Omar Suleiman – Accepts the James Joyce Award and Dedicates to Gaza Journalists
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The speakers discuss the importance of pursuing faith and affirming one's faith in pursuing faith with faith to pursue faith and finding ways to pursue faith in learning about one's faith. They stress the importance of pursuing affirmations in the faith and finding ways to pursue faith with faith. They also discuss the role of role models in their transition and the importance of sustained energy and attention to oneself. They stress the need to read deeper into literature and use it to transform the way the world works, and stress the importance of finding inspiration from people in the past and finding inspiration from those in the past.
AI: Summary ©
Thank you all for coming to the Chain
Choice Award Ceremony for Umar Suleiman.
I'm going to just do a little introduction
and we'll welcome him right.
Umar Dr. Umar Suleiman is a world-renowned
Islamic scholar and activist from the U.S.
based out of Dallas, Texas.
He is the founder and president of the
Atheen Institute for Islamic Research, which has educated
Muslims across the world and addressed misinformation surrounding
Islam and Islamophobia.
The Atheen has published many articles and books
and videos that have reached billions across the
world.
He's also a resident scholar of the Raleigh
Ranch Islamic Center and a member of the
Ethics and Policy Board, a southern Mesopotamian church.
As well as the founder of Muhasin, an
organization dedicated to special needs and an organization
in the works of individuals in displacement focused
on advocacy for the displaced.
As an activist, Dr. Suleiman has been at
the forefront of many issues surrounding refugee causes,
advocacy for the homeless and unsheltered, challenging the
United States foreign policy and domestic policy surrounding
prisoners' rights, and he has been a main
force for a multi-faith coalition building.
He has been recognized as one of the
most influential Muslims in the world by the
Royal Islamic Strategic Study Center and honored by
the family of Frederick Douglass as one of
the 200 honorees who embody the abolitionists' commitment
to social change.
As a key advocate for the Muslim community,
he has especially been at the forefront of
the pro-Palestine movement in the U.S.,
leading some of the biggest protests on the
issue in U.S. history.
So please welcome Dr. Humus Suleiman.
Thank you all.
As-salamu alaykum.
Peace be with you all.
I thought about what I would prepare for
the evening, and I decided that the best
thing that I could do is actually to
read the names of Palestinian journalists that have
either been killed or are wounded or missing,
or even those that continue to shed light
on the atrocity and genocide against their people
while experiencing it fully.
And so I will be attaching tonight this
list of all of the journalists from Palestine
that have been killed, as well as some
of those who continue to raise their voices.
This is Martez, who has become a brother
to us all.
Walid Ahluq, who they call the Mountain of
Palestine.
Hind, Bisan, Sareh Jafarawi, Khaled Nabhan, who has
become a father to so many of us.
And Nama Jamus, the young journalist, who has
become our daughter.
And then all of those that have been
murdered, starting with Shireen Abu Aqla, to Samah
Abu Dhaqqa, and more.
And so the only thing that I would
like to present tonight is that I intend
to attach this to the award, and I
hope that all of you remember the true
heroes of the day, as all of us
are simply standing on their shoulders and seeking
to amplify their voice.
Thank you.
Thank you.
So I'll start with some questions before we
open it to the floor.
So your parents are in the hospital.
What's it like for you growing up in
that context?
So growing up with Palestinian parents means that
you have an intense feeling of belonging, at
home, and an intense feeling of erasure when
you're outside of your home.
And so while the whole world tells you
that Palestine doesn't exist and anything Palestinian doesn't
actually exist, you have parents at home that
point you to a map.
You have parents at home that show you
symbols of culture and existence, and a beautiful
existence at that, that reminds you that Palestine
is very real, and it's not a figment
of our imagination, but it's a cause that
drives our daily lives.
And so it was an interesting contrast to
go outside the home, and I think every
Palestinian and diaspora lived that reality to some
extent, maybe not here in Ireland, but in
most places in the world, where everyone tells
you it's not real, and your parents are
living that tragedy, an extension of that tragedy,
but also an extension of the hope, and
you too are an extension of the hope
that one day Palestine will be free.
So everything from the food, to the symbols,
to the Palestinian maps hanging around the house,
to the currency of a country that supposedly
was never real, to the maps of our
lineage were all around us.
My parents were actually both driven out of
Palestine, met in Texas, so my parents actually
met in Houston, as students at the University
of Houston.
My father always reminds everyone that he was
born well before the State of Israel, and
so Palestine was part of our house, and
we carried it to everyone outside of our
homes.
