Proud to Be Muslim

27th June 2012

Post

I am a Palestinian child……… (taken from someone on facebook)

I’m a Palestinian child. I live in Gaza

But that is not really my full definition

It doesn’t say much

So let me start again and explain my dilemma

I am a Palestinian war child living in occupied Gaza

Yes, much better. But it’s still missing some detail

I am a paralyzed Palestinian war child living in occupied, besieged Gaza

That doesn’t cover a simple part of the matter!

I am a paralyzed, disfigured, Palestinian war child living in occupied, besieged, oppressed Gaza

Oh Dear, my vocabulary has become too weak. I haven’t been to school ever since it happened.

If I only had a dictionary, I see all the other kids carrying one.

They say it has all the words you can think of! At least that’s what my neighbor told me

You probably know my neighbor. He’s the clean, dressy, smart kid every mother would fall in love with.

He passes by me every morning with a friendly grin on his face

He Lent me his dictionary once to look into

Oh, was i impressed by the number of words in that thick book.

I got so excited flipping page after the other

He looked down on me with both compassion and surprise

He asked, “Haven’t you ever seen a dictionary before?”

My face reddened with shame and replied in a soft voice “No, I haven’t”

He smiled at me with that sweet pleasant face I was used to seeing every morning

Then he added “Would you like to keep it?”

My eyes widened, and my face glowed with delight

“I’d Love to! Can you help me look for the word (Palestinian) in it?”

I could tell from his features that he was shocked by my request

He answered, “Waseem, I don’t believe they have that word in the dictionary.”

Now it was my turn for shock to take over my features

“But… But … You mean there is no (Palestinian) in there”?

Somehow, my impression towards that book I had gone through savagely a while ago turned into disgust.

I threw it away. I couldn’t bear the level of denial directed to me from a silly book.

Between the folds of that massive book, I couldn’t find the word that describes me the best

Therefore, I will use my own words to tell my tragic story:

I am a Palestinian war child

In case you don’t know what Palestinian means

It means when they write about us in newspapers

All you do is toss them in your trash piled

It’s when every kid in the world has his protected rights

While you are left out neglected on the sidelines, unrecognized

It’s when children like me get cruelly killed

And the world still can’t tell whether we’re terrorists or terrorized

I am a Palestinian war child, and I live in Gaza

Do you know what “Gaza” means?

It means a place where heroes like me come from

It means kids like me becoming grown-ups by the age of seven,

Becoming men by ten, and warriors by eleven

I am a Gazan War Child

Are you aware of the word “CHILD”

I look at other children in different parts of the world

They hold crayons and coloring books while I hold a sword

They’d be learning to count on these colorful counters

While I am playing with my own life counter

I am a Gazan war child

Do you know the meaning of war?

It means the loss of family members, the loss of friends

It means amputating one of your limbs or both, it depends

It means deformation by raining acid and phosphorus bombs

It means watching people getting butchered in the middle of the pogrom

It means torn down houses, mosques and schools

It means having to surrender to the Jungle rules

It means me seeing the world in black and white

Like history repeating itself in front of my eyes

I am a Palestinian war child

This is my story

And this is my only dictionary