What I Feared Most

Danila Jonnud, Hampshire

When I was young and innocent – well, younger – I remember crying many nights. I was 12 years old, and for the first time, I had learnt in very graphic detail that humans could be really and truly awful.

It’s not that I didn’t know already that bad people existed in the world, and that good people could sometimes do bad things. But when I was taught in history about the Holocaust, and the Nazi policies that lead to it, I was truly and completely shocked. You see, to me, while I was young, and my problems were homework and petty arguments with my friends, “bad people” had felt like a minority. After those History lessons, I just felt sick and dejected, because, yes it was the past, but I think we agree that it should never have got that far.

In fact, I had to sit and write essays and answer exam questions about what could’ve been done, what foolish decisions of punishments and pacifications led to millions of innocent people being tortured and murdered whilst the Nazis pretended they had a justifiable reason for it.

My white friends learnt about it, were sad about it, and then moved on to talking about the plans they had for the weekend. My non-white friends were a little more shocked, but it was a school day, and soon there was another lesson to sigh over, another breaktime to spend with friends, and we moved on. But the knowledge that people were persecuted for something like religion or skin colour – persecuted on such a large, legalised scale – could not leave me. So, I went home, and I cried. I was terrified that people would suffer again for similar reasons, and that the world would shut its ears and drink in propaganda. I was terrified that my trivial days of sun, and homework, and friendships, would become longed for days of the past. In those days, being young and for the first time seeing the true extent of just how horrifying humans can be to other humans in detail, I saw the past in my future.

During that time, I was assured that it wouldn’t happen. That social media, and smartphones, and all sorts of other things would prevent it from happening that way. People wouldn’t be so vulnerable to misinformation even if that was all the government spouted.

After all, those who don’t learn History are doomed to repeat it, right? And I was learning it, so it would be okay, I was fine.

I moved on.

But recently, I’ve really been reminded of that time. You see, what I feared most was the end of my trivial days. What I feared most was that the government would turn against us for some reason or other. What I feared most was that those inhumane acts we learnt of in History classes, would become the present instead.

It’s been over six years since that time, and I wish my younger self would never know that the comfort of “it will never happen again” would be so short-lived.

You see, I’m still living my trivial days, but the children of Palestine are dreaming of them – dreaming, because it must feel so unattainable when they are being bombarded constantly by a state that designates them “animals” and “children of darkness.”

Though thankfully, the vast majority of ordinary people are against the barbaric destruction of Palestinians, too many world leaders are not. Too many attempt to justify the genocide with Israel’s own propaganda, claiming it was self-defence, claiming it is for a greater good, that the “collateral” is unfortunate but there is a higher cause – one more important than the deaths of thousands.

And have you ever heard of anything more oxymoronic, more dystopian, more completely inhumane than a “humanitarian pause”? The furthest they can go is to call for the mass murder to be halted every once in a while. Is that not torture? To only delay the deaths, to allow aid only so they can prepare for more suffering.

As a child, I loved fireworks night of course. I would sit by the window and watch the pretty sparks momentarily light up the night with wonder and amazement. Now, I’m barely 18, and the sound of fireworks only remind me of the suffering in Gaza. I closed my curtains, and wondered how we were making pretty lights with the sound that signifies death to thousands. That sound lasted the whole of my trivial night, while I sat safely, and thought that while children in the country heard it and rushed to see the light, children in Palestine would likely be praying for it to end.

What makes me angry – the kind of anger that comes with despair – is that the Palestinian people, and their supporters around the world share videos of children crying and bloodied, of their small corpses covered in dust and debris, to try and elicit some sympathy from world powers. Even I’ve been talking about the children suffering, but isn’t it sickening that we are at a point where that is all we have left to force our leaders into saying that murder is wrong? Should it really take marches of millions of people, the speeches of Holocaust survivors, and pictures of dying children to call a genocide a genocide and – to use a favourite word of the media’s – condemn it?

We are all Palestinians.

That’s the chant. And that’s the truth.

We see, feel, and fight for them because we must. Because they have no one else. Because our trivial days are their dreams.

What I feared most was in fact the kind of government that we appear to have today. The kind that will not vote for a ceasefire and appears to care nothing for real people. The kind that my children or grandchildren might write essays about, detailing exactly what they could have done to prevent it, summarising what they should have tried to do had they induced compassion and humanity.

So, I hope, and I pray, that the days come when the children of Palestine have only got homework and friendships to worry about. But I also hope and pray that the adults of Palestine – the strong women and kind men who use what energy they have in the midst of their suffering to dig people out of rubble, make babies smile, and even care for stray cats surrounded by the destruction of their homes – I hope and pray that they also get to live in a world where their lives are valued by everyone.