And you mentioned the importance of reminding yourself
of the State.
Have you heard this today, or not, especially
the journalists that you mentioned?
I think that if there's anyone that would
have an excuse to not tell the story
right now, it would be the people that
are the subject of the story.
All of these people that are on camera
right now have lost loved ones.
Some of them had their loved ones taken
away from them while they were reporting on
the genocide.
All of them are living through that devastation.
None of them are eating full meals.
None of them have full access to the
outside world, or even to their relatives in
Gaza.
They're all in fear, but at the same
time, they all feel a responsibility to tell
the story while they're in the midst of
it.
The fact that they have continued to persevere
and to be the voice of themselves, while
many would suffer in silence and feel a
great sense of being dejected because the world
is not listening to them.
They choose to continue to raise their voices
and the voices of their people.
And they do it with such dignity.
They do it with such elegance.
They do it with such emotion.
And in their very being, just the fact
that they stand in front of a camera,
despite knowing that that makes them greater targets,
instead of protecting them.
Wearing a press vest is like wearing a
target on your chest at this moment.
The fact that they continue to do that
is, I think, one of the greatest stories
of heroes, living heroes, that we have today.
And so if they can do it, if
they can continue to raise their voices, despite
global neglect, then who are we to not
raise their voices?
I want to transition into you growing up.
I recently saw a podcast where you're talking
about your favorite books.
And you talk about it, but then you're
questioning your own faith.
What was that experience like?
We have some Muslims and some non-Muslims.
So what drew you, Christy, to reaffirm your
faith in Islam, even just to support faith
in general?
So I believed in God.
I just had to figure out how God
was talking to us.
There are probably a million people at this
moment that believe God speaks to them directly.
To me, I had to figure out how
God has spoken to humanity throughout history.
And so it's testing the integrity of revelation.
And so for that, you have to analyze
the claim to prophethood that the Prophet Muhammad,
peace be upon him, is making.
And if you affirm his prophethood, or if
you come to a place where you are
satisfied with his claim to prophethood, the beauty
of Islam is that that legitimizes all of
the prophets that came before him.
Because if you believe in Muhammad, peace be
upon him, you necessarily believe in the prophethood
of Jesus, peace be upon him, and Moses,
peace be upon him, and Abraham, peace be
upon him, and all of the prophets that
came before him.
Because his claim is inherently tied to their
claims.
And then it's all coherent because it's tied
to one singular message of coming to the
worship of one God, and then living your
life in accordance with that message.
Trying to take every element of this world
and channel it into a form of worship
of that one God.
And so I knew God was there.
I believed in one God.
As a kid, you know, dealing with some
of the challenges with my mother being sick,
and some of the other things I was
witnessing.
I wrestled with certain issues.
But once I came to a place of
being satisfied with the claim to prophethood of
the prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, I
was fully at ease with my faith and
found it to be a beautiful...
In fact, even more beautiful than the way
it was informed by my parents.
And I think the beauty of Islam is
that it establishes the consistency and coherence of
the message, that it was a singular message
in front of all of the prophets that
overcame one God, and that message never actually
changed.
Some of the elements of legislation changed.
But at the same time, while God spoke
to all of those prophets in the same
way, we all, not being prophets, have the
same access to God, to speak to Him.
So supplication is a very intimate experience in
Islam.
You don't go through clergy.
You don't go through an imam.
You don't have to be of a certain
level of piety or cross a threshold before
you can supplicate and invoke Him directly.
He is closer to you in your jugular
vein when you call upon Him in response.
And so it's consistent communication that came to
us and then open communication from everybody back
to Him in that supplication.
And so it just establishes a great sense
of harmony.
And, you know, I'm grateful for the process
because the process allowed me to really find
depth in my faith.
And then what drew you to Islamic scholarship
and academia?
Because I feel like a lot of us
in the university get a job, maybe in
a corporate firm somewhere that will pay you
the big bucks.
So what drew you to that?
Well, in fairness, my father is a chemistry
professor.
He is a really good chemistry professor.
He's one of the best in the world.
And so I grew up in a house
that definitely expressed academia.
And my dad did tell me that if
you want to study Islam, you've got to
study something else as well.
So I got a degree in academy, but
I never did taxes.
I really wanted to delve deep into my
faith because reading more affirmed me more in
my faith.
And so I didn't intend to actually become
a Imam or to actually take a path
where I would be teaching full-time, right?
I just wanted to delve as deep as
possible into the faith.
