I started writing for the Campus Times because it made me feel the littlest bit less powerless. I felt sick to my stomach about what was going on in the world, but really drove me to the page was the insanity I felt watching so-called leaders in my community and in my country bend over backwards to maintain business as usual during a genocide. I saw so many cheering on these atrocities as some form of justice and I felt that even if I accomplished nothing, I could not allow these absurdities and lies to go unanswered.
That was more than a year ago. Since then I have felt more and more sane as I have found myself in the company of others who would not allow their morals to be subordinated by this school or this government. Amidst the hemming and hawing and deflections of administrators and officials happily wed to an unjust order, so many have rejected the implicit statement that there is nothing to be done about a crime that our government and institutions are enabling. While those with power myopically fret about the volume of speech and the health of grass, so many instead turn their attention to lives of hundreds of thousands of human beings.
Much has been written about protests across the country; I have certainly penned my share. I am writing instead to say something to my contemporaries who have been defamed by administration, the national news media, and too often their classmates and own family members, just for standing up for what is right: It has been the honor of my life to count myself among you. Surrounded by so many who excitedly sacrifice their principles or else never had any to begin with, you have never allowed yourself to drift from your desire for justice. No matter how often you are beaten down, you still rise again, uncowed and unbroken. When I see someone quiver with rage at the sight of injustice, I am inspired, and I know I am not alone.
I am writing because I hope that I can have some small part in motivating everyone with a heart and a conscience to continue struggling for justice. In this dark time I want to make it clear what I know to be true: the cause of Palestinian freedom and liberation, the cause we have been fighting for, is righteous and necessary, and when millions rise up to protest and agitate and fight for what they know to be right, they will eventually win.
Every other mass movement for justice in American history has been opposed by those in power who profess to sympathize, but fret about disruptiveness and how criticisms of injustice might make others feel. It is incumbent on all of us to stay the course and not allow ourselves to be bogged down by these disingenuous voices. There will never be a time where those in power relent and acknowledge the righteousness of our cause. Luckily, we needn’t ask for approval to do what is right.
I have been stunned again and again by the mettle of everyone in this movement, so I feel comfortable in asking one thing more of everyone who has made it this far. I hope when you meet someone who looks at a world sick and broken and thinks for a second that it is ‘a problem for someone else,’ that you will tell them they are that someone else. When you meet someone who looks at a world ordered to exploit and enslave and says ‘it can wait,’ you show them that justice cannot and should not ever wait. I hope when you meet someone who looks at a world that seems beset by insurmountable challenges and unrightable wrongs and says ‘there is nothing to be done,’ you defy them; You defy them and you show them what all of us are capable of.
