Gaza: The Canary In The Coalmine For Humanity?
Discovering That Hardship Accompanies Ease
Part one of a New Series
Love Is Everything
In this article, I want to share insights into a special place I was blessed to visit many times and has now been wiped from the map by disaster. My aim in this series, is for you to access its people and the spiritual reality they hold which brings so much beauty to our world.
Let me introduce those, who I believe are the proverbial ‘canary in a coal mine’ of global dangers we all face. And who emit a light in this time of deep, spiritual, political and social malaise.
The Real Chosen People
Before joining me in Cairo this Summer, I need to take you back to July 2008.
I was on the deck of an almost sinking ship, overladen with people, bobbing about, in the Mediterranean Sea.
Ahead of the two ship flotilla, some 30,000 people, on a beach a kilometre away, were shouting a term I’d heard on the news: ‘Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!’
In the mayhem of kids swimming in the sea and being lifted onto our ship via Palestinian scarfs, of men in black army fatigues, clambering aboard and looking awkward, yet friendly, of small fishing boats making it impossible for us to dock, a smiling man came over to me. In something of an English accent, he said; ‘Miss Booth, you are most welcome to Gaza. We are all proud of you.’
Freedom Sailors
The Freegaza Movement was a ragtag, and wholly committed, group of 44 rights activists from around the world. I had signed up, as a journalist, to chronicle the high risk sailing from Cyprus to Gaza, which challenged the illegal, naval blockade of the region, by the Occupying Entity. If you want to know more about that time and activism in general, you can let me know in the comments.
Right now, let’s focus on Yasser.
He was co-ordinator for the Campaign to End The Siege. Assigned to make sure we foreigners had what we needed during our 48 hour stay in Gaza.
Neither of us knew, as I stood crying on deck and he stood smiling ear-to-ear, that it was written for myself and 3 others, to be ‘stuck’ there for an entire month.
Fast forward to March 2024 when Yasser received a text came late one afternoon. He and his wife, were barely surviving in a Rafah tent. The text confirmed that they had permission to escape the genocide the next day. They knew if they did not take the chance, they risked witnessing their children being killed, maimed or kidnapped by forces known for extreme violence.
Despite their 7 months surviving amidst the mass murder of friends and neighbours; the couple and their 6 children aged 8 to 25 years old, were heartbroken as they crossed into Egypt. They did NOT want to leave. They want to return to the bombed out home built by his mother’s own hands, in a flattened neighbourhood of Gaza City.
There is so much I want to say about Gaza
But, if I begin writing those words too early, the tears won’t stop and we won’t travel the course I have set for this written journey.
Suffice it to say — what I saw, what I lived that summer changed mine and my families life forever.
Yasser’s mum invited me to their home during my prolonged stay. I remember the first time I visited their 3 storey home in the heart of Gaza city. The formidable woman in her sixties, looked me up and down from her sofa and told Yasser in Arabic
‘Tell this lady to go into my bedroom and take her clothes off.’
Yes, I was confused and if I am honest not a little apprehensive. But, this lady did not look the kind of woman to mess with. When I was down to my underwear in a back bedroom one of Yasser’s small daughters, handed me brown, velveteen, house dress. I ventured back to the sitting room feeling both vulnerable and very much at home.
Between 2008 and 2013, I visited Gaza four more times. ‘Brother’ Yasser, was at my side helping in my work which morphed from journalistic intent to activist bloody mindedness, without my conscious permission.
A TV Series Called Genocide
I, like you, watch in helpless horror, as the Holocaust unfolds in real time, via my screens. Yasser, his family and other friends, would call, then vanish, as the technological infrastructure is first interrupted then deliberately destroyed, along with schools, hospitals, stadiums, even graveyards. Every time friends aren’t online I think….well…I just think.
Until. A couples of week ago, I arrived in Cairo with my husband, preparing to surprise dear friends who suffered more than it is possible to understand.
Our aim is wholly and totally to bring them some semblance of normality, moments of joy, even as the madness and cruelty continues.
To be continued next week….
©2024 Lauren Booth
Thanks for reading.
If you found this piece illuminating, please consider buying my memoir, In Search of A Holy Land. The ebook and audiobook combined are just $9.99.
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