Denying the Devil His Silence

(A song for my mood, with the lyrics and feelings involved. "Wherever somebody's struggling to be free, look in their eyes, mom, you'll see me.")

I'm going to have to start this post with a bit of a confession. I had no idea what I was going to write about. For most of the past week, I have been running through my head to try and think of something to say to you all. Yet this is not for lack of things to say. I am sitting here in the most interesting place I have been in my life, where each and every day brings new knowledge, and frequently new heartbreak. My home country has just elected a Conservative majority, which myself and many others think can only plunge us into a worse place than we already are. America has been gripped by riots and protests, finally bringing some police officers to justice for the deaths they have caused. The world is in a very interesting place indeed.

And yet, I drew a total blank. I could talk to you of the things I saw in Hebron: graffiti calling for the deaths of Arabs, a small girl telling us of when her three brothers were burned alive in an attack by settlers, or just the every day difficulties in that fractured city. I could forego writing about Palestine in the main, and address the new UK government, talking about the National Health Service, benefits and taxes. But despite all of this, none of it feels right. There is too much crowding in my head to articulate any of these things properly, and I refuse to write about them if I cannot do them justice.

Every day life in Hebron

I had wondered about writing about solutions. I could tell you of the impossibilities of a two state solution for Israel and Palestine, because of the way it would only serve apartheid. I could tell you about the boycott of Israeli products, designed to put pressure to stop illegal settlements from exploiting Palestinian land and labour. I could tell you of the popular pressures being used in the UK and the US, in order to bring about justice and make voices heard. But all of this is fighting inside my brain, vying to be the most important thing I can tell you.

So, in order to write for you all, I had to clear my head somewhat. I did the unexpected. I went to a church. Even I, the devout atheist, went to a religious building. I have no idea why I found comfort there, but sitting on the worn steps of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, leaning against a wall etched with the crosses of soldiers and pilgrims, I found a message I wanted to give. It is a message never to give up on hope of a brighter tomorrow. All it took was the space I was in, and the title and sound of this piece, 'Burning the Past'.

I have heard it said recently that we grow tired of having to justify why we think gender equality is so important, why Black Lives Matter, why Palestinian Lives Matter, and why we think those afflicted by poverty are people we should help. It's true, I too am sick of these discussions having to take place in the world. But my weariness will not stop me. I cannot give up on what I believe, and therefore I will not be quiet about it. It is your choice how you respond to my words, but I will keep crying them from the highest rooftops to the lowest gutters.

But sometimes I feel like a lost child, yelling into the dark, longing to hear an answer calling back amid this maelstrom of intolerance and close-mindedness that pervades much of the world, especially the internet. Often I don't know what kind of voice I want to hear calling back to me. To follow the stereotype, I would want a strong, adult voice to come and add comfort. But I do not want to be drawn home, for what changes when you return across a familiar threshold and shut the door behind you? You change nothing. So I long to hear the call of another lost child in answer. Together, we can find another, and another, until we can forge the dark into a new home of light. Home will always call to start with. 'Adults' will tell us that we will grow out of this and calm down as we age. But if we step out of the darkness, if our voices cease their yelling, then just silence will remain in an unchanged gulf.

So much of what we believe is rooted in our history. All of our world is built on the foundations of what has gone before, but that's part of what keeps us where we are. Being told that we will calm down means we are content to live with this past, and follow it to the letter. I see the scars it leaves in Palestine. I am wiring on Nakba day, when the Palestinians remember their expulsion at the hands of Israel. Israel remembers the Holocaust, viewing themselves ever as the victims. But no solution can be found here until it is decided that we do not have to follow the examples of the past. We can remember, but rather let us commemorate the past and move on. Let us hold a funeral for what has been, and in the light of the flames of its passing, look for something new to build from the ashes.

I have had a fire burning in me since Hebron, seeing the injustice of school children passing through checkpoints, tear gas primed and ready to be used if one stone is thrown by the arm of a child at a soldier. But sitting in the church, the cool stone and dim places help to cool this fire and let me see it, and what it has been more clearly. For days I could not tell if it was a raging blaze, an anger consuming me at the injustices I saw and continue to see, or just the small light of one candle of hope, being buffeted by the winds pushed through the choked and stifled streets of Hebron, coming at me through one of the oppressive checkpoints. Checkpoints which humiliate residents and terrify children. My hope for Palestine was also injured by the recent UK election, with a pro-Israel, and indeed almost Zyonist government gaining a majority.

The candle flutters low at the moment, as I know that I will be leaving here soon, back to Britain. While that sceptred isle has its own problems to face, I will be leaving people faced with much worse. These are people who have changed my life, who I will never be able to turn my back on without seeing their faces and hearing their stories.

The graffiti which helped serve as my inspiration, and my resting place as I wrote.

And perhaps my candle of hope can be met with the rushing wind of hate and division, and from the other side by the hot air of politicians and be resurrected into a stronger light than before. Perhaps that threatened candle is being lifted into a conflagration by the clashing hurricanes my mind faces every day. And now I know, from being in Palestine and seeing the struggle here, that as long as I have fuel, my fire of hope will burn. I just hope that somehow it might burn bright enough to be noticed, and that others may be drawn to its warmth, that they might ignore the calls to let themselves burn low and let the world continue as it has in the past.

All I can ask those of you reading this, if the flames draw you in, is that you come and light a torch from my burning hope, and show its light to someone else. A fire cannot spread without more fuel. And just as the priest walked to the altar in front of me, dispensing incense, I hope that if we grow this hope strong enough, that even those blind and deaf to the light and the sound can feel the warmth and smell the smoke, and let their curiosity draw them closer.

So, I know I'm not giving you a strong message other than to hope right now, and to never hide the fire of what you believe. I will keep my own alight, even if I have to do it alone. But please, friends, if you feel the same, that we can burn the past, and use the memory of it to create a brighter future, then burn with me. You having nothing to lose in helping your fellow man, and I think we all stand to lose something if we don't.

So today my message, though abstract, is simple: burn the past, build anew. We can break free of what has happened before, but still remember. Together, we can let go and make real change. Let us all draw around a flame of hope and peace, and try to do what we can as a species, for the sake of us all. Don't be silent, and let yourself be heard. Never give up if you hope to change the world.