This weekend in yoga study, we began learning about vishuddha - the throat chakra - the energy center that governs self assertion, creative expression, truth telling, and advocacy for self and others. We learned about how this energy center is a powerful portal for individual and collective healing. How expressing ourselves and feeling heard is one of many ways to restore balance. How being chronically silenced, talked over, or unheard leads to disease, blockages, and disempowerment.
This weekend, Gaza suffered yet another massacre carried out by the state of Israel, and enabled by billions of dollars of US financial and political support. At the time of this writing, the death toll includes 44 Palestinians (16 of whom were children), and 311 injured. Among the dead include 22-year-old Donyana Al-Amoor, a visual artist whose artwork I’m featuring throughout this essay. May she rest in power and peace, may her family find patience in their grief.
A ceasefire is now in place, but the violence endures in Gaza. Every minute of living under Israeli siege and occupation is tyranny. It’s just the massacres that get televised.
I have been thinking about how systemic and chronic violence often leaves bystanders speechless. A common response to these normalized cycles of brutality is: “I have no words.” I admit I felt that this weekend as I watched the violence escalate in Gaza. I reflected on how things never seem to change, how the oppressors are never held to account, how the masses seem to share this moral blindspot, and how Palestinian liberation feels unattainable. The screams of pain and cries for justice, it all seems to enter the abyss. The cycle feels endless and unchangeable. For a moment, I believed we are powerless in the face of evil.
Contemplating the throat chakra opened up a new perspective on this type of speechlessness. To wear down the voice of the oppressed and their allies: this, too, is violence. To disempower truth-tellers: this, too, is oppression. To relinquish the voice is to surrender to evil.
This realization lights a fire within me. It makes me want to bang the drum even louder. It makes me want to find the words, new words, to amplify the voices of Palestine. And when I can’t find new words, I’ll repeat the ones said before. It makes me want to double down on healing myself, so that I may be even more empowered for the long haul labor of truth telling.
I share these thoughts for fellow advocates of Palestine, truth, and justice who feel a loss for words in the face of endless devastation. Notice it when it happens, trace it back to its root. Tend to yourself. Do what heals your aching heart.
But don’t give in to it.
There is a profound power in words, in expression, in repetition, in wielding language, in offering prayer, in protesting, in boycotting, in singing, in writing. Keep saying words because they matter. Say them online, say them to your community, to those in power. Say them in prayer. Fuse language with intention. Words have an energetic power that can bend the arc of history towards justice.
I also share these thoughts for those who’ve opted out from speaking out against the tyranny of the Israeli occupation and American support of it. Those who feel it’s too complex or foreign to have an opinion. Examine that. Take your learning into your own hands. What force is at play here that prevents you from wholeheartedly condemning the mass murder of children? On your dime, no less. Who benefits from the situation being deemed ‘too complex’ for your participation? Heal whatever it is within you that makes your compassion selective. I reject the normalization of Palestinian death, and invite you to do the same. After all, our liberation and Palestinian liberation are one and the same.
A world can exist where we not only normalize Palestinian aliveness, but celebrate, uphold, and defend it. To get there, I’m ready to echo the chants of my comrades, and contribute language of my own that pushes us towards that future. I’m ready to dream beyond the rhetoric of a bloodthirsty empire. When I surrender to this vision, one of a free Palestine, I can taste the cardamom-infused coffee on my tongue, I can feel the Mediterranean sun on my skin. I’m ready for this world. Are you?
From the river to the sea. Within our lifetime. ✊🏽
I am dead certain that God's Mercy and help shall shatter tyranny and shred the oppressive ideologies that make people feel helpless and at a loss or word. Speak the truth. Be good. Trust in God. Leave the rest to the Providence of God.