As a girl in Egypt, I saw what happens when democracy fails.
I watched television reports of Palestinians pushed out of their homes and into the streets. I saw newspaper photographs of refugees fleeing their homeland for fear of being murdered.
Even after I moved to New Jersey at age 12 in 2013, I was still haunted by the faces of Palestinians who lived in constant dread.
These moments came rushing back on Sunday when I joined a group of William Paterson students at the final performance of an off-Broadway show named “Vladimir,” which follows a journalist covering Putin’s rise to power in Russia.
It was the first time I’d ever seen a show with professional actors, and it was cathartic.
“Vladimir” inspired me to write this article for all the Arabs who are speaking out about the genocide in Palestine. No matter how much the Israeli government does to make Palestinians feel unsafe, we can still be their voice from afar. I want all of you to protest peacefully and create art and post what you’re seeing and feeling on social media.
Not because we are Arab. But because we won’t stand for dictatorship.
“Vladimir” documents how journalists can expose the truth of what their government is doing. The play centers on a hard-nosed journalist, Raya Bobrinskaya, who questions whether she should continue to use her voice and risk her life, or turn down the volume. Raya’s character was based on a real-life journalist, Anna Politkovskaya, who was murdered by Putin’s regime in 2006 in her apartment building elevator in Moscow.
In the wake of the election of Donald Trump, many of my fellow students at “Vladimir” said they viewed the show as a cautionary tale about what could happen in the United States in the next four years. I had a different perspective. As an Egyptian and a Muslim, I thought about the oppression of Palestinians as well as the 137 journalists and media workers who have been targeted and killed in the Gaza conflict since Oct. 7, 2023, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Even after killing the leader of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar, last month, Israel continues to find every way possible to wipe out Palestinians and their allies in Lebanon and Yemen, breaking all international war laws.
It is not war; it is genocide.
These are important themes for students to explore, and I’m grateful to my professor, Dr. Nick Hirshon, for organizing this field trip for members of the William Paterson Society of Professional Journalists.
After the show, I stuck around with the other students and Dr. Hirshon to meet the two stars of “Vladimir,” Norbert Leo Butz and Francesca Faridany. We asked a few questions about how they prepared to play journalists and what they took away from their roles. They told us that Anna was known for being relentless and difficult. Those qualities drove her to become a great journalist who refused to stop speaking the truth.
Butz spoke briefly with us about the traditional sanctity of journalism in the United States. “If you were to ask me six to eight years ago,” he began, “I would’ve said, ‘This is America. We have the First Amendment. We have an open and free press. We have institutions that are supported and protected by the government.’ And what is hitting the audience and what is hitting me is how, like 2004 in Russia, certain factions in our country are going. So, I see more similarities unfortunately than differences from back then. We have a president-to-be who called American citizens ‘the enemies within’ and talked about using the military in peaceful protests.”
Butz encouraged student journalists to use our voices, and that’s what I’ve decided to do with this article.
I appreciate the courageous journalists in the Middle East who use the limited social media access they have to report on the home invasions, dropped bombs, and murders. Reporters such as Motaz Azaiza, Bisan Owda, and Plestia Alaqad are risking their lives to expose the truth. Committee to Protect Journalists has compiled a list of all Palestinian journalists who have been killed, injured, or missing in the midst of genocide.
And I deeply admire Al Jazeera in particular for digging into the roots of the conflict between Israel and Palestine.
