Amirah Mizrahi:
"apologies
in advance, this is very long, kinda personal (or at least centering
myself) and not structured very well, i might delete it shortly after
posting...
for me, as a person and as an activist, i want to build a connection with sudanese & eritrean aslyum seekers in israel.
one because i am from south tel aviv, which is a flash point of their struggle, and a site of extreme violence, some of which is perpetuated by the community i was raised in.
and also because i strongly believe in the importance of oppressed people uniting together against zionism.
i'm frustrated because i see no way to connect to this community from where i'm at. a lot of what i see is israelis (mizrahi and ashkenazi) and some westerners using their opinions about the asylum seekers in fierce arguments with each other about essentially, who has the moral high ground. of these arguments, only a few (voiced by white, western men who are distinctly anti-mizrahi) make it to the international community.
being from south tel aviv, i understand the dire situation of its (mostly mizrahi) people -- generations of poverty, displacement, hunger, discrimination on every level. i also understand that this situation was built not by african asylum seekers but by the architects of tel aviv which designated "the southern ghetto" as a borderland where jewish immigrants from other parts of the middle east, and other parts of palestine, were settled in order to prevent the palestinians of jaffa, salameh, and their agricultural lands from returning to their homes--and by the tel aviv municipality and the state of israel itself which relies on mizrahi poverty to survive just as it relies on the theft of palestinian lands.
i also see the factors that lead mizrahis toward fascism and violence against the eritrean and sudanese communities- poverty, scarcity, lack of education, the legacies of anti-black racism and slavery in our home countries, etc. i want to understand these tendencies at their root causes and challenge them, not from the outside as so many white leftists who aren't from the neighborhoods congratulate themselves for doing, but from the inside as a daughter of the neighborhoods. i do wonder if this is possible now (for me personally) as an english speaking, western educated person living so far away.
while i want to be fully respecting to and advocating for my own people's struggle, i also want to acknowledge that being as far away (and disconnected for many years, and relatively upwardly mobile) that there are many layers of it that i can't see or account for. i don't want to lose sight of the sharp, material daily fight for survival that it is to be mizrahi in south tel aviv, which is multiplied if you also face gender, sexual, ability oppression.
understanding that, i am so tired of hearing shit like "they are turning our city into a refugee camp"! do you realize that golden dawn says this? like golden dawn, the fascist group in greece? they literally say these same words in their rhetoric! is it wrong to say i want more for my people than to echo the words of golden dawn?
i know the demands of my people, the demands that the israeli black panthers had in the 70s that were never met-- peace, bread, work. i've heard way too many people, including mizrahi activists who i deeply respect and their allies, act as if the humanity of asylum seekers is incompatible with these demands, as if there is only so much liberation to be had and we need to take as much of it as possible for ourselves. let me tell you, there is no limit to the amount of oppression the state of israel can dish out, and we need to view our liberation in the same way.
i am tired of watching (from here) nonprofit workers, white "radical" leftists, and so-called journalists come into the neighborhoods of south tel aviv and proudly put down, displace, criminalize, and disparage poor brown people while claiming to be anti-fascists fighting for the liberation of black people. it's a disgusting hypocrisy. poor mizrahis in the hood did not build holot prison, did not write the law to prevent infiltration (which by the way has its precedent in a law to prevent the return of palestinian refugees), that's YOU people.
i know intuitively that the demands of south tel aviv's african communities do not contradict those of my people. i know that our liberation is bound up together. what's the most painful to me is that i don't know a way to sit with this community and see their demands and talk this out. i don't know who back home would be willing or able to do this. or even much about who is already doing it. i don't want to hear "go and talk to the nonprofits" because they only act as a barrier.
i am tired of seeing refugees, mizrahi, black african, and palestinian, stepping over each other for crumbs. i am so tired of seeing my people grab the most crumbs, by violent means, and getting called privileged by people who eat cakes. the scarcity in south tel aviv is imposed upon its people. it doesn't have to be this way.
and when i'm imagining banners the say "refugees welcome" hanging from the buildings, i'm also imagining them in arabic (the mother tongue) and for each and every one of the people and their children and grandchildren from jaffa and salameh who wrote the names of their town on their hearts, say it aloud on nakba day commemorations, and dream of coming home.
