<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
</head>
<body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="">
I can’t forget how Qumsiyeh once visited and talked to us, and in the years since continues his activist passionate work in the Land of Canaan and elsewhere for the Palestinian cause.
<div class="">Here’s his latest reflection, about “compassion fatigue”. </div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">—mkb<br class="">
<div><br class="">
<blockquote type="cite" class="">
<div class="">Begin forwarded message:</div>
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
<div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;" class="">
<span style="font-family: -webkit-system-font, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, sans-serif; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1.0);" class=""><b class="">From:
</b></span><span style="font-family: -webkit-system-font, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, sans-serif;" class="">Mazin Qumsiyeh <<a href="mailto:mazin@qumsiyeh.org" class="">mazin@qumsiyeh.org</a>><br class="">
</span></div>
<div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;" class="">
<span style="font-family: -webkit-system-font, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, sans-serif; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1.0);" class=""><b class="">Subject:
</b></span><span style="font-family: -webkit-system-font, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, sans-serif;" class=""><b class="">[HumanRights] Compassion fatigue?</b><br class="">
</span></div>
<div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;" class="">
<span style="font-family: -webkit-system-font, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, sans-serif; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1.0);" class=""><b class="">Date:
</b></span><span style="font-family: -webkit-system-font, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, sans-serif;" class="">May 21, 2015 at 10:57:29 AM CDT<br class="">
</span></div>
<div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;" class="">
<span style="font-family: -webkit-system-font, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, sans-serif; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1.0);" class=""><b class="">To:
</b></span><span style="font-family: -webkit-system-font, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, sans-serif;" class=""><<a href="mailto:brussel@uiuc.edu" class="">brussel@uiuc.edu</a>><br class="">
</span></div>
<div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;" class="">
<span style="font-family: -webkit-system-font, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, sans-serif; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1.0);" class=""><b class="">Cc:
</b></span><span style="font-family: -webkit-system-font, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, sans-serif;" class="">Human Rights Newsletter <<a href="mailto:humanrights@lists.qumsiyeh.org" class="">humanrights@lists.qumsiyeh.org</a>><br class="">
</span></div>
<br class="">
<div class="">Also posted at <a href="http://popular-resistance.blogspot.com/2015/05/dream.html" class="">
http://popular-resistance.blogspot.com/2015/05/dream.html</a><br class="">
where you can leave comments<br class="">
<br class="">
Compassion fatigue is a term I heard many years ago perhaps when there were<br class="">
a number of natural and man-made disasters and conflicts in the late 1980s.<br class="">
The term came to my mind in the last few weeks. Another saying: think<br class="">
globally and act locally. So thinking globally, I was thinking how humanity<br class="">
could descend to such barbarity around the world. How could African<br class="">
migrants risk their lives to leave countries wrecked psychologically and<br class="">
economically by colonial Europeans to seek to arrive in the same continent<br class="">
that subjugated them? How could Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims be slaughtered<br class="">
in the thousands by the majority Buddhists and surviving people end up in<br class="">
boats and sent back to starve and die at sea rejected by nearby countries<br class="">
including countries like Indonesia with Muslim majorities? How could<br class="">
relatives of Jewish holocaust survivors engage in racism and ethnic<br class="">
cleansing for native Palestinians while relatives of Armenian holocaust<br class="">
survivors lead amazingly rich productive caring lives? How could a very<br class="">
wealthy country like “Saudi Arabia” (the quotes are needed because it is an<br class="">
imposed name for a country stolen by the Saud Family) spend billions to<br class="">
support the US/Israeli agenda of destruction and mayhem in countries like<br class="">
Yemen and Syria? How could a pilot who claims being Muslim drop bombs on<br class="">
Muslim civilians? How could a powerful and rich country like the USA be so<br class="">
occupied by the Zionist lobby that they send their “police” to train in<br class="">
racism and oppression in Apartheid Israel and then go back to kill blacks<br class="">
in American cities? How does the world tolerate the continued siege on Gaza<br class="">
and its starving and dying population (the largest open air prison with 1.7<br class="">
million inmates whose only crime is being born in Palestine)? How could the<br class="">
world stand by and let Egypt execute political dissidents or imprison them<br class="">
for decades simply for demanding freedom from the entrenched military<br class="">
dictatorship funded by US taxpayers? The US and Canada Zionist lobbies just<br class="">
might succeed in getting unconstitutional laws passed to ban standing up<br class="">
