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Host: But now I want to move your heart, because we have a special guest with us today. We
have a guest who will inspire each one of us in this room today, inspire us because
you will learn her from her story how incredibly powerful you are, how incredibly powerful
your actions affect other people. You're going to hear a story where people moved her. They
weren't (?), they weren't preachers, they didn't give her a book to read, they didn't
do comparative religion. They treated her with [inaudible].
Today we have Sister Lauren Luther, a journalist, a broadcaster. She currently presents two
programs Palestinian issues. One is called Remember Palestine, the other one is [inaudible]
the Diaspora. Lauren has visited the West Bank and Gaza as a journalist and an activist,
and as a result she accepted (?) of 2010. This is her story.
Lauren: [speaking foreign language] I'd like to begin by thanking Allah for allowing us
all to gather here this Sunday, some of us came by plane this morning, and we arrived
safely (?). Some of you have driven here, so I will reward you all for taking time on
a holiday weekend to share what we hope will be inspirational to all and remembers god.
I also want to the Ever Enclave (SP?) for going and being my sponsor and allowing me
to come over to America for what is a really important cause. I get invited all around
the world, I have outstanding visits currently to Pakistan, and Singapore, and also to other
places, but I keep coming back to America, because as Brother Julio also rightly says,
whether or not or you guys see it or feel it yet, you are the canary in the coal mine
for Western Muslim (?). If you go down without a fight, the rest of us are really in trouble.
What the NDAA means is that people can be disappeared. If you leave this, and you don't
support the MLFA and people who are protecting your rights, one of these days, a local son
who's at university will be vanished from the street, you won't know where he's gone.
For all you know, the American government's got him. This is serious, serious stuff going
on here, so I'm worried about it, and I hope you'll be thinking about it to take this seriously.
Make (?) a lot, and be active in your communities not to put up with this.
I've been Muslim two years, and it still surprises me that I'm standing here in the Hijab, and
in the long, flowing clothes. If I saw myself two years ago, if I walked into the Masjid
and I saw me standing here, my reaction would have been something like this - No way! What
did they do to you? Lauren what happened to you?
That's what I would have said to myself. What I'd like to share today is how come a journalist
from the mainstream, from an Episcopal family comes to join what is tragically being portrayed
as the world's most hated, because it's actually the world's most vilified religion.
We all have to look at where we come from, so I'll begin at the beginning. I was born
in London and my father was an actor (?) in the 70's, my mom was a model. In our household,
there wasn't a great deal of religion. My dad was might you call a 'lapsed Catholic.'
What does that mean?
Well, anybody who knows the Irish community will know that it means that my dad used to
get drunk and then sing Irish songs that had the word god in them, that's what being a
lapsed Catholic means.
My mom was a superstitious Christian. She would never pray, never go to church, but
she would buy crosses and hang them all around the house to ward off evil spirits.
Now my grandmother did teach me to pray, she taught me the Lord's Prayer, and I used to
say that at bedtime, but the feeling inside me was stronger than just words taught to
me by my grandmother. It's hard to describe, it's just a memory of being 5 and 6 years
old and knowing that I, personally, as a child, loved to put my hands together and say the
words, 'Dear God,' and then come out with a lists of asks, because I believed so strongly,
I understood so strongly that the power of my house was my father, my mother, my grandmother,
my grandfather, and above them all was God making all decisions for all of us, it was
common sense.
When did we lose that common sense?
Allah tells us, in the Koran that we have fitzfah (SP?), belief - Knowledge of God that
he puts into us in the wombs of our mother. Well, I can related to that, because I remember
having absolute certainty and knowledge of God when I was little, even in the family
where belief wasn't practiced.
We grow in a Western, secular environment and it's really, really hard to hold onto
that growth and belief. In fact, Allah (?) calls it the rope of Iman. He says, "Hold on tight.
Hold on tight to that link to God."
Well, what happens is we slide off.
When I was 10 years old, I remember that I'd go to bed praying, and then, gradually, friends
come over and we'd have sleep overs, right? I remember a friend coming over from school,
she stayed the night. At bed time, I put my hands together, "Dear God, please..." and
she looked at me like crazy.
She said, "What are you doing?"
I said, "I'm praying to God, of course."
She said, "What? Santa Claus? The guy with the big beard on the cloud? You believe in
invisible being?"
And it just made me feel like was being mocked, maybe I was crazy. Everything crumbled. Without
any practice, without any teaching, without anything to hold onto, my faith just wore
away. Then of course what happens is - You get 11, 12, or 13, and two things happen simultaneously
- First of all, your hormones kick in. Your hormones kick in, and then your arrogance
and your ego, then you can say the (?) kick in. I remember, very much, going from a humble
child into, "I run the world, and I'm Miss Everything."
