SHARED BY A COMMUNITY MEMBER
Myself and a few others have reposted this on LinkedIn. Have a read:
*Zarah Sultana is the Labour MP for Coventry South, and has been an MP continuously since 12 December 2019*
I am speaking directly to my white, non-Muslim network.
The dehumanisation of a group is the fundamental first step to justifying any barbarism.
History is littered with examples of institutionalised atrocity that have relied on language such as 'sub-human', 'slaves', 'animals' - all of which we have seen repeatedly used by the Israeli government to describe the Palestinian people.
Why do they do this? Because through this cognitive, social process they can begin a collective othering - that is creating a homogenous group, where everyone is given the same attributes and therefore, deserves the same treatment.
They are relying on you following this form of increasingly certain thinking: Some Palestinians are terrorists, so, all Palestinians maybe terrorists, thus Palestinian women are producers of terrorists, and as a result, all Palestinian children are future terrorists. Therefore, all Palestinians are terrorists and everyone is fair game.
This is a lie. This is a trick of the mind. This is manipulation aimed at leading you into unthinking complicity in the genocide of the Palestinian people.
If your answer to me is: I know they are not all terrorists but Hamas are hiding behind these people.
I ask you, does this justify the killing of those children, women, and men who you know to be innocent in the meantime?
If your answer to me is: Hamas should give themselves up and it will all stop.
I ask you, do you think the Israeli government will dismantle their political systems which actively treats Palestinians as 'lesser people'?
If your answer to me is: They should just go to Egypt.
I ask you, does that mean if anyone invades your country, your land, your house, you will just move on?
If your answer to me is: Hamas should be condemned for what they did.
I ask you, do you think continual bombardment, maiming, and killing is the way to murder an idea like 'freedom'?
If your answer to me is: They have to wipe out the threat.
I tell you, you have found yourself once more where we began - victimised by those who would use your silent complicity to justify genocide, by reducing the Palestinian people to a single narrative.
I plead with you to just take a moment to consider the humanity of the Palestinian people.
Please engage your free-thinker capabilities to question those beliefs that you've never really paid any attention to before.
Ask yourself who are the Palestinians not as a statistic but as another human being?
Search #WEARENOTANUMBER to learn of those normal, hope-filled lives which were taken away because it is easier to believe what we've always believed, than admit to ourselves, we might have got it wrong.
Commentaires