Nothing but the Rubble
Source: middleeasteye.net
Recently, I watched Farha on Netflix with my parents. It’s a historical drama, following a 14-year-old Palestinian girl, the titular Farha, who wishes to see beyond the constraints of her small village. She convinces her father to let her pursue an education in the city, but her dreams are soon crushed by the development of the Nakba (meaning catastrophe), the event in which Palestinian land was occupied by Zionist settlers and an estimated 700,000 Palestinians were forcibly displaced. As the settlers begin to invade and slaughter her people, Farha’s father hides her in a food pantry in their home, where she remains for a majority of the remainder of the movie.
It was an incredibly hard watch, and my mother remarked how sad it was when it ended. I thought about that. It was sad, yes, but why did it affect me so much? When I can generally handle media that depicts tragic events, why did this specifically haunt me?
Well first off, I can’t deny that there is a personal stake in it for me. Though I am not Palestinian, I am Lebanese, and my country and my family have also suffered at the hands of the Israeli government and military. There is an incredibly large Palestinian refugee population in my country, so it makes sense that Farha was an emotional watch for me. But beyond that, it’s something that got me thinking.
It is the fact that we see Palestine beyond the Nakba. We are not just shown the vicious slaughter of a family and told to feed on that. We see Farha’s village. We see girls goofing off during a lesson on the Qur’an, we see the joys of celebration during a wedding. We get to see Farha convince her father to let her get her education, to be sent off to the city so she can learn. She talks to her friend about how she wants to become a teacher and open a girls’ school in her village. As a viewer, you can’t help but root for her, but it’s ruined by the knowledge of what comes. This is what makes Farha stand out.
After realizing this, I started seeing more examples in my life. As mentioned before, I am Lebanese. In August of 2020, an explosion occurred at the Port of Beirut, in the capital city of Beirut, Lebanon. At least 218 people died, 7,000 people were injured, and an estimated 300,000 people were left homeless. When it first happened, I was almost happy to see the amount of media attention it initially received. Middle Eastern countries’ struggles aren’t often looked at by Western media, so to see that my homeland, my country that had suffered for so long was finally getting attention and even aid was exciting in a way. For a few weeks, I saw news coverage from different angles of the explosion and overridden hospitals, reports of food storage being low and protests against the government for failing to prevent the disaster. I feared for my family members’ well-being, but at least the country I lived in was sharing that concern.
And then it stopped.
I’ve failed to see any significant reporting on the situation in Lebanon by any Western news outlets since then, but I’ll keep it brief. It hasn’t gotten any better. There has since been a famine, the economic situation has only gotten worse with hyperinflation, and there’s little hope for improvement soon. Why did the world forget about this so quickly? This was the first time Lebanon had really been in the Western eye for years, so how could it be brushed aside so quickly?
Because it only served to be consumed by viewers of the West.
The traumas of the Middle East are the only things ever shown from it. I remember my classmates from online posting #PrayForBeirut, but hardly any of them knew anything about Lebanon’s existence beforehand. It was only recently that white feminists in the West started posting about the protests in Iran, but do any of them care to know what Iran was like during and before the revolution? There is a concerning amount of focus on the traumas of the region, and most of it is for the sake of Western consumers. White teens in the U.S.A and Canada get to post hashtags and infographics and feel good and inspired by the footage they watch of our tragedies, but they will never bother to know the cultures of these places.
Why can we only exist when it’s entertaining to look at our struggles? Why can’t we be discussed for our culture, for our traditions, for our progress? Why don’t we get to see the dabke at the wedding, but only the rubble that remains after the bombing?
