On Ramadan, Socialism and the Neighbor’s Beat up Car | Ramzy Baroud

[Tace]

Ramzy Baroud -- World News Trust

July 2, 2014

When I was a child, I obsessed with socialism.

It was not only because my father was a self-proclaimed socialist who read every book that a good socialist should read, but also because we lived in a refugee camp in Gaza under the harshest of conditions. Tanks roamed the dusty streets and every aspect of our lives was governed by a most intricate Israeli "civil administration" system -- a less distressing phrase for describing military occupation.

Socialism was then an escape to a utopian world where people were treated fairly; where children were not shot and killed on a daily basis; where cheap laborers were no longer despairing men fighting for meager daily wages at some Israeli factory or farm; and where equality was not an abstract notion. But since Gaza had little in terms of "means of production," our socialism was tailored to accommodate every lacking aspect of our lives. Freedom, justice and ending the occupation was our "revolutionary socialism" around which we teenagers in the camp secretly organized and declared strikes on the walls of the camp in red graffiti, and quoted (or misquoted) Marx as we pleased, often times out of context.

And when it was time for prayer, we all went to the mosque. We simply didn’t see a contradiction, nor did we subscribe to (or cared to understand) the inherent conflict between socialist movements and institutionalized religion in the West. True, we declared solidarity with factory workers in Chicago and followed the news of union victories in Britain, but our socialism was mostly south-oriented. It was the revolutionary struggles of Guatemala, South Africa and Algeria that inspired our various socialist movements in Gaza and the rest of Palestine. Socialism was a call for freedom first, before it was a call for equitable salaries and improved work conditions.

There was little by way of western-styled "atheism" in our refugee camp. Most of us prayed five times a day, communists and all.

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