"We see martyrs, children as young as 7, being portrayed as resistance fighters after being slaughtered by Israeli forces. Although we would like to convince ourselves that they have died for “the cause”, they have in fact died because of the cause."

"Martyrdom is not normal.

We see martyrs, children as young as 7, being portrayed as resistance fighters after being slaughtered by Israeli forces. Although we would like to convince ourselves that they have died for “the cause”, they have in fact died because of the cause. The first observable fact after the martyrdom of a Palestinian is their presentation in posters that are embellished with faction slogans, sometimes arms, in attempt to lionize these hijacked lives.

What we fail to realize however is that we are de facto stripping them of their humanity and their right to simply be that – individuals that have fallen victim to an unjust apartheid system. Death is inevitable, funerals are for the living, and we attempt to search for ways to cope, to find the most sublime mannerism to eulogize these lives lest we forget these stories that were stripped of the opportunity to complete their story. A story that never had the chance to begin.

The world and we must fathom the fact that our deaths are not stories for their latest novel, they do not exist to be romanticized and fetishized. There is no poetry in death, in murder, in hijacked souls. To appropriate our death is to further inferiorize us...  "...READ MORE

             Author: MariamBarg

Palestinian, in search of identity between the stamped documents and belonging. Student in Birzeit University majoring in English Literature and Psychology. Breaking away from institutionalized education, one institution at a time.

http://ramallahbantustan.wordpress.com/2014/10/05/aggrandized-portraits-and-destruction/