I wanted to believe in you.
More so, I desperately wanted to believe in you.
Blue all over the city of New York.
Giants jerseys and Obama buttons
I wanted to be one of the sea of blue-decked out in buttons and holding posters bearing your name, in support of your bid for the Democratic nomination. Celebrations applauding the under-dog victory faded into the night's sky. Everybody underestimated the Giants, in the same way everyone underestimated you. But on the game day, the unmatched spirit of the moved triumphed, as it tends to.
This past weekend, I couldn't avoid the impressively orchaestrated out-reach campaign, Operation Vote Obama, that hit the media, cyber and interpersonal battlefields in America.
It's the 11th hour-and you're campagin is mounting an aggressive attack on the undecided psyche and bolstering demonstrable support from people you have already won over. From Superbowl and other TV commercials, web videos, emails, political rallies on CSPAN, phone calls from pollsters, buttons, flyering and poster displays from supporters, ive seen and been a recipient of all these efforts. The Oprah, Caroline Kennedy, Michelle Obama rally at UCLA aired on CSPAN during the Superbowl game. Caroline Kennedy, who in an op-ed piece for the New York Times, asserted her support for you by comparing your inspirational leadership to her father's:
"I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them. But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president — not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans."Interesting enough, the most inspiring thing in our collective memory about JFK, his ideological call to national service arms, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country," was first said by an Arab-American poet Kahlil Gibran (to be more specific, a Syrian-born American). Additionally your online video "Yes We Can: Si Se Puede" featuring a cornucopia of socio-politically consciously-minded entertainment heavy-hitters like Hill Harper, Will.i.am, a pussy cat doll, common, bombarded me from all online avenues-circulated over myspace bulletins, prominently featured as a link in email messages, sent out by Moveon.org to members in a mailer, and as a topic of discourse in personal conversations with friends. I can't deny, it was so inspiring and moving, but I couldn't help but wonder, is it true? I desperately wanted to be the email forwarder, the rally attender, the pollster, the proud supporter, but I couldn't.
I consider myself as someone who downs a healthy spoonful of skepticism minus the bitter cynicism chaser, so I didn't think you were not capable of the messages you laid out in an oratory style reminiscent of the great MLK, but my doubts lied in the impasse where your words and actions where separated by. In the rhetoric of change and hope lay the recycled actions of condemning Arabs and selling America's freedom, security and livelihood to the state of Israel. In this instance, hard for me to reconcile my support for you.
So, the true character and silhouette of my reservations with you stepped out of the shadow of doubt and became visible to poor pollster calling in for my support for you this past Saturday night. It was funny getting calls from pollsters all day. As a got those calls, misprouncing my name, I couldn't help but think to myself: "I would have been him a couple of months ago." So as I spoke, without knowing the power and the pull of the forceful current and i think i projected onto him everything I had bottled up. I caught myself in the middle of my rant, thinking, he what good is it for me to unload on him, and how unfair? Instead, I will re-direct what I began to say to him to the man who my opinions are targeted at, you:
I can't reconcile the rhetoric you use to talk about Arabs, to talk about my innocent family who could have been the "human shield" in Lebanon that was "ok" to kill in the interest of "Israeli security." About the salt to the wound you put in Gazans' misery-no food, no water, no electricity-punishment of 1.5 million people for rockets fired by a few, because Israel, with the most impressive military, nuclear weaponry and intelligence in the world are somehow threatened by Gazans???? This is the salt rubbed deep into the wound that I speak of:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasMy heart bleeds as I fully comprehend the implications of this statement. Beacuse in essence, what you are basically saying is that UN should not be bound to respect the human rights of Palestinians, and as he comments about Lebanon prove, Arabs. These are an oppressed people! What if I said the same about the Civil Rights Time? About the Jim Crow South? What if I encouraged the US to continue fire-hosing little girls at Birmingham, to sick dogs on them, because America has a right to defend itself. What if I said the US has "every right to respond" to civil rights activists? To people protecting themselves from disappropriate assaults? To a people who are forced to collectively suffer for the renegade actions of a few?en/pages/rosnerBlog.jhtml? itemNo=865078
Obama: Israel was forced to close Gaza
The letter from the Senator to the Ambassador speaks for itself:
Dear Ambassador Khalilzad,
I understand that today the UN Security Council met regarding the
situation in Gaza, and that a resolution or statement could be
forthcoming from the Council in short order.
I urge you to ensure that the Security Council issue no statement and
pass no resolution on this matter that does not fully condenm the
rocket assault Hamas has been conducting on civilians in southern
Israel...
All of us are concerned about the impact of closed border crossings on
Palestinian families. However, we have to understand why Israel is
forced to do this... Israel has the right to respond while seeking to
minimize any impact on civilians.
