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Thank you, Mort. I needed to hear this.<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 5/22/15 11:03 PM, Brussel, Morton K
via Peace-discuss wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:E268BFCA-20BB-45E9-80AE-3AA166D2E04F@illinois.edu"
type="cite">
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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>
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<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
moz-do-not-send="true"
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 moz-do-not-send="true"
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
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:humanrights@lists.qumsiyeh.org" class="">humanrights@lists.qumsiyeh.org</a>><br
class="">
</span></div>
<br class="">
<div class="">Also posted at <a moz-do-not-send="true"
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 moz-do-not-send="true"
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="">
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://electronicintifada.net/content/gaza-nakba-ongoing-and-you-can-help-us-end-it/14527">http://electronicintifada.net/content/gaza-nakba-ongoing-and-you-can-help-us-end-it/14527</a><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="">
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://mondoweiss.net/2015/05/ministers-nagasaki-hiroshima">http://mondoweiss.net/2015/05/ministers-nagasaki-hiroshima</a><br
class="">
<br class="">
I was asked about Palestinian heroes:<br class="">
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfeePEHIAHQ">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfeePEHIAHQ</a><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="">
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://palestinenature.org">http://palestinenature.org</a><br class="">
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://qumsiyeh.org">http://qumsiyeh.org</a><br class="">
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