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Remember, remember because it is going to be hard to forget every day of Genocide since October 8th

By Iqbal Suleman

So you sit there on your couch, sipping on coca cola and munching a MacDonald’s burger, switching channels. You come to 406 Al Jazeera and pause and watch. You see people in Gaza celebrating the truce and temporary cessation of fighting. You are relieved. You did not watch Al Jazeera for months. You deleted whatever clips and videos friends and families forwarded to you on social media showing the killing, humiliation, slaughter and rape of Palestinians. “It’s too much, it’s too gory, I can’t handle it, I can’t watch” you shrieked. Pause for a moment and ponder, if it is too painful for you to watch for a minute, imagine how painful the actual suffering is for the occupied people of Gaza. The toddler in Gaza burning to death, a woman sexually assaulted, the baby freezing to death, the hungry child starving to death, the doctor being tortured in Israel prison cells, the mother that can’t recognize her baby blown to bits by the Israeli Army, searching in the rubble, picking up a finger here, part of an ear splattered with blood, a baby head shredded to bits?

It is easier to forget and not to remember. To carry on with life as usual in a capitalist world of accumulation and instant gratification.  But when you enter your bathroom and enjoy the privacy and dignity of your own space, it hits you that Palestinian woman have been deliberately humiliated to live an existence without the private space of a bathroom and without water for more than a year.  You say to yourself I will die if I had to live without water. Your body shudders as you remember how Palestinian women had to boil sewer water.

Now that there is a truce, it’s easier on your conscience to abandon BDS, double up on your MacDonald’s burgers and Coca Cola’s and throw in a few extra packs of fries and milkshakes while you watch your premier league football match. You engage in passionate dialogue with your friends about Pep Guardiola’s decline and the troubles at Old Trafford. You marvel at Mo Salah’s striking prowess. But then it hits you, this man Mo Salah, one of the most celebrated and revered athletes in the world lacked the courage to speak out against the Genocide in Gaza.

Most of the superstars and athletes like Mo Salah chose the same selfish path to chase the dollar, pound, riyal and shekels. Others, the few like Anwar al Ghazi, took a principled stand for truth and justice and lost their income and their employment. Remember the principled celebrities like Susan Sarandon, Roger Waters and Mackelmore but never forget the many who were complicit in genocide. Then you switch on the CD, the nasal voice of Dylan from “Blowin in the Wind”, “How many years can some people exist before they allowed to be free, how many deaths will it takes till he knows too many people have died” But Palestinians have been struggling since 1948 for freedom but Dylan has been silent as he has been silent on the genocide with 65 000 deaths which is not enough for him to speak out. You pull out the CD which was given to you by your late father and throw it out of the window.

Within yourself, you can’t see Salah as a hero, as a man. You then think about the country of Salah. Egypt which borders Gaza. An Arab and Muslim country that did nothing to assist the Palestinians. It colluded with the Israeli policy of using starvation as a weapon of war. The same is true about Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, U.A.E, Qatar and Turkey that demonstrated their hypocrisy. They could not even send in a bottle of water to the people of Gaza, let alone send in their soldiers and weapons to defend the Palestinians and resist the genocide.

You have always admired the West and its scientific advancement and progressive institutions. But now you are faced with the fact, that all of the Western Governments militarily, financially and diplomatically supported the Israeli genocide in Gaza. As did their media outlets like CNN and BBC push out Israeli propaganda. The Palestinians were not fighting only against Israel but against the whole world allied to Israel and complicit in Genocide. When you see this truth clearly, how epic, singular, defiant, unparalleled and fearless was the solidarity resistance of his eminence, the martyr of our lifetime, Hassan Nasrallah (R.A) which he led from the 8th October and every day thereafter till he was killed in September 2025 by Israel using 8 F15 jets and more than 80 000 kilograms of bombs to kill this devout disciple of Muhammad (p.b.u.h). Never in the history of warfare has this amount of lethal force been used to kill one man.

But still you want to visit Disneyland, it’s on your bucket list. You had an angry argument with your cousin Fatima who blasted another family member for going on a holiday to Germany. Fatima screamed out “How can you even think about supporting an economy of a country that actively finances the genocide in Gaza”. You were enraged and entered the argument “What the hell, the whole world, all the countries of the world have not helped the people of Gaza, so then there is no place to go on holiday, we should just sit around, how does that help the Palestinians? Fatima’s reply to you was sharp, hitting your mind and hurting your heart “How can we even think about holidaying in these white and western countries with the blood of the Palestinian children on their hands. If you want to go on holiday, there’s only two countries to go to, South Africa and Iran, both countries blessed with majestic natural beauty and freedom loving people. Both of these countries had the courage to stand in solidarity with Gaza and are paying the price for their principled positions.

Then you are reminded of the image and video clip of the Chief Rabbi Warren Goldstein, praise singing the Israeli Defence Forces and handing over love letters from Zionist children in South Africa to the IDF in Israel. The images of the IDF activity flood your mind. The Israeli soldiers laughing as they bomb the houses of Palestinians. The Israeli soldiers with their guns wearing the lingerie of Palestinian women in Palestinian homes laughing, mocking and taunting them. Stripping, handcuffing and humiliating Palestinians every day. The videos of Israeli Zionist Jews mimicking starving Palestinians. Women burnt to death under refugee tents. The cries of dying Palestinians shot dead at point black range by Israeli Zionist soldiers. Bare hands used to dig out bodies from the rubble. The white cloth reddened by blood shrouding the dead children of Gaza. The Israeli soldiers pumping 335 bullets to kill a little girl Hind Rajab. The many South African Israeli Zionist Jews that went to Israel to join the IDF and take part in the genocide. The knife of a South African Zionist Jew Grayson Beare that plunged 15 times into the body and killed an innocent South African Muslim women. The words of South African Zionist Jew, Ben Hamoo on the 7th October, We will drink the blood of your (Palestinian Children) in Gaza. South African Zionist Gareth Cliff who opined that Palestinians are not human. The Israeli defence minister Gallant who referred to Palestinians as human animals. Sixty five thousand people of Gaza killed by Israeli Zionist Jews after October 7th according to Lancet.

The blood of the children of Gaza has not dried. The rubble is still red. The screams of burning bodies and raped Palestinians can’t be silenced. It’s going to be hard to carry on as normal and forget to remember every day of Genocide in Gaza since October 8th. Even if you try to forget, the potent stench of Genocide will force you to remember. Remember. Remember. Remember today, remember tomorrow and Remember till eternity, we dare not forget to Remember.

Iqbal Suleman

Suleman is a social justice lawyer and former head of the law clinic for Lawyers for Human Rights in Pretoria and Research Associate: Media Review Network

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