In case you're in Windsor, and finding this, my art is currently up for sale at Phog Lounge until August 31st, 2024. This piece is for sale to the right person, email me! batoolioartist@gmail.com. Anyway, into the post:
I'm going to write this assuming you know who Albert Einstein is, but if you don't, here's a quick summary so you've got some context:
Albert Einstein was a historically renowned physicist, best known for his work on the atomic bomb (think: Oppenheimer, but IRL), as well as coming up with his theory of relativity, where he explained how time and space are related to one another. Those qualities set him apart as a physicist, for sure, but also: he was a heart breaker, a poet, and a genius with his words. You may have heard the quotes, "imagination is more important than knowledge," or "insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results," like imagine being asked to literally build a nuclear bomb and coming up with life-changing one-liners like that in the same lifetime? That's Albert Einstein.
I always looked up to Einstein. I can't remember how I was exposed to him initially, probably in science class or something, but he had a huge impact on the development of my brainscape. When I wasn't reading the dictionary in the morning before school, I'd Google "Albert Einstein quotes" and jot down a couple that I'd kept in a list that filled the pages of those $0.25 notebooks you could get at staples all year round. Then I'd head to my 3rd grade class on the west side of our small town, literally so unaware of anything besides the potential of the human mind.
If you know me, like really know me, you'd know that I didn't figure out I was "different," than my peers (ahem not white ahem) until I was in the 6th grade (and then again later in my teen years pre-alcoholic era tbh), when I hit puberty and suddenly had a unibrow, something I didn't see the dainty white girls at my school grow overnight. I also didn't realize I'd grown a unibrow overnight until I moved schools to a school even MORE on the west side of this damned city. I remember the first time I ever encountered a mean girl, I could dox her but I'm choosing peace. Imagine being the new kid, at a new school, 2 years before graduation, put into a class with older kids, and one of the first things someone says to you is, "you have a unibrow, I like it, it looks like a rainbow" bro would you not want to kill yourself? LOL.
Time went on, much wax was used to rid the kid of the rainbow, and many slits on the wrist later, she was a shell of a human. In writing this, I'm now realizing that I stopped waking up early and choosing to learn before school when that happened. And you see, this is the plight of the Arab girl in a western world. It's the constant outcasted-ness of it all. It's the way I'm a "universal world baby" when someone can't quite pinpoint where I'm from, because the idea that western media has implanted in the minds of all when it comes to what an "Arab" looks like...it's just wrong. Inaccurate is maybe a better word. When people try to guess where you're from and it takes them 5 guesses and by the end of it, they've gone around the globe, throwing darts blindly, and then have the AUDACITY to tell you, "hm. i don't see it," when you finally reveal where you're from. Surprise! Maybe you're not the best judge of what someone from a country you've probably met 3 people from looks like. Btw I am from Palestine. Long live my people.
On Palestine, Einstein initially spoke about how he believed in a Jewish National state, but not one built atop a land already occupied by people. He was pro-two-state "solution," He openly questioned the people in power of the United States, and Isnotrael at the time about how they expected to "ask for political rule in a land where two thirds of the population are not Jewish," and that insisting on this imposition would be "counterproductive" to the zionist* agenda.
Following the Deir Yassin massacre, where 100-250 Palestinians were martyred at the hands of over 100 members of militia gangs Begin’s Irgun and the Stern Gang, in 1948 (Allah Yirhamhom), Einstein wrote a letter addressing Shepherd Rifkin who was the Executive Director for some bullshit excuse for Isnotrael to occupy land in American territory at the time (no really, look up his name, the organization was literally titled something like rainbow friends sunshine club), based in New York. In the letter, Einstein wrote:
Dear Sir,
When a real and final catastrophe should befall us in Palestine the first responsible for it would be the British and the second responsible for it the Terrorist organizations build [sic] up from our own ranks. I am not willing to see anybody associated with those misled and criminal people.
Sincerely yours, Albert Einstein.
To be knowledgable on the science of our world, one must be deeply aware of the politics happening in it, as well. Everything is intersectional, and we must allow ourselves to explore deeper than what academia tells us is the answer, to continue our knowledge and curiosity. Tangent aside, Einstein paid one singular 12-day visit to Palestine, where he lectured at the University of Jerusalem, in his lifetime. He saw the blunder and unimagineable, horrific crimes of Isnotrael in his lifetime. He attributes our final world catastrophe to the creation of a Jewish National State atop a land that was already established. He stood with the Palestinian people, and recognized that the downfall of an empire would be catalyzed by the creation of and militarization of isnotrael. While I was crying in the bathroom over some rogue hairs, I always thought back to the peace his quotes gave me, and didn't find out until way later in life, that we were intrinsically connected through his condemnation of the state that tore away stability in my generational bloodline. Thank you, Mr.Einstein.
I feel like it's only fitting I end with a quote by the man of the hour:
- "I do not know what weapons world war 3 will be fought with, but I know that world war 4 will be fought with sticks and stones."*
-Albert Einstein
*in this context, zionist was used as its initial definition, people who believed in a Jewish National State, not the way it's appropriately been redefined in our current political context, meaning those who are pro-ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people
don't you think it's weird that genocide and ethnic cleansing are interchangeable? Why is the word "cleansing" used to describe the obliteration of an entire nation of people, and culture? weird choice TBH, going to look into it.
info taken from https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20210604-the-final-downfall-of-israel-was-predicted-by-einstein/
please note: isnotrael = isr*el (fake country built atop palestinian land)
