Changemakers is an ongoing portrait series. These are people who have decided that bearing witness is not enough. A project focused on vision, action, and collaboration — featuring people from all walks of life, in their own words.
"Growing up in so-called Canada as a grandchild of the Nakba means that all my life I was gaslit, accused, dismissed, spoken down to at the mere mention of my Palestinian heritage. My grandparents, all four of them, have lived their entire lives robbed of their homeland. My family has been subjected to lies and hatred about who we are all our lives. Even from our own friends in this country.
But one year ago, suddenly, the world was ready to hear the Palestinian story. And I was not for a second going to pass up this moment. It was finally our time to be heard as Palestinians. So I took the mic and I've been speaking out for my country and my people steadfastly, every single day of this current genocide. Because as Palestinians we know that it has been a genocide all along, long before October 7th of 2023. It was time to expose the occupation, no matter what it cost me.
So what is my why? I have many reasons why. Because I wanted to bring justice to my grandparents' names. Because I have been silenced all my life, be it as a Palestinian or as a queer person growing up in church. I'd had enough of other people narrating for me what my Palestinian heritage is about.
I do this work because I absolutely refuse to live passively as colonialism slaughters my people with impunity. Canada is actively funding the slaughter of my people. I can't live in this colonial state and not fight back with everything I've got.
As a Palestinian who is exiled from our homeland, I have some level of freedom — more so than my siblings in our homeland who are being hunted for sport by the IOF simply for existing. So I have a sacred duty to use my relative freedom to serve my people's struggle for liberation. I wouldn't live my life any other way.
We Palestinians are a beautiful, powerful, lionhearted people. We have taught the whole world what Love really is. It is the honour of my lifetime to be Palestinian and to get to contribute to this revolution.
"This might sound strange, but I have never been more hopeful and confident that Palestine will be free. Just two years ago, if I decided to chance it and tell a white Canadian I had just met that I was Palestinian, the odds were good that they would recoil in fear and disapproval. I have lived my whole life in diaspora this way. Anti-Palestinian racism was the norm for as long as I can remember in my young life here, even among progressive people.
It is absolutely horrific that the genocide in Gaza by Israel is what it took to wake people up. And, at the same time, the world has never seen this level of support for Palestine's liberation. We are closer than we have ever been to winning our freedom.
I always go back to the fact that throughout history, any state built on might and oppression has eventually fallen. Greater empires have fallen. On the timeline of the history of humanity, Israel is just a tiny blip. A speck of time. All the Palestinian freedom fighters who came before me believed that we will win. So I have no trouble believing it too.
It will take time. It's going to get worse before it gets better. We are in the thick of fascism now and the whole world is aching for justice. Yet despite this profound evil and darkness we are witnessing, never before have so many people been awake to the brutality of this system. Greater tyrants have fallen. So I am very hopeful. We just have to stay the course.
"Some laws of revolution are so simple they seem impossible. People think that in order for something to work, it has to be complicated, but a lot of times the opposite is true. We usually reach success by putting the simple truths that we know into practice." — Assata Shakur
"There are so many ways to join this fight for justice. A lot of people think that it's just about attending the protests, but there is so much more happening in every corner of this city. We need all kinds of people: we need artists, we need writers, we need people who can put together fundraisers for families coming in from Gaza.
Ottawa Healthcare Professionals for Palestine have begun a fundraiser to support Gazan families who have arrived here in Ottawa who are in need of support. Follow @ottawahcp4palestine to learn more.
But truly the single most important thing anyone can do is to use your voice. Courage is contagious. If you're looking around at your workplace, your school, your friend group, whatever it is, and see no one speaking up? Then perhaps you must be the first. Going first is scary, but someone's got to do it. That's what I try to live by.
Every time one of us uses our voice courageously to speak up for justice for Palestinians, it empowers the next person to do the same. Speak the truth, even if your voice shakes. You will never regret standing for the right side of history."
Courage is contagious. Speak the truth, even if your voice shakes. You will never regret standing for the right side of history.