On Friday, Sept. 5, when I should have been driving through US-36 back to Aurora, Colorado to see my parents, I decided to watch a movie that GUT-C and SJP were hosting to fundraise for 19-year-old Feras and 20-year-old Razan. The movie was “The Time That Remains,” which reviews say captures “the absurdity” of living day-to-day under apartheid. I can’t confirm because the administrators of the University of Colorado (CU) Boulder, in their infinite wisdom called the police to shut the movie down. No administrator or university representative was there as the organizers of the event talked to the CU Police Department officer, who could only say that he was called down to ensure we don’t use the room. As a group of my fellow students argued with one cop, another police officer directed a facilities manager to lock us out of the room. Looking back, I think CU Boulder echoed the absurdity of the movie.
In that moment, I felt isolated. In this room facing two cops, and the invisible yet ever present threat of reaction of the 148 year old institution of the University of Colorado, I remembered that the powers that be do not see me as worthy of having a space here. How many Palestinians lost their lives in those very hours, how many had succumbed to starvation, how many children became orphans, how many families were erased, how many saw their own siblings die in that very hour? What kind of person was I that all I could do was watch a movie, and even that I was failing at? What was worse than the isolation was the shame, the shame that came with being completely powerless and not knowing where that powerlessness came from. I hated myself in that moment. I hated myself more than I hated the administrators, more than I’m sure these administrators hate me. How could I call myself a free person, the daughter of a free person, the granddaughter of those who overthrew their own apartheid state, when all I can do is succumb to the threat of what, some asshole who was such a coward that they couldn’t come face the students who paid them thousands in tuition. Are we truly another set of victims, or are we just a set of cowards allowing ourselves to continue to be beholden to another set of cowards who profit off of their continued capitulation to fascism?
The fact that two cop cars showed up, and the administrators of this university were too scared to face the decision they made, not caring for the well-being of their own students facing this unforeseen escalation. One student was carrying a comically larger Ikea pride bag filled with popcorn bought earlier that day. In that moment, I didn’t recognize the absurdist humor of the situation. All I could think of, standing there between my friends, watching the students argue with the officer who was frankly more confused than we were, was that my people are being murdered and my university denies my humanity so much so that I can’t watch a fucking movie. For the last two fucking years I saw mothers lose their children, I saw young children digging through the rubble till their hands bled, hoping to find their parents, I saw my people starve, I saw fathers mourn themselves in the loss of their own child. I saw complete apathy for people I saw myself in. I watched as my professors banned us from saying Palestine, and saw them avoid meeting my eye as they did. I saw students design the weapons that leveled homes to the ground. I watched as Professor Andy Meyer and his colleague attacked a fellow student, ripping a keffiyeh off her head. I watched Director Montez Butts do nothing to stop the harassment of Arab and Muslim students. I watched Dean Devin Cramer target and repress students calling for an end to a genocide. The only thing that I haven’t seen at this point is the goddamn movie, and even that was to ensure I had a front-row seat to the screening of CU’s attack on the Arab and Muslim identity, and its active participation in the genocide of Palestinians.
All I could do was break down. All I did was cry, and sob, and scream, and let my grief leave its mark on the University that caused so much of it. I wanted the coward who called the police to remember that these students aren’t a job to be handled, but human beings with dignity deserving of respect. I wanted that coward, who was probably at that point driving through US-36, back to their safe and quiet neighborhood in Westminster to witness what people who freed themselves from apartheid looked like. I wanted that administrator to remember that – much like any colonial occupation – their existence on the land and in this space was an unwelcome but temporary nuisance.
What does it mean for a university to crack down on anyone attempting to remember the Palestinian identity? What does it mean for a university to not only ignore the attacks against Muslim students, but to itself strangle any semblance of the Arab identity on its already too white campus? It means that CU is justifying to itself the violence that it partakes in against Palestinians. It means the administrators of this university don’t lose any sleep over the death of another Palestinian child, because why lose sleep over someone who you have utterly dehumanized? If you deny our existence, repress our voices, and criminalize our day to day student affairs, you can ignore the murder of our counterparts across the world. Razan and Feras are the same age as the majority of underclassmen at this university. In another world, they would be attending university events like any other person their age should have a right to. But in this world, they are Palestinian, and to be Palestinian is to have your humanity denied to you.
El Diario de la Gente 
Leave a comment