"Speaker for the Dead" & the lost perspective of the Palestinians

Recently, I finished a book entitled "Speaker for the Dead" by Orson Scott Card. In the book, the main character, (and the first speaker) was a former soldier who's wartime efforts led to the anniliation of an entire alien race, and out of guilt, he decided to author a book about who they were from what he believed to be their own perspective.

In the story, as generation after generation passed, and the popularity of the book spread, so did the practice of "Speaking for the Dead" and 'Speakers' began to go around from place to place, learning information about people who've recently passed away, so that they can speak- with an outsider's objectivity- on behalf of them.

Although personally, I can't say I've anniliated any alien races in my lifetime, I did still feel like I could empathize with the main character in wanting to share the perspectives of those who I feel are never spoken for.

Having a Palestinian best friend in high school, and having spent months working alongside a Palestinian friend while doing international volunteer work, I had always wished that there was something I could do to share their perspective with the world. Particularly after having gotten into heated debates with other American friends, and realizing that the Palestinian perspective on the Israel/Palestine conflict was something that they had simply never heard.

As much as we hear about them on TV, personally, I don't feel as though we know the Palestinians at all. As an African American, I can personally vouch for the frustrations of having people say they understand the culture that you come from when in actuality all they've ever done is looked at it from a distance.

One example was when I was studying at a university in a foreign country and a professor (someone with a Ph.D mind you) said :" The principle reason why Japanese cars are so well-made is because Japanese people are diligent and hard-working. The reason American cars aren't, is because there's a bunch of lazy black guys sitting around in the factory drinking beers."
Perhaps my opinion is biased, but as an African American, I like to think that we're not 'lazy'. I've known quite a lot of hardworking African Americans (particularly in my own family) and if anything, oftentimes I feel we're not given credit enough for coming as far as we have. This is not to say that the Japanese work ethic is anything less than what it's acclaimed to be, but merely that the differences in our respective positions have to be taken into account before any such stereotypes can be drawn. In achieving the economic miracle that they did, the Japanese people had the full support of their government, the full support of our government, full access to education, and strength and coherence within their community. We had none of the above.

In addition to that, we also had to deal with the decimation of our family structure due to the introduction of the crack trade into our communities, and the lack of investment that stems from overbearing stereotypes of both us and our communities being dangerous and volatile.


If there's one thing I've learned from traveling and living in multiple cultures, it's that you cannot understand someone simply by watching their behavior. If you do, you naturally impose your own system of logic on the them (as well as your own situation) and then spend all your time wondering why they act so 'illogically'.
I only know this because as a foreigner living here in Japan, in the past, this is something I've been guilty of myself. Watching from the outside in also deprives you of the ability to see the issues that lie beneath the surface and may not be directly visible. (Such as the aforementioned decimation of the African American family structure also causing the rates of childhood depression to skyrocket to 10 times that of more affluent American communities).

As much as we hear about the Palestinians as terrorists, and see images of the damage that they do, we rarely hear about how a lot of the people doing it are women and children who's lives or families have been wiped out by Israel's continual expansion and/or military action.

Personally, until I looked into it, I had never heard about how almost 40 groundwater wells have been confiscated from them, or how Israeli bulldozers have destroyed some 35,000 meters of agricultural and domestic water pipes (which, in turn, deprived some villages of their only source of water).

I also hadn't heard about the house demolitions, invasions and curfews that have left 75% percent of them below the poverty line, and 30% of their children suffering from malnutrition. I hadn't heard at all about the Separation Wall that the Israeli government is building to 'protect' it's citizens, that will cut them off from even more hospital access and other basic life necessities...while also conveniently taking 50% of their land from the West Bank.

An Israeli friend once told me that their government tightly controls all media that enters and leaves it's state. Maybe that's why I had to dig to find these things out. Or maybe I'd never heard them because our government has a lot of financial interests tied up in Israel, and there'd be no advantage whatsoever in giving us the opportunity to empathize with the Palestinians. Particularly since the Israeli government seems to be demonizing them for the same reason our government demonized the Native Americans; ( i.e. to justify wiping them out instead of having to share the land) so there's no point in our trying to justify stopping them anyway. Perhaps however, that's the exact reason that we should stop it from happening. Particularly since it's our military and financial backing that's making it all possible. Isn't one time bad enough?

Personally, I would rather not look back as an old man, and think 'You know...It's a shame what happened to the Palestinians...". Regardless of how small my voice may be, I would still rather raise it now, and question whether or not our support of these action is really a good idea. Especially while there's still a chance of changing them. If we really are conducting a 'War on Terror", wouldn't that necessarily include questioning whether or not our actions are contributing to the development of it? (Is it a coincidence that this recent terrorist attempt flared up after Israel started it's offensive campaign into it's Arabian neighbor countries? Maybe, but maybe not.)

Perhaps the Palestinians are not the extremist, terroist culture that our media makes them out to be. Perhaps they use suicide bombs not as a weapon of choice, but because their bodies are the only weapon that they have left, and they're tired of fighting tanks and well-armed soldiers with rocks and homemade slingshots. Perhaps, what they are, much like the aborigines of Australia (who's population is now only 1/100th of what it used to be), our own Native Americans, and the original Ainu people of Japan, is a people who are struggling to fight their own extinction on the land that they, their parents, their grandparents, and their great grandparents have always lived on. You tell me: Is this a perspective we've heard from our media?

In summation, I'd like to end this blog with a few quotes that I thought you may all find interesting. Since becoming Prime Minister of Israel, the Israeli government claims that the 1956 quotes from Ariel Sharon are 'Palestinian Inventions' but I'll leave that to you to decide.

"I don't know something called International Principles. I vow that I'll burn every Palestinian child (that) will be born in this area. The Palestinian woman and child is more dangerous than the man, because the Palestinian child's existence infers that generations will go on, but the man causes limited danger."

"I wanted to encourage my soldiers by raping Arabic girls as the Palestinian women is a slave for Jews, and we do whatever we want to her and nobody tells us what we shall do but we tell others what they shall do."

Ariel Sharon, in an interview with General Ouze Merham, 1956.

“We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population.”

- David Ben-Gurion quotes (Polish born Israeli Statesman and Prime Minister (1948-53, 1955-63). Chief architect of the state of Israel and revered as Father of the Nation, 1886-1973)

“This is my homeland, no one can kick me out.” -Yasser Arafat

Special thanks to Iba Farrah, main researcher in health behaviors of school-aged children in Palestinian Territories, for providing information to supplement this blog, and to writer, Tim Wagner, for his input before it's publishing.