I was like that for about 30 years embarrassingly enough. The longest teenage life ever.
So, holding to the Rope of Iman is really pretty difficult, and what did I did I know
about Islam growing up in the (?) in the 70's and 80's?
Well, I went to all girls school, and in my year were around three Muslim girls. So, over
the never six years, I watched them from a distance. We never sat together, they had
their own clique going on. I was doing something different, but I observed. If you had have
asked about Islam, I would have said, "Yeah, I know about Islam. I know three things about
Islam."
You'd say, "Well what do you know Islam?"
I'd say, "Number one, Islam means that Muslim girls have to grow their hair down to their
down to their waists. Secondly, Islam means that Muslim girls are really good at maths.
And, Islam means that Muslim girls are all going to be doctors, and it comes from Pakistan."
Up until 9/11, that was, I'm really embarrassed to say, all that I thought I knew about Islam.
You can see and judge how much of that was wrong or right. I would be embarrassed about
that if that wasn't actually, probably, two things more than most of America still knows
about actually, so [inaudible].
When you are a revert, it's warming for everybody to know the moment that the person felt that
fitzfah (SP?) return, all that light come into the heart. People would begin to ask
me two years ago, "What happened? When did it happen? When did you first think there's
something more out there than this shell and this need, this pair of shoes, this next thing?"
I thought really hard about it, and I found the moment. I'll tell you about you now.
In the year 2000, I had a newborn baby called Alexandra, she was a month old. I was sitting
in front of the TV one night, and an image came onto the screen that stopped the world
for me. It took the breath out of body all at once. I'll describe it for.
All I could see on the screen was the back of a young boy. It was on the evening news,
and that young boy, 15 years old had a stone in his right hand. He was standing like -this-
with a stone, but his head was up and his back was mighty. What was amazing was that
just a few feet from him was a tank. The tank was pointing its gun right at him, and this
boy had a stone, and I'll tell you what - That stone was mightier than that tank. It stopped
me, I didn't ever want to stop seeing that image, if fact, if I closed my eyes I can
see it precisely now, even down to the jeans the boy was wearing. That tank was an Israeli
tank, and that young boy was 15 years old, and his name was Farris Oday (sp?), and he
came from a place I'd never heard of called the Gaza strip, in a country I think I'd heard
of called Palestine.
I didn't know this at the, but nine days after I first saw at that image, Farris Oday, a
15 year old boy with a stone was shot dead by an Israeli sniper. He was shot in the neck
and he died on the floor of his refugee camp, and that world didn't mourn or stop, not for
a second.
Now (?) Allah (?) has a plan for you - You can go to the left, you can go the right,
you can mistakes, but you will be guided to that path. It's just how difficult you make
it getting there. That's the only explanation I have for what happened next in my life,
because in 2005 I was a mainstream journalist. I had a column in a newspaper called, The
Mail on Sunday, which was read between 2 million and 4 million people every weekend. I was
writing about living in France. I had been in France. I actually thought, I have two
daughters, life was sweet and I didn't need anything. I was also at the height of my arrogance.
Somehow, for a reason that (?) I have no explanation for. In January 2005 I marched into my editor's
office, and I promise you, it was like I was having an out of body experience, because
I couldn't believe the words I was saying, because I said, "I'd like to go to Palestine,
Peter, and cover the Palestinian elections about to take place."
Now Peter Wright is a very clever guy, he's one of the best editors in what we call Fleet
Street. He should have said to me, "Lauren, don't be ridiculous, you're not a war correspondent,
go back to writing about hairstyles," or say, "Go back to writing about living in South
France, off you go," and I would have gone.
But that's not what happened. Peter looked at me, he said, "Alright, go to Palestine.
Here's the money, give me four pages in the magazine, see you in two weeks."
A few days later, there I was outside Tel Aviv airport. I didn't have even a suitcase,
because the Israelis had kept my kept my suitcase for extra security checks, I had three phone
numbers with Palestinian names on them that I'd never met, and I had no idea what was
going to happen next. As I stood there wondering what on earth to do, how you get from Tel
Aviv to Palestine, a man came up to me and he introduced himself like this, "Hi, my name
is Jamal. You can call me Jimmy."
I said, "Hi Jimmy."
He said, "I'm a taxi driver, where do you want to go?"
I looked at the piece of paper, "I'd like to go to a place called Ramallah, do you know
it?"
He said, "Sure, sure, get in the car, I'll take you there."
Over the next hour, hour and a half, Jimmy Jamal gave me 63 of Palestinian history. That's
nearly a year a minute, it was a really great lecture. It was Occupation 101, and I learned
a lot. We got through Jerusalem, Alcus (SP?), we went on the roads towards Ramallah, area
C it's called of the Palestinian occupied lands, towards the West Bank or (?) Bank.
