Once we allow a situation to describe us--once we own being oppressed and become an "oppressed people"--we really become pressed down. Realize, my Palestinian, my Lubnanee, my Iraqi, who you really are: a survivor, not a victim. You have overcome everything that has been shot at you. You planted your thick roots deep in the soil and you stood firm--unyielding, even defying the wind so as not to sway--and you flourished, and you flourish.
And you remain. You repelled countless bullets with your steel chest and you bit the heads off missiles with your ivory teeth and spit them back--with the force of your heart and your determination and your faith. You NEVER won because you were a victim; you ALWAYS win because you are a soldier of "iman" and "waton."
Pretenses of victimization are weak and transparent. That's what I read in Ahmedinejan's comment: the excuse of an epoch of evil and murder and racism and egocentrism is being used to excuse passing evil and murder and racism and egocentrism forward. "World leaders" showing their disagreement by walking out was petty and immature, and did nothing to quiet the message. Perhaps they couldn't bear to hear the 7-minute-turned-half-hour speech because they are uncomfortable with truths about Palestine; it doesn't fit into their preferred fairy-tales. Or maybe the remnants of conscience that still hibernate in the hollows of their heads were rudely awakened by alarms of guilt--and it was all just too alarming. So they hit snooze.
It's so easy to use the route of victimization for a greedy agenda; it's easy to claim that being abused by a racist regime in one lifetime allows the abused to become the abuser in the next. It's easy, and it's high school--that's how bullies "explain" their bullying. Larger, it's evil, and it's not right. It's also disgraceful and disrespectful to the people whose lives were destroyed by the Nazis. How dare their suffering be used for political gain? That's where the cries of "shame, shame" at the UN conference should have been directed--to those who are soliciting sympathy, like salesmen, for the travesties that were suffered; to those whose "Hello, my name is..." sticker reads: I know someone who's great grandmother's sister's half brother was a victim of the Holocaust, so I'm allowed to displace* and kill Palestinians, and if you disagree with me, you're an anti-Semite and therefore, a terrorist. And you should be jailed or hanged. My name is "victim," so these are my rights.
My fellow humans--people everywhere of all religions and spiritual subscriptions: Do not become a victimization-worshiper. Do not allow yourselves to fall that low. Do not disgrace your fallen heroes who gave of themselves and gave up themselves to pave the road to Palestine; to South Africa; to Lubnan; to Bosnia; to Tibet; to Afghanistan; to Iraq; to your reservation. Do not bastardize your history and your present in that way.
Being a victim is a mindset--never wear that helmet. It is just as heavy and oppressive (if not more oppressive) than third-party occupation because it is a take-over of one's own mind and will. Once your will is strapped into and trapped under that shell, my brother Egyptian; once your mind has been tagged "victim," sister Sureeya, then you have lost. And that loss is hard to recover. That loss is engraved in the tombstone of your spirit because you would have given up the only thing that distinguishes you from a cadaver--your soul.
"Hello, my name is Palestine; my name is survivor."
[*Note to the reader: know that a Palestinian can never truly be displaced because Palestine lives inside the Palestinian, and flows through her veins and sustains her. And when she dies, the roots of her "waton" sprout from her heart and cradle her for eternity. She is never without Palestine, and Palestine is never without her. So the bully's plan will never work, and the Palestinian will never be the bully's victim.]
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