And I think that, you know, there doesn't
have to be a dichotomy that everyone has
to be, you know, abided by here.
Pursuing any knowledge that is beneficial is Islamic
knowledge, especially if you pursue it with the
intention to do great things.
There's a saying from one of the four
Imams, Imam al-Shafi'i, where he said
that the two most beneficial groups of people
in the world are scholars and doctors.
One treats the soul, one treats the body.
I know that for a lot of, you
know, students this length, you're validating, you know,
their parents who say you can only become
doctors.
I'm not saying that.
I'm saying that find ways to pursue things
that will be beneficial.
And most of what we have been taught,
most of what is around us, is that
at the end of the day, it means
for benefit.
So it goes back to your intention when
you study.
It goes back to what you seek from
your output.
You know, many people simply seek, you know,
to earn a living.
Instead of just earning a living, try to
earn a purpose, you know, live with purpose.
And so whatever it is that you're pursuing,
make the most out of it.
But certainly think about, you know, give your
faith to this view.
This is the most important question that will
ever be asked of you.
And this is the most important question that
you will ever ask.
Why am I here?
And so you have to give it its
time.
Giving it its time doesn't mean watching YouTube
videos.
Giving it its time means diving deep into
that question, because if you don't know why
you're here, then nothing will satisfy you.
Growing up, and you mentioned in a lot
of your videos, the role models, who are
those role models specifically?
And also kind of maybe choosing our role
models, or how role models were generated, or
why we have them.
What are the importance of them?
I had a lot of role models.
I often tell people that your greatest role
models are probably your parents, and you just
don't appreciate that until you get older.
I admired my parents greatly.
I don't think I knew how great they
were until I became an adult.
But certainly in my parents, I had great
role models.
I think like many people, especially in the
1990s, the movie X came out, Malcolm X,
right?
The autobiography of Malcolm X was read widely,
distributed widely, and then that movie with Denzel
Washington, Spike Lee made, went viral before social
media, right?
Everybody watched Malcolm X.
He became an icon.
For me as well, it was interesting, because
a lot of my worlds sort of intersected
when that happened, because I went to an
all-black school, and so everyone who wasn't
Muslim but was black had a Malcolm picture,
poster, had the X-chains, and then everyone
who was Muslim, black, or not black, still
had this obsession with Malcolm X.
There was this obsession with Malcolm all around
me, and I wanted to see him beyond
just as a symbol.
I wanted to analyze him deeper than that,
and what I loved about him was that
he had every reason to fail, but found
every way to succeed.
Everything was stacked against him, but he turned
the darkness of that prison cell into light
for the world.
I mean, it was incredible to watch his
transformation.
It's incredible to read the power of his
words, to hear him decades later, and what
he says seems to be timeless, and one
of the things I admired about Malcolm in
particular was that even his foes would say
that he was the most sincere of people.
Even the FBI was tapping his phones and
writing reports on everything that he was doing
in their surveillance reports, talked about how saintly
he was, which is deeply profound.
So, role models change over time for me.
Right now, I'd have to say it's Wadid
Ben-Gurion.
There's something about him that just captures so
much.
I mean, he deeply deploys in the midst
of great pain.
He's had almost everyone beloved to him taken
away from him, but he manifests such a
beautiful steadfastness with everything that he does.
So, right now, I'd say he's definitely a
role model.
So, look for the role models.
Look for the people around you.
Look for the people even in your own
home at times.
People can be role models for different things.
As Muslims, the Prophet, peace be upon him,
and the Prophets as a whole, those are
the best of people.
So, we find a connection to them.
One of the ways that God makes them
role models to us is that he actually
gives us access to their lives in their
low points.
So, whether it's Job or Moses or whoever
it may be, you're seeing them in their
lowest points, and you're seeing how they rose
to be heroes.
And so, we have a lot of role
models that we can look to, both in
the past and the present.
We hope to be role models for the
future.
I remember the first time I saw you
was a clip about you talking about Hurricane
Katrina.
And you've been involved in community support and
activism for a while.
What have you learned over that time being
involved in advocacy, in political advocacy?
How has it evolved since then?
So, Hurricane Katrina is almost 20 years ago
now.
I remember taking a graduate course, because I'm
an Irishman, I have to say this.
I took a graduate course at the University
of New Orleans comparing Hurricane Katrina to the
Irish Strait.
It's very interesting, the link between the two.
