As the title suggests, this post was supposed to be written last month, but my brain could not properly process the rapid descent of the state of the world while fasting.

This was my first Ramzan at home in three years – the last one was in Wellesley, and the one before that was in Paris.

I cooked for myself for those ones, and this time I had the privilege to eat home-cooked food from my mom, and observe this holy month with my family (complete with complaints about how sleepy we get precisely at 3:00 p.m. – thanks daylight savings!). I was waking everybody up for sehri, despite my adorably grouchy sisters’ attitudes in the mornings.

Ramzan for me is a month to reassess how I am navigating my daily routine – I am not too proud to admit that I don’t always do my prayers on time, and am pretty lax when it comes to regularly reading the Quran, but Ramzan usually pushes me a little bit closer to the right direction. For me, it is also a month to reorient myself – I am often extremely productive during the month, since so much time from my days spent in the act of preparing food and eating is cut. I am usually much more focused, not just on my spiritual duties of praying on time, but in all spheres of my life.

It was also the second Ramzan after the genocide in Gaza began. In this age, Ramzan is a way to reflect on the almost disgusting privilege I have of brainstorming the tastiest food to make for iftar that will satisfy my day-long hunger. Israel announced it would halt all aid to Gaza as soon as the month began, and subsequently cut off electricity and water too. The banality of the words “halting humanitarian aid” numbs the cruelty of this action to an incredible extent. While the rest of us searched for the Ramzan moon in our skies, Israel announced its extremely clear intent to commit a war crime, the intentional starvation of a population that is majority Muslim. Not only did they find it incredibly difficult to observe Ramzan and celebrate Eid in the destruction of their homes, but they were not even be able to rely on the nourishment necessary after a day’s fast.

But the people of Gaza came together to break their fast in the rubble anyways, amid bombing and destruction.

There’s an endless stream of bad news coming at us all the time, whether it is political or personal (or both), and it just strips you of every little layer of hope you have. This Ramzan, I hoped to redirect my energy to maintaining hope for myself, and for others, with the intention to motivate action from myself and others too.

The world as we thought we knew it is going, crumbling right beneath our feet. By the rupture of witnessing a genocide and a growing desensitization to this daily violence, or the growing difficulty in surviving at all. I personally am not displeased by the idea of the end of American hegemony – but it does kind of suck when you’re in it too. Oh well.

I have grand hopes for the future – I want to write a book (or more), I want to teach, I want to be an editor, I want to have a strong community of artists, I want to live and breathe words, music, art, all the time.

Alas, this is very difficult to hope for, as each of these material things collapse before my eyes – what outlet would even hire me at this point, when critics with decades of experience are in the comments of the same LinkedIn posts as me? (It’s so bad, guys.) What book would I write that hasn’t already been written/is worth being written? What will I teach when I feel like so many educational institutions are hostile to the things I believe in? What community will I find beyond the communal despair artists toss at each other like a tennis ball online?

All these have other answers, of course.

I decided the book will be a collection of essays (about what, who cares? I have time… I think). I teach my sisters/edit for them all the time, convincing them of the importance of chapters of history that they might not have learned yet, or to use “big girl” words like vivid, that my youngest sister used recently. I also just got a tutoring part-time job – I’ll be working with students on SAT/ACT test prep and reading and editing! Woo! I like working with kids and watching them learn to use and interpret the usage of language, so I’m excited!

As for community, I have friends who I exchange extremely long voice memos with all the time, and have two-hour long facetimes with quarterly. We are also planning a trip later this summer! And there are fellow writers and artists online who share when my work resonates, and I do the same for them.

I am also part of a lovely book club, where we just finished reading Refaat Alareer’s “If I Must Die,” and it was quite the heavy, emotional read. But it is a community in and of itself, where we share the value we find in words, and we share values, so we don’t have to argue about the things that we believe in – we just do.

Gaza and its people are in every word of Refaat Alareer’s work, his land is in his very blood.

