It kinda hit me that North America, my country, tried to recreate the narrative they perpetuated throughout the Iraq War: that Middle Eastern people are meant to suffer. We don’t want it to happen, but it’s kinda inevitable isn’t it? They don’t have the resources. They don’t have the education. We need to save them from the wars we start and the devastation we profit from. They need us.
It worked during the Iraq War because, even though many Americans were against it, Bush successfully managed to insinuate that they were exceptions. He ensured your discomfort with the war wasn’t as simple as you disagreeing with the killing of innocent people, but instead a disapproval of your country. You didn’t respect America. You didn’t care about it. Suddenly, you also disrespected America’s principles. You hated justice. You hated freedom. You didn’t want to help the people of Iraq because if you really wanted to, you’d oppose terrorism, and you’d support this war.
I wasn’t alive in 2003, but from the way it’s been described, and from the music I’ve listened to and the recollections I’ve heard, the Iraq war didn’t represent the people of America. It wasn’t supposed to. Instead, it represented the values of America. It represented the things American politicians, corporations, and their supporters are willing to sacrifice and excuse for the sake of money, reputation, and power.
But it falls apart when you have to witness the tolls war has on people. When you have to hear their stories. When you have to learn their names. When you have to see emaciated bodies. When you have to see families screaming and crying; mourning on camera. When you have to see corpses belonging to the same people you’d seen smiling and laughing and dancing not even days ago.
And the narrative completely shatters after you experience the dissonance between Gaza and Israel. When you see Zionists dancing near the homes they destroyed. When you see them partying a few miles away from the remains of churches, universities, and homes. When you see them in uniforms, hear about their white phosphorus and their bombs, and read about all of the human rights they get to violate whilst still getting a seat at the table where they can decide how many more homes they can destroy and people they can kill.
They then try to tell you that disagreement with this war makes you a bigot. Makes you prejudiced. If you’re against Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and if you’ve been against the ongoing apartheid, then you’re anti-Semitic. Think about the Holocaust. Think about the influx of hate crimes happening to Jewish people in your country. And you do think about them. You’ve been thinking about them. That’s why it doesn’t work.
Because you know what anti-Semitism looks like. You also know what Islamophobia looks like. You also know what genocide looks like. It doesn’t have to be defined for you anymore. You’re seeing examples of it every day. You can never forget what it means. And so the narrative fails because you understand that no one should experience this. Even if they’re “supposed to” but were they? You thought you were crazy or naive, but no. It doesn’t have to be this way. It never should’ve been, and they were wrong for trying to convince you that it should. They were cruel. They were callous. They were evil.
So now, it doesn’t matter how many celebrities stay silent. It doesn’t matter how many politicians try to demonize you, and it doesn’t matter how many labels they try to assign you for opposing this war. Because you know it isn’t a war. It never has been. It’s a genocide, and contrary to their attempts to say otherwise, you should be against it. Because before you’re an American or a Palestinian or Jewish, you’re human, and if you still have any shred of humanity left, you can’t support this.
