know about Starbucks, McDonalds, and Disney. Here are some more companies and brands to stop giving your money to :

- HP : Hewlett Packard helps run the biometric ID system that Israel uses to restrict Palestinian movement.

- Siemens : is complicit in apartheid Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise through its planned construction of the EuroAsia Interconnector. This will link Israel’s electricity grid with Europe’s, allowing illegal settlements on stolen Palestinian land to benefit from Israel-EU trade of electricity produced from fossil gas.

- Puma : Puma sponsors the Israel Football Association, which includes teams in Israel’s illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian land.

- Sodastream (has been bought by Pepsico) : Soda Steam is actively complicit in Israel's policy of displacing the indigenous Bedouin-Palestinian citizens of Israel in the Naqab (Negev). SodaStream have a long history of mistreatment of and discrimination against Palestinian workers.

- Ahava : Ahava cosmetics has its production site, visitor center and main store in an illegal Israeli settlement.

- Sabra : Sabra hummus is a joint venture between PepsiCo and the Strauss Group, an Israeli food company that provides financial support to the Israeli army.

these are the first results that popped up with a simple google search, but that's not all. There's also L'oréal, Garnier, Nestlé, and so many more. it's hard to keep track of all of them and jaw-dropping to see just how many of them are involved and actively supporting Israel.

here are some more links for brands and companies to boycott :

https://bdsmovement.net/get-involved/what-to-boycott

https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/ethicalcampaigns/boycotts

multiple instagram and tiktok pages also

if you've already purchased products from them, obviously, don't throw them away. If any product from one of these companies is absolutely essential or if you don't have any other viable choice, it's understandable. Do your best, and whatever effort you make on your scale is helpful. This is also an opportunity to support local shops and businesses, diy your own beauty products, cook more on your own, and instead of directing your money towards genocide, you could direct to donating to aid-to-palestine charities or literally to your pocket. but honestly, the idea of a 70+year ethnic cleansing and literal genocide should be enough.

- now this seems like the most obvious one so that's why it's the last bullet point : donate to charities that support palestine, sign petitions, etc.

there is footage out there of thousands of trucks that cannot cross palestine/"israel" borders because. well. of israel. these trucks contain food, water and hygiene products that donations were supposed to provide. this is heartbreaking that the help you hoped to provide couldn't reach the people it was supposed to reach. if you're thinking your donation is useless, well, i get it. i am having trouble even saying anything about that, because I myself am worried that it could be useless. But you have to stay hopeful, cause that's all most of us have right now. I would say to absolutely continue donating whatever you can to charities that support palestine, that provide water, food, shelter, and emergency medical care. You have to hope that it'll somehow reach them. You have to hope that it'll somehow stop.

At the time of writing, voting results at the UN General Assembly show a margin of 120!! to 14 (and 45 abstinents) for a ceasefire and immediate humanitarian truce between Palestine and israel. And now while that might seem like amazing news, let's remember that the General Assembly is for non-binding resolutions. FOR A BINDING RESOLUTION, the decision must be made by the Security Council. I'm not gonna explain everything, but the permanent members of the UN Security Council are fucking it over. here's full context :

Also, the letter tO THANK Biden that countless celebrities ??? disappointing too. some names on that list really surprised me, and i'm disappointed that people i have supprted in the past have turned around and thanked biden for supporting a genocide. it's so stupid and disappointing.

of course, feel free to tell me if i've cited the wrong sources, if i've missed something, or have said false info in anyway.

i'd also like to add that arab palestinians are not the only victims and that countless innocent jewish people have also been affected by the genocide. that the press vest has meant norhing so far. and that israel is not looking that closely into who they're killing. as Daniel Hagari said, Israel's method is "destruction, not accuracy."

MY HEART GOES OUT TO ANY VICTIM IN GAZA. IN PALESTINE.

BTW : I am not open to conversation with zionists or pro-israels. keep your anon asks very very very far away from me. i will not lend a ❤️listening ear❤️ to someone who ignores or defends genocide, and i don't see anything wrong with ignoring that kind of rhetoric. fuck you.

[karinyosa]

from @villageauntie on instagram: “was asked to share ideas of what people who are unable to attend physical gatherings can do to support. these are some of the things i came up with. please feel free to add more in the comments.

yes, i am purposefully leaving out certain words and flags so this post can stay in the feed. but you know who and what this post is for”

id under the cut.

image 1 ID: white title text against a dark gray background that says "nine things you can do" with the subtitle "i was asked to compile a list of suggested activities for those who are unable to attend protests or who are not active on social media. these are from my own experience and those taken from history. i invite you to explore additional ways to support and share them in the comments".

image 2 ID: title says "pray tahajjud". subtitle says "wake in the last third of the night and pray. pray without ceasing. pray like you mean it. prayer is not the least we can do, it is the best we can do. know that your prayers reach. so reach inside and use your limbs and your tongue to supplicate to the one from whom all mercy descends. pray. pray. pray".

image 3 ID: title says "provide childcare". subtitle says "many who are active in the struggle are also parenting young children. offer to watch the babies so that both physical and digital organizing can take place. you can offer to watch children in your home, at the community center, a house of worship, or even outside. just offer it and make it free".

image 4 ID: title says "get educated". subtitle says "read books on palestine, on sudan, on the struggles of oppressed people worldwide. study anti-colonial thought. watch documentaries. study about makandal. read june jordan, kwame ture, amilcar cabral, james baldwin, toni morrison, marc lamont hill, and others. read more, scroll less (unless you are scrolling to get informed). read, digest, reflect".

image 5 ID: title says "educate others". subtitle says "organize a study circle. talk to your friends. interrupt falsehood with fact. have meaningful conversations with coworkers. ask questions, listen more. use what you have read to empower your family. read to their children. answer their questions. use your voice to help others to know and never forget".

image 6 ID: title says "prepare meals". subtitle says "make food. buy food from a local restaurant that is trustworthy. buy fruit. take it to your neighbors, to the masjid, to those who are or will be actively protesting. feed the people because nourishment is important and food is a way to show love and support".

image 7 ID: title says "organize fundraisers". subtitle says "if you have something you can make/sell, use it for a fundraiser. food, quilts, artwork, services, whatever. sell it and donate it to reputable charities providing support. something is better than nothing. no amount raised is too small". as an addition from me, i've also seen people do free art for people willing to commit to calling their reps every day. and for places to donate, i've seen lots of people talking about humanitarian organizations, but two more that i'd like to suggest are the palestinian social fund (palestiniansocialfund.com, their about says "The path to liberation requires material support that is directed toward self-sustainability. The Palestinian Social Fund raises unconditional funding for cooperative farms in Palestine through grassroots efforts. These farms are started by youth who are returning to the land to reclaim food sovereignty and control their own destiny.") and palestine action (palestineaction.org), who participate in direct action activism against weapons trading with israel, mainly focusing on the company elbit.

image 8 ID: title says "engage in arts activism". subtitle says "write poems. paint, sew, sing, dance, create. the artists are desperately needed. make work that amplifies the moment and educates. pour your heart into your craft with the intention to help. art can do what other activism cannot. say it with your craft".

image 9 ID: title says "participate in digital organizing". subtitle says "use your devices as organizing tools. set up a weekly zoom. invite speakers to engage and educate. engage in digital campaigns and letter writing. harness the power of technology for the greater good".

image 10 ID: title says "write letters/essays". subtitle says "write to your elected officials. flood their interns with letters and calls. write essays and post them to your substack/medium/local paper. people are looking to be informed. add your voice through the written word. people will read".

[violexides]

the clip makes me nauseous and i don't want this post to blow up because i've had to block enough people as is on this site and grit my teeth through some of the things i've seen people i love reblog (like holy shit guys) but all i have to say is: you're not going to act like Harris is good for Palestine right now. i don't care if you're voting blue, or third, or if you're not voting, you are NOT going to act like Harris is good for Palestine. if you want to vote for her look to all those other reasons that you think Democrats are good or whatever but you're not going to fucking gaslight people into thinking that because Harris said she wanted a ceasefire like twice, disregarding her recent statement at a Detroit event AND how she called protestors pro-Hamas, that she's going to be good for Palestine. not to mention her silence in the last months during Biden's administration (you guys flip flop fast as to whether you think elected officials are able to launch america into tyranny in under a year or if they are unable to do literally anything ever in politics and just have to sit there sadly). you are ALSO not going to act like this is the best we can do in American politics. the lack of political imagination is absurd. i'm not even saying don't vote for Harris because God knows i get it but at the very fucking LEAST start applying pressure for her to be more explicit in calling for an end to the genocide. contact her office, or raise awareness. i am genuinely physically ill over the fact that so many people are saying "what more do you want for her? this is the best we're going to get for Palestine!'" NO political imagination. How can you mansplain the basics of American politics to everyone by saying "third parties aren't going to win you fucking idiot" but you can't understand that you should at least TRY. TO LEVERAGE YOUR VOTE. INSTEAD OF UNCONDITIONALLY VOWING YOUR SUPPORT. There is always going to be a big bad candidate. There is always going to be an unsavory republican versus a tolerable democrat (this should be deeply terrifying to you). there, too, is always going to be a mass of people who can use the power of their voice, or something something "civics" if you need a buzzword here, to DEMAND better out of our officials & that process starts before they get in office. I'm glad you guys are so anti trump that you're saying Harris and Waltz are like BRAT mom and dad or whatever the fuck but I need you guys to give a shit about Palestinians for two seconds and stop memeing them with some white Brit woman's song. The genocide is still going on. footage was released of a Palestinian man getting gang raped by Israeli soldiers and there were riots demanding the release of the soldiers. the Israeli media is upset that this got leaked, not outraged that a man was brutalized in that way. NOBODY in western media is talking about this, they want it to blow over. but they still purport the claims that have been debunked about Hamas.

i don't know who this might upset but you don't just twiddle your thumbs and wait for politics to change once you get a Democrat. you're supposed to demand things, you're supposed to express yourselves. leftists have done a lot of legwork since the start of the genocide across college campuses but it's not even a fraction of the amount that we need to get justice for our brothers and sisters and siblings over the seas. elected officials are accountable to you when they want your vote. Harris is not going to do anything if you guys just keep acting like she could kill a man in front of you and you're still 100% willing to jump into her arms. She clearly does not know how to navigate this pressure if she's saying stupid fucking shit like she did in Detroit so put on pressure. and unfortunately i dont have the capacity to baby you through how to do that pressure because brown folks are already trying to tell you and you're ignoring it, and if you know enough about american politics to try to mansplain it to the PEOPLE WHO ARE GETTING GENOCIDED BY AMERICAN TAX DOLLARS, you can surely figure out how to send a fucking email.

im not Palestinian i am an insanely privileged teenager living in America so i cannot even comprehend a fraction of the pain being suffered by the Palestinian people & the diaspora but what i will say is none of you "vote blue no matter what, this is the best we're going to get" folks are ever going to help my close friend's treatment prices lower. None of y'all are ever going to take a stand to keep my best friend from risking going to prison just for standing outside. None of y'all would have said SHIT when my people were getting killed in the Iraq war. And if you think "no that's wrong, i did or i would or i think i might have-" then start saying shit now. Keep saying shit. I'm sorry if this doesn't feel easy to you, I'm sorry if it feels uncomfortable to shake away the idea that Harris is going to save politics and save Palestine just autonomously. But you don't have to take care of her. and maybe you could afford to take care of your own comfort a lot less. she's a woman with immense privilege and you are a person with privilege and the Palestinian people are still being killed. Sorry if this is ineloquent or whatever i don't fucking care. I just need you guys - mostly the people who follow me - to know where im at with this. Because yall keep rbing shit like "if u dont vote for Kamala u vote for trump" as if your white asses are at risk when the uncommitted movement LARGELY COMPOSED OF FOLKS OF COLOR are actually just demanding that their people dont die. Nobody wants trump. nobody wants genocide either. maybe you don't see how Kamala can ruin your life if she continues with her current rhetoric but i can see it crystal clear. Ive been seeing it for months. A lto of us have.

[porkinsplace]

Hey, I just wanted to say thanks on what you commented on my post. I'm the Israeli who totally talk the conflict, who goes to protests, who votes left parties. Who works with lgbt youth, palestenian and Israeli. Who tries to end this conflict and talk about peace, even in this cause like this. Even when they killed innocent, even when they kidnapped children. I know the Palastenian people are not like hamas. I know there are people on the other side who wants peace too.