And to read those words, and his essay “Narrating Palestine,” sent my head spinning. I was reading his words on how he seeks to write about Palestine, to showcase Gaza’s voices, but he is gone. I was sitting in my bed past midnight, reading his words, but he was gone, and had achieved what he set out do. It reads as his manifesto, the guiding mission of his life, and here I was sitting and reading the words of a beloved professor, writer, father, brother, husband, son, and person, and he is dead. 

When you talk about someone’s writing, you say, “I was so impressed by how he uses his words to” – present tense, always. It feels strange to use it for him, but I like to think he lives in some way on the page too.

It’s a very nice group, and very valuable to do something that keeps the gears in my brain turning.

The questions, however, do remain overwhelming. Honestly, when it comes to the current fascist government, I try to manage my fear as well as I can, but the attacks on dissent and free speech is chilling. It has been a month since Mahmoud Khalil was disappeared. He is about to have a baby, and he is spending this time before his wife goes into labor in an ICE detention center. The same is true for Rumeysa Ozturk, who was targeted for an op-ed, and Dr. Badar Khan Suri. These are not people who are “threats” in any way: they are litmus tests for the rest of us. What will you do to protect those more vulnerable than you? Will you act with the appropriate urgency when it isn’t people like you, or will you wait until it is too late?

My family members are worried about me, considering I have published at least more than one op-ed that the current government (and the last) would disapprove of, and have already been doxxed and blacklisted before (oh, well). That ship has sailed, and as a citizen, I am uncomfortable with the idea of silence to preserve my own safety. I’ve had this discussion with a couple friends too, and we mostly came to this conclusion: as long as I am free and alive, I must act accordingly to help those who aren’t.

I’m involved in a local advocacy group that is small but mighty, in that it feels like we are doing something that matters – even if it as small as social media campaigns to inform our community, or if it is even being in the same room as each other to share our concerns and frustrations.

I am turning to crafts, and small joys these days – reading physical books, puzzles, cross-stitching, and drawing. It’s good to do things with your hands, aside from doomscrolling all the time. Improving my attention span was also a goal this Ramzan, which I am glad to report has definitely been successful!

There are times these days when I read the words of those important, insightful writers and poets, whose words could be applied to then and now just as easily, and every time I am faced with a conundrum. Is there solace in knowing that people knew and had words for this before us? Or is there despair in knowing that people dealt with this before, and we have to do it again?

I move back and forth – people have been through and overcome worse, but also it is really, really bad today, but also the people I care about most are “safer” than most, but also I don’t know if that is making me complacent to other people being threatened, but also no one is truly “safe,” but also, and so on.

What angers me the most (among the many things that anger me constantly), is the fact that universities are choosing now to stand up to the federal government’s threats. Barring Columbia, of course, which proves itself hostile to its own espoused ideals time and again. Yesterday, Harvard announced it would not cut a deal with the federal government, with its president saying, “The University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights… We proceed now, as always, with the conviction that the fearless and unfettered pursuit of truth liberates humanity—and with faith in the enduring promise that America’s colleges and universities hold for our country and our world.”

Now you choose to care? Not when your students were being terrorized and arrested by the police over protests? When they were the ones demanding you face the truth of your complicity?

Students of my class year and others saw what was coming. The precedent set by universities like Columbia, Harvard, MIT, and others in punishing its students enabled exactly what is happening right now. Surprise, surprise.

On this same day, Palestinian Columbia student and green card holder Mohsen Mahdawi was abducted by ICE while he was at a USCIS center for his citizenship interview. And of course, not a peep from Columbia to protect any of its students. Not that these institutions were ever really going to protect its most vulnerable, but you’d expect them to at least try and look like they care.

I know how daunting everything is these days, and if you are feeling it too (and have made it this far in the post), you are most definitely not alone. I’m not here to give advice on how to channel that fear and anger productively, because I spend an awful amount of time doomscrolling too, but I hope you are moved to do one thing today (and the next) to support the people being genocided in Palestine, and the ones being targeted here. Share their fundraisers, donate if you have the means, share their words and their pleas.

Those small things can do something a lot bigger together, so we do what we can, even if it is hiding from the news to preserve your sanity some days (but not all!). I’ll just keep cross-stitching and ranting about the state of the world 🙃

If you made it this far, thank you for reading! I hope this resonated with you in some way. Read on for what I’ve been reading/watching/listening to this past month! See you later!

