Occupation 101

On Thursday, March 6^th, I attended a lecture/awareness meeting called Occupation 101, Voices of the Minority. This meeting was conducted by C.I.A club (Campus Information Awareness). The main focus of this meeting was to promote awareness for the Palestinians who lived and continue to live in occupations. The speaker was of Palestinian decent and previously lived in Israel. He said he felt sad because the media in the Western society does not show the entire truth, and by attending the meeting, we will be given a chance to see with our own eyes. After a few more words from the speaker, we were shown a film.

The title of the film is called Occupation 101. An occupation in this context is “the control and authority over a territory belonging to a state passes to a hostile army” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_occupation). It is a film about the Palestinian and Israeli conflict. I will not go into great detail about the film, seeing how you can watch it for yourself on this website: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2451908450811690589. I think they film is very informative not about the history of the conflict and where/why it began, but of the current issues. I strongly suggest you view this film as an insight for yourself on this crisis.

After the film, the audience was very emotional. A few members of the audience actually broke down in tears. One of the things during the film that caught my attention was: “70% of Palestinian children living in an occupation are suicidal” This was brought up in the “questions and answers” segment following the video. The speakers blamed this on the state in which the children live: “How will you feel if you went to school one day. When you came home, your home was rubble. Underneath the rubble laid your mother, father and any siblings, you would have nothing more to live for”.

Current news of the situation presented by the speaker was that “since Wednesday of the previous week, over 30 Palestinians were killed. Children ranging from ages 2 days to 9 years old were a part of that group”. Awareness is the first step in many we must take to make a difference for the lives of the Palestinians who face death, destruction and fear and hunger every day.