The situation is so awful. I see my country lash out at innocents while rocket alarms go off in my area like twice a day. Everyone is so scared. We have been left away by the west queer community, and as a queer Israeli I feel like I was left to rot by everyone. And honestly, I get it. But I'm not my country, I have to choice but to be here so I'm doing the best I can, where I can. I live this conflict since the day I was born. I'm just scared, and sad. And I mourn us all for being born into this mess.

Thanks for taking the time to read my thoughts on the subject, instead of just ignore it like most people do.

May we live to see peace on planet earth

🇮🇱 🕊 🇵🇸

To bare witness and not look away is quite literally the least I can do. It's people like you whose voice needs to be shouted from summits. Treating any side of a conflict as a monolith has never gone well historically, to make a community pay for the crimes of their government(especially when 3/4's of Israeli's polled are unhappy with their prosecution of the conflict). Folks want a simple answer for this, 'all Palestinians are Hamas terrorists' 'all Israeli's are xenophobic colonizers' its not so simple and has never been that simple.

As you stated you didn't ask for this, you were born into a country and into a culture that you had no say in. you were drafted into a war the day you were conceived, and there are those who would wish you harm simply for not fervently and zealously tow the party line. On top of that to be queer in a country where, you are tolerated at best, where you have to leave the country to get married to have your marriage recognized, I am proud of you for standing in your truth as a queer Israeli and for not hiding your light under a basket.

And that is what makes your voice so important to hear. It is also why you cannot give up hope and why you must continue to stand up against the people in your country who would rather see the world burn than live in peace with their Muslim siblings. I know you are tired and I know you probably feel like its hopeless and if I could lend you even an ounce of my strength from across the globe I would. I want you to know that you are seen and heard and that while I know when you look at everything in media(from any political bent) it can easily seem like you have been abandoned by those who you would assume are your allies, and I'm here to tell you they never were your allies to begin with. We are seeing in real time that racism and the casual disregard for human life is apolitical. Antisemitism and Islamophobia have been rampant across the globe and this conflict has only stoked the flames. Finally I will leave you with this thought I had recently, along with a cheesy quote 'it is always darkest before the dawn' My hope is that the wave of racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, fascism ect that we have been witnessing around the globe is the last dying thrashes of a great ugly beast. They know they've lost and are now simply trying to do as much damage as possible. Godspeed and good luck! Continue to speak out and continue to raise your voice above the braying of the horde. I have faith in you and the rest of those who stand against injustice.

This too shall pass friendo!

[hatari-translations]

This interview with Klemens and Anna Hildur (director of A Song Called Hate) appeared in Fréttablaðið the other day. Translation below.

"Really this is a documentarian's dream, working so closely with the subject," says filmmaker Anna Hildur Hildibrandsdóttir. She produces and directs the documentary A Song Called Hate, which will premiere at RIFF later this month. The film is about Hatari's participation in the Eurovision Song Contest in Tel Aviv in Israel in 2019, with Anna Hildur and her camera crew following the Hatari group to Israel and Palestine.

Klemens Hannigan, one of the members of Hatari, says the idea of a documentary in connection with Hatari's Eurovision participation came about early in the process. "When we decided to go ahead and participate in this contest and as we were shaping the performance and the message we wanted to convey, we already had the idea of documenting this process somehow ourselves," Klemens explains.

He says originally, though, the idea was to create a staged documentary, or 'mockumentary'. "As Hatari we want to stage everything, but then it dawns on us, when Anna has been brought in and starts to propose that this should just be a documentary, that the subject was both so fascinating and so important that a mockumentary wouldn't have done it justice," says Klemens.

Anna, who recently entered the film industry after over twenty years in the music business, proposed the idea of the film to her collaborators in Britain and began to look for a director for the project, which she was only planning to produce. "I contacted Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, who directed 20000 Days on Earth with Nick Cave, and I told them I needed people like them for this project. Then I searched and searched for a director until they told me I'd just have to step in and do it myself, which I did," says Anna. "They promised to help and are executive producing the film."

Hatari vulnerable

Hatari's Eurovision participation was shrouded in mystery and neither the Icelandic audience nor the international one could predict what was coming.

Anna and Klemens say that in the film the audience gets to experience the contest and everything that came with it in a different way. The members of Hatari appear vulnerable and out of character. "There was a lot of vulnerability in being the subjects of a documentary, for us, because up until this point we had never opened up as Klemens, Matthías, Einar or the others, but it was much harder to maintain that silence and stage every moment during the contest," says Klemens.

"It was really important to catch them vulnerable and out of character, and it was a very close collaboration. We were out there with them for 18 days and it was a really unique time," says Anna. "I was very conscious that I had to stay a bit outside it all and keep my head screwed on straight, because it was a lot of work and no day was the same," she adds.

The message as the primary objective

Klemens says there was a lot of pressure on Hatari during the contest as well as in preparation for it. They were part of the Eurovision-bubble, as he calls it, part of the RÚV team and the subjects of the documentary, but their primary objective was to spread their message and take a stand against the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

Before Hatari's participation in Eurovision last year, opinions were divided on Iceland's participation. According to a poll by the Zenter research group for Fréttablaðið in May last year, a quarter of the population wanted to boycott the contest to support Palestinians.

"The reason we participated in this contest was that Iceland was going to participate, there would be some participant going to Tel Aviv on Iceland's behalf, and we felt that given that was happening, that participant should try their best to raise awareness of the horrific situation going on there. We wanted to show our stance in action," says Klemens.

"I thought it was very interesting to make a documentary about how they did, and it was not at all clear what would happen on this journey, there were so many unknown variables the whole time," Anna says.

"We hadn't planned anything one hundred percent but we had certain ideas about how we could support Palestinians and raise awareness of the occupation. It was always like we were jumping off a cliff because we never knew what would happen next," says Klemens. "All we knew was that the further we got, the more attention we would get and the more people would hear our message."

"For the documentarian, what mattered most was that they'd stay in the contest as long as possible, and we knew the stunt wasn't going to have any real impact unless they made it to the grand final," says Anna.

Important to use the airtime

They say that the collaboration went well and that the making of the film went smoothly. "There was basically no tension between us. We always got to know as much as possible about what would happen next, but it was frequently very exciting and even stressful. For instance, the electrified atmosphere in the green room after the final when the Palestine banners had been shown, the camera crew didn't know that ahead of time," says Anna.

Asked whether the stunt had been planned ahead of time, Klemens says it wasn't. "There were a lot of ideas going on. Whether we should get expelled from the contest, or just be completely silent on stage, say nothing at all, and then we had the banners under our clothes. When we saw we weren't getting any points from the juries and were not about to win, we realized that these would be the only seconds we'd have on camera, and we had to use that airtime."

The members of Hatari have spoken about the importance of using their agenda-setting powers and giving a voice to those who lack it; Hatari interviewed many Israeli and Palestinian activists and artists while creating the film and during the contest. Many of the connections they formed are still going strong, perhaps especially their relationship with Palestinian musician Bashar Murad.

"He was our connection to Palestinian culture and the suffering that they've been through and is still ongoing today," says Klemens. "Our collaboration with him and other Palestinians was a huge part of passing on our message," he adds.

"The art of taking a stand is the theme of the movie, as well as seeing the role of art in a social context. It can be controversial to participate and not boycott, but the dialogue between people is important. I wonder if cultural and academic boycott is truly effective in the fight for change," Anna says, adding that the journey to Israel and Palestine and the creation of the film will without a doubt be among the most memorable in her life. "I think the whole group that went there shares a life experience that we'll always keep with us, and the message will live on in the film," she says.

"We communicated the message primarily through the provocative act and our collaboration with Bashar and other artists, but now the documentary will follow up, give the act an ongoing life," says Klemens.

A Song Called Hate will premiere at the international film festival RIFF on Friday September 25th in Bíó Paradís. It will then become available on the website riff.is, as the festival is in an unusual format this year because of the coronavirus pandemic.

[morrigansmuses]

3 Golden Rules.

On Ethical disappointments. 

I was raised to be tolerant. To consider the views and opinions of others, to keep and open mind. I was a social outsider (homeschooled due to racism in the local school.) I vowed I wouldn’t ever exclude people for being different to me or having different values. I was desperate to make and keep friends. More than anything.

I was 15 in the late 1990s. Lonely as hell. I decided that I would befriend absolutely anyone who would have me. Essentially anyone who wouldn’t beat me up on sight for being foreign.

I decided that I had 3 and only 3 dealbreakers in terms of friendship.

RULE 1. They couldn’t be cruel to animals.

RULE 2. They coudn’t sexually abuse children.

RULE 3 They couldn’t be a card carrying Nazi.

If anyone in my life did any of those things I couldn’t associate with them anymore. But barring that I would try to accept them as individuals. 

Thats a pretty low bar right? I mean how could anyone fail to meet those insanely low standards?

See back then I didn’t know that shades of grey existed. I knew in theory that we were all imperfect beings, but I didn’t know what that meant yet in reality.

So I began to make friends. With normal kids. Actually probably nicer than average kids because they were sweet and sensitive enough to accept me for who I was when no one else would.

So the first hurdle I came across was that some of these people I was friends with enjoyed hunting. They would say for meat. I get that. Better than factory farming right? less cruel, less wasteful.

“You shouldn’t eat meat unless you’re willing to kill it yourself” They’d say virtuously.  

But then I saw them in action. Delighting in the act of killing in a way that I knew wasn’t healthy. Laughing at the kid goat’s head bursting in a shower of gore or the way an animal screamed upon being shot. Killing more than they needed… That’s an impulse I don’t believe humans should engender in themselves.

But it was for food. Right? So I overlooked it and silenced the voice in my heart.

One day my best friend shot a stray cat with his bb gun just for the laugh. It didn’t kill the cat or anything but the animal yelped and ran away. I was so upset and shocked that I burst into tears and it all came pouring out. Was he training himself to become a sociopath? I asked him.

He apologised. He never did anything like it again. He was very kind to animals, especially cats, ever since and doesn’t hunt them anymore for any reason.

I forgave.

That’s the first time I remember compromising a core value. It was like a tooth being pulled from my 15 year old head. 

I don’t regret it.

We’re still best friends. 

The second hurdle that started to crack my young heart was the undeniable fact that in the early 2000s almost every guy I knew in his early 20s had a girlfriend between that ages of 12 and 15. NEVER OLDER. I can’t stress this enough. They would vomit in disgust at the thought of a crone of 18 or 19. They were also VERY vocal about their desire and right to have sex with children after a few drinks. By the time I was 20 I knew I had aged out of the 20s dating pool. I wasn’t attracted to older men. 

No matter. I’m asexual and prefer platonic relationships anyway.

To this day I’ve never had a romantic relationship with a man. Because once I realised that Rule 2 wasn’t one any of them could keep, the trust was broken.

It wasn’t only men either. My closest girlfriend was a 26 year old substitute teacher who fucked one of her 15 year old students on a drunk night out once…

So they both had fun and boys that age are up for anything right? I mean. He probably still boasts about it today…

Right?

Plus… She was all I had. Like the only one I had at the time. I was so scared of losing her.

I turned a blind eye and ear. I tolerated. I didn’t have to approve of their teenage girlfriends did I? After all there were so many of them that if I cut them out of my life I’d have no friends ever again. Because the whole of society looked like them…

Thats the truth.

People in my extended family have dated 17 or 18 year old girls and encouraged them to drop out of school to have their children. People I love have done that.

I once knew a handsome, intelligent and charming man. He was dating a family member for a few months. He often defended the right of adult men to date teens. “Girls mature more quickly than boys.” He’d argue. Everyone would agree. After all hadn’t my great grandmother been 12 years old when she met my great grandfather and married him on her 16th birthday (with parental permission)? He was in his 20s. Just a boy himself surely? “We all know what children boys in their 20s are right?” Said my Mother… Whom I love very much.

Excuses were made.

Years later I discovered the the handsome, intelligent and charming man had been raping a 6 year old the entire time we’d known him. He is still wanted by the police today.

My father tells that when he was a boy of 18 back in the 70s he had kicked an older German man, a respected family friend, out of his car because the man had asked him to pull over, he had something important to tell him. When he did so, the man said that the Holocaust was a myth. An exaggeration, a Zionist hoax.

