Gaza.. The heart and conscience of the world, in a world without a heart or conscience

I have changed; I now have a new heart, and it goes by the name of Gaza. That's all I know. Gaza, the broken city that has become a test and a challenge for what is called 'humanity'. The word 'humanity', I disown its old meaning that crumbles before my eyes, disintegrating into dust and blood. And that meaning grows anew, like a phoenix rising from the ashes, so that I can re-learn it.

I redefine that meaning to my friends, and I outline the word clear and sharp as the blade of a knife: 'enemy', yes, my enemy. Oh, what a sweet word! It flows from my heart and smoothly off my tongue, without any hesitation or stuttering, in front of those who hesitated in the face of the genocide in Gaza, those who hesitated and stuttered and launched verbal smoke grenades from all their stuttering.

My enemies are not those who deny the clear truth. These people have no place in my feelings of love or enmity. Enmity implies a depth of emotion, hostility, recognition, and a loathsome place in the heart. There is nothing in them that resembles or contradicts me for me to love or oppose them. Nothing connects us with monsters, those who are accomplices in the crime, and its promoters and advocates. Those are the ones who shamelessly use the meaning of 'humanity', like a shield they hide behind while distributing death and genocide with the same soft words they condemned death, genocide, and war crimes anywhere in the world, except Gaza.

I have changed; I now have a new heart, and it goes by the name of Gaza. That's all I know. Gaza, the broken city that has become a test and a challenge for what is called 'humanity'.

And I am not the only one who has changed and now has a new heart; it seems that the entire world is redefining the meaning of 'humanity', a term that has fallen a lifeless corpse beneath our feet. Gaza has become the heart and conscience of that world, in a world without a heart or conscience.

Grief-stricken posts flood my social media feeds, speaking of people's change in hearts and minds. This is more than a momentary surge of hot emotions driven by anger; it's a seismic shift caused by a pivotal event in history. It's impossible for a person to have an ounce of humanity in him/her to be unmoved by this pivotal event in history. It's one of those rare incidents that redefine what comes after. Countries claiming democracy and those in the Arab world are all the same. They have colluded and betrayed the people to besiege and exterminate two million civilians in what has become the world's largest prison.

We saw how the 'democratic nations' ignored the voices and will of their own people. We saw how The Washington Post, BBC, The Guardian, CNN, and other newspapers and channels around the world that often proudly flaunted their journalistic professionalism and press freedom, and trained us to meet their standards, have betrayed them themselves and shown us their most horrifying side. It's even worse than our own biased media.

We saw how 'democratic nations' ignored the voices and will of their own people. We saw how BBC, The Guardian, CNN and other global channels that have always preached about freedom of the press, and trained us to meet their standards, betrayed them themselves

The discourse does not even seem inspired by the legacy of Eastern tyranny but rather from a dark dystopian imagination, hidden behind the shiny human language. It emerges from the propaganda of Joseph Goebbels himself, the Minister of Nazi Propaganda, as if Nazism, the Holocaust, and nuclear annihilation are the hidden idea behind all this splendor presented by the West.

In the moment of truth, it becomes apparent that, to the superior white man, all of us Arabs, not just Gazans, are mere "human animals" or, at the very least, at a lower echelon of human rank. What befalls the people of Palestine is a rehearsal for what could happen to us. The West remains indifferent to our spilled blood unless it serves their direct interests. When faced with this true test of their principles, they were the first to falter. As for our trembling governments, the Israeli Prime Minister, spearheading his holy spear of hatred towards us, arrogantly demanded their silence, and they have given it.

Governments are not the people, that much has become clear. People all around the world now know. There is no distinction in this between East and West. It's not about Arabism or Islam; that's a narrow view. The issue is fundamentally human. If we agree that the heart of the connection between us and the world is Gaza, then they are the free ones in this world.

I am not the only one who has changed; it seems that the entire world is redefining the meaning of 'humanity', a term that has fallen lifeless beneath our feet. Gaza has become the heart and conscience of that world, in a world without a heart or conscience

Perhaps we have not yet discovered the extent and impact of this change, nor the genuine ways to achieve it. However, each of us is now looking for the way forward, and Gaza has become my compass for understanding, measuring, and analyzing the situation. I read everything that's related to this heart of mine, searching for a new meaning that restores my faith in humanity and rebuilds my confidence in myself on grounds other than those waiting for the approval of the white man and his narrow and ignorant colonial understanding of the world.

In the introduction to her book "The Leaderless Revolution", Karen Ross mentions a question posed to Egyptian youth during the Arab Spring protests: "What results do you hope to see from the revolution?" The answer that came back was striking: "Achieving democracy, but not in the Western sense and style that is controlled by multinational corporations." Ross was amazed by the young man's response, reflecting an advanced awareness of what he thought, and what has been proven with time; a democracy that, in a moment, mirrors the soft, reversed face of dictatorship, ignoring the will of its people.

Gaza is what is happening in Congo, it's the genocide in Sudan, it's what happened in Syria at the hands of its ruler who now shamelessly condemns the Gaza massacre, despite paving the way for Israel and the world to see the annihilation of Gaza as something natural.

The world will change and Gaza will live on, for this city is the world's true and final pulse.

* The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Raseef22