Every time I think of 9/11

I see burning flesh

Dripping off the bones

Of Iraqi children in Fallujah

Now Gaza

I tend to memorialize the forgotten

The collateral damage

Eclipsing our unpunished crimes

Maybe it’s because I’m a numbers guy?

Kanazi speaks and performs with an urgency that commands your attention; his voice is forceful, lawyer-like in the way he pleads for justice. His conviction of opinion may offend the faint-hearted. Needless to say, Kanazi is never at a loss for words.

“I write a lot of angry pieces,” he confesses. “All you gotta do is turn on CNN to write a poem. Thanks to our government and media, I’m never devoid of creativity.”

While Kanazi uses his past growing up as the “the brownest thing going in a small western Massachusetts white Catholic town,” for inspiration, he wasn’t always so comfortable talking about his Palestinian heritage.

“Look, Arab Americans usually go two routes,” he says. “It’s either I am Arab hear me roar, or I want nothing to do with you people.” Remi was the latter. “I wanted McDonald’s, I wanted Coke, I was the fat kid who didn’t care and I rejected my Palestinian ancestry.”

Remi began singing another tune when he connected with Arabs in college. “When I talked to some of these people, there was an enormous feeling of embarrassment, of not knowing where I came from, and that pushed me to find out.”

After a brief stint as a business major at the University of Massachusetts, Remi moved to New York. He didn’t begin writing until about four months before 9/11. Following 9/11, his creative output only intensified:

“The backlash against Arabs, the mischaracterizations, the vitriol, it made me want to write,” he says.

Kanazi, who grew up politically conservative, began independently reading and researching, delving in progressive politics, Edward Said and “anything I could get my hand son.” He saw Def Jam poetry on Broadway and was drawn to Suheir Hammad and Carlos Andres Gomez. “It blew my mind how spoken word was so progressive and interlinked with socially conscious hip hop; it moved me in a way I wanted to emulate,” he says.

Activism drives his work. “I used to write op-eds, but I felt the youth was yearning for voices, for artists to say ‘this is me, and I’ not afraid.’”

In 2005 Remi started his poetry website PoeticInjustice.net and began booking shows.

“The first show I ever did was at a Palestinian Relief Fundraiser at St. Georges church in New Jersey. Natalie Hundall and Maysoon Zayid were reading that night.” The event organizer-Remi’s brother’s friend’s mom- read some of his poems off PoeticInjustice and asked him to perform.

“They said I would perform for ten min, and I was so mad at myself for agreeing, thinking I was gonna make an ass of myself. I was shaking like crazy but then I did it and it was the best feeling ever.”

Six months later, the idea for Poets for Palestine started. An anthology of poems edited by Kanazi, it unites poets, spoken word artists, and hip-hop artists calling for humanity. Remi relied on open-call submissions and help from within the Arab American artistic community, eventually personally asking writers to submit their work. Networking within the Arab American community was key.

“There was and continues to be an immense amount of support from the Arab artistic community, which I know sounds funny because Arabs are so well known for their dividedness.” He laughs. “Everyone gave their time for free or did it for dirt cheap. If it wasn’t for the Arab American community I don’t think I’d still be a poet.”

Remi’s maternal grandparents are from Yafeh, his paternal relatives are from Haifa. They all fled to Lebanon in 1948, during Al- Nakba, the creation of Israel.

In 2007, Remi went back to Palestine for the first time, visiting the land his ancestors dreamed of returning to. “You can read as much as you want but nothing can replace the experience of being in Palestine, feeling it, and connecting with people on the ground.” When he says that, you get the sense his mind is wandering back to a specific encounter and image.

Remi’s grandmother passed away in the summer. He credits her for influencing him as an adult, and for the love and pride she instilled in him. “She was always talking abut Yafeh and wanting to return,” he says. “When I look back [at my younger self], I constantly feel, like, what the hell was wrong with me? The more you reject your roots when you’re younger, the more you actually come back to them when you’re older.”

Remi finished his fall U.S. tour last month. During performances, he talks about how PoetsforPalestine came together, but focuses more on his own poetry, performing ten to twelve poems per show.

“I tackle double standards, war and politics, but my main focus is Palestine, so I talk about what coexistence means, what justice means,” he says.

In the spring, Remi will head back to Palestine to teach a course as part of the Palestine Writing Workshop and will be participating in Palfest, a yearly literature festival in Palestine.