It wasn't a natural disaster, because there were
layers of neglect that preceded it, and layers
of neglect, governmental neglect, that unfortunately were forecast
upon New Orleans.
You know, it speaks to America's constant dilemma
of bombing other countries to devastation, while it
crumbles from it.
At that time, you have the George Bush
administration, which is arguably the worst in the
history of the United States.
And people kind of look at me funny
when I say that, like, you know who
else has been president like I did, but
that administration obviously started the war in Iraq,
started the war in Afghanistan.
And while, you know, tearing up these two
countries on the basis of the lie of
weapons of mass destruction, literally people in New
Orleans could not find home, right?
Could not find basic relief, could not find
basic forms of rescue, right?
People were drowning for days without food.
The media helicopters showed up, that's where the
government showed up, right?
It was crazy.
So there are layers of neglect.
So you have thousands of people that die
at home while you kill hundreds of thousands
abroad.
You continue to send aid to Israel, which
has sustained an occupation and the murder of
thousands and thousands of people.
It was madness.
You know, some people talked about New Orleans
and said that Katrina should have been the
birth of Black Lives Matter, because there's a
heavy, heavy racial element to who was chosen
to die there, right?
And what neighborhoods were allowed to be flooded.
And where recovery, you know, was prioritized.
All of that was important.
So it was an intersection of so many
different forms of injustice.
It also showed me what it was like
to see communities come together in devastation.
When you're trying to survive a flood of
that magnitude, you're looking at human beings as
human beings, right?
Everyone came together.
Communities that never worked together, communities that didn't
even know each other, came together to save
New Orleans.
And so we really connected deeply with other
communities.
As a Muslim community, I live in New
Orleans.
And New Orleans traditionally has this welcoming feel,
but it was really after Katrina that the
city pulled together to rebuild itself.
So that was the beauty that I saw
in devastation as well.
I saw the power of multi-faith coalition.
I saw the power of people through great
despair to come together to rebuild.
And I also, you know, saw hope through
it all.
I mean, it's interesting.
So when the Irish famine happened, New Orleans
received, I think, about 40,000 Irish migrants
at the time in 1800.
It has a history like that.
So I kind of took that spirit everywhere
I went.
The possibility of people building in the midst
of idleness, in the midst of devastation.
And we've had to do that quite a
few times in Dallas, Texas, and in the
country as a whole.
And we'll continue to build, but hope for
less devastation that forces us to do it.
And you mentioned that devastation was forcing a
lot of suffering.
Are you staying empathetic or sympathetic in those
situations, especially when it can be emotionally contagious?
Even for us where our suffering is delivered
to our phones at an instant, how do
you not get empathetic to it?
So when you're an imam or when you're
a pastor, or you have to pastor, you
always have to be the calm presence in
the room, and the calm presence in the
room, right?
So you do a hospital check and see.
When you have to deliver terrible news to
someone, or you have to be there when
the worst news has just been delivered to
them, you always have to maintain the calmness.
There's a risk there that that could become
numbness, and it could actually become very dangerous.
But I take it as a purposeful collectiveness
in the moment.
When you go to refugee camps, when you
take youth groups to Syria or to Jordan,
people that have been through the worst of
the worst do not want you to walk
into their tent and cry at their situation.
They're looking for a smile.
They're looking for reassurance.
They're looking for comfort.
When people are suffering, they want you to
be there with them, but they also want
you to be there for them.
And to be there for them sometimes, you
have to disconnect just a little bit, not
to a point of apathy, but to a
point of perspective, so that you can help
them through the moment.
One of the ways that I try to
process when I'm in a situation like that
is I tell myself that you'll have your
chance to cry.
My chance to cry will be when I
go home.
My chance to cry will be when I
get in the car sometimes, when I'm out
of the situation.
But right now, the moment demands otherwise.
So being calm, being poised is important.
By prioritizing the emotions of the person that's
in front of you, the people that you're
there to help in the first place, and
then telling yourself, you'll have your moment, you'll
have your chance.
Now, in general, numbness, which can be just
complete detachment, I think that that's found when
a person is either consuming too much without
recalibrating, or they're not consuming enough, so they're
becoming heinous.
So in the case of a person who's
consuming too much of devastation, that's where you
take breaks, but your breaks should be purposeful.
You garner perspective by reaffirming your own sense
of purpose in the world, comforting yourself by
reminding yourself that God is in control, connecting
yourself to God, filling your spiritual pool, filling
that tank, making sure that you're not all
empty, and keeping at it.
