Inspired?

I’m listening to music from the play Les Miserables, and with that soundtrack of oppression, injustice, and suffering in the background, I’m reading and grading students’ work. Three weeks ago I assigned my class an interview. They were to find someone who lived through the Nakba and converse with that person, paying particular attention to that survivor’s personal experience as an individual and part of a community, as well as think about the way the Nakba of 1948 is still present today.

These stories are heart-breaking. I gave the same assignment last semester and remember crying half way through, breaking down under the weight of so much grief and suffering. But more than the pain of the past is its presence in the present. 60 years on, nearly 61, and people are still waiting for justice. It is an active waiting in Palestine which asserts itself as resistance against historical wrong doings that have evolved into an intricate and violent occupation which seeps like rotten water into the crevices of daily life, infecting everything with disease. And to whom should the Palestinians look for justice? Hilary Clinton visited last week, presenting a harsh contrast between Obama’s foreign policy and his false message of change. Salam Fayyad (Palestinian Prime Minister) resigned on Saturday, reminding us that the Palestinian Authority is overgrown with deep-rooted corruption and failure. They have so little power under occupation, but what they do have is used to benefit the rich and the few. Israel becomes more conservative by the year, believing the occupation to be justified and the lone option for maintaining its so called security. So, where do we look for salvation in Palestine? Is it really a miracle that we need? In the 21st century, does it take a divine miracle to end state oppression and violent militarism?

I spend so much time working with my students to activate in them a political consciousness, and I realized last week that rather than inspiring them I am debilitating them. When I recognized their hopelessness, I tried to move them to hope but I found myself at a loss for words. I do believe. I do have hope. But I’m not sure how realistic it is. Certainly Obama will be the same coward we saw in Bush and Clinton and every other president before them back to Truman, kissing the ground Israel desecrates. The leadership here does not merit its title. The people suffer greatly. Malnutrition, thirst, poverty, and worst of all, hopelessness. So, what shall we believe? What shall we say? How can we change our reality?