My Father was dating my mother at the time. She’s Jewish. So is his uncle, a Holocaust survivor.

He yelled at the man not to talk shit and made him walk home.

I am not my father.

The first time a Holocaust denier (a respected local businessman) voiced their opinion to me I froze. Then laughed. Surely he must be kidding... I argued briefly before realising that he’d made up his mind.

My well meaning people said I’d made a mistake. It was my job, they said, to change his mind. To educate him. Otherwise how would he learn?

I didn’t speak to him again but I still nod at him in the street because he employs a few of my friends and I wouldn’t want to make things awkward for them.

And also I don’t want him to yell at me. 

I have worked with Holocaust survivors and have survivors in my immediate family and I still nod in the street at a Holocaust Denier because we are raised to be polite aren’t we? Let’s not make a scene. 

We’re mature adults.

Aren’t we?

People are starting to turn weirder than they used to be. Politically.

My Leftist friends are in a secret facebook group... Strenuously defending China’s Uyghur genocide because Communism can do no wrong… And at the same time saying all the Israelis need to be killed for what they’ve done to the Palestinians. One suggests a biological weapon tailored to Jews.

My Centrist friends are suggesting we “Hang up democracy for a while” in order to combat global warming and welcome a global police state and stop “kicking off” about our rights all the time. “Maybe we need a jackboot up the arse” one of them says.

And the ones that aren’t on the Left?

My facebook feed these days is getting awfully full of Rothschild memes.

“We own every bank in the world and funded both sides of every war since Waterloo.” They say, next to a grinning caricature of Jacob de Rothschild. Reminiscent of a Nazi cartoon of a “Rat Jew.”

Even a hedge fund billionaire prick doesn’t deserve that, does he?

I don’t comment. What’s the point? They’ve watched all the youtube and don’t read history books on principal.

My Brother is getting into Qanon. So is my Sister in Law.

She follows the medical teachings of a man who thinks the Jews invented Chemotherapy to kill the Germans after the war. Apparently he is becoming more and more popular.

Eccentrics.

Thats all.

I’m half Jewish. Like My Brother.

One of the Survivors I know said that 3 weeks after the Nazi propaganda came into the school he attended, he was in Bergen Belsen and half his family was dead.

His neighbour was jealous because his father had 2 more cows than he did.

I hear Marine Le Pen is neck and neck with Macron to win France.

A good friend of mine said it's because by 2030 Muslims will outnumber white people in Europe. He won’t read the articles I send him. But he sure sends me a lot of YouTubes.

I ignore them because I don’t want to hate him. Maybe he ignores my articles for the same reason.

Hey 15 year old me…. You, skinny thing with the ethics, the braces and black eyeliner…

Those compromises I made were made out of love... And also fear. 

Please stop looking at me like that little girl.

“It’s true” writes my friend. They’re trying to breed us out. It’s all an elite Zionist plot.”

I close Whatsapp.

Here I go again I guess…

[askamydaily]

This year -- put a Book on EVERY Bed

This year: put a Book on EVERY Bed

By “Ask Amy” advice columnist Amy Dickinson

10 December, 2020

Dear Readers: Every year at Christmastime, I delight in promoting a Book on Every Bed. I do so in memory of my mother, Jane, who raised her children to understand that if you have a book, you are never alone.

The idea originally came from historian David McCollough, who recounted the Christmas mornings of his youth, when the very first thing he woke up to was a wrapped book at the base of his bed, left there by Santa.

The most important part is what happens next: Family members reading together.

That’s it! That’s the whole idea!

Over the last ten years, working with my local literacy partner Children’s Reading Connection (childrensreadingconnection.org), this campaign has grown to include schools, libraries and bookstores, who have donated scores of books to families that might not have access to them. The goal – and our dream – is that families will experience the intimate and personal connection of diving into and sharing stories, the way my mother and I did throughout her life.

Over the years, important literacy advocates, such as the Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden and LeVar Burton, and bestselling children’s authors Brad Meltzer and Peter Reynolds, have endorsed and helped to spread the good word.

This year is different. So many of us are alone, hurting, and separated from family and familiar holiday routines.

All of us – not just children – need a good book on our beds.

I have broadened the scope to include specific recommendations for books spanning all ages. I’ve reached out to some of my favorite writers, literacy advocates, and independent booksellers across the country for their special picks.

Whether you purchase a book or share an old favorite, I hope you will be inspired to put A Book on Every Bed this year. It is not necessary to make a Christmas deadline – this idea is one to sustain people throughout what might shape up to be a very long winter.

Following are recommendations for all age groups.

Baby and Toddlers: From Brigid Hubberman, Children’s Reading Connection, Ithaca, NY (childrensreadingconnection.org):

“Words are the language of love for babies.  The best books for infants should be about the world they know. Parents should choose books to surround babies with an abundance of loving and delightful words.”

Baby Cakes, by Karma Wilson and Sam Williams

Haiku Baby, by Betsy E. Snyder

Shine Baby Shine, by Leslie Staub and Lori Nichols

Ages 3-5: From Lisa Swaze, Buffalo Street Books, Ithaca, NY (Buffalostreetbooks.com)

“If You Come to Earth,” by Sophie Blackall is one of my favorite picture books of 2020. This book is beautiful both visually and lyrically, and it will feel like a warm hug to any child or family who receives it.

“You Matter,” by Christian Robinson is a bright and elegant book that takes children on a journey around the world to make it clear that everyone matters, and perhaps more importantly, reassure them that they matter, no matter what they look like or where they are from.

Early Readers: From Sandra Dear, owner of The Little Boho Bookshop, in Bayonne, NJ (thelittlebohobookshop.com)

“The Suitcase,” by Chris Naylor-Ballesteros: This beautiful story about immigration, is full of heart and humanity as it teaches our littlest ones about hope, tolerance and kindness.

“Home in the Woods,” by Eliza Wheeler: This stunningly beautiful picture book has fast become a customer favorite. A story about starting over, of overcoming! A story of family, love and joy of being and growing together.

Middle Grade Readers: From Becky Anderson, co-owner of Anderson’s Bookshop, in Naperville, Illinois (andersonsbookshops.com):

“Ways to Make Sunshine,” by Renee Watson: Watson writes her own version of Ramona Quimby, one starring a Black girl and her family, in this start to a charming new middle grade series about spirit, kindness, and sunshine.  Ryan, a fourth grader, finds the positive in difficult situations and when trouble strikes. She is that character to love and bring in the sunshine!  Grades 3-6

Skunk and Badger by Amy Timberlake, illustrated by Jon Klassen: Winnie-the-Pooh and Frog and Toad meet in a fresh take on a classic odd-couple friendship.  Klassen’s illustrations add much to a story of an unlikely friendship that proves that opposites can see the good in one another. The first in a series.  Grades 3-7

“The Silver Arrow,” by Lev Grossman: Kate’s humdrum life is transformed when her eccentric Uncle Herbert brings her a colossal locomotive train, the Silver Arrow, as her eleventh birthday gift, leading her and her younger brother on a mysterious journey.  The train will remind readers of the Hogwart’s Express. A story that is environmentally aware and calls readers to action. Perfect for fans of Roald Dahl and The Chronicles of Narnia.  Grades 3-7

YA Readers: Danielle Kreger, Blue Bunny Books, Dedham, MA (bluebunnybooks.com):  "One of Us is Lying" by Karen M McManus: An edge of your seat mystery that takes place in Bayview High school during detention. Simon, a so-called "outcast," never makes it out of detention alive. What follows is a tale of twists and turns that has the reader questioning the reliability of the characters, and the secrets they keep.

"Burn" by Patrick Ness: A fast-paced young adult fantasy that begins with fifteen-year-old Sarah, who meets Kazimir – a dragon who has been hired to help on her family's farm. Still reeling from the death of her mother, Sarah finds herself feeling an intense and unusual connection with Kazimir. As the story unfolds secrets, dangers and Kazimir's true purpose are revealed.

"The New Kid" by Jerry Craft: A spot-on graphic novel about navigating a new school, new friends and identity. Jordan Banks is in seventh grade when he is sent to a rigorous private school and grapples with staying true to himself- his love for creating cartoons, how to maintain his old friends and how he fits in in a less than diverse new school. A totally lovable and relatable character!

Adult Non-fiction: From Alex George, the author, most recently, of The Paris Hours, founder and director of the Unbound Book Festival, and the owner of Skylark Bookshop, in Columbia, MO (skylarkbookshop.com)

“Wintering,” by Katherine May: This is a deeply personal, quietly beautiful book, written with grace and immense thoughtfulness. We all go through difficult times; by mulling over her responses to her own misfortunes, the author offers insight as to how we might think differently about low points in our lives. Instructive, inspiring, and ultimately profoundly hopeful.

“The Book of Delights,” by Ross Gay: This utterly charming book of micro-essays by Ross Gay, a beloved and renowned poet, is a perfect gift for – well, just about anyone. Gay set himself the challenge of finding one thing that delighted him each day for a year, and then writing about it. The result is a quirky, brilliant book that you can dip in and out of, always finding something to make you smile, and think. A guaranteed lifter of spirits.

“Intimations: Six Essays,” by Zadie Smith: I’ve always loved Zadie Smith’s nonfiction work, and this small but powerful book shows her talents at their finest. Written during the pandemic, these six pieces are sharp, and funny, and thought-provoking. Smith’s deeply personal reflections on this strangest of years is essential reading. If ever there was a book for these strange times, it’s this one.

Adult Fiction: Mark LaFramboise, Senior Book Buyer at Politics and Prose in Washington, DC (politics-prose.com)

“The Butterfly Lampshade,” by Aimee Bender: This is a beautiful story of mental illness, the bonds of sisterhood, and the liveliness of a child's imagination.  Francie is 8 years old when the book begins, the daughter of a single mom.  This is the story of her odyssey after her mother is committed to a mental hospital, and she is sent to be raised by an aunt and uncle.

“Luster,” by Raven Leilani: Edie, the young protagonist in Luster, Raven Leilani's debut novel, is daring, sexy, hilarious, super smart, and drop dead beautiful.  Her affair with a married man takes a turn for the strange when she meets and befriends the man's wife and daughter.  Edie is whip smart because Raven Leilani is whip smart and her voice propels this beguiling novel.

“What Are You Going Through,” by Sigrid Nunez: Sigrid Nunez writes so beautifully that plot feels irrelevant.  The writer's confidence and authority are apparent from the first page.  Ultimately, it's the story of a woman who is asked by an old college acquaintance to be with her when she takes her life, after a cancer diagnosis.  But, like her previous book The Friend (about a woman who inherits a large Great Dane), it doesn't matter what story she tells because her words bristle with life.

Elders: Gayle Shanks, Changing Hands Bookstore, in Tempe and Phoenix, AZ

(changinghands.com)

“Apeirogon,” by Colum McCann: Two fathers, one Palestinian and one Israeli have both lost their young daughters to violence but have decided that reconciliation, not revenge, is what they needed to seek. In the process, they became best friends. McCann describes the insanity and senseless violence bred in the Middle East, the Occupation under which the Palestinians are forced to live, but also the beauty of the country, the migration of birds, the many ways humans overcome adversity and find solace in the natural world and each other. In a series of 1001 fragments, McCann walks us through his imaginary polygon, the Apeirogon of the title, containing an infinite number of sides, an infinite number of gorgeous sentences, and ultimately an infinite number of ways to view the human condition.  

“All the Way to the Tigers,” by Mary Morris: Travel writer Mary Morris’ book, written in small chapters, was in some ways similar to reading Colum McCann's, Aperagon, also written in small bits (in his case 1001, in Mary's -- 112 chapters). Morris travels to India in search of the elusive Bengal tiger, but in so many ways she is searching for herself and her place in the world as she recovers from a serious ankle injury that leaves her debilitated but determined.  

In her short vignettes, she quotes Rilke, Wendell Berry, other writers she admires and reminds us how important it is to listen intently to others as in active listening we are rewarded with deeper understanding.

