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Not going to happen again -- For whom??
by Wahida Valiante
Back in march of 1997 I read
with great interest the comments of Mr. Bronfman
in the Sunday Star article, "One man's will unlocks the vault,"
in which he sounds the battle cry, "We are not going to take this
crap any more." To emphasize the absurdity of
not standing up for one's own life, he recounts
a vignette that illustrates the passive nature of Jews
during the Second World War; as two are about to be shot, one tells
the other not to make trouble. Bronfman then
asserts, "...by God, we're not helpless any more
and it's not going to happen again."
"It's not going to happen
again?"
But it is happening, all over
the world. The only difference is that nobody
cares. It is happening right now in Palestine, Kashmir, Chechnya,
Iraq, Afghanistan, and China. It has already happened in Bosnia,
Kosovo, Rwanda and Lebanon.
Now, however, the majority of
victims of such atrocities are not Jews, but
Muslim children of the world, for whom the phrase "it is not going
to happen again" obviously does not apply. They are just faceless,
nameless "others" who were born to Muslim parents.
In fact, the wartime children
whose land was handed over to the Jews in 1948,
are once again engaged in resisting a brutal Israeli occupation by
throwing stones to reclaim their autonomy, their schools, their
human rights, their historic territory, and
their freedom. It is doubly ironic that the very
people who demand the world own up to its past sins
against Jews are the same who now oppress an entire nation, while
asking the world to condone their indefensible
occupation of Palestinian land. At the same
time, Palestinian children continue to be killed and maimed.
It is ironic too, that all
those self-appointed pro Israeli intellectuals,
journalists, and luminaries try to brainwash us into
justifying the occupation, instead of addressing the reality of
deprived and dying Palestinian children, its
innocent victims. Instead of holding Israel
responsible for committing gross violations against their human
rights, they condemn a legitimate struggle for self-determination,
freedom and democracy; they fault Palestinian children for "putting
themselves in harm's way."
Adding insult to such massive
injury, these so-called academic defenders of
Israel further distort the real circumstances of occupation by
filling our national newspapers and magazines with stories blaming
the parents for letting such tragedies happen to
their children. It reminds me vividly of
novelist George Orwell's then-future world of "1984" in
which the Newspeak Times proclaimed; "The war was peace, freedom
was slavery and ignorance was strength."
Could we not replace
Bronfman's Second World War anecdote with a
contemporary image in which two Palestinians are watching their homes
bulldozed, and one remarks that they should "not make trouble" in
Palestine? Those same people who unthinkingly and uncritically
support Israeli state policies of destruction
and attrition in Palestine are fortunate to live
in free, democratic Western countries, not under
Israeli occupation. They need a major reality check. How can they
boast of themselves and their countries as
bastions of freedom and democracy, yet still
praise the eradication of Palestinians? How can anyone forget
the toll of this modern-day Holocaust, for which so much
Palestinian blood has been spilled?
Hitler almost succeeded in
eliminating Jews from Europe because he was able
to conduct uncensored propaganda against them, and it was no less
despicable then what the likes of Barbara Amiel and her kind are
propagating. Editorials and opinion columns abound, demonizing
Palestinian children and their parents for taking part in a genuine
struggle for liberation and freedom; holding them responsible, in
fact, for the violence perpetuated by Israeli
occupation. When in recorded human history have
the victims of oppression been so blatantly held
"responsible" for their own victimization?
The stark reality is that
under Israeli occupation, an entire generation
of Palestinian children and youth have suffered a litany of horrific,
traumatizing events for thirty years. In addition to almost-daily
home demolitions, they have witnessed
intimidation, humiliation, fear, insecurity,
poverty, closures, and the menacing presence of armed
settlers. With all their healthy socializing structures destroyed
by the Israeli military, these children have
never known peace or security, or the freedom to
roam the streets and playgrounds. Their parents have not
known peace and freedom either and cannot even dream about a safe
and productive future for their children, and
the children to come after them. Ever since the
moribund Oslo peace accord, they have been living
in large prison camps. Now, locked up and besieged by an Israeli
army that happens to be one of the most powerful
in the world, these children are under attack in
their own land, in their own homes, and are being
subjected to psychological and emotional terror from the air and
ground.
They have nowhere to hide,
nowhere to run to. As Canadians, we are being
"informed" by the mainstream media that these same terrified Palestinian
children are responsible for their own injuries and deaths and
should not even be there! We are being
"informed" so that we can ignore the Holocaust
that "is happening again" -- not to Jews, but to the children
of Palestine.
During the past century Muslim
children have lived, and still are living,
through events far beyond the comprehension of normal life
experiences. They have been witness to brutal massacres of their
parents, brothers, sisters, cousins, grandparents, neighbours and
friends; many have watched in terror the rape and murder of their
mothers and sisters. They have been subjected to starvation,
physical abuse, emotional and psychological
suffering; and they make up the largest number
of refugees forced to exist in tents, temporary shelters,
camps, and bombed-out buildings. Worse still are the conditions of
children in Iraq, Kashmir, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo, and
Chechnya, many of whom fight for survival under
United Nations sanctions and daily bombardments
from the sky and the ground. These Muslim children are
still waiting for the world -- including Canada -- to declare that
"it is not going to happen again."
