I should start this by saying that this is my personal reflection and my personal opinion – away from TMV, and away from my role as Chief Editor. At TMV, and while working at any media organization, it is part of our roles to put aside personal opinions, biases, and even worldviews to engage in a platform that caters to a wider audience.
TMV is here to represent all Muslim voices, experiences, opinions, and thoughts – and it’s something I’m extremely proud of. But it also means that sometimes I have to put aside my own opinions, and edit or publish articles that I may not necessarily fully agree with. That is the point of a platform like TMV – to better understand all of our views and bring us closer together as an ummah.
Saying all this, however, and I find myself feeling hypocritical. Because with what is unfolding in Palestine, in Gaza …. there is no neutrality. There is no “political correctness”. There is no grey area, there is no playing it safe.
We are witnessing a strategically organized genocidal war being conducted by the Israeli state against the Palestinians.
When hospitals are specifically targeted and bombed, with the sole purpose of killing civilians, that is genocide.
When thousands of children, babies, and toddlers, are killed while still in their pajamas, that is genocide.
When teenage boys are jailed, tortured, and kept in solitary confinement during what is supposed to be their prime years in education and society, that is genocide.
When women – young girls, pregnant women, fiances, mothers, and grandmothers – are bombed to death and shot execution style, that is genocide.
When an entire society is deprived of fuel, water, and electricity, that is genocide.
I cannot sit behind a keyboard, working at a media organization, and worry about “not taking sides” or staying neutral in an effort to cater towards biased measurements of “legitimacy”.
If it means anything that the Chief Editor is saying this then let it mean something: I fully, truly and fully, support the freedom of Palestine. There is a clear oppressor, Israel, and a clear victim, Palestine. There is no debate on this in my head and in my heart.
So while TMV will continue to operate beyond me in publishing articles, videos, and social media posts on a wide variety of topics, and represent a wide variety of opinions, I feel the need to at least state publically that with every article I edit and publish, I am doing so with the full conviction of being on the Palestinian side.
This may lose followers, this may ruffle feathers, and this may clash against the supposed neutrality that editors should have when working at a media organization – however this war, this genocide, that is unfolding in front of our very eyes in Palestine is beyond all of this corporate nonsense.
I cannot call myself a Muslim, and I cannot claim any humanity, if I cannot publically support the Palestinian cause.
May Palestine be free, may Palestine be protected, and may Palestine be supported until the day we rid ourselves of all evil.
Jessica Aya Harn, Chief Editor of TMV
