00:00 Listen to a poem by Rafi Seara, a Canadian-Palestinian spoken word artist and activist.
00:06 The poem, written in 2011, is entitled "We Teach Life, Sir,"
00:10 and has today the same validity it had back then. Let's listen.
00:14 Today, my body was a TVed massacre.
00:19 Today, my body was a TVed massacre that had to fit into sound bytes and word limits.
00:26 Today, my body was a TVed massacre that had to fit into sound bytes and word limits,
00:32 filled enough with statistics to counter measured response.
00:36 And I perfected my English, and I learned my UN resolutions.
00:41 But still, he asked me, "Ms. Ziada, don't you think everything would be resolved
00:46 if you would just stop teaching so much hatred to your children?"
00:50 Pause. I look inside of me for strength to be patient, but patience is not at the tip of my tongue
00:57 as the bombs drop over Gaza. Patience has just escaped me.
01:02 Pause. Smile. We teach life, sir. Rafi, remember to smile.
01:08 Pause. We teach life, sir. We, Palestinians, teach life after they have occupied the last sky.
01:15 We teach life after they have built their settlements and apartheid walls.
01:20 After the last skies, we teach life, sir.
01:24 But today, my body was a TVed massacre made to fit into sound bytes and word limits.
01:31 And just give us a story, a human story. You see, this is not political.
01:36 We just want to tell people about you and your people, so give us a human story.
01:40 Don't mention that word "apartheid" and "occupation." This is not political.
01:44 You have to help me as a journalist to help you tell your story, which is not a political story.
01:51 Today, my body was a TVed massacre. How about you give us a story of a woman in Gaza who needs medication?
01:57 How about you? Do you have enough bone-broken limbs to cover the sun?
02:02 Hand me over your dead and give me the list of their names in 1,200 word limits.
02:09 Today, my body was a TVed massacre made to fit into sound bytes and word limits
02:16 and move those that are desensitized to terrorist blood.
02:20 But they felt sorry. They felt sorry for the cattle over Gaza.
02:25 So I give them UN resolutions and statistics, and we condemn and we deplore and we reject.
02:31 And these are not two equal sides, occupier and occupied,
02:35 and 100 dead, 200 dead, and 1,000 dead.
02:39 And between that war crime and massacre, I vent out words and smile, not exotic.
02:46 Smile, not terrorist. And I recount, I recount, 100 dead, 200 dead, 1,000 dead.
02:54 Is anyone out there? Will anyone listen? I wish I could wail over their bodies.
03:00 I wish I could just run barefoot in every refugee camp and hold every child,
03:05 cover their ears so they wouldn't have to hear the sound of bombing for the rest of their life the way I do.
03:11 Today, my body was a TVed massacre, and let me just tell you,
03:15 there is nothing your UN resolutions have ever done about this.
03:19 And no sound byte, no sound byte I come up with, no matter how good my English gets.
03:24 No sound byte, no sound byte, no sound byte, no sound byte will bring them back to life.
03:30 No sound byte will fix this. We teach life, sir. We teach life, sir.
03:34 We Palestinians wake up every morning to teach the rest of the world life, sir.
03:40 (audience cheering)
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