The Security Council should clearly and unequivocally condemn the
rocket attacks... If it cannot bring itself to make these common sense
points, I urge you to ensure that it does not speak at all.
Sincerely,
Barack Obama
United States Senator
Where is the human factor to your campaign? All I wanted Washington to ever do was to acknowledge the human toll that has been waged-not only the almost 4,000 of American troops killed, but the more than a million Iraqi lives lost!!!!!! The change is one of the heart, where we begin to see humans as humans, and not as props and background scenery in the world stage of war play. I know this is the change you speak of when you oppose the war, but does the value of an Arab life stop at Iraqis? How can a Palestinian death or a Lebanese one have less value and be cause for less concern than an Iraqi, American or Israeli life?
Obama, despite all these statements, it appears that a majority of Arab Americans, according to a poll conducted by Zogby International, support you. Miracluously, they too believe in you. In the past couple of weeks, I have probed and listened to the rationale from the two camps-the ones who wholeheartedly supported you until you publically supported Israel, and the ones who critically support you eventhough they disagree with your stance on Israel. I have Arab-American friends who have campaigned for you in New Hampshire, ones who waited in a formidble line to see you speak at the Apollo, ones who use your image as their facebook and myspace profile picture, ones who are at your campaign headquarters making the polling calls, ones who wear their support for you on their sleeves literally and figuratively. And I have others who tell me stories about their immigrant parents who early-on contributed to your campaign and later reneged on their support for you (after your statements on Gaza and Lebanon became public knowledge), ones who have written critical pieces addressing your hypocripsy, ones who can't seem to jump past the last hurdle to celebrate with you and your supporters at the finish line-because their moral conscience can't reconcile the way you have written off the lives of Palestinians and Lebanese people-as if 1.5 million punished this past month and 800 killed in the summer of 2006 can be logically rationalized as means for Israel to feel safe. But in all, it seems that, as demonstrated by the aforementioned poll and the personal conversations I have had with Arab Americans, that a majority lift you up as a banner of change and vocally proclaim their support you.
I say this all to say, despite writing off of 1.5 million Gazans, your orientalist assumptions about Middle Eastern civilization (that, as you stated in a speech at NYC's Washington Square Park in Fall 2007, "we (the US) need to build schools that teach math and science instead of hate (in the Middle East)"), and your shift of blame for the 800 Lebanese lives lost in the summer of 2006 from Israel to Hamas (calling them "human shields"); I support you, critically so. Why? Because, being the enduring optimist with a healthy dose of skepticism, I want to believe in the change you speak of.
I am here to support you because I want to make sure you live up to your promise of change.
33 comments:
a) Gibran was Lebanese - though the fact you call him Syrian shows your true feelings about imperialism.
b) If you are upset about Obama's support for Israel, don't vote for him, instead of whining about how he is great except for that.
can't you believe in Obama even if he doesn't agree 100% with all of your positions?
Generally speaking, it seems self-centered when people feel that a canidate owes something to them. I think that as long as a canidate says what he actually feels, then how can we fault them for that. We might not like their conclusion, but hey, no one person thinks the same.
Just my 2 cents. Keep up the good writing Maytha :)
"a) Gibran was Lebanese - though the fact you call him Syrian shows your true feelings about imperialism."
You have no idea what Syria or Lebanon really are.
...and Fuck Obama.
You have no idea what Syria or Lebanon really are.
Spoken like a Pan-Arab imperialist and/or Ron Paul-bot.
Congrats.
Let's see.
Lebanon's the country that keeps Palestinians in camps (occassionally bombing them out) while refusing them citizenship and basic human rights, so there can be no such thing as a "Pali-Lebanese," as you are a "Pali-American."
And Syria's the country that houses the "political leadership" of the groups that make Palestinians look bad to the international community, thus allowing Israel a much freer hand to treat Palestinians like crap.
But hey, viva la resistance!
Your turn.
This is a brilliant, raw reflection of a young educated woman of color torn between the only candidate who embodies a true sense of change and hope for Amerika, and an inate committment to stop the political, physchological, and militaristic terror that has been inflicted upon the Palestinian people for years beyond the creation of the illegitimate Israeli state. As a Xicana and a daughter of immigrants, I have not been fully satisfied by either democratic candidates committment to creating a humanistic, non-punitive system of immigration reform. Im troubled that the rhetoric around this issue continues to blame the victim and never goes deeper to critique and analyze US foreign policies that create unlivable conditions for millions of Latinos in their native countries and forces them to immigrate. (NAFTA!!!) I am with you on the matter of Israel my sister, and I too have hope that we can change him on this. A critical yet hopeful supporter of Barack-Melinna
Shall we not take solace in the fact that all politicians are liars? In this instance, I'm voting for Obama because I don't believe anything he says. Go Obama!
to be technical, gibran was born in a syrian province of the ottoman empire that later became the state of lebanon, so both claims of syrian and lebanese descent are factually correct.
as to obama, we can never expect a politician to treat arabs as people until we somehow take over the media and start selling pastrami (or diamonds) in nyc.
