Say Her Name: Slain Palestinian Journalist Shireen Abu Akleh
There comes a time in every woman’s life where she exhales a breadth of resignation to the unshakeable forces of violence haunting women. I had that breadth May 13th, 2022. My Oakland born Egyptian homegirl sent me an unimaginable image via Whatsapp. I had to watch the video 3 times just to believe my eyes. Truly, my mind could not comprehend the visual of what appeared to be government police attacking the casket of slain humanitarian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.
In my culture both life and death are sacred. I come from a mixed Muslim and Christian household, imbued with colorful accents of African spirituality at every corner. It’s important to mention the aspects of African spirituality ingrained in my upbringing, because it is within this vein that I learned to respect the dead and the dying. I was taught that once someone dies, they immediately become an ancestor. Furthermore, how we respect the legacy of our ancestors can work for or against us in the spiritual courts of law. Needless to say, disrespecting the sacred funeral rites of any ancestor is unthinkable…but to disrespect the funeral rights of a highly revered ancestor is literally incomprehensible.
On May 11, 2022, Shireen Abu Akleh was murdered by Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), while working as a human rights journalist in the Jenin refugee camp of the West Bank, Palestine. Despite wearing her highly visible PRESS vest and protection helmet, she was shot down execution style in the back of her precious head. As a woman, every piece of my being aches for Shireen. IDF soldiers intentionally shot Shireen in the head because it is her head that Zionist forces despise most.
Systems of patriarchy and white-supremacy have long oppressed our bodies as women so that we are effectively too distracted to nurture our heads. By grooming us to neglect our heads, we learn to fuss over our skin being too dark, our hair being too curly, our thighs being too thick, etc. These body-based insecurities subsequently fund capitalist systems that change our outer appearances 1,001 times, without ever changing our positionality. But there are certain women, who despite being born within this same toxic gunk of patriarchy, are somehow able to say, “Middle finger to all this noise, I’m going to focus on my head!” Shireen Abu Akleh was one of those women.
Born in Bethlehem, the same birthplace of Jesus of Nazareth, it’s fair to say Shireen had a fortuitous beginning. Hailing from a prominent Christian-Palestinian family, Shireen embodied Christ consciousness in both thought and action. Shireen’s vast work as a journalist illustrated her understanding of how love and justice are inextricable sides of the same coin.
Freedom fighters from Bethlehem have never had it easy. Similar to Jesus of Nazareth, Shireen would also endure an extrajudicial killing at the hands of government sanctioned malfeasance. Christians in the West can vaguely comprehend how dangerous it is to follow Christ-like values in geo-political hot zones. The early disciples of Christ were often persecuted because they were known for speaking truth to power. Christian Palestinians have been practically erased in Western media so as to intentionally mis-frame the crisis between Palestine and Israel into a dogmatic issue of Jews vs. Muslims. And to be fair, many Muslims world wide have succumbed to participating in the erasure of their Christian neighbors as well. Erasure is a tactic strategically used by governments who typically usurp power via unethical means. A textbook example is how the United States of America enacted extensive campaigns of Native American erasure to justify the countless massacres, broken treaties, relocations, and familial separations of its Native American nations. Zionist forces within the Israeli government similarly invest in the erasure of Palestinian diversity because it perpetuates the myth of the dispossessed Jew (read white) versus the angry Muslim (read brown). It also allows for the average Westerner to never realize that Zionism kills Christians too.
Erasure whitewashes matters of tangible diversity and complexity into polarized issues of black and white. Palestine has always been a nationhood of ethnic, linguistic, and religious diversity. There are Yishuv Palestinians (non-Zionist Palestinian Jews), Christian Palestinians, Muslim Palestinians, atheists, agnostics, etc. Though most Palestinians are of Arab descent, it is not uncommon to meet Palestinians of African, European, and Asian ancestry as well.
Geopolitically speaking, Palestine has always been a hotbed of religious, cultural, and intellectual exchange. Hence, when media and governments minimize Palestinians into a fabricated homogenous group, our understanding of Palestinian humanity and subsequent inalienable rights to self-determination become corrupted. This is precisely why Shireen’s journalistic voice was so important. As a woman and religious minority in a landscape dominated by theological dogma and patriarchy, she allowed her experiences with marginalization to mold her into a vanguard for justice and inclusivity.
Shireen dedicated her life to humanizing the Palestinian cause, presenting it to the world stage as a salient issue of human rights. She, like so many other Palestinian heroines, selflessly forfeited spouse and children. She was totally married to the cause of Palestinian self-determination and freedom.
The egregious disrespect displayed during Shireen’s funeral procession is a sad attempt to eclipse her life’s work. Tactics such as these are intended to psychologically torment journalists world-wide who present necessary checks and balances to all governments. Journalists are protected under UN Resolution S.C. 2222, Article 79 of the Rome Statute of International Criminal Court, and the Geneva Convention. Abuse peaks when the abuser is most insecure, causing lawlessness in lands ironically shrouded in jurisprudence. Shireen’s brutal murder is an act of femicide, and is emblematic of a gross spirit of violation sweeping our world. But the pen will always outweigh the sword. Say her name: Shireen Abu Akleh.
*If I could say one last thing to Shireen it would be the following song…
But all in war is so cold
You either win or lose
When all is put away
The losing side I’ll play
But all is fair in love
I should have never left your side
A writer takes his pen
To write the words again
That all in love is fair