So you have to take breaks, but your
breaks have to be meaningful, they have to
be purposeful.
So overconsumption without recalibration is just going to
shut you down, and not consuming it at
all is just going to make you heinous,
and that's where apathy can come.
So both apathy and numbness are not going
to serve any real purpose, so that's where
your private worship, your private devotion has to
come in, because that's where you're going to
sort of remind yourself, very thoughtfully and intentionally,
why you're doing what you're doing.
With optimism, of course, the community can get
involved in lots, and even as a very
pro-Palestine country, people have been observing boycotts,
protests, such as that.
How do people not get fatigued in those
situations where they're actually getting involved and trying
to make a difference, whether it's on international
issues, or even climate change, there's many issues
like that.
So I think that sincerity is something that
you can only find deeply within yourself, in
your own private moments of worship, but energy
and zeal is found with a group, and
so how you find that energy and zeal
with a group is you look to people
that are continuing to go, even when you
feel like you need to shut down.
You look to other people that are committed
to the cause, even if they have more
difficult circumstances than you.
And in the case of pro-Palestinian activism,
look at the people in Palestine themselves.
One of the reasons why they have frustrated
to accept their colonial project is because of
their refusal to leave, despite all forms of
intimidation and all of the devastation that comes
with living under occupation.
So if they can persist, we too can
persist.
If they can continue to report while the
bombs are falling on them, we can continue
to talk about them while the bombs are
not falling on us.
If they can continue to strive, even after
they've lost family members, then surely they can
strive while they're still alive.
We don't have to look towards the past
or the future for anything to motivate us
to keep going, but for ancestors to us,
we have to go to ourselves.
People that enjoy living for the evil together,
they work together to do that.
Your energy is going to be found with
people that don't give up, with people that
keep going.
And your sincerity is only going to be
kindled from within.
So the private worship is to kindle sincerity.
The public work, the collective work, is to
maintain and sustain energy.
And just the last thing before I end,
because I'm sure people have questions.
How do we help people overcome the problem?
Sometimes we feel helpless or have a limited
absence.
So even in those situations, how do we
help people?
So your goal is to increase capacity to
the point that you can be a more
capable servant.
Compassion fatigue is a real thing.
But many people talk about, you know, filling
their own hearts and giving themselves more room
to grieve so that they can feel better.
But we do that as believers so that
we can be better.
We can be more capable worshippers, more capable
servants.
We can be more present for people if
we take those moments to refill our tanks
and we do what's necessary for ourselves.
So how we can help people is by
being the best version of ourselves and by
not disconnecting from them when the world turns
away from them and finds something else that's
more worthy of its attention.
So your boycotts matter.
Look, sustained action is what makes the difference.
Sustained action, even if it is through collective
small efforts, is what allows for even the
most brutal empires to bubble.
So keep boycotting.
Keep protesting.
Your prayers matter.
Your charity matters.
Your boycotts matter.
Your protests matter.
Be one of those that stays consistent when
others have lost interest.
Thank you.
Is there anybody from the crowd who has
any questions?
Don't be shy.
Yeah.
You talked about giving the study of religions
enough time.
Well, most of the time.
That is a big loss.
So the literature that was available to me
back in the late 90s is not the
same literature that's available to you right now.
There's plenty of well-researched work out there
for you to benefit from.
So I'd recommend going to the King Institute's
website.
There are over 250 articles there that are
present, a whole body of research that answers
some of the most complicated questions about religion.
There's a book that's been written called Proofs
of Prophethood, which, again, to me, if you
prove the prophethood of Muhammad, peace be upon
him, if you test the claim of a
prophet, then you're satisfied in that.
But you also need to learn about how
this all brings things together.
So who was Jesus, peace be upon him?
What were the claims of Christ?
How do we find a way to synthesize
all of this?
Because we believe that these were all divinely
inspired people, that these were all people that
came with great messages.
How do you synthesize all of that?
So it's important to go through that research
and to benefit from it.
A lot of the research that's being produced
today takes what has been produced in the
past, and we're blessed with that.
Just talking about Malcolm X, one of the
things that shocked people, there was no biography
of the Prophet, peace be upon him, in
English when Malcolm was in prison.
So you had to sort of sparse through
history books or whatever you could find to
try to put things together.
But there wasn't a single book that was
written in English about the Prophet Muhammad, peace
be upon him, back then.
So make use of what's available to you
right now in terms of literature.
It's also important, by the way, for the
Palestinian cause.
