Though unrelated to Edward Said, I feel a connection to the Palestinian cause
I am from a mixed ethnic background - Greek, English and Maltese. My parents were both born in Egypt and I am an Australian Citizen. I embrace all of these countries as having contributed to my identity. I have no single ethnic identity but my ancestry is mainly Greek.
My surname, Said, is of Middle Eastern origin but was introduced into Malta generations ago and I inherited my surname from a distant Maltese ancestor. We also inherited the Catholic faith and British Citizenship down the male line of the family. British citizenship caused our family to be expelled from Egypt during the Second Arab-Israeli War. My parents fled to England which is where I was born.
The Second Arab-Israeli War of 1956 was fought over ownership of the Suez Canal. In this war, England, France and Israel joined forces to attack Egypt for nationalising the Suez Canal. The war was unjustified because the United Nations ultimately declared the Suez Canal to be Egyptian property. Over 100,000 Egyptians died, working under slave labour conditions, while building the Suez Canal. This gives us a clue about the destructive agendas of imperialist nations within the Middle East, in particular, the role of Israel's military in supporting imperialism.
During the 1956 war, my family were placed under house arrest, as British passport holders, and threatened with being imprisoned. But even before this war, the Middle East had been destabilised through the creation of Israel in 1948. So although I am not Palestinian, and not related to Palestinian writer Edward Said, the Palestine-Israel conflict changed our family's history in fundamental ways - it is the main reason why my family left Egypt.
My parents remember the creation of Israel and my family has always had insights and views about Israel's role, but I haven't always felt free to express these views publicly. Having grown up in Australia, I was exposed to various prevaling views about Israel and thought it was a complex issue, but there are other reasons related to my background and persona which used to make it difficult for me to speak up about matters related to my Middle Eastern connection.
My mixed ethnic background caused a lot of issues for me as a child, during the bad old days of the 1960s White Australia Policy. Back then, my brown skin attracted discrimination and negative attention. With no anti-discrimination laws, strangers in the street, in the schoolyard and at social occasions would curiously, sometimes angrily, confront me about my skin colour and demand to know where I came from.
My parents would tell me that we are Greek and to tell these people that I am Greek. The fact that my skin colour (brown) did not match my birthplace (England) caused many people to repeatedly question me, accusing me of lying about where I was born to escape racist harrassment, demanding that I stop calling myself Greek since I am not from Greece, patronisingly offering to accept me as English and then accusing me of being brainwashed by strict parents when I refused to identify as English. They would also demand to know where my parents were born, and since this was Egypt, not Greece, their belligerent argumentation would then escalate. I found this questioning inexplicable and nerve-wracking. Although Autistics supposedly can't read facial expressions, I look back on those years of being one of the darkest kids at school and I can still see the raised eyebrows and angry glares that preceded this harassment.
Even when I joined the socialist movement in the 1970s, a comrade accused me and my family members of lying about being Greek to cover up our 'real' ethnic background. I did my best, as a younger person living in racist times, to answer back to all of this discrimination and stereotyping, but I faced too many obstacles back then, including lack of anti-discrimination laws and my undiagnosed Autism.
My parents were experiencing their own racist pressures, trying to establish our family while working in white collar and white dominated occupations, and the best advice they could give me, about dealing with racist putdowns, was to "just ignore them." I also had to "just ignore" people who called me "bloody bitch" and "one of those womens libbers" because of my (then undiagnosed) Autistic maths abilities as well as the trivilaising reactions towards my needing strong glasses and other Autism traits like difficulty with sports.
This long term ignoring of persistent prejudices entrenched my Autistic situational mutism (selective mutism) where I found it almost impossible to respond to personal putdowns and ignorant loud voices in real time. This was reinforced by my parents warning me to keep quiet around prejudiced individuals - my parents had been grimly hanging onto economic security through war time Egypt, class conscious London and the White Australia era and they were giving me the best advice that they knew.
My inability to talk back to loud voices and to articulate how various prejudices affected me has cost me jobs and has cost me my membership of the Greens political party. I eventually joined a multicultural, suburban based Labor Party branch where I have been a member for ten years. I have been accused by employers, and by prominent Greens members, of being secretive, uncommunicative and not building relationships basically because I have been silenced in the face of personal putdown and had no prior knowledge about Autism to be able to explain my attributes and social and communication styles.
On occasions, when I have begun telling friends about some of these issues, they have gaslit me by saying I am too sensitive or "you must have a very low self esteem". The gas-lighters cannot face up to the depths of prejudices amongst neurotypicals and prefer to blame the victim, so I have to ignore them.
I will always be guarded around empty-headed prejudiced people, but I will always find ways to bravely speak my truth. Despite these limitations, I have a healthy self esteem because I know I am truthful and insightful and speak up for my beliefs, even if I have some time delay and talking back verbally.
During the genocide in Gaza, I overcame my reticence about identifying with the Palestinian cause. i regularly post articles to facebook about Palestine. I stand with the Jewish Council of Australia, a progressive Australian Jewish advocacy organisation, which represents non-Zionist Australian Jews, supports Palestinian causes, and opposes antisemitism and racism. Please read more about this cause and sign their petition
https://jewishcouncil.good.do/unity/jewish-council-petiton/?_gl=1%2Aqjql2t%2A_ga%2AMjQ5MzQ3ODA0LjE3NjY0NTIwMzA.%2A_ga_ZK74L0GNWH%2AczE3NjY0NTIwMjkkbzEkZzEkdDE3NjY0NTIwNDQkajQ1JGwwJGgw
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