(This post was provoked by a piece from Robert Fowke on the Guardian website this week. Read it here.)
"Ok, but why Palestine, why not Tibet or Darfur or the thousands living in poverty in the UK?"
I am asked this question a lot. Not from my friends and family, most of whom are willing to accept my choices at face value, or even from colleagues, who are too polite or indifferent to quiz me about my motivations. No, I am asked this question most often by just one person. Me.
(I know what you're thinking. "Bloody narcissist - always banging on about himself." Well what did you expect? This is a blog about ME.)
So, of all the millions of people suffering from poverty and injustice in the world why have I chosen to direct my energies and limited abilities in campaigning for the cause of the Palestinian people. Don't think I haven't given it a lot of thought - I'm as self-obsessed as the next do-gooder.
Maybe it is some kind of post-colonialist guilt trip? This is certainly possible. As a private school-educated middle class Englishman, and history student to boot, I'm certainly a prime candidate. But I don't think so - I could be in India or the Sudan or a hundred other places struggling to overcome our malignant imperial legacy. And how come all my old schoolmates are working for KPMG and Barclays?
So maybe its the job prospects. There are NGOs lining up around the corner to pay non-Arabic speakers like me mega bucks to help ou....Hang on, wait...no, that's definitely not it.
Well, perhaps then I am driven by the logic, described by Robert Fowke, that lends the Israel-Palestine question special status amongst the other troubled parts of the world because of its unique origins and the extraordinary influence that the defenders of Israel's government have over the world's great political powers.
But no, this is not it either. An appreciation of the region's history and political significance came much later for me. In fact, as recently as 2008, when I first came to the region after being offered a volunteer placement working with Palestinian refugees in Jordan, I would have struggled to place Israel or Palestine on a map.
It was a lucky job offer that first led me here and when I arrived in Amman, the day before the 60th anniversary of the 1948 war, I was given a rude awakening. For those first three months I absorbed a history and a narrative that I had previously dismissed as "too complicated to really understand" or as "just another religious war". I was left embarrassed and disturbed by my own ignorance.
But luck is not the answer to this self-inflicted inquisition. Luck did not bring me back to Palestine, twice. And luck did not make me lobby my MP or march through London after the Gaza massacre. The answer actually is quite simple. It is the people and their stories and their children. Although the guilt, the politics and the job prospects (or lack thereof) have all played a part in the choices I have made it is the generosity, warmth, dignity and courage of the Palestinian people that has brought me back and will keep bringing me back.
Now let's be clear, I have a sneaking suspicion that the people of Darfur and Tibet, in fact, all the maltreated, oppressed people of the world display the same remarkable strength and grace as the Palestinians and others like me probably eulogise similarly about them. But I have don't have the privilege to call any of them my friends. So I am here.
Here endeth the ramble.
"Ok, but why Palestine, why not Tibet or Darfur or the thousands living in poverty in the UK?"
I am asked this question a lot. Not from my friends and family, most of whom are willing to accept my choices at face value, or even from colleagues, who are too polite or indifferent to quiz me about my motivations. No, I am asked this question most often by just one person. Me.
(I know what you're thinking. "Bloody narcissist - always banging on about himself." Well what did you expect? This is a blog about ME.)
So, of all the millions of people suffering from poverty and injustice in the world why have I chosen to direct my energies and limited abilities in campaigning for the cause of the Palestinian people. Don't think I haven't given it a lot of thought - I'm as self-obsessed as the next do-gooder.
Maybe it is some kind of post-colonialist guilt trip? This is certainly possible. As a private school-educated middle class Englishman, and history student to boot, I'm certainly a prime candidate. But I don't think so - I could be in India or the Sudan or a hundred other places struggling to overcome our malignant imperial legacy. And how come all my old schoolmates are working for KPMG and Barclays?
So maybe its the job prospects. There are NGOs lining up around the corner to pay non-Arabic speakers like me mega bucks to help ou....Hang on, wait...no, that's definitely not it.
Well, perhaps then I am driven by the logic, described by Robert Fowke, that lends the Israel-Palestine question special status amongst the other troubled parts of the world because of its unique origins and the extraordinary influence that the defenders of Israel's government have over the world's great political powers.
But no, this is not it either. An appreciation of the region's history and political significance came much later for me. In fact, as recently as 2008, when I first came to the region after being offered a volunteer placement working with Palestinian refugees in Jordan, I would have struggled to place Israel or Palestine on a map.
It was a lucky job offer that first led me here and when I arrived in Amman, the day before the 60th anniversary of the 1948 war, I was given a rude awakening. For those first three months I absorbed a history and a narrative that I had previously dismissed as "too complicated to really understand" or as "just another religious war". I was left embarrassed and disturbed by my own ignorance.
But luck is not the answer to this self-inflicted inquisition. Luck did not bring me back to Palestine, twice. And luck did not make me lobby my MP or march through London after the Gaza massacre. The answer actually is quite simple. It is the people and their stories and their children. Although the guilt, the politics and the job prospects (or lack thereof) have all played a part in the choices I have made it is the generosity, warmth, dignity and courage of the Palestinian people that has brought me back and will keep bringing me back.
Now let's be clear, I have a sneaking suspicion that the people of Darfur and Tibet, in fact, all the maltreated, oppressed people of the world display the same remarkable strength and grace as the Palestinians and others like me probably eulogise similarly about them. But I have don't have the privilege to call any of them my friends. So I am here.
Here endeth the ramble.
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