When my younger self was radicalized 17 years ago, he deeply believed that the world was "us vs them", "with us or against us" and that everyone who didn't believe that were clueless sheeple, or complicit
He also believed "we" were the victims of "them" and that "we" are under such existential threat that anything "we" do in self defence is justified given how high the stakes are
Looking back 17 years later I now see the details of the ideology and how each point was justified as minor and almost insignificant details. A grand narrative of "us vs them" needed justification and it found a way, regardless how many facts or moral truths it needed to twist.
So here's a quick note, when I speak about radicalization I'm not speaking about abstract things. I've been there and back. I can tell you what my former self would have listened to and what would have just made him worse.
Us vs them = radicalize him more.
Of course when I was radicalized I thought I was doing it for Islam.
Now looking back I see radicalization as having very little to do with faith and everything with an awakening of our primal tribal impulse. It's about defense of the tribe.
You'd notice that I say "former self" rather than "me". This is because if I find a time machine and go back 17 years, it'll be as though I'm speaking to a different person. I'll know quite a bit about him, but he'll feel no loyalty towards me. He's too angry for that.
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Today in "Being Palestinian in Norway". My bank, @NordeaNorge, sends me text and email saying I have a very important message in my digital mailbox.
I don't have a digital mailbox.
I wanted one, but @NordeaNorge said Palestinians can't have one. We're second-class humans.
Second day I'm calling, and still on hold. Because Palestinians don't need to have their time respected either.
Yesterday I was on hold for 30 mins until my phone credit ran out (yes, it's a paid line, because they want to discourage calls, because who needs to call anyway other than people like me?)
It's honestly exhausting. And it's lonely, really lonely. Nobody, not even people close to me, can understand the pain we're going through as Palestinians. The lived reality of being Palestinian is so far removed from most people's lived experience, and it's about to get worse.
It feels worse because as an Arab Spring activist I have over the years stood in solidarity with everyone. I put myself at risk for everyone. So now it does sting that when it's my own cause, when it's about me and my family and our destiny, I hear mostly silence.
Most people, including many from the MENA, think that what's currently happening is just a few normalization agreements and miss the deeper implication. This is the end of Palestinian statehood, and the start of naked apartheid and permanent statelessness.
Most people are not self aware and are really bad at figuring out the true reasons why they do what they do. A lot of the time what they think (or say) is their motive is really little more than a cover for what else is going on in there.
Consider this before we all have a collective fit about what this person or that is doing in the name of their religion or ideology or race or whatever. Consider it again when you feel you need to dissect the religion or ideology or race to find the roots of criminality.
I know this is less cathartic than many wish, but then if something feels too readily cathartic it's quite often a trap.
I'm a Palestinian and I want my Iranian sisters & brothers to live in dignity with a government that centers them and represents them - not one that robs and beats them. I am disgusted whenever dictators use the Palestinian cause as a washcloth to wipe the blood off their hands
Dictators are very aware of their morality deficit and so grab onto anything and everything that could make them look more moral, and that includes instrumentalizing moral causes. Our job as Palestinians is to reject that instrumentalization. It does not benefit our cause.
How do you think I feel as a Palestinian when I know that a Syrian sister or brother were tortured at the "Palestine branch", or that some of my Syrian sisters and brothers lost their homes thanks to the Al Quds force? As Palestinians we need to stay no.