One of the things that frustrates us about
what's happening to the Palestinian people and the
ongoing atrocities against the Palestinian people is that
people just don't take the time to read.
If you're going to merely consume a few
tweets, a few videos, you're never really going
to get to the heart of the conflict.
So people need to learn to read deeper
into things, read beyond headlines, and make use
of all the literature that's out there.
There's a ton of it that's out there
now, big on politics.
No one ever reads to a point of
regret.
So just keep reading.
Any other questions?
Yes.
You've spoken briefly about the talks about US
imperialism and foreign policy.
For any point or decision that the US
has made that has been a benefit to
the rest of the world, would you think
that their isolation would be a benefit for
everyone?
Or is there foreign policy that you can
point to that you agree with?
That's a great question.
Is there anything in US foreign policy that
I agree with?
Yes, essentially.
We're not doing much right now that I
can agree with.
I think that the problem with US foreign
policy is that even when it does good,
even when the United States government has done
good, there is always a very malicious string
attached to that good.
So when Anthony Blinken says, we've put more
aid into Gaza than anybody else.
We've sent more humanitarian aid to Gaza than
anybody else.
We've also sent more bombs into Gaza than
anyone else and funded the occupation more so
than anyone else.
So I think that's the problem with US
foreign policy, is that it's inherently built upon
American interests and not the interests of humanity.
And in fact, to the detriment of humanity,
all for American interests, and not even the
interests of the American people.
The interests of weapons manufacturers, the interests of
deep PACs and nefarious political interests.
It's frustrating.
It's really frustrating.
And I think that most American people, when
they sort of open their eyes to this,
we have basically functioned as a global bully.
And even when America takes the right side
of history, it does so for the wrong
reasons.
And so we were on the right side
of Bosnia.
We were on the right side of Afghanistan
at some point.
We were on the right side of fighting
colonial powers at times, but only so that
we could replace them as a greater colonial
power.
That's the problem.
And so I think we have to not
just challenge American imperialism, but challenge the ideas
that have propelled colonialism in the 20th century,
where we still face the aftermath, unfortunately now,
in many parts of the world.
You have to really interrogate the underpinnings of
colonial ideology, and then talk about how the
effects of that colonialism remain today.
Because unfortunately, one of the things that Malcolm
said about Africa, he said, they clip the
birds' wings and then blame it for not
flying as high as them.
So unfortunately, in a world where people can't
pay attention for more than five minutes online,
how are they going to read beyond five
years in the past?
You have to read about what has led
to the current political situations that we are
living in now, and how we can actually
restore not just those specific situations, but we
can fundamentally shift the way that the world
works.
And that's only going to come through the
power of the people.
As cliche as that sounds, that's where people
power comes in.
When enough people insist upon a different way
of being, that these political interests can't merely
compete with one another, all to the detriment
of the other.
Thank you.
Yes?
I have a question for you.
Obviously, in the last several times that we've
lived, they've become increasingly challenging, as Mr. Inlander
has said further all around us, but how
do you deal with that?
How do you face it?
So the way that we face it here,
is by first and foremost remembering that others
have had greater challenges, and they've been able
to overcome them.
So that's where looking in the past has
really helped me, by finding the inspiration from
those people in the past.
And this is something that the Quran constantly
draws upon with the lives of the prophets
that came before them.
That they've been through greater challenges, that they've
got to a point where they thought there
was no end in sight.
The beauty of faith is that it causes
you to manifest the best version of yourself
with absolutely no expectations in regards to the
outcome.
So if the outcome is not what I
seek, then I'm content knowing that there's a
greater plan.
But then I also have to do the
best that I possibly can, and put forth
my greatest effort.
So there have been difficult times in the
past, and there will continue to be difficult
times going forward.
But I do think that there is a
lot of hope.
Look, coming to Ireland, I think that being
a Palestinian-American, Ireland has become legendary to
Palestinians around the world.
Like when I told Palestinians, family and others,
I'm going to Ireland, it's like, whoa, okay,
now make sure you go to this person,
go to this person, are you going to
be going to this protest?
It's unique here, I'm sure that you face
your challenges, but recognize that your challenges are
different from what others face.
And so you have opportunities amongst those challenges.
The fact that you can challenge that bigotry
is in and of itself an opportunity for
you.
So use that.
You also have the leverage to be able
to speak for populations that can't speak for
themselves in other countries of the world.
So use that to your advantage and keep
going.
No more questions?
Thank you so much for coming out.
Thank you.
I'd like to present this to you.
Round of applause, please.