I am the Child of Handala

I am the Child of Handala. I am the breed of 20th-century injustice. Despite all odds, I grew strong, intellectual, determined, globalized, modernized, aware, and ever more resilient. I am the 21st-century generation of Nakba survivors. I am the hoped outcome of refugee tents and UN schools. I am economically sound with a bright future, yet have a score to settle. A rebirth from the ashes. A phoenix mandating the world to pay attention.

I am owed. For more than seventy years of generational misery. I know my rights and I know what was stolen from my grandfather, my father, my sister and brother, my kids, and their kids after. The time is now. Despite the odds and bets, we survived. We thrived. We are collectively a force in the economic machine of the world. Our exiles have integrated us into the global influence. It has not erased who we are as some have hoped, it empowers us. We are highly educated, highly motivated, and pragmatic for the greater good. Our cause resolve is integral to world stability. We are no longer shadowed by the cancelation culture of tabooing Palestinian topics. We are ready to address the manufactured narrative of colonial Zionism.

We embrace human life as a blessing regardless of color, race, religion, or gender. We have suffered; therefore, we sympathize with all those who are suffering. We believe laws can be changed to adhere to a higher sense of justice, human rights, and dignity.

We do not subscribe to narrow views of the world or a view that is prescribed by an old book, or one that promotes one race over another. We do subscribe to the today and now and our duty to rectify systematic biases. We are not naïve. We do understand power plays and their fluid dynamics. We are a rising force. we demand our seat in the global arena.

Yes, I am the Child of Handala. I chose to re-ignite a powerful symbol of our years of struggle. Naji Al-Ali has blessed us with the birth of Handala to witness our tragedy. Documenting in the simplest form of pen stokes the atrocities of the last decade. Handala was a 10 years old refugee child. The child of Handala is to avenge his father's despair.

More about Handala: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handala

The assassination of Naji Al-Ali, a cartoonist artist in London, stands as evidence of the power of Handala. And by extension, the rightful cause he supported. We, like Naji Al-Ali, believe in the influence of a simple symbol. We, like Naji Al-Ali, believe our cause is just. We, as Naji Al-Ali, believe that it is time for the world to wake up and admit it's neglected and adjust course to redemption.

I am the Child of Handala. I have lived through poverty. I survived racial discrimination. I have survived religious decimation. I have been deprived of a basic feeling of belonging to a place I call "my homeland". I am unrightfully labeled for many things that do put me at disadvantage. Despite all that, I have made it. I managed to be called successful. I am a digital nomad with crowded stamps on my passports. I am my own person. I am a middle easterner with oriental values which many orientalists have abandoned. I subscribe to the western intellectual values of modern nationalistic westerners have abandoned. I am all that and more simultaneously. For I refuse for anyone to give themself the right to frame me within a stereotype. I am at a unique vantage point of global events.

I am many of my brothermen who we proudly say we are a Child of Handala. Engage to build this for our generation and the ones follow.

- Child of Handa