Among them are those who
witnessed the killing of Mohamed Al-Dura, the
twelve-year-old Palestinian boy shot in broad daylight by Israeli
soldiers as he tried to hide behind his unarmed father. Others are
maimed for life and will have to exist without medical treatment or
financial help. Israel has turned Palestinian "enclaves" into
virtual concentration camps, subjected daily to
various forms of collective punishment and
economic embargo that will have a far-reaching negative
impact on the psychological and physical well-being of the children
living there.
It is a well known fact that
children exposed to military occupation and
armed conflict will, in varying degrees, suffer from psychological,
emotional and physical trauma, or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD),
all of which become manifest through negative behaviours,
diminished self esteem, constant fearfulness and
nightmares, insecurity (abnormal clinging
habits), lack of appetite, anxiey, depression, anger, and in
some cases, excessive violence. PTSD, according to the American
Psychiatric Association, is recognized as a diagnostic category and
was first used with reference to American
soldiers returning from Vietnam. In modern
terminology, this trauma is applied to describe any event
outside the range of usual human experience and which overwhelms
one's psychological capacity to cope with daily
living.
No one really knows how many
Palestinian children who are subjected daily to
Apache helicopter gunships, tanks, F-16 fighter planes,
state-sanctioned assassinations, military sharpshooters, home
demolitions, deaths of close family members, harassment by armed
settlers, and severe economic deprivation, will continue to
re-experience these horrors psychologically throughout their lives.
These are the very children
whose Palestinian parents -- according to
certain misguided psychologists and self-appointed Middle East "experts"
-- love to have their children killed by the Israeli army. One can
only cringe at the sick mentality of those who
condone such ideas in the opinion pages of our
daily newspapers, telling us, the readers, that the
victims are to blame! Such thinking says more about the lack of
humanity of those who defend the killing and
maiming of innocent Palestinian children than of
their desperate and grief-stricken parents.
Imagine the psychological and
emotional terror experienced by children who
grow up knowing that their parents cannot protect them from
helicopter gunships and ground missiles. These children have
nowhere to hide or run to, because the Israeli
army and invading settlers are the ones who
determine which child, which family, will be shot; which houses
and trees will be bulldozed and uprooted; which street or alleyway
will be hit by the sharpshooters. Their basic
human rights are being trampled on by deliberate
policies of the Israeli government whose obscene
actions have denied these innocent children education, safety, health,
economic well-being and a normal life. In fact, Israeli
forces are known to have deliberately targeted
children in order to break the spirit of the
adult Palestinian population. Children are the future and
most precious resource of any nation; to target them has to be the
most despicable and cowardly act carried out by
any occupying army, citizenry or government.
Yet, as we witness the organized, ruthless killing and
maiming of these Palestinian children, there is only deafening
silence around the world, including from our
"humane" Canadian government. No one dares
even to whisper the words "it is not going to happen again";
but if not for the children of Palestine, then for whom should we
cry out?
Here at home in Canada, Muslim
children are not immune to feelings of
helplessness and sadness as they witness the daily carnage and killing
of their little brothers and sisters in Islam. These children, like
their Muslim parents, suffer from "secondary" Post Traumatic Stress
Disorder, scientifically defined as the effect upon those who
witness tragic deaths and injuries through
reading newspaper stories and seeing gory
pictures of death and destruction on television and in the print
media. Psychologically, this is analagous to being subjected to
second-hand smoke. Just as secondary tobacco smoke can cause
full-blown cancer, secondary Post Traumatic
Stress Disorder can be just as psychologically
devastating as the primary form of trauma. As silent
witnesses, North American Muslim young people are indirectly being
traumatized by the massacres of Lebanese children in Qana, of
Palestinian children in the Sabra and Shatila camps, in Kashmir, in
Chechnya, Iraq, Afganistan, China; the terrible list goes on.
Compounding the effect of
secondary trauma on our Canadian children is the
stark reality that the world -- including their own government --
does not care about suffering Muslim children. Instead, our own
children are bombarded with articles written by
pro Israeli apologists who perpetuate the myth
of a global "Islamic threat" and then blame Muslims
for their own genocides, violence, and oppression.
But one has to wonder where
the world's collective Muslim voices -- more
than 1.5 billion of them -- are, when the likes of Mr. Bronfman can
proclaim "it will not happen again." No one told that to the Muslim
children of the world, or to those who so easily inflict suffering
on them. Perhaps the answer lies in a
psychological and intellectual paralysis of
political will which has resulted in Muslims being ccollectively
unable to put into practice what Islam asks of them. Islam
demands action from all human beings against oppression, tyranny,
and poverty, in order to establish a peaceful
and just society. How, therefore, can Muslims
sit back and hope for others to do their duty of
protecting the life and liberty of the children of this world? Unlike
Mr. Bronfman, we Muslims do not have the luxury of simply declaring
that "it will not happen again." We are
instructed by God, the Almighty Creator, to take
responsibility -- not only for ourselves but for all
those who are poor, weak, or who live under oppression and
injustice. It is our moral duty to struggle
(engage in Jihad) against oppression with
whatever means are available to us, so that in reality "it does not
happen again," not only to Muslim children, but to all children,
everywhere. The challenge facing all of us then is how we can
finally break the horrible cycle of oppression
that still allows "it" -- unimaginable suffering
-- to happen again and again to the precious
children of this world.
Mrs. Valiante is
national vice-chair of the
Canadian Islamic Congress. She is a
professional family counselor who recently visited Palestine as
part of a fact-finding medical team. While there, the team visited
refugee camps, health care clinics, hospitals, orphanages, local
and international charities and women's refugee
centres, and spoke with social workers and local
Palestinian families.
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