“The Chair Rocks,” by Ashton Applewhite: From childhood on, we’re barraged by messages that it’s sad to be old. That wrinkles are embarrassing, and old people useless. Author and activist Ashton Applewhite believed them too—until she realized where this prejudice comes from and the damage it does. Lively, funny, and deeply researched, This Chair Rocks traces Applewhite’s journey from apprehensive boomer to pro-aging radical, and in the process debunks myth after myth about late life. The book explains the roots of ageism—in history and in our own age denial. Whether you’re older or hoping to get there, this book will shake you by the shoulders, cheer you up, make you mad, and change the way you see the rest of your life. Age pride!  

[catsnuggler]

@theconstellationsinyourskin These are among the more spicy lmao, but alright, I'll answer

7. K-Pop: I don't listen to it, and cringe more than I should about it. I've gotta get over that crigge tbh. Just because some outspoken K-Pop fans are creepy and bad doesn't mean I should avoid (all listeners of) the genre itself.

I'm putting the rest under a cut.

[[MORE]]

14. Pedophilia: I hate it from the bottom of my heart, and there are definitely pedophiles I want dead. In my gut, I want them all dead. But I think the best thing is to rehabilitate them wherever possible. I don't think people should be punished for killing genuine pedophiles, though, so long as those pedophiles were confirmed to have committed pedophilic acts. I mainly believe in rehabilitation because of my opposition to the state, the existence of pedophiles who have no victins mentally, physically, sexually, nor emotionally who can change, and because I am wary of using the death penalty too liberally. They definitely shouldn't be platformed, and they should be kept away not only from anyone under 18, but anyone under 25, disabled people, and/or single women and LGBT people.

21. Anime: I like it, but I'm critical of even the anime I watch. You have to constantly be on the lookout for Japanese imperial nationalism, sexism, and unwanted sexual content a lot. Although American media also has Imperial nationalism, sexism, and unwanted sexual content, so, yeah.

28. Fascism: I actually could have become a fascist in my teens. I wanted to join the Marines because I didn't value my life, and hoped to commit suicide by heroic death in the line of duty, particularly combat, so I could finally have worth in my life. Of course, I was under the illusion that the Marines are just and heroic. I was raised in a reactionary church, in a reactionary environment, though I was raised in a liberal household.

However, I was always friends with marginalized people. People of other races, religions, genders, sexualities, ability/disability statuses, colonized people, and it's out of solidarity with them that I broke away from that wretched faith and woke up and realized the injustice of the capitalist system.

I hate fascists with a fiery passion. However, some of the most devoted and well-rounded anarchists and communists were fascists til they got their heads out of their asses. Furthermore, these ex-fascists can be instrumental in bleeding the fascist ranks of recruits and swelling ours because they know how fascists think, and because they are living proof that, while fascists don't show mercy to leftists who surrender, leftists show mercy to fascists who surrender, which shows that the option for these fascists to surrender is not only possible, but desirable.

I won't cry over any dead fascists. I just think we can and should give them a choice - join us, or join their ancestors 6 feet under.

As far as researching fascist thought, myself, I can't get a few pages into any given book on fascism without becoming infuriated and wishing I could tear and burn the book, then tear and burn any fascists within the vicinity. It's not that I'm mentally incapable of studying fascism, I'm morally and emotionally incapable.

35. Isn't he that guy with the software company? I remember that he's iffy, though I forget how. In any case, I don't trust capitalists.

42. Nationalism: I differentiate between reactionary nationalism and national liberation. White nationalism, Japanese imperial nationalism, Hindutva nationalism, are nationalisms of regional oppressor classes to eliminating "undesirable" under classes within the regions under their control. These nationalisms must be opposed with force of arms. Palestinian nationalism, various North American Indigenous nationalisms, and Maya Zapatista nationalisms are not necessarily for establishment of nation-states, but political self-determination for oppressed underclasses and liberation from Imperial, colonial boots. These liberationist nationalisms can lead to reaction, as illustrated by Hamas, Russell Means, and uh... Can't think of any reactionaries from the EZLN, tbh - but they don't necessarily lead there, and generally, we should support these nationalists, particularly those of a proletarian and autonomous character.

49. Asexuality: I support asexuals. However, you don't see me voicing support for them much on this site. I have a reason for that - I'm a cishet, though not asexual at all, but that won't stop anyone who vehemently hates ace people because of alleged "cishet aces" from accusing me of being a "cishet ace" and using my existence to discredit and disparage asexuals in general. So as far as my stance regarding ace people on tumblr goes, if I see someone I follow being aphobic, I just unfollow and block them, so my ace followers don't have to see that person's blog and have to deal with them.

56. Moldbug: I don't know who this is, but I'm assuming this is a fascist, who may or may not have some kind of connection with /Sto/net/oss/. I don't know why I have a hunch for the latter, I just do. In any case, I don't care enough to look this person up, I'm just going to keep ignoring them.

63. 4Chan: Oh, gods. Never used that site, never plan to. They're the worst.

[jewish-privilege]

The note jammed onto a windshield in Sweden in March last year was designed to terrify. WE ARE WATCHING YOU, YOU JEWISH SWINE, read the message to a retired professor, written on paper with the logo of the Nordic Resistance Movement, a Swedish neo-Nazi organization.

In the bucolic university town of Lund, with its cobblestone streets and medieval buildings, the threat seemed jarringly out of place. More notes followed. “I was really scared,” says the professor, a small woman of 70, who is too fearful about a further attack to reveal her name in print.

Finally in October, an attacker broke into the professor’s home before dawn and set it alight. By a stroke of luck, the professor was not there. But her living and dining rooms were reduced to ash. So too were the writings of her late mother, detailing her internment in the Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz. “For the first time in my life I have needed therapy,” she says, over tea in a sunlit café in Lund. “I have not known what to do with my life.”

The professor was targeted because she is Jewish, and in that she is not alone. Anti-Semitism is flourishing worldwide. Attacks on Jews doubled in the U.S. from 2017 to 2018, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in New York City. That included the shooting in Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue last October, which killed 11 worshippers.

But the trend is especially pronounced in Europe, the continent where 75 years ago hatred of Jews led to their attempted extermination. The numbers speak plainly in country after country. For each of the past three years, the U.K. has reported the highest number of anti-Semitic incidents ever recorded. In France, with the world’s third biggest Jewish population, government records showed a 74% spike in anti-Semitic acts between 2017 and 2018. And in Germany, anti-Semitic incidents rose more than 19% last year. The findings prompted Germany’s first anti-Semitism commissioner to caution Jews in May about the dangers of wearing kippahs, the traditional skullcaps, in public.

Unsurprisingly, many Jews in Europe feel under assault. In an E.U. poll of European Jews across the Continent, published in January, a full 89% of those surveyed said anti-Semitism had significantly increased over five years. After polling 16,395 Jews in 12 E.U. countries, in a separate survey, the E.U.’s Fundamental Rights Agency concluded that Europe’s Jews were subjected to “a sustained stream of abuse.” With the decade drawing to a close, 38% of those surveyed said they were thinking about emigrating “because they no longer feel safe as Jews,” says the E.U. report.

European officials were stunned at the findings, but perhaps they ought not to have been. A complex web of factors have combined to create this moment in time for one of Europe’s oldest communities. Anti-Semitism has found oxygen among white supremacists on the far right and Israel bashers on the far left. Millions of new immigrants are settling in Europe, many from Muslim countries deeply hostile to Israel and sometimes also Jews. Exacerbated by the Internet’s ability to spread hatred, anti-Jewish feeling is surging in way that experts fear could result in a conflagration, if governments and communities fail effectively to tackle its causes.

...Not waiting for their leaders, communities across Europe have begun to take action themselves. Raised learning about Nazism, many fear what might happen if anti-Semitism is left unchallenged. In recent years, teachers, imams, rabbis and local activists have launched countless initiatives to break stereotypes, educate youth and forge links across religions. In several interviews with TIME, those fighting anti-Semitism caution that it is likely to take many years for their efforts to succeed. Still, they have begun. In Paris, Delphine Horvilleur, a rabbi and author of a recent book on anti-Semitism, says a young Muslim worshipper approached her in her synagogue after she presided over a joint Muslim-Jewish prayer service.

“He told me, ‘I grew up in a family where anti-Semitism was the music in the background,’” she says. Now, she says, “We have to ask ourselves, How can we make sure they have the ability to lower the volume?”

The horrors of World War II shamed the world into acknowledging the evils of anti-Semitism. But exposure did not cure it. Instead, say experts, the hatred simmered for years. “There was a consensus that anti-Semitism should not be voiced openly after World War II,” says Günther Jikeli, a specialist in European anti-Semitism at Indiana University, who is German. “This has gone away with time.”

The growth of the Internet provided new platforms for conspiracy theorists to circulate racist fantasies more broadly. After the financial crisis of 2008, for example, the ADL warned that anti-Semites were spreading lies on message boards that Jews were somehow to blame for the crash. One rumor went that Lehman Brothers, the vaunted U.S. investment bank founded by Jewish immigrants from Europe, had transferred $400 billion to Israeli banks prior to its collapse.

A decade on, those who monitor anti-Semitism believe each attack or conspiracy theory posted online, no matter how small, sets off others. As social media has become an ever greater and yet more unregulated part of our lives, hatred has proliferated. “It used to be that anti-Semitism peaked during times of conflict in the Middle East,” says Katharina von Schnurbein, the European Commission’s first-ever coordinator for combatting anti-Semitism. “Now the incidents remain at their highest level ever recorded.”

...Tensions sporadically erupt in violence. In Sarcelles, a French commune where Jews and Arab immigrants have lived alongside each other for decades, violence erupted during a pro-Palestinian march in 2014. Jewish businesses came under attack by demonstrators, many of them Muslim. Five years on, the Jewish residents of Sarcelles live with armed French soldiers on permanent patrol on their streets, in a measure of the government’s concern about further race riots. “We live with a sense of anxiety,” says René Taïeb, a Jewish community leader, sitting in a kosher café in Sarcelles. “We have a bag packed, ready to go, in the closet.”

But Europe’s most hardcore anti-Semites are arguably on the far right, and they are slowly joining the mainstream, as Europe’s political loyalties have fractured and polarized. In Hungary, the far-right Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s campaign against Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros is regarded as thinly veiled anti-Semitism. And here in Sweden, ostensibly the most liberal country in Europe, a group of far-right extremists has achieved something close to political legitimacy.

...On the opposite end of the political spectrum, anti-Semitism has also flared up. During months of the so-called Yellow Vest protests in France, a handful of demonstrators in the crowd resurrected the stereotype of Jews controlling the levers of power. In February, a group of protesters accosted renowned French philosopher Alain Finkielkraut on a Paris street, screaming, “You are going to hell!” and “Go back to Tel Aviv!”

The problem is not always so overt, however. In the U.K., the opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has faced fury among some members over his alleged tolerance for anti-Semitism, especially regarding criticism of the Israeli government. The veteran leftist has said the party’s problem stems from a “small number of members and supporters,” and has pledged to stamp it out. But his defense has rung hollow to some. “The party is institutionally anti-Semitic,” says Luciana Berger, a Jewish member of Parliament who quit Labour this year over the issue. Under Corbyn, she tells TIME, “there is more of a permission for it to happen now.”

...Many Jews in Europe say it is not the major incidents but the minor ones that prove how widespread this problem is. They describe anti-Semitism as having seeped into quotidian life, in some ways complicating the effort to tackle the problem. “Unless it is very serious and you are physically attacked, there is a tendency not to call the police,” says Fredrik Sieradzki, spokesman for the Jewish community in Malmo, on Sweden’s southern border with Denmark.

...The more insidious effect is not at all visible: the choice by many Jews to remain discreet about their religious background. In numerous interviews, European Jews tell TIME that they avoid wearing a Star of David, and if they do, they tuck it under their shirts. Many also forgo affixing the traditional miniature prayer scrolls, called mezuzahs, to their doorposts, as many American Jews do, choosing instead to hang them inside. “Parents say to their kids, ‘Don’t tell your friends you are Jewish.’ Jewish teachers are afraid to tell kids they are Jewish,” says Shneur Kesselman, the Chabad-Lubavitch rabbi of Malmo, who moved from his native Detroit in 2004.

Kesselman recently installed bulletproof glass on his office window in Malmo’s synagogue, which dates from 1903. He says Jews have steadily adapted to low-level hostility. “We feel so long as our names are not on a list, we are O.K.,” he says. “There is a danger that we are accepting much too much.”

