فلسطين

Imagine an entire country
An imagined community
An invented nationality
With no respect for ethnicity
Rooted in providing security
Among whose favourite activities
Is smashing the skulls of children to smithereens
Pulverising entire towns
Bulldozing family homes to the ground
Violently violating and raping innocent people anally and vaginally with random blunt and/or sharp objects as well as their own genitals both within and outside of prisons
Creating outdoor viewing platforms and organising boat trips
to peer through binoculars with mad eyes
and curse-ridden lips
and observe airstrikes murdering and injuring thousands upon thousands of suffering innocent humans in the distance
Without a single wince
Just to feel a sense of superiority
A sense of safety
A sense of catharsis
While not even acknowledging their own history and others’ indigenous existence
This country’s ancestors turn in their shallow graves
As they treat the native people like neo-indentured slaves
In their own homeland
On their own soil and sand
Depravity of the highest order
Teaching their children that it’s more than alright to condone others’ slaughter
80+ years of the descendants of those who perished
(And those who perished cherished their creator)
acting (themselves) as oppressor and subjugator
mass-murdering annihilator
settler-colonial agitator
blood-thirsty instigator
cruel cold-blooded exterminator
ultimate othering hater
The dehumanising weaponiser of victimhood that is not even theirs
Territorially pissing and splitting proverbial hairs
Just imagine such a country
An infintisimal quandary
Doesn’t it shake you, break you, rock you, shock you, make you sick to the pit of your stomach and make you shiver to the very marrow of your bones?
If it does not, you are no better than the supposed chosen people who decided to forcefully claim an entire land as their own
If not, you are complicit
Your silence and indifference is their tool-kit
If you can live with that, then don’t expect me to ever sit with you and break bread and pretend that everything’s just fine
You’ll no way, no and never be a friend of mine
So please stick your head back in the sand or back up your….
Assassins and their goons can sing the same tune for all I care
Just don’t get on the wrong side of me
Don’t even dare
I have a reputation for getting hot and bothered
some might say aggressive
But the effect a live-streamed genocide and seeing mutilated bodies every morning before I’ve even had my breakfast
has had on me has been pretty effing massive
Yes, some might say I’ve been a bit hysterical
But to be honest that you’re all not screaming your heads off at the top of your lungs in horror is a miracle to me
But I’ve learned the hard way that losing the rag this way is (unacceptable and) far helpful
Detrimental to a struggle that is not directly mine and downright disrespectful
to those who are well and truly suffering
and who are deserving of my solidarity in ways other than my egotistical acts of holier-than-thou buffering

So now when ignoramuses and naysayers
sympathisers to a genocidal cause
voyeuristically film the passing solidarity marches with their camera phones in their greasy, sweaty paws
As if filming animals in captivity in a zoo
Without a shred of respect for what protesters do
Or when they gawk like vultures eyeing up a cadaver
sipping wine and scarfing down caviar
As we pass the fancy cafe or restaurant where they’re watching from near and far
And are all up in my face as they facetime with their posses after I confront them – peacefully – as to why this is the way they act
I’ll calmly and collectedly call you and them both out and put you in your place with facts
While the country you stand with shoots another child in the back

Imagine an entire country
That takes pride in its brutality
An entire population
Predicated on democratization
Where everyone’s a soldier
Standing shoulder to shoulder in the name of God
Acting with absolute impunity
In the name of its people’s unity
and self-protection
Incapable of introspection
With delusions of morality
A society basking in its own barbarity
A force of occupation
Preoccupied with narcissistic notions of a greater civilization
A western imperialist zone of interest
I feel I may have somewhat digressed, so just…
Go back to your daydream
I’ll always know I played on the right team
And was on the right side of history
While your passivity remains an utter mystery
Imagine a country that does all of the aforementioned
And allows anyone anywhere who converts to its usurped and manipulated discombobulated belief system
To become one of its citizens
and relocate there
displacing locals from the spaces they have lived in for generations so they can move in
While the entire world watches on
Playing the blind, deaf and dumb card
Turning their heads and
moaning and groaning about how life is hard
Problems over there do not concern us they say
So world, how many babies has your not giving a damn killed today?
Too goddamn many, I say.

Just imagine such a country.

Unimaginable, eh?!