By that logic, Anon 6:41, Will is an Israeli.
Go protest him.
Nice racist conspiracy theory too. Of course, you only meant the "Zionist" media owners/pastrami (diamond) sellers.
Why should Arab-Americans such as yourself take the license to become one-issue voters just because you identify closely with your brethren? You aren't the only one that sympathizes openly or secretly for the Palestinian -- but to sacrifice Obama's overall progressive agenda in the interests of one ethnic group. I would never do this, no matter how closely I would hold Palestine to my heart.
Despite Obama's unfortunate capitulation to the unavoidable Jewish interest groups, it is irresponsible to let one issue hold you back from electing him if you know that he is the best candidate to lead over an array of social issues.
Besides, I challenge you to find one viable candidate on the table who won't recite the same Israel-friendly scripts.
While this generation of American politics may be ready for "change". It is not ready for an antagonistic relationship with Israeli war hawks.
Palestinian rights, unfortunately, are not a part of the equation -- so why sweat Obama's strategy? He's still surrounded by less neocons than Hillary is.
that was exactly my point-
additionally, i am o supporter of hilary. i see threw all the spells cast to hide the wicked witch of the west's war to conceal her true identity!
actually 7:03 I assume people like Will like to see themselves as patriots of the country they live in and hold ties to their ethnic heritage not limited to colonial boundaries. I am ethnically/geographically arab but am an american first and foremost. Its a shame that people like yourself want to categorize everyone.
also, if certain zionists did not hold a disproportionate amount of influence in society they wouldn't get grief from every other minority.
Obama is far better than any other leading candidate on the Middle East. Far better. So far better, that the conspiratorial part of me says an Obama victory could only be the result of US leadership class deciding to make a statement that it is beginning to disengage Israel's priorities from US decision-making.
And I've already said as president, immediately upon inauguration, I will begin to organize a summit with all the Muslim leaders around the world and have a direct conversation with them, our friends and our enemies, about how we can align the Muslim world against these barbaric actions, against terrorism. I believe that part of that will be to begin phasing out our occupation in Iraq, part of it will involve talking to actors like Iran and Syria, to get them to act more responsibly, part of it will be for us to shut down Guantanamo and restore habeas corpus and send a signal to the world that we're doing things differently. That's the kind of non-conventional thinking and approach that we're going to have to take to reverse the decline in our moral standing around the world that inhibits our ability to actually take on terrorism. That's what it's going to take to make us safer and that's what I intend to do as President of the United States.
With that said, I'm very disappointed by the letter to Khalizad. Further disappointed because he should know better. When he was involved in radical politics at Columbia and Harvard, I can't say definitely but he probably came across the principled leftist critique of Israel, and this was during the anti-Apartheid-protest era so he has to have come in contact with at least some elements of international anti-imperialist thought.
I'm mostly disappointed by the fact that he didn't have to say this. Israel-firsters are not going to believe him and vote for McCain anyway.
But on the other hand, if his campaign told him he needed a statement like this to prevent "liberal" Jewish and non-Jewish supporters of Israel from panicking being that he obviously has a family identification with Muslims, maybe he wrote the letter for that purpose.
There is no question in my mind that Obama identifies with Palestinians more closely than Clinton does, than McCain does or than Romney or Huckabee do.
He doesn't identify as closely as I do, but I could never be elected President of the United States.
Today, and this is a problem to be solved somehow, I don't believe anyone who identifies with Muslims much more closely than Obama does could be elected president. That's not a good thing, but it's not Obama's fault. It also doesn't change that in my opinion, Obama would produce the most pro-Palestinian policies the United States is capable of producing between 2008 and 2012.
Your writing is pretty powerful and well written, and your direction of color is not black nor white, but a shade of grey.
One thing Obama said in his campaign was that people at this time wanted change, and that is why he is getting the support. People are attracted to his powerful approach.
If people did not want change, Obama would not be where he is now. As hard as it is to see around it, the "majority" can have a large impact on issue.
I guess the "majority" were not in for the Palestinians today or the arab. What will it take and when is the time? That is up to the "majority" to decide.
Blind berserk gouging of people's spirits and ideas and sugar coating innocently, no matter how black and white they may be, can both disintegrate positive change for the better. Constructive criticism is that shade of grey that is just right to add that extra texture that provides a piece with more depth, perception and power.
Keep up with your work, and I hope everything is going alright for you.
Oh yeah one thing I learned in class today. The teacher will never know he/she has made a mistake unless you raise your hand and tell him/her. Its scary, but everyone in the class is thankful after.
-Mightyena
also, if certain zionists did not hold a disproportionate amount of influence in society they wouldn't get grief from every other minority.