...Taïeb, the community leader in Sarcelles, says the best form of resistance might be to remind anti-Semites who Jews really are — their neighbors, and fellow citizens. He recalls watching the protest in 2014 spiral into violence and deciding to gather about 100 men to surround the synagogue. Instead of chanting Jewish prayers, as one might have expected, they decided instead to sing “La Marseillaise,” France’s national anthem. “We wanted to make the point that we are French, really French, who happen to be Jewish.”

...Yet, after a long period of feeling paralyzed by fear, the professor says she is finally venturing out. “Every day, I wake up and tell myself to go out and repair myself,” she says. Her home, rebuilt, now has security glass and alarms, far different from before the attack. “My house was wonderful, totally open, with big magnolia trees in the garden. The magnolia trees survived.”

[Read Vivienne Walt’s full piece in Time.]

[jordanianroyals]

Harper’s Bazaar Arabia March 2019: Queen Rania of Jordan on 20 Years of Intelligence, Integrity and Intuition (x)

By Louise Nichol | Photographer - Alexi Lubomirski

Her Majesty Queen Rania of Jordan is determined to forge a bright future across the Arab world

"I'm not ready to give up on humanity,” says Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan, the steel in Her Majesty’s voice belying her softly smiling eyes. It’s a position that must have been sorely tested over the 20 years that her husband King Abdullah II ibn Al Hussein has ruled Jordan, the Arab nation that shares its borders with Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Israel and Palestine, placing it at the heart of some of the most harrowing global conflicts of recent times. Yet amid five ongoing conflicts and two of the world’s biggest humanitarian disasters – in Syria and Yemen – Jordan remains a beacon for resilience and optimism in the Arab world; its Queen, a globally-revered symbol of modern Arabia.

Sitting in her office in the capital Amman, photographs of her four children beaming out from amid the whispered hush of the chic Middle Eastern-inspired surrounds, 48-year-old Queen Rania gestures as if to the beige environs of the city, musing, “It isn’t really about the magnitude of the crises we face, but what we choose to learn from them, and how we use those lessons to become better leaders, citizens and human beings.” Since the onset of the Syrian crisis in 2011, Jordan has taken in 1.3 million vulnerable people, bringing its current population to around 10 million, according to UN estimates. The strain on the resource-poor nation’s infrastructure has been immense, with schools forced to operate double shifts to accommodate around 150,000 Syrian students. “We couldn’t turn away innocent people fleeing war, death and despair,” Queen Rania states simply, “I think the choice Jordan, its leadership and its people made when Syrians started fleeing across the border will go down in history as an example of moral leadership and moral courage.”

Her Majesty’s role is as far away from the storybook ideal as one could imagine, despite her fairy tale princess exterior. It is Queen Rania’s integrity, intelligence and intuition that arm her to battle the giants that history has placed at her door. “If I were to be queen in a different time, I do not expect that it would be any different,” she says pragmatically, “The world will always bear witness to catastrophic events, some naturally occurring, others man-made. Giving up or even slowing down is not an option, neither for me, nor for His Majesty.”

Born in Kuwait to Palestinian parents, Rania Al Yassin was working in Amman when she met the then prince Abdullah at a dinner party in 1992. They married the following year but it was not until 1999, when Rania was 28, that the line of ascension was changed by King Hussein on his deathbed and her husband ascended the throne. Over the latter half of his reign, His Majesty King Abdullah has steered the country through the fallout of the global economic crisis in 2008, the Arab Spring in 2011, the rise of Islamic extremist factions across the region and the ongoing civil war in Syria.

Jordan’s open-arm position towards its neighbours pushes back against the tide of global populism that erects walls at borders and sees countries turn in on themselves, ostensibly out of fear of what lies beyond. “Fear is a powerful emotion, and, in today’s uncertain world, it has become a potent political force,” Her Majesty explains. “People are worried about the economy, social and technological disruptions, violence and terror attacks… They’re worried about their future, and the future of their families.” In times of seismic change, she explains, it is natural to seek comfort in the familiar as people can feel left behind, which creates “room for others to capitalise on their unease, and to sow divisions and hatred.”

It is all too easy to sense the tremors of isolationism that threaten to rip humanity apart as would-be leaders espouse a rhetoric of division masquerading as patriotism. “After all, one of the simplest ways to win people over is to validate their anxiety by giving them someone else to blame, like globalisation, foreigners or refugees,” Queen Rania explains, “that’s certainly easier than finding real and lasting solutions!” Yet find lasting solutions to humanity’s woes we must, she asserts. “Our world is too interconnected for any nation or group to succeed on its own. Turning inwards and trying to keep the world out is no longer a viable option. Climate change, economic downturns, the global refugee crisis… These challenges transcend borders. So instead of indulging prejudices or playing the blame game, we need to come together to seek sustainable solutions to the issues plaguing our world.”

As a Muslim, Queen Rania is acutely attuned to the divisions propagated by religious separatists. “There are over 1.8 billion Muslims in the world, yet many people continue to confound this diverse group of people with a small minority who commit heinous crimes in the name of Islam,” she says. “Our religion preaches compassion, tolerance, forgiveness and embracing people of other faiths; it condemns hatred, prejudice and bigotry.” To those who would spread dissonance, she counsels, “There can be no true understanding or trust in a world divided by walls – and not only those walls built of concrete and stone…But the walls we erect in our minds.” She urges Muslims to “speak up and reclaim our religion’s true values and principles which – not too long ago – built a thriving and diverse intellectual civilisation.” Only by Muslims and non-Muslims addressing their growing intolerance and fear of the other can they move past their divisions, she says, adding with innate optimism, “I would like to believe that extremism falsely committed in the name of Islam has reached the apex, and that if we as Muslims continue to reject the extremists’ mangling of our faith, they will eventually lose their sway on the ground.” “There can be no true understanding or trust in a world divided by walls"

In an era of fake news, Queen Rania warns that our human instinct to judge those different to ourselves has been amplified by social networks, leading to the global spread of false stereotypes and divisive discourse.“The danger here is substantial,” she says, “but is even more so when this online debate starts gaining ground offline; when negativity on Facebook or Twitter becomes fodder for negativity on the streets, schools or in conversations with friends and even strangers.” Her measured response is not to blame or ban social media itself but to reassess the way we use it. “The repercussions of misusing social media have already permeated our daily lives, and now we are a little in over our heads,” she cautions. “Our best bet is not to dial down our use of these platforms, but to become more discerning about what we are exposed to online. If destructive discourse is being brandished around us, we need to question whether it can be validated and think before we share in the conversation.”

At its most base level, social media can be an easy tool for bullying, and as an outspoken woman in the Arab world, Queen Rania is wide open to negativity and criticism, which she handles with grace and insight. “Listening to criticism is part of my job,” she smiles. “It’s important to respect all different viewpoints, and sometimes it’s the people who disagree with you who are able to point out something you may have overlooked. But criticism is constructive only when it is based on fact. Sadly, in today’s media landscape, false information can become irrefutable fact in a matter of hours.” She admits that when she first stepped into the role of royalty she was reluctant to speak out or take risks for fear of opening herself up to scrutiny or attracting censure. “With time and experience, I’ve become more comfortable in my own skin. There is nothing more important than being authentic, saying and doing what we believe in, and owning our narrative. If we don’t, others will fill in the gaps on our behalf,” she says. “I’ve learnt that the path to progress is long, hard, and often thankless – if you let fear of criticism paralyse you, you’ll never make it out the door. The difficult choices – the ones we most fear – are often those that need to be made.That fear is there to let us know that they are worth it.”

One of the most politically candid first ladies in the Middle East – if not the world – Queen Rania muses, “I never really made a conscious decision to be outspoken, I feel it’s something that I have to do because any voice raised against injustice erodes the power of that injustice.” She urges us all to follow suit. “I think it’s the most important thing in the world to be authentic, to live according to your beliefs and to speak your truth. Particularly at this time because the public discourse is dominated by hatred and intolerance and anger and fear, and so we need to provide a counter-narrative to that, particularly for people in public positions.”

Beyond those in the public sphere, Queen Rania encourages individuals to speak out, particularly women in the Arab world whose voices may have been hushed by cultural restraints. “For too long that voice has been quite muted,” she says.“When it comes to women from the Middle East you’ll find a lot of international experts ready to jump in and speak on their behalf, but you get narratives that are either inaccurate or just stereotypes. Women are usually painted with two broad brushstrokes, whether as dangerous extremists or oppressed victims; the nuance is lost in the narrative. Authentic voices from the Middle East are few and far between and it’s absolutely critical that women do speak for themselves because the stereotypes really don’t capture what women in the Middle East are all about.” Few would deny the yawning chasm between the perception of Arab women that proliferates in the West and the reality of the female experience across the Middle East.

“The women that I see and interact with are so strong, they are so determined, they are so ambitious, they are resilient. A lot of them are extremely well-educated. A lot of them are high achievers,” Queen Rania agrees, adding, “We can’t expect the rest of the world to recognise our successes and our achievements until we recognise them ourselves. We have to do a better job of celebrating Arab women, of highlighting their successes, of creating environments for them to thrive and express themselves and build on each other’s successes. Then we can start to reset global perceptions about Arab women.” Are observers in the West aware, for example, that in many Arab countries there are more females enrolled in universities than males? “In Jordan girls are much higher achievers academically than boys are, but the challenge is how do you transform those academic achievements into successful careers? All the time we see women bumping into glass ceilings and barriers in the work place. A lot of times it is because there is just a bias and a lot of times it’s because the working environment is not helpful or not conducive for women.” Such obstacles, however, can forge iron wills. “I think cultural and familial barriers really hold women back but I’m always inspired by how determined Arab women are. Because we are faced with all these challenges we try that much harder, so they’re very resourceful.”

One third of start-ups in the Arab world are headed by females, a higher percentage than in Silicon Valley. “That tells you a lot about how determined Arab women are to succeed in spite of their barriers. And how little of a victim mentality they have, contrary to what many in the western world think,” Queen Rania smiles. “So there’s a lot to be celebrated in the Arab world. But we need to amplify those successes. We need to talk about them. And we need to create linkages between these women because it’s like the reverse domino effect where one woman lifts another woman up and we all end up standing together. The greatest support that a woman can get is from another successful woman who lifts her up and tells her, ‘You can dream, you can succeed.’” We all have a role to play, she says, in encouraging, listening to and sharing a diversity of women’s voices from across the region, “so they can speak of their own story whether it’s the good, the bad, the triumphs or the trials. All of it. It’s part of the picture of who Arab women are and we’re so diverse; there isn’t one stereotype of an Arab woman. In different parts of the Arab world each woman is her own unique person. I would love to hear more voices coming up. Increasingly we’re seeing them but I think we still have a long way to go before we really leave a mark on the world stage.” "A meaningful life is a life where you have made things better for people around you"

As recent times have highlighted, it is not only in the Middle East that the female narrative is silenced, subdued or subjugated. “Women all over the world see the subtle and sometimes not so subtle ways that gender discrimination can hold us back,” Her Majesty says. For women in the Middle East, however, the stakes can seem so much higher. Surrounded by war and conflict, women face issues of displacement, barriers for movement, and the severe economic challenges that result. “And whenever those things happen, there is a disproportionate effect on women; they tend to bear the brunt of the fall-backs. We see women and their needs and their status fall down the priority list,” she explains. The battle for equal rights, for education, for gender parity is forgotten when a battle of bombs and bullets is raging outside. “If you look in a lot of the countries where there is conflict, people don’t talk about how the rights that women have worked so hard to acquire are now taken away from them,” she says.

For the daughters, sisters and mothers who are thrust into life-destroying circumstances – whether Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims forced to flee child murder and rape, or those touched by atrocities in neighbouring Syria – the effects of such butchery are unimaginable. Yet while the rest of us can switch the channel on the television or turn the page of a newspaper when faced with images too horrific to process, Her Majesty has witnessed first-hand the suffering inflicted on humanity across the Muslim world, encounters that must levy an enormous emotional toll. “Every day we’re bombarded with images of human suffering and injustice and that can turn you into a cynic,” she agrees, “but we need to remember that even in the worst of circumstances you still see incredible acts of humanity and sacrifice. Even in the darkest places – particularly in the darkest places.” By seeking out the compassion of mankind, Queen Rania refuses to let the darkness overwhelm her. “I’m not ready to give up on humanity. Against all the terrible things that we see, there’s incredible goodness in people,” she says, “and it would be good for all of us to focus on that, and also our faith, in prayer. I feel that at times of reflection you find a lot of the answers, and our religion teaches us to face these kinds of situations with patience and determination and acceptance. That’s a great source of comfort for me and it keeps my faith.”

