{"id":10099,"date":"2011-08-11T12:25:32","date_gmt":"2011-08-11T08:25:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/?p=10099"},"modified":"2011-08-11T15:23:47","modified_gmt":"2011-08-11T11:23:47","slug":"gazans-respond-generously-to-somali-disaster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/middle-east-society\/gazans-respond-generously-to-somali-disaster\/","title":{"rendered":"Gazans Respond Generously to Somali Disaster"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I remember how exhilarated I felt when I was told I was old enough to fast for the\u00a0month of Ramadan. My feelings had little to do with abstention from food and drink\u00a0between dawn and sunset each day. For a child, there is little joy in that. The\u00a0meaning and implications for me were much greater. I believed that the occasion\u00a0signaled I had now become a man. I wanted to share this news with all my brothers,\u00a0friends and neighbors.<\/p>\n

Three days into the fast, lethargy set it. The end seemed near. Although I fared\u00a0well in my first attempt at fasting for an entire month, I had my weak and\u00a0reprehensible moments. I hid in dark corners with my favorite snacks: a cucumber, a\u00a0tomato, a loaf of pita bread. To be caught would be shameful and degrading, a\u00a0regression back into childhood, a terrible example to my younger siblings, and a\u00a0ripe topic of ridicule from my older brothers.<\/p>\n

Ramadan in a Gaza refugee camp is an entirely different experience from Ramadan\u00a0anywhere else. A malnourished population of impoverished refugees abstains from food\u00a0and gives endless thanks for life\u2019s fortunes. The irony didn\u2019t escape me then, as it\u00a0doesn\u2019t escape me now. The Imam of our refugee camp\u2019s Great Mosque would spend much\u00a0time thanking Allah for his numerous gifts. Hands extended to the sky, and faces\u00a0lowered to the ground, the faithful would repeat in impressive unison: \u2018Amen\u2019. Even\u00a0as Israeli helicopters buzzed above their heads and military vehicles speed nearby,\u00a0the faithful kept their faces lowered. Even as the smell of gunpowder and teargas\u00a0poisoned the atmosphere, their hands stayed extended. \u201cAlhamdulilah,\u201d said the Imam.<\/p>\n

Thanks to God. And the crowd repeated, \u201cAmen.\u201d<\/p>\n

I tried to make sense of all this as I struggled with my hunger pains. I questioned\u00a0the wisdom of the whole endeavor. At times, I even challenged my mother. Fasting\u00a0herself, she had no room for a self-indulgent, sacrilegious eight-year-old. \u201cWe fast\u00a0to feel the pain of others,\u201d she said simply. Any child in a refugee camp could\u00a0understand the meaning behind her words. Our refugee camp was rife with \u2018others\u2019 in\u00a0pain. One of them was Umm Ali, a mother forced to take her children out of school\u00a0and send them to work as cheap laborers in Israel. Another was Abu Musa, a\u00a0construction worker in Tel Aviv who just about managed to feed his own children, but\u00a0never managed to repair his decaying house.<\/p>\n

Since my family was also a member of the \u2018others\u2019 club, I fasted. And like all the\u00a0\u2018others\u2019, I thanked God with a lowered gaze and extended arms. \u00a0Years later, in 1999, I joined a group of journalists and peace activists on a trip\u00a0to Iraq. The aim was to stand in solidarity with all those devastated by the US-led\u00a0siege. According to modest UN estimates, hundreds of thousands of people – the\u00a0majority of whom were children under the age of five \u2013 were killed as a result of\u00a0the decades-long sanctions.<\/p>\n

For this trip, we flew in from different countries and congregated in Jordan. I\u00a0myself had flown in from the US. One delegation member arrived from Gaza with nearly\u00a0$10,000 dollars, which he had collected from schools, mosques and the street. The\u00a0Israelis didn\u2019t allow him to haul boxes of medicine donated by Gaza hospitals, and\u00a0the Iraqis didn\u2019t allow him entry because his passport had been stamped in Hebrew\u00a0letters. The young man left the money in trusted hands, asking them to purchase\u00a0medicine for Iraqi children from Amman. As he turned back at the Jordan-Iraq border\u00a0on the way back to Gaza, he asked me to convey the solidarity of Palestine and Gaza\u00a0to the people of Iraq.<\/p>\n

In this way, Gaza speaks. Gaza Feels. Gaza takes stances and Gaza conveys regards.<\/p>\n

Expectedly, the Horn of Africa famine is now generating quite a stir in Gaza.\u00a0Starving Somalis are also now the \u2018others\u2019 whose pain we are urged to feel. 11\u00a0million people are reeling under the encroaching famine, and tens of thousands have\u00a0already died. Somalia is the epic center of the disaster. The hunger of its people\u00a0shames humanity to its core. Stories from the region tell of the absolute horror\u00a0experienced by whole generations. Yet scenes of mothers tenderly comforting their\u00a0dying children also tell a different story. It is a story of love, one that no\u00a0statistic can capture, no politician can override.<\/p>\n

Gaza, itself under a harsh Israeli siege imposed since Hamas was elected to power in\u00a02006, has been one of the first places to respond to calls for help. \u00a0During a recent Al Jazeera interview, the head of a Somalia-based charity mission\u00a0decried the lack of support his people were receiving. He lambasted the world,\u00a0particularly Arabs and Muslims. He seemed puzzled by the fact that little support is\u00a0reaching the victims even during the holiest of Muslim periods. Then he spoke of the\u00a0aid arriving from Gaza. The news anchor cut him off quickly at this point, and moved\u00a0on to a \u2018related topic\u2019: aid sent by the Qatari government.<\/p>\n

I wondered about it myself. Could Israel-besieged Gaza really be sending aid to\u00a0famine-besieged Somalia?<\/p>\n

Indeed.<\/p>\n

One of multiple Gaza-led charity campaigns to aid Somalia is called “From Gaza: hand\u00a0in hand to save the children of Somalia”. According to Ma\u2019an News Agency, this\u00a0latest effort is led by the Arab Medical Union. “The campaign aimed to demonstrate\u00a0the extent of physical cohesion between besieged Gaza and Somalia and that the\u00a0Palestinian people are capable to support and stand with the Somali people,” Ma’an\u00a0reported on August 2. Palestinians in the West Bank are also mobilizing around help\u00a0for Somalia. The doctor\u2019 union has opened several bank accounts to accommodate\u00a0donations.<\/p>\n

My mother\u2019s generation must be immensely proud. Their endless sermons about the\u00a0\u2018pain of others\u2019 has registered well in the minds and hearts of their children.\u00a0Somalis, too, I am certain, can fully appreciate the pain of Gaza.<\/p>\n

Gaza. Somalia. Even in its darkest moment, humanity somehow lives on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RAMZY BAROUD: There has been much criticism of the paltry response by the Muslim world to the famine in Somalia. Gazans show the way forward.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":10100,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[154,483,90,119,482,5],"tags":[2009,8256,295,18278,278,227,18321,18311,18305,7788,18297,1747,3022,707,700,2904,387,18302,580],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10099"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10099\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}