18 months of heartbreak
Welcome to ‘Eyb, the newsletter in which I write frankly about topics that growing up as a young Arab woman I’d be told are ‘eyb or shameful, as well as current affairs affecting girls, women and marginalised communities.
If you’re a recent subscriber, ahlan wa sahlan, or welcome, to you!
My frequency of Substack newsletters this year has been pitiful. For that I hope you’ll forgive me, but I also hope you enjoy this one, since it’s been a while?
I have sat down and opened my laptop with the intention of writing a new Substack countless times over the last couple of months. I am very privileged that writing is my job, but since November 2024, I haven’t been able to write creatively, and that has included my Substack. It’s not for lack of ideas or inspiration. And I still regularly open my Substack app and read my favourite newsletters.
I’m just constantly mentally fatigued and heartbroken. But oddly, Substack is the one online platform where I feel able to openly express my vulnerability in a way that I don’t on my social media accounts.
Whenever I go to the under 5’s playgroup I attend with my 3-year-old and watch the other parents play with their babies and toddlers, I wonder if they look at their children in the same way that I look at my son. Because when I look at my son, I remember all the photos and videos I will have seen just hours earlier on my phone, of babies, toddlers and young children in Gaza that have been burned to a crisp, their charred remains on display for us to witness, or, like this morning, the little Gazan girl who was flung onto the rooftop of a building during an Israeli air strike along with the rest of her family, her dead body in two halves. I can’t unsee it.
When the playgroup session was over earlier this afternoon, I pushed my son in his pram around Leeds city centre for a little while before returning home. I watched a group of women climb out of a white stretch limo, clearly about to embark on a hen do. I walked alongside a group of young men headed towards the pub, talking about football. I watched the world all around me, continuing as normal, because I know it has to, but also weirdly feeling as if I was in The Matrix and they had taken the blue pill and I had taken the red pill, and everything in their lives had remained the same because they are unaware of what is happening in Palestine, in Sudan, in Congo, in every genocide-ravaged country.
But, unlike The Matrix, they most likely chose to stay in their state of obliviousness. We choose to be aware. We choose not to ignore reality, even though it is breaking our hearts. But if it’s breaking our hearts and we’re so many thousands of miles away, can you imagine the heartbreak of those living in the midst of it.
I spoke to a dear friend and brilliant mind, author Dr Sofia Rehman recently, for a TRT World article I wrote on feasible ways to continue to mobilise for Palestine, in light of the US and UK s’ increased attempts to criminalise Palestine activism (read it here). Full of gems of advice as always, she reminded me that despair is the very intention of countries committing and enabling genocide. They bank on us, the people who support Palestine, on despairing and giving up.
For my article, Sofia gave a very good piece of advice - choose one way to support Palestine and stick to it, even if it’s not explicitly political, like art activism. She shared with me the beautiful story of how she recently took part in sewing a quilt for Palestine; each participant would sew one square and stitch into it the names of Palestinian children who had been killed, a beautiful way to commemorate them and a reminder that they aren’t numbers.
For me, using my journalism to report and write about Palestine, feels like the one act I can be consistent with (alongside the crowdfunding campaigns that I am still helping to manage for Gazans - see below!)
Just as our children are our worlds, these children were Palestinian parents’ worlds. If we were in their shoes, wouldn’t we want other humans to fight for our children’s right to be safe and alive?
What I’ve been writing…
This TRT World report on the US and UK using legal loopholes to arrest those who show solidarity with Palestine and feasible ways you can show your support.
I interviewed artist and photographer Mahtab Hussain about his new exhibition What Did You Want To See? which looks at how the British police spied on Muslim communities using security cameras in the 2010s for The New Arab. Read it here.
For The New Arab I also interviewed Dr Sofia Rehman, this time about her new book Gendering the Hadith Tradition. Check it out here.
As a Muslim woman who loves strength training, I loved writing this feature for Hyphen on women-only gyms in the UK which are creating inclusive spaces for Muslim women to work out comfortably.
Finally, if you have $5 spare (the cost of a sandwich or coffee at a coffee shop or café) will you consider donating it to one of these fundraisers for Gazans, all either managed by myself or good friends of mine?
Areej Hijazi is a Gazan refugee in Egypt who has one year of medical school left and dreams of returning to Gaza soon to be an obstetrician and gynaecologist. Her tuition fees and daily expenses rely on people’s donations. Donate here.
Samah Al Nakhala is a single mother to four children and still in Gaza. She struggles on a day-to-day basis to keep them fed and alive. Donate here.
My dear high school friend is managing this fundraiser for Mustafa Jaro in Gaza, who is reliant on donations at the moment to feed his family. He is someone I’ve been in regular contact with. Donate here.
I’m also in regular contact with medical student Mohamed Hamad in Gaza, who is supporting his entire family via his fundraiser. I previously wrote about his voluntary pharmacy work for The New Arab. Donate here.