My dream this holiday season
As a Muslim Palestinian, the holiday season reminds me of my grandmother’s stories of her childhood in Palestine before the Nakba.
She would speak of the Christian and Jewish neighbors amongst her Muslim family, how she felt grounded in that community, with their faiths celebrated as parts of the fabric of the Holy Land, and how everyone was way more similar than they were different.
The holiday season reminds me of my dream to experience a Palestine that shares this sentiment that I carry in my heart, before the Nakba changed everything: a Palestine free of apartheid, where all are equal, free, and safe; where no one group or faith has power over the other, and where we can all receive justice and healing.
Last year, Christmas was cancelled. We rejected the business-as-usual, consumerist approach to the holiday season. We joined together, across faiths, to chant, “While you’re shopping, bombs are dropping,” inside of our malls and outside of our local tree lightings. It pains me that this holiday season my beloved Gaza is still under fire.
Today, I watched a video that a mother in North Gaza took, surprising her babies with bananas to eat for the first time in 14 months. The toddlers sang and danced in excitement. A simple piece of produce to most of us was perfectly reminiscent of the videos I see parents take of their children across America, reacting to their most extravagant Christmas presents.
It drove home to me how urgent our work is and how we must embrace the true message of Christmas by Preaching Palestine far and wide.
Often overlooked is that Christmas, Hanukkah and Ramadan are each rooted in miracle: the miraculous birth of Jesus, the miracle of the cruse of oil, and the Prophet Mohammed’s (pbuh) greatest miracle (the revelation of the Quran, revealed to him by the angel Gabriel.)
The celebration of these beautiful miracles back to back inspires me in my darkest moments, and now more than ever they instill hope in my spirit for the Holy Land. As a Palestinian, I have no choice but to have hope and to hold it dear to me. InshaAllah a miracle is bestowed upon us, one where we can all celebrate the next holiday season together in a free and rebuilt Palestine, and in the meantime we must continue to work to achieve one.
Laila A.
Communications Coordinator
Friends of Sabeel North America