The radical need for friends to become informed safe spaces
Hey everyone, thank you for being a reader and subscriber to my newsletter this year. The idea for this newsletter has mostly been to untangle questions and dilemmas that emerge through the very act of being. In some ways, this newsletter has turned into a garden of sorts, which I tend to, not knowing what will grow out of it. Little did I know that this garden would also tend to me. On some of the most empty days in the past few months, these empty pages have offered respite.
As I publish the last dispatch for 2023, I send you all deep gratitude and love for being here. This newsletter shall continue to evolve, potentially grow into a garden of ideas, conversations and musings, and I hope you all join. See you in the new year. 🌿
“Mere kuch dost murda hain…woh murda hain kyunki unki zabaaney sunn padd gayi hain. dil patthar se dhadakna bandh kar chuke hain. unki saansoein mein insaaniye ehsaas nahi…unke zameer safed ho chukey hain, khoon paani. mere dost murda hain.” - words by poet Sabika Abbas
Translation: Some of my friends are dead…They’re dead because their tongues have gone limp. Hearts have hardened and stopped beating. Their breaths do not make them feel human…their conscience has paled and blood has turned to water. My friends are dead.
After listening to Sabika Abbas’ poem that underlined feelings of disappointment and frustration at friends, old classmates for being silent in the face of oppressions, I decided to have a conversation with an old friend. My friend is an Indian upper-caste individual, who has over the years, willingly leaned into our discussions around marginalisations and identity politics
As weeks passed on, I had multiple questions emerging owing to her silence around the Israeli onslaught on Palestinians - How disconnected was she feeling? Why had she not shared her feelings with me? What was her understanding of the Palestinian cause?
Rather than let such thoughts take their own meanings, I finally poured my feelings to her. While she admitted her limited understanding about the Palestine-Israel issue, she thought that as long as she offered an attentive listening ear, she was doing her job as a friend.
It was only in that unfamiliar, confrontational terrain, was I able to recognise the absence of an informed safe space, that had been the source of vague anguish around my friend’s silence.
In a healthy relationship, being a good listener is a default setting. It is a green flag. It is grounded in respect, acknowledgement and love. However, it cannot be the status quo all the time. To only be a listener, is to be a spectator to this cruelty, further numbing oneself to the everyday indignities and violences meted out towards marginalised groups everywhere.
An informed safe space means, listening intently and bringing an educated, empathy driven self to that conversation. It cannot simply be, “I hear you.” It must be, “I hear you. I am recognising my part. I am learning.”
Safe space is not only a place where I want to feel heard and seen with my vulnerabilities, it is also a place where my radical hope for the future meets your radical preparedness.
The onus of envisioning and working towards a free future, a future that accords dignity to everyone, is not just of those who are at the receiving end of an injustice. It is the duty of allies, and those who recognise these injustices to play their part in supporting that reimagination.
Safe spaces devoid of knowledge and empathy are fragile. Such spaces prevent one from unveiling their broken hearts because the potential of healing is unknown. They put the weight of the conversation and the expectation of action, on the speaker. They can turn into a one-sided relationship, with the work of developing clarity, having an informed opinion and doing the emotional labour, placed on one person.
Deep friendships (or meaningful relationships of any kind) must learn to tend to one another’s deep wounds too.
The Palestinian cause has shown us how each and everyone of us, whether we are on social media or not, a student, working in any place, based in any corner of the world, have the capacity to support their rights. From engaging with Palestinian content on social media to educating people in our family and social circles about Palestinian history, no participation is small and every act counts.
I write this specifically for most of us in the Global South, who also witness leaderships that force to homogenise our national identities, marginalise minority groups; capitalistic governments that threaten to erode natural resources, weaken or strip away indigenous rights, let inhabitable living conditions prevail for millions of people, and fuel the rising inequality on a daily basis. We cannot numb ourselves to these onslaughts and the more we do, the more we give away our collective power to repair.
Radical hope is not a metaphor. It gets rekindled everyday by every act done towards making this world a more just, kind and equitable place.
The horrors committed by Israeli forces on Palestinians has wounded our collective soul and there’s no escaping it. The question then is, how do we tend to those wounds and bring our healing selves to those around us and the world? By creating informed safe spaces, we create opportunities to learn better, to learn from each other and work together towards a more humane future. Don’t simply do it for your friends, do it for yourself.
As someone said it earlier, “we are not saving the Palestinians, the Palestinians are saving us.”
Mariyam Haider is an independent writer-researcher, producer & host of Main Bhi Muslim podcast, and spoken word artist creating works on feminism, culture and society. Her writing has appeared in Scroll, Kontinentalist, Asian Review of Books, Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy, AWARE, Livemint, Mekong Review, among others. You can follow Mariyam’s other work on Instagram or LinkedIn.
Her latest podcast episode with Sabika Abbas is out now:
References:
Sabika Abbas aka boltiaurat on Instagram
Hala Alyan’s Instagram
Witnessing Palestine: Noura Erakat on the collective trauma of Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza (Mondoweiss, December 19, 2023)