Friday, June 24, 2011

a palestinian gandhi

"some people think that satyagraha is weakness; they believe that the angrier you are, the stronger you will be. this is their great mistake.



"causing someone to suffer the same price you have paid will never ease your pain. it doesn't help much to be right. you damage your right by just being right. one usually wants to be right only because he or she can't be honest. give me a solution...where my right is in harmony with my humanity and their right is in harmony with their humanity. nonviolent protest is where you invest your pain, a place where this pain becomes active in accordance with your humanity. you cannot practice nonviolence without listening to the other side's narrative. but first you have to give up being a victim. when you do that, no one will be able to victimize you again. I don't want the world to feel pity for me; I want the world to take responsibility, as I do."



--ali abu awwad quoted in "salt march to the dead sea: gandhi's palestinian reincarnation" by david shulman in the june, 2011, issue of harper's magazine

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