Zionists or "Zionists" - depending on your persuasion here - do not get grief from "every other minority," (far from, in fact) no matter how much you wish they did.
They do, however, "get grief" aplenty from people like David Duke and Pat Buchanan.
As for anon, 8:17 - Will is a "patriot" and Gibran is a Syrian.
Whatever.
a while back Will had a post that drew attention to an article in Haaretz that laid out the various canidates positions on Israel.
I don't see how kabobfest is that different. Personally, i don't think there is anything wrong in having an issue that matters most to you and voting based on that.
to be technical, gibran was born in a syrian province of the ottoman empire that later became the state of lebanon, so both claims of syrian and lebanese descent are factually correct.
He also wrote a piece called "My Countrymen the Syrians," so there's that.
I could care less though, I just find the arguments about it amusing.
oh my god, people. gibran was lebanese.
he was "syrian" in the same way palestinians were also considered "syrian" under the ottoman empire, i.e. as part of "greater syria."
but in any case, by the time gibran was born THE MUTASARRIFIYEH OF LEBANON HAD ALREADY BEEN FOUNDED. lebanon, including bcharre, was a semi-autonomous state of its own.
go find your own artists and stop appropriating ours!!!!
Gibran, stop appropriating yourself dammit! You refer to your countrymen as Syrian, STOP IT GIBRAN! AHHHh, waa waaa
You know its just like the lebanese to think they are better than their arab brethren. Are far as I am concerned I am from Bilad Al-sham. If you want to make national boundaries go ahead.
Maytha, you were trying to pitch your spiel to a pollster on the phone? For real? That's actually pretty cool :)
Clueless pollster: "Hey Bob... you aren't going to believe this, but some crazy Serbian woman was screaming at me about a terrorist group called the "zions" that is mass murdering people in Portugal!"
Actually I think it's totally accurate to call him Lebanese, I'm just fucking with you guys.
You guys debating Kahlil's "nationality" are hilarious. What you are doing is anachronistically projecting your sense of self, imperial borders, and understanding of the nation-state onto him.
Point being, you might self-identify one way, and others from that region during that time might have identified in other ways (or ones similar to you) but Kahlil actually SELF-IDENTIFIED as Syrian. It doesn't matter what has become of where he was born to his self-understanding during the time.
PC,
Yes, I did actually unleash that rant to an unsuspecting pollster who called me to make sure Obama had my vote. That's just how I am, I'm going to engage you like a human being and not a cog in a mechanical process of verbal exchange. You should see what I do with tele-marketers and army recruiters (and what interesting I learn from them when I prod and probe them deeper than they suspected).
There's lots of identities you can have, nation, villiage and regional, too. Lebanon as a region/province has existed for millenia and that's where he was from. Just you can be both American and Texan. Would you call everyone in the Middle East in the 19th century a Turk? Is May Ziadeh, born in Nazareth, just Syrian too?
At the time of the Ottoman empire Lebanese and Palestinians were lumped under Syrian by the American gov't/ Besides that, he wrote that one very early on in his career and begged people never to publish that stuff later.
I don't think either is wrong. Like I said these arguments amuse me. Somebody edited wikipedia last time I checked to say that he was Assyrian for some reason, but it's been fixed.
But that's exactly what I'm saying, people self-identify in many ways-and have many different associations that aren't necessarily mutually exclusive-agreed on that point.
Gibran called himself Syrian. And all of you small-minded sellout crypto-Phalangi "phoenicians" would have made him sick. Of course Assad would have made him sick, too. And probably Obama, for that matter.
In fact, Gibran would make a better president than any of these assholes. And he's dead!
No mention of Ali Abunimah's article on Obama?
That he told the one-state advocate in 2004 to "Keep up the good work" and apologized to him by saying, "Hey, I'm sorry I haven't said more about Palestine right now, but we are in a tough primary race. I'm hoping when things calm down I can be more up front."
Do you know not realize Obama has to make concessions such as this (hardly disheartening, I'd say) letter to Khalizad to remain a viable, main-stream candidate?
That he has virtually no chance of changing the situation as a senator, and would have more leverage as president? (But to get there must make these concessions?)
Actually, I didn't know about Ali Abunimah's article-can you please send me a link to it?
Did someone just say "crypto Phalangi Phoenician"?
Thanks. I just found the next name for my Hip Hop group.
maytha
http://www.kabobfest.com/2007/03/obamas-groveling-to-aipac-insufficient.html
Obama was way cooler before he became a presidential candidate.
We're back to thinking in terms of the "lesser of two evils".
yes, the lesser of two evils but oh how much lesser! and I do think there is some chance, as opposed to no chance whatsoever, that we may get some movement out of Obama on Plaestine once elected.
good post and discussion (but honestly, enough about the national identity of gibran)
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