After the 1st year of my PhD in Political Science, I also earned the MA in Pol Sci. But this is not a story of achievement nor of the learned skills, but of the circumstances that shaped this endeavor.
Instead, this is a story about why I dedicate this degree to the Palestinian people and why I finished a two-year MA in one — rather, how the US implicitly coerced me into finishing a two-year program in one.
“Should I write this?”
“I’m not an important name…”
“What if this post becomes the reason I get denied US re-entry?”
But guilt kept mounting.
Then, on August 10th, U.S.-backed occupation forces killed the Al Jazeera reporting team in Gaza (alongside hundreds of other Palestinian and foreign reporters) after announcing plans to illegally occupy Gaza, with both actions whitewashed in mainstream media.
It became clearer—that my position shouldn’t matter—that we need many more to continue speaking, acting, and pushing others in the right direction.
Why wait for the “experts” if they have been failing us for so long already? Do “experts” really deserve that title when their “work” just privileges what Israel claims is true?
Do they deserve that title when atrocities like illegal occupation, colonization, and extermination are reported with neutral language, with no condemnation?
Who are we waiting for when the Global South experts on the ground are killed with no consequences?
“What if they kick me out? I need to have a tangible output for this neoliberal world…”
Over the decades, the occupation has waged a war on education, critical thinking, and human dignity. Today, their sponsors wage that war against their own populations, too. And mainstream “experts” continue to write value-less work that makes them richer.
As a vocal student, that also made me a potential target of suppression and deportation, though the contributions – and thus the risk – taken by thousands of others are far beyond mine.
It is to prepare for this risk that I pursued the master’s quickly.
Finishing the MA in a year was not an easy feat. And I cannot attribute the motivation and merit to just myself — of course, the strength and will of Allah, the support of my parents, and friends and faculty in and beyond my university also get much credit.
But it’s not just this either. In a world where employers look at measurable and tangible products of the neoliberal system with an increasingly unstable U.S., how smooth could my degree progression be? What if something prevented me from finishing my program?
I began my first quarter with the recommended course load but took incrementally higher number of credits in subsequent quarters as the U.S. mounted further attacks on academia and noncitizen students.
I was active in [authorized] protest spaces, not nearly as much as required for when a genocide happens, but active enough to be advised by many to slow down.
“What if they deport me?” I wondered in around February.
“What if they don’t let me re-enter?” I wondered as the final quarter before the summer I planned to travel began, taking one and then two extra courses in these quarters.
This can be read as a story of perseverance and capacity – to finish a 2-year MA in one, even if pushed by such external factors, is no easy feat.
Though I am grateful for that, this is not that either.
It is a story of privilege. It is a circumstance that is offered to students in countries funding the occupation and elsewhere but not to Palestinians being occupied and killed.
Genocides: Past, Present, and Palestine
The terror imposed on Palestinians was so fast-paced that they would need to transform multi-year degrees into two-weeks or less. And even that was only an option available before the occupation bombed every building and shut down Gaza’s education system. Now, the occupiers have substantially entrenched their educide alongside their alethocide—the war on truth—and the obvious genocide.
How can we live in a world where the differences of lived experiences between communities is so stark? This question gets a lot of complex answers, a lot of thoughts around all kinds of professions, people, contributions, paces, and timelines being important.
Sure. But let’s put it another way. If all that is perfectly fine. If we can just grieve and turn our screens off to stay sane, why at all wonder how previous genocides happen?
The ones that we know – Nazi Germany, Rwanda, Armenia, Myanmar, Srebrenica – and the ones often sidelined like Belgium’s actions in Congo and other colonial activity across the global south. And escalated exponentially today – Palestine (and other ones in Sudan, Myanmar, and other places and kinds of activity that connect to very similar root causes of capital and domination).
One can look around and the answer to why genocides happened in history becomes apparent – the status quo is comfortable, and often rewarding, resistance is uncomfortable for those with a choice to not resist, and there is a general acceptance or blind eye toward the actions of the powerful across “democratic” and “non-democratic” societies.
“What can we do?”
Do not become complacent. Do not give in to comfort. Do not waste your privilege.
The specifics of what you can do depend on where you are. Start with identifying active individuals, join and learn from them. Take time out and put in the effort to study your options. Whether that means to find a lawyer, read, attend meetings, or directly sponsor Palestinian families.
Recommended Readings
The Ends of Zionism, Joseph Massad.
Whites, Jews, and Us, Houria Bouteldja.
Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine, Noura Erakat.
See also other compiled reading lists for knowledge-building and activist strategies: Pluto Press Palestine Reading List.
Several authors also produce insightful shorter articles such as:
“From Palestine to Sudan: Solidarity with Our Students,” Nisrin Elamin.
“Fugitive Solidarities,” Dylan Saba.
“A Separate Piece?: Gaza and the “No-State Solution,”” Darryl Li.
In the context of this reflection, think about your studies and work.
Educational institutions in the world today are also financial entities nested in power-structures. In the U.S., they are even likened to the arms of the state itself —“the university mirrors the […] state […] in their refusal to divest from genocide and their deliberate prioritization of profit over student demands and well-being,” notes Nisrin Elamin, in conversation with high ranking officials at Canadian universities.
To take in the content and style of what’s being taught without being critical about them yourself or not having your own reading lists, external networks, and critical action would lead you to become a product designed by the state and for the state.
Think hard about who you work for.
If your company is a priority boycott and sanction target, and especially if it is in “defense,” “security,” or related fields, think hard about the ethics of the role.
There is also a general imperative to continue being loud and to continue writing, though we may not be “big names.” Compounding voices and pushing those around us to think can become a powerful force. But much crucial time is already lost, and haste is required.
Mainstream “experts” clearly are untrustworthy as they continue to write and work for flowing dollars. These “experts” are often also complicit in states’ wars against dissenters—at their worst, they too are responsible for labelling dissenters and resistors, even peaceful ones, as “terrorists.”
Recommended Read
Who Gets to Resist? The Politics of Counterterrorism in the United States and India. In the IAPSS Journal of Political Science.
I should have written a happier post after earning an MA in such a short time, but it felt wrong. It felt inauthentic. The world in which we now live in requires a lot more than comfortable celebrations of our academic and career journeys.
This is not a call to not celebrate, but to not just celebrate.
And such reflections are needed across disciplines, across platforms, across spaces – and especially in spaces where they are most suppressed.
These conversations should permeate and become the norm in random interviews, in educational spaces, at work, in career planning, in networking, on platforms like LinkedIn
Many try to shun such thoughts away, claiming that “politics” corrupts these otherwise neutral spaces.
But nothing is neutral and the “political” was never separable from our education, careers, and achievements. This moment should offer the clearest opportunity to reflect on those connections.
The Vigilant Mind 