Cocooned by the zen surroundings of the Al Husseiniya Palace compound, where elegant cypress trees line the drive and the air is softly scented, the ills of the world seem a million miles away. Bringing up four children – Crown Prince Hussein, 24, Princess Iman, 22, Princess Salma, 18, and Prince Hashem, 15 – the temptation to be protective must have been strong. “Like any mother, I want my children to be happy and fulfilled and challenged but also I really want them to be decent human beings,” Queen Rania says of her drive to instil compassion and empathy in her children. “As parents we’re always very protective over our kids and eager to take care of their needs but I think we need to teach them from a young age to balance their needs with other people’s needs. Whether it’s standing up to a bully or sharing a toy; those are qualities that you instil in your kids from a young age.”

The playing field is skewed, however, when you have the word Prince or Princess before your name. “I want them to be normal kids. Sometimes I feel like I’m swimming against the current because obviously they’re royals and people sometimes treat them that way, but I try to make sure that they have an identity outside of their title,” Queen Rania says. “I always tell them, ‘You carry your title, it doesn’t carry you’ and to think of it more as a responsibility and not a privilege.” Ultimately, she explains, honorifics are not character defining. Children’s true identity is derived not from a title but through values, morals and principles, and “making sure that they’re aware of their history and heritage and their faith.” These are the things, Queen Rania says, that create a sense of identity for a child. “Although we can’t shield our kids from all the things that life is going to throw at them, when you instil those things in your kids they become resilient. That’s what I want for my kids, to have that kind of resilience.”

Raising a future king must present its own set of challenges, ones that Queen Rania has experienced first-hand. “There’s plenty of personal sacrifice,” she says of life as a royal. “When you’re in the public eye you do get exposed to a lot of criticism, a lot of judgment. A lot of times my decisions are based on things that I can’t do rather than what I can, because there are certain restrictions or you just can’t go there because it’s not accepted, whether culturally or in any other context.” Queen Rania understands the gravity of duty. “When you are in the public eye your choices are not yours because you’re not living for yourself. But nothing that’s worthwhile is necessarily easy; you take the good and the bad, and I feel like it’s an honour and a privilege to be able to have a positive impact.”

Despite the human rights abuses she has witnessed around the world or the ongoing economic struggles of her fellow Jordanians, Queen Rania is motivated by the prospect of betterment for her country and those that surround it. “Ultimately what we all have in common is that we all want to have a meaningful life. People spend so much time trying to look for that meaning but I think it’s actually quite simple; a meaningful life is a life where you have made things better for people around you. And I think we all can do that whether you’re a public personality or a private citizen.” That’s not to say that she doesn’t allow herself some respite. “I’m more conscious now of making sure there’s a balance in my life. When I started out I didn’t understand fully the impact of emotional stress; how much that impacts your physical health, your energy, your outlook. Now I see when I am run down from too much work or too much stress that I suddenly become exhausted. So I make a much more conscious effort to create that balance. I make sure that the evenings are for my kids and for my family, watching TV. And also weekends, sometimes we’ll go to Aqaba or something like that.” With half of her children in Jordan and half studying abroad, she admits that it is hard to carve out family time. “I make sure that we somehow organise our schedules so that we’re together for a few weeks as a family over summer, and I must say that it is the most fulfilling time for me. That’s when I really fill up the tank. Just being with my kids, having that interaction every day, I love it. There’s nothing more important.”

Queen Rania was an employee of technology giant Apple when she met her future husband and today she embraces social media, where she describes herself as ‘A mum and wife with a really cool day job’ to 10.4 million Twitter followers, 16 million on Facebook, and 5.1 million on Instagram. But as her own children come of age in a newly digitised world, she is aware of the tightrope between empowerment and subversion that such connectivity brings. “When my kids started becoming old enough to be on social media and on the internet, as a mum my protective antennae shot up. But then I realised that snooping around is not going to be helpful because it will erode the trust between us and they will stop sharing things with me, so I’d rather we have an open dialogue and channels of trust that allows us to give and take,” she says. “At the end of the day it’s about moderation. It’s the same boring advice that you heard from your mum and your mum heard from her own mother: be moderate. I tell my kids to spend less of their lives on the phone and more of their lives being in the present, being in nature, picking up a book. It is hard because a lot of our lives are slowly migrating online but every now and then you just need to remind them that’s what is happening so they can be conscious of it and try to keep that balance.”

In addition to balancing time on- and off-line, the digital sphere can be a double-edged sword, Queen Rania explains. “The internet has unleashed a lot of potential for a lot of kids and sometimes when I look at YouTube channels or websites that are run by children they’re incredibly inspiring. But it is also a dangerous space where kids can be exposed to unsuitable content and negativity, to bullying, to content that makes them doubt themselves, or their self-image,” she says.“Increasingly, I try to guide my kids to look at the marvels of the internet and really steer them away from the dark corners.” The two-dimensional nature of platforms such as Instagram can be a battering ram in the face of wavering self-esteem, something that Queen Rania is also acutely aware of. “One thing that I’m very conscious of is that it’s become a very visual world and you really have to guard against your kids either becoming too superficial or unaccepting of who they are and becoming critical of themselves. Physically, emotionally; people start to think that other people’s lives are better than their own. I see that all the time, how people become incredibly insecure.” And it’s not only children who are susceptible, she warns. “Sometimes it really surprises me when I see people whose characters online are so different from their characters offline. And it makes me wonder, ‘Why do you feel you have to wear that mask? Why do you feel you have to project a certain image to the rest of the world? Why can’t you just be comfortable with who you are?’ Because ultimately your authentic self is what matters. And the closer you remain to the trueness of who you are, the happier you will be at the end of the day.” Despite what Snapchat filters would have us believe, “You don’t deceive anybody by trying to portray some kind of image on social media,” she counsels. “The number of likes that you get ultimately doesn’t matter. The validation that really matters comes from a sense of self-acceptance, achievement, doing something, developing your own skills.”

For these portraits taken for Harper’s Bazaar Arabia by photographer Alexi Lubomirski, Her Majesty was keen to stay true to her own sense of style, a style that is always secondary to substance. “I am very passionate about my work, and the clothes I wear don’t have any bearing on that. I am also very mindful that I have a duty to represent my country well. So, rather than follow the latest trends, I aim to dress in a way that reflects who I am,” she says. “I find that I’m most comfortable in modest wear – partly because of my position, but mostly because it feels right for me, as a woman.” Her Majesty just wishes that the emphasis would be on what she says, rather than what she wears. “Of course, one of the downsides of being a woman in the public eye is that there will always be comments about my outfits and appearance. Sometimes, there is a lot of exaggeration as well. I suppose it comes with the territory,” she says, “But at the end of the day, I hope it is my work that defines me, not my wardrobe.”

Chief among her work achievements is Her Majesty’s focus on education across the Arab world. Away from the images we see of starving children, displaced families and people in desperate need of medical aid, Queen Rania believes there is another less visible crisis unfolding in the Middle East, one that doesn’t make front page news. “Across the Arab world there are millions and millions of children who are receiving education that is inadequate, it’s outdated, it doesn’t prepare them for today’s job market, let alone tomorrow’s. So they really don’t stand a chance,” she says. “People don’t see it as a crisis. I see it as an emergency.” The slowly unfolding repercussions of failing to educate the region’s youth could decimate a generation. “What will become of them? Will they become vulnerable to extremist ideology, will they be a burden on society? What kind of impact will they have on our collective future?” She has seen first-hand how Jordan’s own education reform efforts have been strained by the pressure of accommodating Syrian refugee children in the country’s schools. “There isn’t anything more urgent for us in the Arab world than education because at the end of the day it’s about the individual being able to have the skills to participate in today’s economy, to feel competitive. There shouldn’t be a conflict between the sense of, ‘I’m an Arab, I’m a Muslim but I’m able to compete on the international stage’ and you can only achieve that through a quality education.” She urges a communal effort to revolutionise education across the Arab world. “If we put our hands together we can all muster up the resources that we need for our kids. Obviously some countries have more resources than others, but ultimately when it comes to the education of our kids we all have the same vested interest. If I’m in Jordan, it’s in my best interest that kids in Syria get a great education because if they don’t, that’s going to become a problem for me in the future.” While the challenge is huge, there is also great potential. Just imagine what strides a well-educated workforce could make. "The greatest support that a woman can get is from another successful woman who lifts her up and tells her, 'you can dream, you can succeed'"

“A large percentage of our population are young and therefore with the right interventions, what we see as a challenge could become an opportunity for very quick change,” she says. The digital world also makes it easier to reach students, train teachers and modernise learning. In 2014 Queen Rania launched Edraak as an Arabic online educational platform for adult learners, who were starving for engaging digital content in their native language. Since then, Edraak has reached more than 2.2 million registered users. Last September, the platform was expanded to schoolchildren too, with the Edraak K-12 platform, which will offer e-curricula in all major subjects to Arab children everywhere. “We’ve already rolled out mathematics, and there is much more to come. The platform will eventually include thousands of Arabic instructional videos, quizzes, and practice exercises covering everything our children learn in schools, all available free of charge to anyone with an internet connection,” Her Majesty says. The aim is to provide all Arab school-aged children with free access to quality education by 2020, whether they are in urban centres, refugee camps or conflict zones. “It is a tremendous undertaking, but it is one that our region cannot afford to put off,” she says. “A child denied an education is not a tragedy for just that child – it sets us all back. So we owe it to them, and to ourselves, to give them a fighting chance.”

By taking on as mammoth a responsibility as education reform in the Arab world, Queen Rania is setting herself a gargantuan task. “Sitting still is not who I am. You can ask my team, you can ask my mum,” she smiles. “The easy life is not something that I ever aspired to. And I think the easy way is never really the right way.” The education crisis can’t be solved overnight, and reform is fraught with resistance and cynicism, she says. “I could feel discouraged when those who are resisting the change have got the upper hand, but then there are days where I feel that we’ve really moved the dial, even if it’s for an inch. Where I see teachers who have just taken a course and are feeling empowered with their new skills and I see how their students are becoming inspired by this new atmosphere in the classroom.”

With the dreams and ambitions of a generation in her reach, Her Majesty Queen Rania's lasting influence over the Arab world has the potential to be prodigious. “I don’t believe in legacy; you’re not there to see your legacy,” she muses. “What I do believe is that you need to leave good deeds behind. Do whatever you can to positively impact other people’s lives.” We may not all be queens, but as Her Majesty says, the end game is the same for all. “Really we’re all here to leave a decent mark behind.”

Photography: Alexi Lubomirski Fashion director: Belen Antolin Hair: Alain Pichon Makeup: Valeria Ferreira Photography team: Diego Bendezu, Maximilian Hoell and Jeremy O’Donnell Producer: Neha Mishra

[ammarbamahkale]

Bringing interviews to life

ID:123411

Data: May 10,2021

I collected the best ten in interviews, In the beginning I worked on Barbara Walters ,Including five interviews by Barbara Walters, after that I worked on another five interviews by Larry king, the first developing four points explaining and analyzing these interviews the type of, second description of the interview the interview quality, third questions, and fourth the interview style.

Biography of Barbara Walters: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Barbara-Walters

Barbara Walters was born on September 25, 1929. She is an American journalist in the fields of journalism, writing, and broadcasting. She works for the National Broadcasting Corporation ABC News magazine. Barbara Walters has presented many morning televisions programs, such as "Today" and "The View." She also presented the magazine "News Magazine", in addition to her work as an assistant broadcaster on the World News program at ABC News.

Walters was famous in her early days for her presentation of the morning television news program “Today”, which she presented on NBC News for more than 10 years. Walters gave thousands of private interviews where she interviewed many famous American and international personalities. She also conducted an interview with the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz, former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, the late Egyptian President Muhammad Anwar Sadat, the late Jordanian King Hussein, Chinese Prime Minister Jiang Zemin, former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, former Russian President Paul Yeltsin, the current Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi. Barbara has also met all American presidents and their wives since the Richard Nixon administration.

This American journalist succeeded because she was determined to continue striving and was doing her best to win the public's approval, and her program was also met with a great response from viewers.

