this is not a hotel: breaking borders

1.

my friend, theresa (who we stayed with in scotland before we journeyed to israel last night), was beaten imprisoned and disappeared by the israeli governement.  i found out last night when another free gaza sailor stayed overnight.  fuck! no, really…the fucking israeli bastards…the sailor was texting her in prison (the israeli prison guard bastards gave her back her cell phone) so we sent a short message…

here is the link to the article: disappeared free gaza activist theresa mc dermott found in israel’s ramleh prison

Scottish activist Theresa McDermott has been found in Ramleh prison four days after she was “disappeared” by the Israel government after being forcibly removed from a seaborne Lebanese aid mission to Gaza. In early February Theresa responded to a call for support from internationals from the organizers of a Lebanese humanitarian aid voyage to Gaza aboard the Togo flagged ship, Tali. Theresa was one of only 9 passengers aboard the cargo ship on February 4, 2009 when Israeli gunboats intercepted it, boarded and forced the ship to Ashdod port in Israel.

baptism and funerals

lets jump in…

i guess i could feign surprise.  but i am not surprised.  this is what israel does.

i guess i could pretend to see both sides of the issue, and weigh them, but i dont see both sides.  i dont give a fuck about israeli justification for this shit. and fuck the arab governments as well.  you use palestine as an exclamation point in useless speeches and then sign off on palestinian genocide.

i am betting that the death toll will end up between 400-500 gazans.  they are still pulling bodies out of rubble.  and the hospitals are turning folks away because they are over run by the dead and the dying.

i dont want to look at it from the perspective of a mother today.  if you have a child you can understand why.  its easier to be a political scientist, a socio-economic analyst, a brain and not a soul.

the day after christmas we went to a sweet baptism of my nephew in a vintage americana barn.  the phrase that keeps reverberating in my head: we arent saved by what we do, we are saved because of what we do.  in other words: we are not saved by works alone, but we ask for gods salvation because of all of the things we have done in the past.

but i dont believe that one is saved by works or faith.  i dont believe that jesus has anything to do with this.  or this. or this.  if there is anything worth believing in it is the fact that gazans that palestinians that all those who have suffered still reach for life.

today anyone who believes in god has to admit that god is not as compassionate as many human beings.  if there is a god today we have to admit that he has become powerless and she has become barren.

what the fuck does it matter if when you die you will go to heaven or hell, when today is hell?  what the fuck will works or faith save you from?

one day i was watching a baptism, the next day funerals.

i am not a superhero.  it is difficult to be packing up my apartment to leave for palestine as i listen in the background to the news of israeli massacre of palestinians in gaza.  i have never been to gaza.  in the west bank, what happens in gaza i watch on al jazeera and the bbc just like everyone else.  it feels like another part of the world, even though it is less than a 100 miles away.

today i pray for the mothers in gaza.  and their children.

i dont vote

i wrote this as a response to moya’s discussion over at quirky black girls about ambivalence toward the election of obama…so i am posting it here as well…

i didnt vote. i never vote.
i guess i am of two minds…but them i am usually of two (or more) minds. the day of the election, i went to arabic class. my teacher had scheduled the class an hour earlier than usual because he wanted to get to grant park in time in order to celebrate obama’s victory. i was kind of surprised. he grew up in gaza, studied at bir zeit in the west bank and obama is very pro-israel. now, obama’s position on israel has not gotten alot of press, but frankly, when he announced that he believed in an undivided jerusalem, i was pissed. let me unpack the phrase ‘undivided jerusalem’ for a moment. jerusalem at the moment is one of the most contested pieces of real estate in the world. the israeli government has built large israeli settlements surrounding jerusalem in order to make the ‘facts on the ground’ that all of jerusalem and the land surrounding jerusalem belongs to israel. at the moment there is west jerusalem (israel) and east jerusalem (palestinian) and then surrounding east jerusalem massive israeli settlements that block east jerusalem palestinians from being able to reach the rest of the west bank without going through a series of military checkpoints. it can take hours to travel ten miles to the nearest city in the west bank. i am not talking about abstract people, or dots on a map, i am talking about my friends that can’t go see their family or their family land (if the israelis havent already confiscated that family land for israeli settlements).
on the other hand (the other mind) i think about my daughter. my little biracial daughter who is seriously going to grow up thinking that it was the olden days when a person of color could not lead the empire. she is going to shrug her shoulders and be like: whatev, mom. the way that i used to be when my mom used to tell me stories about integrating her high school in rural south carolina. when i was a teenager, in my (integrated) high school i told everyone that i planned to become president of the usa. i wanted to change the world and the presidency seemed like the instrument to use. i would tell people that i refused to say the pledge of allegiance (it was required that everyone in the school stand for the pledge every morning…welcome to virginia) until racism ended in the usa. a fellow student asked me how was i going to be president of the usa if i wasnt willing to say the pledge…and my lil 13 year old self quipped…well when i am president then obviously racism will have ended! in that school i was considered really radical for thinking that i (a geeky lil black girl) could be president.