What I’m Reading/Watching/Listening to and writing:

Reading:

Perfect Victims by Mohammed El-Kurd: After If I Must Die, the book club I am in is reading Perfect Victims by Mohammed El-Kurd, and he writes with such clarity that is incredibly satisfying (and at times challenging) to read. There is a lot to unpack in each of his essays, and each of them are a searing indictment of how media frames Palestine and its people. It’s quite cathartic, even knowing that I have been guilty of trafficking in the language of “innocent” children and women in order to appeal to those who would not see their humanity.

The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan: I am also making my way further through the Wheel of Time books. I made a mad dash through the first four, and am slowly going through the fifth.

Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins: This was a brutal read. As a prequel, it does quite well to give you more than what you thought you knew about the original trilogy. Lots of interesting political themes, and I also have an article on the comparisons to the Hunger Games to the present coming soon!

Watching:

I watched lots of TV in the past month, but I’ll give a list of the ones that I spent the most time on.

The Pitt – Noah Wyle returns to the ER 30 years after ER to portray a wizened and very tired ER attending. The show’s format works extremely well, and every character choice is clearly thoughtfully done. Great supporting cast, riveting story, all around very good! I do not recommend binging it because it might give you several panic attacks. The weekly release schedule worked particularly well for this one (I am a huge fan of weekly releases. Bring back real TV!)

White Collar – My less serious watch for this month! It’s truly quite silly, but the protagonist is very easy to root for. Matt Bomer is great!

Wheel of Time – Having watched the screeners last month, I am now watching with everyone else, sitting in my room cackling and rubbing my hands together knowing what’s in store. The season wraps up this week!

The Residence – A member of the White House staff is found dead in a room in the President’s Residence. The suspect is one of the 100+ people there for a state dinner, being cooped up by an eccentric detective who loves seeing the world through her true love: birds. It’s a very entertaining whodunit, but the finale was sooo long.

Deli Boys – I reviewed this one too! A quite fun and chaotic comedy about two Pakistani American brothers who realize their father made his money from a huge criminal enterprise rather than the franchise of delis he owned. Chaos ensues, with a delightful turn from Poorna Jagannathan!

I also watched both The Encampments and No Other Land this past month, and they were incredibly powerful. No Other Land was stunning in how it so clearly depicted the brutality of the settlers and IOF in the West Bank. The Encampments was incredibly empowering: for a moment in time, it seemed like there was change possible after the encampments began.

Listening:

I haven’t made many new discoveries this past month, but I do really like the extended edition of Ariana Grande’s eternal sunshine, especially the song warm. I also really like Laufey’s album Bewitched. As a soundtrack to my work on my Hunger Games article, I listened to the movie soundtracks – the Lorde-curated Mockingjay Pt.1 soundtrack is still my favorite.

Writing:

I have been busy this month! From reviews of Deli Boys, Pulse (yet another medical drama), and The Residence, to my coverage of the Wheel of Time for Nerdist.

I got to interview the wonderful Shohreh Aghdashloo, who plays the ever-scheming Elaida in the Wheel of Time, on her and another character’s rivalry. I also wrote a very fun rant about how the Wheel of Time books reduced its women to extremely one-dimensional characters.

I also have been doing a very cathartic weekly ranking of the Media Fails of the Week for the podcast I run socials for, It’s Not You, It’s The Media. It’s good to have somewhere to channel my frustrations for how mainstream media consistently engages in genocide denialism today, among its many other flaws.

That’s all for this month, folks! I hope wherever you are, you find something that moves you beyond just despair and anger, and to something close to hope. See you next time!

And one last note: This past month, the Wellesley Organized Academic Workers, the newly formed union for non-tenure track faculty, have been striking, and the Wellesley administration has been characteristically hostile in negotiations, even threatening to cut striking faculty’s class credit united in half, making students bear the brunt of Wellesley’s mistakes. Par for the course, but if you feel moved to, please donate to the union’s strike fund here.