Biography of Larry King: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Larry-King

Larry King was born in Brooklyn, New York, to a Russian Jewish immigrant family in 1933. Larry King was at the age of nine when his father died from a heart attack. Due to this tragic incident, his mother had to live on subsidies to raise him and his younger brother. Larry King went on to find work after he graduated from high school.

His dream was to work in the media, so a friend advised him to go to Miami, and there he applied to work in a small radio station. In the restaurant, his wages were only $ 50 a week.

King is described as a giant of television presentation, as he was a successful partner in founding CNN from 1985 until 2010, and won many awards including two Peabody Awards, a prestigious award given annually by the Grady School of Journalism at the University of Georgia in recognition of for media achievements.

In 1995, he met the late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, the Jordanian monarch King Hussein, and the Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. He introduced everyone on the screen through his program, and his guest list included a wide spectrum, from the Dalai Lama to Elizabeth Taylor, from Mikhail Gorbachev to Barack Obama and from Bill Gates to Lady Gaga. He had even met with Paris Hilton who spoke about her time in prison in 2007 and had also met Michael Jackson's friends and family members to talk about his death in 2009.

The famous American journalist Larry King, one of the most prominent media faces in the United States, died on Saturday at the age of 87, at the Cedars Sinai Center in Los Angeles, due to infection with the Corona virus. Larry King has been described as the master of the microphone, giving around 50 thousand interviews in his life. He was famous for wearing bras in his conversations, during which he hosted world leaders, movie stars and community celebrities.

Barbara Walters.

The first interview is E.L. James in Barbara Walters 10 most fascinating people. https://youtu.be/XzRbcL-a6M8

Interview description:

The interview is about the book '50 Shades of Grey' and the author of the book is asked many questions about it. She is asked about how it has affected her personal life and about her feelings towards it.

Style of interviewing

The style is casual but very comedic. The interviewer is very personal at times and extremely forward. She even repeats a question when she doesn't get a full answer. Both and interviewer and author can be heard laughing several times. Overall, it is a very open and informal style of interviewing.

Types of questions

The interviewer asks very open and personal questions. The questions allow the author to explain herself.

Quality of the interview

The quality is good for its theme and style. The interviewer's tone of voice suits the comedic and casual style of the interview. It is quite funny and there are several moments of laughter. However, in terms of professionalism, I would say that some of the questions were quite inappropriate.

Larry king.

The first interview stared Sacha Baron Cohen. https://youtu.be/qqa7YhsroW8

Interview description:

The interview was not official between the journalist and the guest, and the atmosphere of the interview was also filled with ridicule, mockery and belittling of Arab presidents who were recorded in history at their best. The guest showed poor behavior during the interview.

Style of interviewing:

The style of the interview was neither interesting nor enjoyable, and the guest had the audacity to imitate some of the dictatorial Arab presidents. There was a lack of enthusiasm in the interview.

Types of questions:

The types of questions between the two parties were generally normal but at times the guest would refrain from answering some questions and the journalist would repeat the question to obtain the answer. I would not consider the questions as having been too strong or embarrassing.

Quality of the interview:

The atmosphere in the interview was one in which there was a lack of commitment and respect by the guest to the journalist. For example, the guest was taking saliva out of his mouth on to the floor in front of the journalist and was acting in other disgusting manners.

Conclusion:

After completing the analysis of the interviews, we will present to you a graph that shows you what points were repeated a lot and what points were repeated a little in terms of previous interviews, formal or informal, the atmosphere of the interview, the type of questions and the quality of the interview.

Also, in terms of my research and my follow-up of the top ten interviews of Larry king and Barbara Walters, I found that "Barba" enjoys direct questions with the guests, and that she seeks to meet very official figures, for example she has interviewed several heads of state and politicians in the world, and that she seeks to be the one who did the first interview. In her interviews with people, the formal atmosphere is dominant. However, the questions vary from an individual to another.

As for the interviews of Larry king, they are largely based on comedic questions and personal questions from one person to another, as Larry king’s interviews are often informal, but rather rely on laughter and comedy, and he works to smooth out the atmosphere with various questions.

[mikhalsarah]

We could easily re-title this as, “6 Things Entitled Black Activists Need to Do to Completely Discredit Their Own Movements and Drive Even Other Black People Away From Them”

Afterward can just throw this on the general pile marked “Things Entitled Leftists Have Done since the Civil Rights Era to Completely Discredit Their Own Movements and Drive Even Other Leftists and Liberals Away From Them”

But with a two year hiatus to consider it, let’s unpack this, cause unfortunately covid hasn’t shut the stupid down, and now we’re trying to make Jesus black instead of Levantine, and all kinds of crazy....

1. Well, the thing about white privilege is…

Yeah, the thing about it is that most white people don’t actually get it. To them a “privilege” is something you get that nobody else gets AND nobody else is entitled to. It’s an extra, not something everyone should be getting. So mostly this whole notion and change in the meaning of the word confuses the fuck out of them.

When blacks get their human and civil rights violated just for being black, the fact that white people aren’t experiencing that (except on college campuses) is not a privilege, it’s a BASIC FUCKING HUMAN/CIVIL RIGHT which is being violated. When blacks get held to an unfair double standard, the fact that whites aren’t being held to that standard is not a privilege. It is a basic ideology (though not well-lived) of all modern western liberal thought that people should be treated with the same dignity, respect and rules, and black people are still not being uniformly afforded that. When you call that shit “privileges” you sound like a kid who’s mad cause their sibling gets to stay up and watch tv and they don’t. You completely belittle it with that word.

I happen to get the concept of Privilege just fine. I studied it way back when it was part of the Cultural Backback Theory, before a bunch of cultural Marxists subjected it to their half-baked Sokal-esque  hermaneutics. My objections to what’s been done with it lately have nothing to do with “not caring” (about black people being the subtext there) but about really fucking caring about the integrity and relevance of the original theory and how it’s being denigrated by extremism and stupidity.

2. As a white woman, Rebecca, you have to understand that…

No I don’t, you’re right. I don’t need to understand anything “as a white women”.I simply need to understand it. If I understand the concept, then I will inherently understand my place or part in it. But that presumes that the concept at hand is logical, sensible, and works in practice, not just in theoretical cultural Marxist hermeneutics.

We already know that enjoying entertainments created by black people has SFA to do with whether a person is racist or not. We also know that a white person having sex with a black person does not mean they are not a racist. We’ve known this since the slavery period, so we have an area of agreement. Marrying them though? Historically we don’t find many people who marry people they think are inferior and beneath them. Strictly speaking you can have racialism and racism without the supremacy and denigration (Asians are all good at math!) but we don’t normally bother to run around decrying them as racist.

Could dear Rebecca have stray beliefs about black people that are incorrect? Yes. Everyone has incorrect ideas about other groups of people. Know what else, they even have incorrect beliefs about their own people and culture. I just had a liberal Jew tell me all the ultra-Orthodox Jews are married to their cousins and was very annoyed when I showed them the demographic data on which Jews actually do marry their cousins at high rates, cause really they just wanted to hate on the ultra-Orthodox and not be informed. Things like truth and respect only matter to most people when it’s their own group and interests they’re protecting, not when it’s somebody else’s. Since I’m self-evidently not ultra-Orthodox with all the swearing, and some of those u-O people would whip bottles and dirty diapers at my head in Israel, you can clearly see that I value the truth even about someone who views me as a dangerous moral pollutant to be expunged violently. I got the suspicion though that you’re not in that category with me

Could some of Rebecca’s incorrect beliefs have filtered down from the racist and eugenicist beliefs of yore? You betcha! She probably doesn’t know, for the same reason my best friend called herself “Hymie” in front of me because she didn’t want to spend money on something. It was something picked up from her parents, who picked it up from their parents, who picked it up from...well somewhere along the line they picked that up from when dyed-in-the-wool antisemites said shit like that. When I politely told her it comes from the Jewish name “Chaim” and was meant as an insult about being cheap like a Jew, she was horrified, as were her parents when she told them. 

And why the fuck are white women being singled out here like they’re the only people still holding wrong beliefs about black people? Asian people have some of the most openly horrible racist beliefs about black people and I have yet to hear, “As an Asian woman, Wei-yi (or Sundeep, or Aisha), you have to understand...”  (or change all that to man and male names). Why don’t I hear that? Because A) Some of them really don’t give a shit, and you know it, and B) Most of the Asian people immigrated relatively recently so they don’t feel guilty about slavery, and  C) many came from the middle and upper classes back home and they will not put up with that illogical racist crap toward them, and have not yet been brainwashed that they should. Most white women who are liberal are so concerned with not being perceived as racist that they will tie themselves into any ridiculous intellectual knot and bend over willingly to be fucked up the ass rather than be called a racist. They are an easy target for your kind of victimized-entitlement bullying. I’m not, because your “radical” kind have so watered down the word racist now that it basically means “existing while white.” If everyone is racist, as you claim, then being called “racist” is about as meaningful as being called “human’. There’s a law of diminishing returns at work here.

Way too many ignorant “liberals”, who don’t even understand the principle’s of liberalism, think that the most radical voice is the most correct now, and bow down before the most abusive little bullies. That’s an example of, how did you put it? Ah yes, “the nuances of privilege and how Black people and other oppressed groups can wield it as well”. In any part of North America and Europe where these pernicious ideologies have been allowed to take root there are pockets of society, where white people, especially women, are now scuttling about with their tails between their legs terrified of being called a racist,outed as a “Karen”, twitter-mobbed and fired, while everyone else is engaged in a pissing-contest over who is less privileged than whom. Liberal people of other races, again especially women, are not far behind them. Why? Because in the world of cultural Marxism that has filtered down into everyday liberal thought, the least privileged person is the person who gets to define reality and no one else gets to contradict them. Victimhood = Power, and the power to define everyone else’s reality is absolute power. 

The problem with ultimate power is it corrupts absolutely. Take it from a Jew. Don’t want to? Well according to your worldview, you’ve been oppressed for 400 odd years by colonialism and slavery and their legacies. Jews have been oppressed for nearly 2000 years in the West (and that’s not including all the pre-Christian invaders and mass population transfers) and someone tried to wipe us off the face of the Earth to the tune of 6 million dead within living memory. I’m also not straight, so that’s like 3000 years of oppression and death. I’m also disabled, wow, don’t even know how long for that. I win the oppression olympics, ergo what I say is reality. Don’t like the sound of that? I wonder why....

We Jews have currently got the market cornered on entitled victimhood. So much so that we’ve convinced entire governments to make criticism of Israel a form of anti-semitism. Guess who that will silence? The entire Palestinian Rights Movement and all its supporters including BLM. WHAAAAT? Yeah, black people who want to support Palestinians could get kicked out of schools, BLM chapters could get kicked off campuses, fined or sanctioned. Finding that situation a little unfair, are we? Well too bad. According to cultural Marxism, black non-Jews need to sit down and shut up with the rest of the non-Jews because you’re all part of the problem. 

As a non-Jew, what you really need to understand is that you were raised in an antisemitic system and your entire thinking is tainted by it. Even if you are not a Farrakhan, and don’t support anyone like him, and would never dream of erasing Jewish identity by calling them Khazars. Even if you liked Mad Magazine and Seinfeld, even if you were to remove yourselves from all organizations influenced by antisemitism (like BLM)...you are still an antisemite and complicit in the system that continues to oppress me by making me work on Shabbat. Why just last year someone tried to erase me by telling me that Jews should “integrate” into Canada by giving up Judaism and Jewishness. Even though they were white, you’re complicit in that just because you’re a non-Jew, living in an antisemitic system. Also you appropriate our culture by putting “mazel tov” in your pop songs about sucking dick, which religious Jews find offensive. And as you know, if ANY member of a minority, not matter how crack--potted, tells you your use of something is appropriation, not appreciation, then it’s appropriation. End of story.

So, it only took us 70 years of “anti-colonialist liberation movement” to become some of the most right-wing, racist, violent assholes on the planet. How long ‘til you go from “not moving out of the way on the sidewalk”, to “pushing people off it into traffic”, hmmm? Cause you already had a Yusra Khogali...a young woman who has NO connection to American slavery or the Civil Rights struggles, and in fact arrived fairly recently in Canada from Somalia, screaming that white people are recessive genetic defectives who should be killed. God forbid reading the comments on that because out comes every dumb-ass white racist to prove that they’re better than black people at everything, including making as ass of themselves. The difference being that liberal white people don’t celebrate those people and make them the leaders of our movements. (Instead we celebrate racist white people who hate other white people, which is not really better).