i am imagining what could we build together without our oppressors standing between us and on our heads?
but have i completely lost it , living here in the heart of the empire? has diaspora made me a delusional dreamer?"
one because i am from south tel aviv, which is a flash point of their struggle, and a site of extreme violence, some of which is perpetuated by the community i was raised in.
and also because i strongly believe in the importance of oppressed people uniting together against zionism.
i'm frustrated because i see no way to connect to this community from where i'm at. a lot of what i see is israelis (mizrahi and ashkenazi) and some westerners using their opinions about the asylum seekers in fierce arguments with each other about essentially, who has the moral high ground. of these arguments, only a few (voiced by white, western men who are distinctly anti-mizrahi) make it to the international community.
being from south tel aviv, i understand the dire situation of its (mostly mizrahi) people -- generations of poverty, displacement, hunger, discrimination on every level. i also understand that this situation was built not by african asylum seekers but by the architects of tel aviv which designated "the southern ghetto" as a borderland where jewish immigrants from other parts of the middle east, and other parts of palestine, were settled in order to prevent the palestinians of jaffa, salameh, and their agricultural lands from returning to their homes--and by the tel aviv municipality and the state of israel itself which relies on mizrahi poverty to survive just as it relies on the theft of palestinian lands.
i also see the factors that lead mizrahis toward fascism and violence against the eritrean and sudanese communities- poverty, scarcity, lack of education, the legacies of anti-black racism and slavery in our home countries, etc. i want to understand these tendencies at their root causes and challenge them, not from the outside as so many white leftists who aren't from the neighborhoods congratulate themselves for doing, but from the inside as a daughter of the neighborhoods. i do wonder if this is possible now (for me personally) as an english speaking, western educated person living so far away.
while i want to be fully respecting to and advocating for my own people's struggle, i also want to acknowledge that being as far away (and disconnected for many years, and relatively upwardly mobile) that there are many layers of it that i can't see or account for. i don't want to lose sight of the sharp, material daily fight for survival that it is to be mizrahi in south tel aviv, which is multiplied if you also face gender, sexual, ability oppression.
understanding that, i am so tired of hearing shit like "they are turning our city into a refugee camp"! do you realize that golden dawn says this? like golden dawn, the fascist group in greece? they literally say these same words in their rhetoric! is it wrong to say i want more for my people than to echo the words of golden dawn?
i know the demands of my people, the demands that the israeli black panthers had in the 70s that were never met-- peace, bread, work. i've heard way too many people, including mizrahi activists who i deeply respect and their allies, act as if the humanity of asylum seekers is incompatible with these demands, as if there is only so much liberation to be had and we need to take as much of it as possible for ourselves. let me tell you, there is no limit to the amount of oppression the state of israel can dish out, and we need to view our liberation in the same way.
i am tired of watching (from here) nonprofit workers, white "radical" leftists, and so-called journalists come into the neighborhoods of south tel aviv and proudly put down, displace, criminalize, and disparage poor brown people while claiming to be anti-fascists fighting for the liberation of black people. it's a disgusting hypocrisy. poor mizrahis in the hood did not build holot prison, did not write the law to prevent infiltration (which by the way has its precedent in a law to prevent the return of palestinian refugees), that's YOU people.
i know intuitively that the demands of south tel aviv's african communities do not contradict those of my people. i know that our liberation is bound up together. what's the most painful to me is that i don't know a way to sit with this community and see their demands and talk this out. i don't know who back home would be willing or able to do this. or even much about who is already doing it. i don't want to hear "go and talk to the nonprofits" because they only act as a barrier.
i am tired of seeing refugees, mizrahi, black african, and palestinian, stepping over each other for crumbs. i am so tired of seeing my people grab the most crumbs, by violent means, and getting called privileged by people who eat cakes. the scarcity in south tel aviv is imposed upon its people. it doesn't have to be this way.
and when i'm imagining banners the say "refugees welcome" hanging from the buildings, i'm also imagining them in arabic (the mother tongue) and for each and every one of the people and their children and grandchildren from jaffa and salameh who wrote the names of their town on their hearts, say it aloud on nakba day commemorations, and dream of coming home.
i am imagining what could we build together without our oppressors standing between us and on our heads?
but have i completely lost it , living here in the heart of the empire? has diaspora made me a delusional dreamer?"
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