As we got closer the road the got less and less like the road to more like a bit full
rocks and not so illustrious.
I said to Jimmy, "Why don't we use that road on the mountain? It's going the same way and
it's empty and it's a good road to (?)."
I remember he just looked at me and said, "You don't know much about this, do you?"
I said, "Tell me."
He said, "That road up there is for Jews only. If I go up there with you in this car we'll
be shot dead in around six minutes. Shall we go?"
He had a wicked sense of humor, I think be around death so much. He did -this-, "I mean,
no! I can't go on that road," he said, "And the joke's on me because I'm from Jerusalem,
I'm a Palestinian from Jerusalem so my taxes go to pay for the Jews only roads that I can't
use unless I'm going to be shot."
And a single word came into my head, "Apartheid."
That was all, just Apartheid.
Jimmy took me to the first checkpoint I'd ever seen. It was by now dusk and I was on
my own. When he asked me to get out of the car and said goodbye, I said, "What do you
mean goodbye? Please take me to my hotel, don't just dump me."
He said, "You don't know much about this do you?"
I said, "Tell me."
He said, "I can't go to the West Bank, the Israelis have given me an ID for Jerusalem.
I can never ever visit Gaza, and I can't go to the West Bank. You have to walk through
on your own and get a different taxi. Apartheid.
In the morning, the next day, I woke up. I had somehow, with a couple of phone calls,
the numbers that I'd been given, secured an interview with Makhmud Abbas, who was about
to become President of the Palestinian Authority, on the day the he was elected. It was a major
scoop, for any journalist. Some journalists, war journalists and correspondents from around
the world, and me, writing about hairstyles, living in the South France gets me, it was
amazing.
When you meet a world leader, especially on election day, you have to negotiate with their
security. Now remember, I'd never been an Arab country, I didn't, at that point, know
any Muslims, I'd certainly never been to the Middle East, and I was on my own with Makhumd
Abbas' personal security guards. These are two of biggest Arabs you've ever seen in your
life. 6'5" and 6'8'', most of them with guns, walkie-talkies, camouflage pants, it was like
in a movie. They put me into this metal container that was an elevator. Before that, they took
my bag. They take your bag, they take your phone, they take your coat. I was standing
there on my own, and I remember really well with the walkie-talkies on the mens belts
where they took it out and said something like this, [gibberish]. I'm really sorry,
that is how Arabic sounds to English people.
I thought immediately, subtitle, "We'll kill the white woman later, hah hah hah!"
Because I realize that I had Arabphobia. In the back of my mind, all the time, since I'd
arrived in Palestine, that first 24 hours was the fact that - Who was going to be the
one who kidnapped me? Who was going to be the crazy with the gun? Was I going to end
up on some horrible YouTube video on Al Jazeera? It was on my mind, I was racist. I'd absorbed
all of those negative images without ever having met a Muslim, or a Palestinian in their
homeland.
Now they say that politics - A week is a long time in politics. Well, I can tell you today,
three days is a life changing amount of time in Palestine, because just three days later
I went from being scared of every Palestinian man that I met, to loving every person that
I met. I knew that I'd give my life for any man, woman, or child after just three days
in Palestine. Such was the love and kindness that they showed me as a stranger.
I'll give you an example - Remember I had my suitcase with the Israeli security? I was
going to tell you about [inaudible] with the Israeli security, but it's not really relevant.
They kept my case. I was walking along a street in Ramallah, and it was cold, it was January,
it was rainy and drizzly. An old lady just came up to me, she looked at me like I was
crazy, and she grabbed my arm and said, [gibberish], which means, basically, come on, come here.
She took me into her little home and she ushered me into a bedroom and opened a cupboard, and
she took out a big coat and she put it on me. Then she found a little case and she put
some jumpers in and she closed the case, and gave me the case. She wrote down what I presume
was her name and number, because it was Arabic, I didn't understand it. She showed me to her
door, and said [gibberish].
I said, "What is this? What is this? What sort of people do that?"
You see a stranger on the street, you give them a coat and you give them a case of clothes,
you say goodbye.
It was remarkable.
Stuff like that happened on every single day of that trip, and it changed my life and it
changed my heart. When Allah (?) wants to tell you something, wants to show you something
- No matter how stubborn you are, you will start to see it. That was in 2005. I go back
in 2006, to write another article, and this time I got my first Koran in English.
Would like to hear how I got that Koran?
Well I was walking in Jerusalem, the day after the evening that Gaza Strip had gone to Gaza
for the first time, and I can't tell you about that trip - It was so difficult what I saw
with the occupation forces that I was traumatized. Let's just say I was traumatized. I was in
the streets in Jerusalem, it was raining and I had 40 minutes before my flight, and I was
stressed, and I had a whole list of things to get for my kids, and a young Palestinian
man got into step with me, and he said [gibberish] like this. You know where you're all stressed
and angry, you can be a not very not person, so I was like - Yeah, yeah, [gibberish], whatever.