You have black geneticists trying to tell everyone to stop mis-using genetic discoveries to make broad sweeping statements about race, and do you celebrate those people, your best and brightest? No. You call them Oreos. Instead you celebrate an idiot girl barely out of her teens who has as much understanding of genetics as Mendel’s pea plants. Red hair is recessive (having two of the same mutation at the same locus, that would otherwise be eclipsed by a more dominant mutation). Blue eyes are also recessive. Skin colour is NOT recessive, it’s the cumulative outcome of differences at 378 different loci...most of which happened before humans left Africa and are also present in African populations. Congratulations. You’re genetically defective, too. Welcome to the club.

3. There’s a great article out by…

How about all the great articles out on Malcolm X, particularly his disillusionment with NOI, his Hajj, his change of heart on the ability of whites and blacks to interact as equals, his embrace of working with mainline civil rights groups, and about how some of y’all are wearing his face on t-shirts one day, but fawning all over the organization that killed him and people who said he deserved to die the next? 

Yeah, some of us do read articles by black authors pretty routinely. Whole books and histories even. If I’m not reading the “great article” you want me to read it’s probably because I’ve read the kind of bullshit you write and that has turned me off before I could turn the page.

4. No, you can’t even sing the word because the history…

Once upon a time “the Word” just meant “black”. You can see the etymological relationship to less “Wordy” words like negro, negra, nigra (as in substantia nigra), and vinegar. But you’re right, at some point the word was totally ruined by association.

So why hasn’t it fallen out of use? Because YOU are now the people keeping it from being consigned to the rubbish heap of history, with all that bullshit about reclaiming it. If the word is so god-damned awful and painful that white people can’t even sing a song that black people wrote that contains it, then maybe you should stop writing songs that fucking contain it. I guarantee you, if you do that, you will not hear it come out the mouth of any white person who isn’t on David Duke’s mailing list.

Jewish people don’t walk around calling ourselves “Kikes” (which by the way started as an inter-Jewish slur against Eastern European Jews). Pakistani people don’t call themselves “Pakis” The only people who’ve managed to “reclaim a word” successfully are the GLBT+ community with “Queer”, because they don’t scream at people who use the regular word queer (odd) in context (unlike Wendy Malik who nearly got fired for using the title of an unfortunately named 1970s book on Quebec Sovereignty while discussing the actual Quebec Sovereignty movement) and don’t even get mad when straight people refer to things as “Queer Rights” or “Queer support groups” or any other clearly non-derogatory use of Queer. 

Maybe it’s time for a decision...is the word so bad it should be banished, or should it be reclaimed totally, like Queer, even though you’d have to listen to some off-key white people singing it on TikTok? Because trying to eat your cake and keep it too doesn’t seem to be working out IRL.

5. Excuse me.

So I guess I don’t have to be polite to you anymore either, because some of you are fascist, black supremacist, antisemitic, homophobic scum?

Oh, and my 6 foot 180 lb trans daughter will now be blocking your use of sidewalks you transphobic cisscum. We’ve already taken Tai Chi (as a martial art) and Kung Fu but we were delayed in starting Krav Maga by covid. Future looks bright doesn’t it?

Got to get our reparations for 3000 years of Queerphobia and 2000 years of Jew-hatred/antisemitsm somehow, right?

Yeah, that’s right sad that you didn’t actually personally commit the queer hatred and antisemitism, but that’s how Identity Politics work: Even if you didn’t do the crime, if you fit in the same box you do the time. You’re guilty by association.

Up ‘til I read your piece I was broadly in favour of slavery reparations, because even though the people who did it are gone, the nations and governments who did it still exist, and it’s fair game to try to sue them. But now that you’re trying to take it out of my hide personally, I don’t feel so disposed to make a fuss on your behalf. See how this works yet? You want my support, that’s why you’re mad when you don’t get it, but you’re also saying, “Fuck you and your support, and I’m going to be a complete cunt to you even if I get it.” Not much incentive for me there.

Holding people individually responsible for things their country, culture, religion, or even direct ancestors did doesn’t make much sense. If you tell me your ancestor was raped by a white slaveowner and you descend from that, should you be placed on the Sexual Offender Registry?

And oh, isn’t that precious. You have direct ancestors who were slaveowners and, so far as I know, I don’t. The Norman side might have some somewhere, but yeah, my family didn’t get here until 1965. We get demerits for having been part of the British Empire, even though most of us didn’t want to be. But if you are going to blame a new immigrant from one of the more than 28 European countries that never had a colony, or any of the countries that never participated in the slave trade, save a finger to point back at yourself for having actual slaveholding ancestry. And wait, let’s go back to Miss Yusra Khogali, a Muslim Somali....unless there’s relatively recent reversion there, some of Miss Khogali’s ancestors were probably part of the Arab culture in Somalia that was trading in sub-Saharan Africans while Denis the Peasant was still wallowing in the English mud. Oh the joys of Arab slavery. Sure, you could eventually rise to great power, especially if you “reverted”, that is if you managed to survive having your genitals cut off. (2/3 eight year old boys tested didn’t). You’re very quiet on that, as you are on the plight of actual Africans actually being enslaved right around the time you wrote this in Libya....beaten, branded, auctioned for $400. What, you’ll raise 50 000 dollars for a dancing prostitute but you still can’t even mention Libyan slavery in 2020? Clearly not ALL black lives matter.

I suppose it’s just too much cognitive dissonance. The Libyans are Berber and Arab-Berber mix. They’d totally be identified as black in America. Blacks enslaving blacker blacks in this day and age? And you can’t even blame that black on black violence on American racism. Take a stab at blaming colonialism if you like, but we’ve already established that Arabs and other Africans were enslaving Africans long before Europe got back in the game (most of us enjoyed a nice long hiatus from slavery after Christianity arrived - not that serfdom was such a much but still). I imagine it’s all just too hard to look at head on, isn’t it pet? Getting a wee feel now for what it’s like to be confronted with every sin people who look like you have ever made for the last millenium? But I’m not the one saying you are to blame, or should be held responsible. You’re being indicted by your own belief system. I’m just pointing it out, sweetie.

6. I forgive you.

.And I’m not forgiving you for 2000 years of Christian Jew-hatred, 1400 odd years of Islamic Jew-hatred, 3000 years of Queer hatred, forever of sexism, etc.

I can’t “forgive you” for something you didn’t personally do.

I will sleep fine at night, knowing I, also, did not do any of the shit you don’t want to forgive me for.

[cfijerusalem]

FAITH IN GOD MEANS TRUSTING

 “Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness” (Genesis 15:6) 

It was reported in the Jerusalem Post recently that the Coronavirus crisis has turned a number of Israelis and Palestinians to faith in God. The word “Emunah” is a Hebrew word meaning faith. To have faith in God Almighty we are persuaded, assured and firmly convicted that what we pray for and hope will come to pass because the Lord God is at work through our prayers... even though at times we cannot see it immediately. It was also reported in Israel that some 34% of Jewish people and 49% of Palestinians said their “faith” increased as a result of the coronavirus. Let us pray that all who came closer to the Lord through this pandemic will be steadfast and persistent in their walk with Him, that it not be head knowledge but heart changes in many people. (See prayer request below*) 

 “...It was Abram’s “believing” that gave him righteousness in God’s sight. Protestants have emphasized the importance of believing God’s promises, instead of working to earn our salvation, but it is important to understand that the key word, emunah, that we translate “believe” has a different emphasis in Hebrew than we tend to hear. The word emunah does mean to have faith, but it has a broader meaning that has implications for what God calls us to as people of faith. It contains the idea of steadfastness or persistence. In Exodus 17 Moses raised his hands all day long until the Israelites won a key battle. It says that his hands remained steady, emunah, until sunset. In this sense it means steadfast. God is also described using the word emunah in Deuteronomy 7:9: “Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful (emunah) God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands.” 

If we look back at the verse about Abraham’s emunah, it should tell us that Abraham believed God’s promises and had a persistent commitment to God which showed in his faithful life. He waited 25 years for a son, and offered him back to God when he was asked... God wants faith in His promises that results in a steadfast faithfulness to Him.” (Lois Tverberg, Ein Gedi Resource Center: ourrabbijesus.com.) 

Yair Netanyahu (son of Prime Minister Netanyahu) recently spoke up for Christianity in Europe in May. He repeated his desire to see Europe again become “free, democratic and Christian!”. He went on to call the EU an enemy not only to Israel, but to all Christians. This is not the first time he has defended Christianity, and even Jesus. Late last year, Israel Today reported he fervently defended the Jewishness of Jesus which I reported in our For Zion Sake magazine (see CFI website “Restoring the Jewishness of Jesus, www. cfijerusalem.org). It seems the young Netanyahu has “emunah” in his heart and knows the Bible well. 

“In the meantime, Hezbollah’s Southern headquarters is training Syrian troops and collecting intelligence on the IDF” (Anna Ahronhem). In preparing for a future war against Israel, it is training commanders and soldiers in the Golan Heights. Should any attack be carried out by Hezbollah, they will use the best mobility, firepower and manpower available to them. Israel does not want Hezbollah to entrench itself on the Golan and has carried out several strikes against operatives belonging to the Golan Project. While Israel does not want to provoke a war, it does need to prepare and also do all it can to stop one from happening. As such, the IDF has heightened its state of alert in the north of Israel, increasing its intelligence, training of soldiers and troops and preparing for any deterioration which might happen. Much prayer is needed and strong “emunah” to know that “…He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep” (Psalm 121:4).

Let’s Enter the Throne Room of Prayer with Emunah!

Pray fervently that Israeli Palestinians will learn who is the True One God and that they will face the same direction as Temple Mount (as Jewish people do) one day. Allah is not the God of Israel. Pray for many people who are caught in the deception of Islam. God wants to set every man and woman free to serve Him. “Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other. ... They will say of me, `In the LORD alone are righteousness and strength. ‘” All who have raged against him will come to him and be put to shame” (Isaiah 45:5,22). 

Thank the Lord for giving steadfastness and persistence to all intercessors, around the world, who pray for Israel faithfully. God bless the intercessors! “As for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the LORD by failing to pray for you. And I will teach you the way that is good and right” (1 Samuel 12:23). “Emunah” is the key.

Beseech His Face on behalf of the Netanyahu family. The responsibilities of our Prime Minister are many, he always needs undergirding. The wife and children often take the brunt of political bias and fake news as well as disturbing comments about them. Keep them lifted up to God. “Pray this way for kings and all who are in authority so that we can live peaceful and quiet lives marked by godliness and dignity” (1 Timothy 2:1-2).

Thank God that He is the Defender and Strength of Israel. “This is what the LORD, your Defender, the Holy One of Israel, says: I am the LORD your God. I teach you what is best for you. I lead you where you should go.” (Isaiah 48:17). “And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent: for he is not a man, that he should repent” (1 Samuel 15:29). 

Intercede in faith that the enemy of our souls will not try to pre-empt a regional war with Israel at this time during the corona virus.

Proclaim His Promise of healing for all Israelis who have come into contact with the virus in Israel – that God will be their healer and raise them up quickly. “If you diligently heed the voice of the LORD your God and do what is right in His sight, give ear to His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians. For I am the LORD who heals you” (Exodus 15:26). Israel must forsake the ways of the nations and walk with God to become His Light to the nations. Much prayer is needed for this.

We all need much “emunah” (faith) to make it through the difficult days and perhaps years ahead of us. As we stand in faith for the many promises of God for Israel, we know that God is not a man that He can lie so we have full assurance that His Promises will be manifested in His Timing. I can see every day of my life a real nation and people around us who were not here one hundred years ago. What a miracle in the earth the nation of Israel is today. Vibrant, strong and full of miracles, even when their faith in God is being tested. God will make of this nation and people a strong emunah nation – one filled with faith and righteousness. This is His promise as He moves them toward being (even if slowly) to become a “light to the nations”. “Listen to me, my people; hear me, my nation: Instruction will go out from me; my justice will become a light to the nations...” (Isaiah 51:4). 

In His Service Gladly, 

Sharon Sanders

Christian Friends of Israel - Jerusalem