“I’m a little afraid because Israel has been jailing Palestinians-especially non violent outspoken ones,” he says with a nervous chuckle. “But I’m looking forward to it.”

I ask Remi if, like many Palestinians, he prays to God for freedom from oppression. His answer is, not surprisingly, political:

“In a post 9-11 world people want to say, ‘Oh it’s fundamentalist or religious zealousm, but when you look at Palestine, it’s occupier vs occupied, colonzier vs colonized. The problem is disposition, apartheid.”

I’ve touched a nerve.

“It’s ridiculous when people say Jews and Arabs can’t live together because of Hamas,” he says. “Israel didn’t reject Hamas because it was religious- before Hamas there was Fatah, the PLO, secularism, the problem clearly isn’t religion.”

Remi’s poem “Coexist” is a tribute to Palestinian resistance, as the only thing that keeps the people from becoming extinct.

I don’t want to coexist
Not like good guys and bad guys in True Lies and propaganda
Put on blackface as cab drivers or deli owners in racist comedies
Not bomb Dunkin Donuts with my Kuffiyeh
Fist pound Fox News
Or let you steal my food and call it Israeli salad
I won’t Mess with the Zohan
Or let him turn the rocks of Palestinian children into balloon animals
While Israeli soldiers snipe our children’s heads, shoulders, knees, and stomachs
Hollywood snipes ears of young ones with lovable tales of blue and white heroes
I am not looking for your approval

The last lines read:

I don’t want to coexist!
I want to exist as a human being
And justice will take care of the rest!

It’s not that we have forgotten Obama’s AIPAC blunder or that we disregard Biden’s outspoken support of Israel. It’s that unlike Senator McCain, Obama’s campaign does not thrive off of the fear-mongering and finger-pointing shamelessly practiced by the Republican campaign. As proof, take the latest McCain ad which falsely accuses Obama of lying about his relationship with “terrorist Bill Ayers.”

Yet too many Arab Americans still associate with the GOP. And this association may prove disastrous for our future as citizens and members of society.

Along with American Muslims, Arab Americans suffered the consequences of the politics of fear; with increased terror alerts came a decrease in their civil liberties, a blow to their reputation (both at work or in social groups), and sometimes even threats to their personal safety. The fact that Obama does not rely on the played-out terrorist card should be reason enough for Arab Americans to support him.

Here is another:

Last month, the Clarion Fund, a supposedly non-profit organization funded by a $400,000 dollar grant from a “secret donor”, paid 70 newspapers in 14 of America’s swing states to distribute their DVD, “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West.” This is right-wing propaganda similar to that advocated by the McCain campaign advocates.

Among the experts in the film are necons like Daniel Pipes and Walid Shoebat. Clarion, a registered 501 (c) cannot endorse a candidate, but “Obsession’s” message is clear enough: Arabs and Muslims are terrorists who will destroy Israel and the West. More of this information can also be found at Clarion’s website.

That Clarion refused to disclose who its funded by, as required by the IRS, is indicative of the manipulative nature of the information it disseminates. When probed, Rabbi Raphael Shore, Clarion’s founder and the film’s Canadian-Israeli producer, said 80 percent of the money came from Peter Mier – an alias meant to protect the identity of Obsession’s real producer.

On Friday (Oct. 10), Tikun Olam, a liberal Jewish blog, reported that Clarion’s secret donor is NBC Producer and former Clinton Administration adviser on “homeland security issues,” Erik Werth. Why was this information withheld? And what role is Clarion ultimately trying to play in the election? Considering McCain and Palin’s repeated attempts to paint Obama as a “terrorist,” the dots begin to connect themselves.

According to Clarion’s Website, “Obsession is a film about the threat of Radical Islam to Western Civilization. Using unique footage from Arab television, it reveals an insiders view of the hatred the Radicals are teaching, their incitement of global jihad, and their goal of world domination.”

For most Arab Americans, the aforementioned footage is not unique; access to Arab media and political on goings in the Middle East are part of daily life. It is therefore more difficult to fool us into believing “Obsession” was made with the good intention of informing the public, but rather, that it advocates a right-wing militaristic approach to U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East.

It should therefore be harder to convince us to vote for a candidate who shares that view. Yet come Nov. 4, too many Arab Americans may once again vote with their party affiliation. With only three weeks left, I hope they consider how why groups like Clarion want them to vote for McCain.

