Choosing Humanity in Genocidal Times
Date: November 17th, 2023
There’s a Hindi movie that came out in 2000 called Refugee, and the story centers on an unidentified Muslim Indian who aids undocumented refugees originating from India and Pakistan, encompassing the present-day territory of Bangladesh, in crossing the border via the expansive Great Rann of Kutch. The movie is inspired by the short story Love Across the Salt Desert penned by Keki N. Daruwalla.
Image retrieved from https://www.amazon.com/Refugee-Jackie-Shroff/dp/B09Q1H4F6N
The lyrics of a song called Panchi Nadiya Pawan Ke (birds, rivers, and gusts of wind) in this movie have been ringing in my ears over the last month or so, and have weighed heavy on my heart:
Panchi nadiya pawan ke jhonke
Birds, rivers and the gusts of wind
Koi sarhad na inhe roke
No borders can stop them
Panchi nadiya pawan ke jhonke
Birds, rivers and the gusts of wind
Koi sarhad na inhe roke
No borders can stop them
Sarhadein insaano ke liye hai
The borders are there for humans
Socho tumne aur maine kya paaya insaan hoke
Just think, what have we gained by being humans
[Source: https://www.filmyquotes.com/songs/2419]
The soul of this song is a lament on the foolish (and often artificial) divisions that humans create to separate themselves from each other, and the joy that it must be for birds, rivers, and the wind, essentially, Mother Nature, to transcend these boundaries and move freely. This song touches me especially because it reminds me of the ways we separate and “other” ourselves from each other.
In this pivotal moment, I find myself compelled to speak out, not only as a member of the human race but also as a mother, a daughter, a sibling, a wife, and an equity practitioner, on the dehumanization and genocide that is actively unfolding in Palestine.
The unfolding events in Israel and Palestine demand a collective response that transcends borders, religions, and political affiliations. We are being called to choose our collective humanity.
The weight of my roles intensifies the urgency to break the silence that has enveloped our communities on this critical issue. The resonating silence from many leaders and systems is not merely conspicuous but also constitutes a collective failure, a failure that may linger in our collective conscience for decades to come.
As an equity practitioner, the glaring disparities in the narratives surrounding the conflict in Israel and Palestine are deeply troubling. The pervasive silence, or worse, the punitive actions by employers against those bravely refusing to surrender their humanity and choosing to vocalize their opposition to the unfolding genocide (like Yara Jamal, a Palestinian Canadian news anchor, who was fired for speaking up), underscore the entrenched nature of oppressive systems. These systems, rooted in ideologies such as white supremacy and colonialism, exhibit a consistent pattern of suppressing dissent and perpetuating injustice.
Retrieved from https://www.instagram.com/yaraaaljamal/
The toll exacted on human lives, both in Palestine and Israel, is a heartbreaking and incomprehensible aspect of this crisis. The collective loss reverberates across borders, transcending the arbitrary lines that demarcate nations.
As a mother and a daughter, the pain is deeply personal. I hear my children’s cries in the voices of innocent Palestinian children, Israeli children, Congolese children, Sudanese children. I feel the pain of Indigenous parents here in Canada, reckoning with the news of their children’s graves being found at residential institutions. It is a stark reminder that the consequences of political decisions and conflicts extend beyond geopolitical boundaries, reach into the very fabric of every family and community.
The tentacles of colonialism reach far and wide, and there really is no “over here” or “over there” — we are all touched by unrest, dehumanization, and oppression. The truth of privilege is that it only exists at the expense of someone’s oppression. The peace and freedom that we experience often comes at the expense of unrest and destabilization elsewhere.
Where people are experiencing violence, harm, displacement, war, and injustice, may we remember our common humanity, and that we are each other’s siblings and relatives first, and to use our power, our privilege, and our platform to speak up and to advocate for solutions and outcomes that center everyone’s wellbeing, dignity, safety, and belonging.
This moment demands a genuine reckoning with our shared humanity.
As we grapple with the complexities of the Israel-Palestine conflict, and many other conversations that build our capacity to engage meaningfully in difficult and uncomfortable conversations, the onus is on each of us to break the silence, to turn to each other rather than on each other, to connect from a place of shared humanity, to question, and to engage in conversations that transcend political affiliations. Consider who in your community you can safely engage in dialogue with.
Here are some tips below to support collective dialogue.
Before you have the conversation: resource yourself for it. That can look like making sure you’re rested, have someone on speed dial that you can debrief the conversation with afterwards, make sure you’ve taken time to educate yourself on the context, and that you’re prepared to honour each other’s humanity at all times in this conversation. Have some water on hand so that you can take sips when the conversation gets hard, and also remember to take deep breaths.
During the conversation: listen with curiosity and compassion. Finding common ground is critical in this conversation because we’re not going to solve anything by dehumanizing each other because of our differences. Be willing to agree to disagree and respectfully conclude the conversation.
After the conversation: connect with a friend or loved one whom you can debrief with and process the experience with. If you have a therapist or mental health professional and you find it would be helpful to process it with them, go ahead and do that too.
I recently interviewed Chantelle Okel of the Oakville Palestinian Rights Association for an episode of my YourTV Halton show called Mending Chasms (check out the episode here). I appreciated the time she took to debunk some common myths that are flowing in this era of misinformation. I also welcome the opportunity to host a dialogue with a member of the Jewish community (I did connect with a member of the local synagogue and have not heard back to date), so stay tuned.
May we keep working to choose, instead of silence, to engage in dialogue with each other, to reach across differences, for the sake of our shared humanity, so that we can connect to our mutual belief that everyone deserves safety, dignity, and belonging.
To keep talking, even when it’s hard because every act, big or small, contributes to shaping a world where true and just peace is accessible to everyone, and that a sense of belonging is everyone’s birthright.
Edited by Jennifer Sharman.
(Also published at local-news.ca)