Frozen in Time

By Sana Said

The last 60 years have brought much change to the world. We have seen much to swell our hearts with happiness and wet our cheeks with tears. There was the civil rights movement in the United States that saw Rosa Parks refuse to relinquish her seat on a Montgomery bus, and heard a King speak of dreams in Washington DC. Man’s feet first graced the surface of the moon in 1969, and the 60s and 70s were filled with the discoveries of vaccinations and preventative measures to cure illnesses among other advancements in the realms of medicine and technology. In 1975, the Vietnam war that had much divided popular opinion in the United States officially ended. In 1989, we watched ordinary Germans bring down the Berlin wall, and with it, the Iron Curtain. We watched the fall of apartheid rule in South Africa and collectively celebrated a victory for human conscience. In 2001, we mourned as a nation at the attacks in New York City on September the 11th. After the attacks, the war in Afghanistan was declared, closely followed by the invasion of Iraq in 2003. We celebrated as a nation in 2008 when we elected our first African American president. The end of 2010 and the beginning of 2011 has seen the much awaited Arab awakening, and the ousting of two Arab dictators.

As all the world moves and changes there seems to be one place impervious to the sands of time. May 15, 2011 will mark the 63rd anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba, or catastrophe. The last 63 years have brought much to wet our cheeks with tears and little to swell our hearts with joy. We have gone from massacres in Deir Yassin in the past to Jenin and Gaza in the present. In 1967, we watched the West Bank and Al Masjid Al Aqsa fall under an Israeli occupation that has only rooted itself deeper with the illegal building of settlements on Palestinian lands. Al Masjid Al Aqsa, the first of our two Qiblas, the second Masjid in history built for Allah to be worshipped and our third holiest site, has been mistreated, and its devotees have been banned from tending to it. A campaign has been waged to ensure that Muslims around the world cannot identify Al Masjid Al Aqsa. Sadly, many of our own youth cannot tell the difference between Al Masjid Al Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock. We have seen a division wall twice the size of the one erected in Berlin, marring the green beauty of the West Bank. The Gaza strip has been under an inhumane siege since 2007. The brave men and women who traveled on a flotilla to break this siege were met with Israeli guns, and nine of them were savagely killed. The daily lives of Palestinians have been made impossible by check points, mandatory identification, separate roads, and random security stops. Since 1967, an equivalent of about 20 percent of the Palestinian population living in the occupied territories has been held in Israeli custody at some point. Since 1948, Palestinians and Israelis have sat at the negotiating table ten times. This defunct “Peace Process” that serves no one and profits nothing, seems to only extend the life span of the unholy occupation.

Sixty three years of pain and suffering must never be forgotten. On May 15th, we will remember those who have fallen for the sake of a free Palestine. On May 15th, we will remember Al Masjid Al Aqsa and the danger it is in. On May 15th, we will pray for changes in Palestine that will finally fill our hearts with happiness, Insha’Allah.