Conflict and Trauma

Since early childhood I've been having a nightmare about being persecuted because of my origin. Till now I'm having the dream reguralry enough.  Over time I realised that it's my way of dealing with an inherited trauma from my ancestors.
Modern research suggests the trauma our ancestors experienced doesn't affect them alone — some studies indicate that trauma can be passed down to future generations through genetics. With each new study, we are learning more about human genetics, the power of our environment, and the effects of trauma.The conclusion from a research team at New York's Mount Sinai hospital led by Rachel Yehuda stems from the genetic study of 32 Jewish men and women who had either been interned in a Nazi concentration camp, witnessed or experienced torture or who had had to hide during the second world war.They also analysed the genes of their children, who are known to have increased likelihood of stress disorders, and compared the results with Jewish families who were living outside of Europe during the war. "The gene changes in the children could only be attributed to Holocaust exposure in the parents," said Yehuda.

Jewish persecution is not just about WW2. Jewish persecution has been happening for the past two thousands of years. Not only in Europe but also in Muslim World. And while we can't deny today's Palestinian exodus in Gaza, we can't also deny Jewish exodus in Muslim world.

Sometimes I say as a joke that Jews are one of the most traumatized ethnicity, that's why they invented psychoanalysis.

On the 7th of October Hamas attacked Israel. At least 1400 Israelis, mostly civilians, were killed. There are 3 different layers that affected me on a personal level. I was worried about my Israeli friends. Also, because I do see myself as a part of the psytrance community, it worried me that Hamas also attacked a psytrance festival. And then, when I was reading what actually happened, I couldn't get out of my mind that I thought that something similar had happened to my grandfather. Who watched his Jewish family and neighbours be killed during a pogrom in Carpathian Ruthenia. He survived only because he was a little kid and he managed to hide. All his family was killed and he was orphaned. How many Israelis had the same flashback? I guess all of them, thats why their ancestors moved to Israel to overcome their oppression, hoping for a better future. 

Then Israel conducted retaliation and they killed three times more Palestinians. Israel wants back their hostages and Hamas doesn't seem to want to return them back even though it's harming Palestinian people. Ridiculously terrible situation. Madness on both sides.

At the complete start I could see in the media quite regular dehumanisation of Palestinians, while they said that killed Israelis were murdered but about killed Palestinians was written only as a number. And I also made a facebook post about that. Obviously lots of people complained and the rhetorics changed. But very quickly after I realised that the same dehumanisation can be seen also towards Israelis. And because I live now in Ireland where the politics are very anti-Israeli, I could touch that. I had to be really diplomatic about my opinion about the conflict with my Irish friends, because my expression of the same compassion towards Israelis as towards Palestinians did trigger lots of them. And I released that it' s only a byproduct of very dualistic and black and white seeing of the world. If this "dehumanisation of the enemy" happens in communities even outside of Israeli-Palestinian territory, how can we blame Israelis and Palestinians for doing the same? After all, we are just humans. But it's definitely not a way to make peace.

The first few days after the attack, and thank god, nothing happened to my Israeli friends, I could touch the acute shock that they were experiencing. It was like PTSD retraumatization. Which I think  it is what was really happening. As I mentioned earlier about the inherited trauma, that's what is now collectively happening in Israel. And actually also in Palestine. Children are nearly half of the Gaza population. This situation has to be extremely traumatic for them. If there will not be a will for peace, with the biggest probability these children will grow hating Israelis. It's a vicious circle. But things can heal. And they do. We also overcame WW2. And we don't hate Germans. 

My son is half Bedouin and the other half having my very mixed European and Ashkenazi jew genes. I can't afford to be showing him the world too simplistically in black and white colors. Because that's even not how the world works - and I want him to be proud of every part of himself. During the strikes of Islamic State , I had to have a reasonable conversation with him and make sure he understood the horrible atrocities that Islamic State did, but that It does not define Arabs and Muslims in general. Actually they are also victims of these terrorist groups. And make him prepared that during his life he will meet some people that will see every Muslim or Arab as a terrorist. At the same time, also recently, I had to explain to him about Christian Arabs, because it was just after the attack on Coptic Christian wedding in Egypt. That they are facing oppression too. In that part of the world, everybody has some beef against somebody. It's been a geopolitically crazy place for a long time. And western contributions, interventions, interests and colonial past also didn't help. The main problem of that place is tribalism and black and white seeing of the world. It's really hard, impossible and stupid to try to figure out who started first. Everybody has their part. To resolve this - people will have to elevate their consciousness , overcome duality, focus on compassion and willingness to work together and make peace for future generations, which means they need to agree on the Two-state solution and create healthy and respectful neighbour relationship, because otherwise it's just not sustainable.