Last month, free screenings of “Obsession” were held in Dearborn, Michigan, where Arab Americans, overwhelmingly Republican, account for about 5% of the state’s vote. Will this propaganda work on Arab Americans? We’ll have to wait until the election to find out for certain, but I have a feeling most Arabs will see through the propaganda.

One part of the film attempts to compare radical Islamic movements with the German Nazis, through a series of interviews and cut-and -paste footage. Most Arab Americans I know think Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians is eerily similar to the Nazis treatment of the Jews. The question remains, come Nov. 4 will most Arab Americans look past the “McCain the Maverick” rhetoric and see his candidacy for what it really is: continuation of the right-wing, militaristic ideology.

“Obsession” is only one example of what we are to continue to expect out of non-government agencies, empowered by a president that shares their views. The Middle East is not aided by policies which produced the unlawful imprisonments of Arabs in Guantanamo and the catastrophe of Iraq. Any of those are enough to remind voters why it’s necessary to avoid a similar fate in the future.

Arab Americans in particular need to realize that voting alongside party lines or voting for a third party candidate only aids the fight against them. In the American right’s mind, the connection between “Arab” and “Radical Islam” is clear, but that connection must be apparent to those of us still considering to vote McCain.

The Pope should issue a global fatwa banning newspapers and policymakers around the world from engaging in this infantile, overused discussion of “but what about the terrorists.”

Perhaps then the American citizenry can read about Jimmy Carter man-hugging Hamas official Nasser Shaer with enough neutrality to form an informed opinion.

Carter paid tribute to Arafat by laying a wreath on his grave, before meeting Hamas officials in Egypt after Israel denied him access to the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. Undeterred, Carter said he would meet with exiled Hamas leader, Khaled Meshaal in Syria on Friday.

More annoying than the media’s portrayal of Carter as backstabbing terrorist (how could you not appreciate Sen. John McCain’s opinion on the matter?) is its dangerous disregard of far-reaching context. Anyone who understands history knows Carter owes Palestinians a little more than just a hug.

Carter, unlike any other U.S. President, tried to negotiate an evenhanded solution to the Arab/Israeli conflict, acting as the chief negotiator in the Camp David accords which called on Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories, halt all settlements, and grant full autonomy to the Palestinians in exchange for peace with its Arab neighbors. However, Israel never disguised its intention to continue its settlements and obstruct a Palestinian state. Carter was wrong to convince the Arabs to accept an agreement that he could only hope Israel would meet.

Until this day, Arabs are bleeding from the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty Carter tempted them with. When Sadat fell for the trap, Israel’s main opposing force was eliminated and any aspiration for Arab unity was crushed, alongside Arab morale and hope for Palestine.

Carter helped solidify America’s role as Israel’s partner in crime and inexhaustible sugar daddy, so that Israel could continue systematic oppression without the threat of retaliation. Carter’s negotiation meant Israel would resume its role as a glorified bounty hunter: fencing-in the enemy, cutting-off electricity, water, and medical supplies, jailing, and settling on land are considered tactics of defense, even if they violate international law.

One would think Israel would provide the man with a warmer greeting. So why the cold shoulder? Israeli officials are afraid that in meeting with Hamas, Carter will subvert the myth that Hamas is out to destroy Israel, so in typical fashion, they refused to speak with him. They also dismiss Carter’s visit by using the issue of terrorism to divert attention away from the crimes they are committing in Gaza and the West Bank.

Despite America’s unsubtle attempts to cripple Hamas (shame on the European community for going along with it), Hamas remains a major player in Palestinian politics, not only because it’s the legislative majority in the Palestinian Council or because it controls Gaza, but because it is invested in the Palestinian cause. Any peace agreement that does not include Hamas is superficial. Unfortunately, Carter is the only U.S. politician bold enough to come out and say that.

Carter’s willingness to meet with Hamas should be seen as an act of honest diplomacy, a willingness to provide some retribution for a population that is continually made to suffer collective punishment. The former president’s courage and humanity should be emulated and applauded, instead it is being criticized and undermined simply because it turns the tables on the aggressor:

Israel is being asked to recognize Hamas, not the other way around.

Yusra Tekbali is a Journalism and Near Eastern studies major, impatiently awaiting her graduation from the University of Arizona this year. She is also an Arab nationalist.