for human rights (supporting BDS against the apartheid regime). It might<br class="">
get worse with the lobby getting the subservient governments to force the<br class="">
political neutered Palestinian leadership to accept a version of apartheid<br class="">
(and no refugees’ right of return). But then that is what the PA<br class="">
leadership knew would happen when they signed the articles of surrender<br class="">
known as the Oslo accords.<br class="">
<br class="">
So did humans develop compassion fatigue and does this bode ill for our<br class="">
future as a species? I do not know and cannot predict the future. I can<br class="">
only act against the negative trends and draw closer to other activists.<br class="">
When we do find people who still cares, we latch onto them and try to do<br class="">
something together to keep our sanity. Palestinians were genuinely happy<br class="">
that the Pope decided to canonize two 19th century Palestinians nuns as<br class="">
saints and conclude an agreement recognizing “state of Palestine”. Those<br class="">
positive people trying to do good things are so needed when so many are<br class="">
either apathetic or directly benefitting Israel while getting rich. Without<br class="">
the few lights in the darkness, we would all be lost and very depressed.<br class="">
Perhaps this is why the presence of volunteers around us in the museum and<br class="">
the botanical garden/integrated ecosystem is so crucial to our health. When<br class="">
we walk or work in the garden with others, we feel reinvigorated physically<br class="">
and psychologically. In fact when we do any work together, we feel<br class="">
empowered. On Nakba memorial day last week we had a number of activities<br class="">
including installing a large visible plaque that included sections of the<br class="">
famous poem by Tawfiq Ziyad (“here we stay”). The next day, we hosted a<br class="">
workshop on trauma relief through herbal medicines and working on gardens.<br class="">
We then hosed 44 Nazareth colleagues on a tour of Battir then lunch at the<br class="">
museum. Yesterday we attended a meeting on biodiversity, did field work<br class="">
and got two Bedouin children to help us near their camp by picking up some<br class="">
round rocks we needed for our pool at the museum. They were so nice and so<br class="">
friendly and their smiles even after the sweaty job will always be with me.<br class="">
Their community spirit is strong even when they are threatened as a<br class="">
community with evictions (was done to them before). So while thinking<br class="">
globally we are able to act on location and keep going based on a vision<br class="">
that all these borders and divisions and conflicts they foist on us will be<br class="">
gone one day. We dream of an interconnected free society and of traveling<br class="">
free from Bethlehem to Jaffa to Nazareth to Beirut and Damascus without<br class="">
anyone stopping us at any border. On my desk is a quote from the Dalai<br class="">
Lama “Never give up. No matter what is going on around you. Never give up…”<br class="">
Sometimes we do not know the best way forward but we should never give up.<br class="">
I have a friend in Gaza whose son had spinal cord cancer and now partly<br class="">
paralyzed and the family constantly calls for support. But that is one of<br class="">
dozens of stories, needs fulfilled or unfulfilled etc. It is natural<br class="">
occasionally to have doubts about our future as a species and frequently to<br class="">
reassess our methods. But we must keep the hope alive. We must keep<br class="">
dreaming, keep trying, keep working, and keep living. We must never give<br class="">
up. We must “stay human” as Vittorio used to write to us.<br class="">
<br class="">
South Africans apologize over forest planted on Palestinian village<br class="">
<a href="http://electronicintifada.net/content/south-africans-apologize-over-forest-planted-palestinian-village/14494" class="">http://electronicintifada.net/content/south-africans-apologize-over-forest-planted-palestinian-village/14494</a><br class="">
(incidentally our studies and those of others show how environmentally<br class="">
destructive was the planting of European pine trees to cover-up the<br class="">
destroyed Palestinian Villages)<br class="">
<br class="">
In Gaza, the Nakba is ongoing and you can help us end it<br class="">
http://electronicintifada.net/content/gaza-nakba-ongoing-and-you-can-help-us-end-it/14527<br class="">
<br class="">
US press blacks out Israeli defense minister’s citation of ‘Nagasaki and<br class="">
Hiroshima’ as model for dealing with Iran - See more at:<br class="">
http://mondoweiss.net/2015/05/ministers-nagasaki-hiroshima<br class="">
<br class="">
I was asked about Palestinian heroes:<br class="">
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfeePEHIAHQ<br class="">
<br class="">
Mazin Qumsiyeh<br class="">
<br class="">
Professor and Director<br class="">
<br class="">
Palestine Museum of Natural History<br class="">
<br class="">
Also on facebook<br class="">
http://palestinenature.org<br class="">
http://qumsiyeh.org<br class="">
-------------- next part --------------<br class="">
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...<br class="">
URL: <http://lists.qumsiyeh.org/pipermail/humanrights/attachments/20150521/fb313193/attachment.html><br class="">
_______________________________________________<br class="">
HumanRights newsletter<br class="">
http://lists.qumsiyeh.org/listinfo/humanrights<br class="">
This message was sent to brussel@uiuc.edu. To unsubscribe, visit:<br class="">
http://lists.qumsiyeh.org/options/humanrights/brussel%40uiuc.edu</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br class="">
</div>
</body>
</html>