And a voice in my head said, "Don't you dare ever be rude to a Palestinian in their land,
because have you made you welcome everywhere. Just check yourself."
So I took a breath and said, "Sorry, how are you?"
He said, "I'm fine, what can I do for you today?"
That's Italian, it's definitely not a Palestinian accent. He wasn't Italian, he was a Palestinian.
I said, "Look, I've got this long list of souvenirs that I need to buy for people, and
I don't know where to get them."
He said, "This is great news, all of the men in these stores are my uncles, we shall help
you."
I read out my list - It was two stuffed toy camels for daughters, a mother of pearl photograph
of Yassar Arafat, a ceremonial knife for my husband who collected knives, and maybe a
Koran in English because I wanted to see what all the fuss was about by now.
In the next 40 minutes, we dived in and out of beautiful Suhk (SP?) stores in the ancient
roads of Alcus (SP?). We drank so much mint tea, I think I got diabetes. Seriously, that
tea is too sweet. 40 minutes later we're back outside in the streets. I had bags full of
all of those gifts and many more things. I turned to this young, who by the way, I'd
never before and I'd never seen again, and I said to him, "How much do I owe you?"
And he looked at me and said, "You don't owe me anything. These are a gift from the people
of Palestine to you. Don't forget us when you go."
That's how I got my first Koran, as a gift from the Palestine, to a stranger who meant
them no harm. I can tell you that.
I still wasn't road to Islam. I promise you, I was a happy sinner. I don't know anybody
who was a happier sinner than I was. I was not seeking spiritual enlightenment, I wasn't
reading any books, but if Allah has a plan for you, you will still get dialogue. I wasn't
going to any lectures, I wasn't looking at Islam, I was just doing my job and I was interested
in freedom for Palestine, but I was getting doubt. I was getting doubt from one specific
place - Somalian taxi drivers. May god bless Somalian taxi drivers. They are the invisible
army of Allah (?), because every time I got into a taxi cab, and I use them all the time,
having an expense account. I used to get in and I'd say, "Shalom," because I'd been to
Palestine.
They'd say, "Shalom, (?)."
I said, "The prophet said to his wife Aisha, [dah-dah-dah]," and then would being a lecture
that would go on as long as the journey lasted.
I would get Karrad, Hadif, Sunla, beautiful stories that made my heart melt.
You know what? After a few months of this, I started think to this guy Muhammad sounded
really great.
It begin actually that when I heard his name, my heart felt like it was actually growing
in my chest. I felt such love for him, I thought... and I would ask, "Tell me more about Prophet
Muhammad," and of course they would.
Now it's interesting - Today, I still sometimes get into taxis in North London, and yes, they
are still driven by Somalians most of the time, and I say, because I'm a sister now,
"Shalom Aleinu."
They all say the same thing, exactly the same thing, it's a question, I say "Say Shalom
Aleinu," they say, "Are you married?"
No running around in (?), possibly have to explain that to him. When Allah has a plan
for you, you have to stick to that plan, no matter how far you go to the left or right
of it. Like I say, I was still not on a journey to Islam, I was just becoming an activist
for Palestinian freedom. Imagine my surprise when I got a phone call when I was on a visit
to London from a man called Muhammad Ali. Muhammad Ali runs a channel called the Islam
channel. He said, "You'd like to have a meeting with me," which I thought was curious.
I worked for the mainstream, I worked for a newspaper that was far from friendly to
Muslims, and I didn't even know how he'd heard my name. There we go, Allah has plan for you,
Allah has a plan. I went to have a lunch time meeting with Muhammad Ali and his head of
programming.
Now, I want to give you some insight into who I was at the time, the arrogance and the
hardness that was inside me. Muhammad Ali came to sit down at the table, I sat down
at the table, he has a beard, quite a long beard, down to here. In Gazan terms, in Gaza
we call them serious beardies.
I guess you have to be Palestinian to get that one.
He was a serious beardie, and I sat down and I did this, [snaps fingers], "Yeah, waiter,
can we get a bottle of wine please?"
Because I didn't care that he was religious. I mean, being Muslim is your problem, I'm
out for lunch, and at lunch I like to get drunk. If you're having lunch with me, deal
with it. You can be in my country, I don't mind your little Muslim thing going on, but
you're sitting at my table, I'll do what I want.
That's who I was, 2007.
Now Muhammad Ali is a very smart man, he's got a wicked sense of humor as well, he's
a very smart man. He looked at me and he waited for me to get the glass of wine, and he said,
"There are two things I have to say at this point."
I said, "Go on."
"One, The Islam Channel is not buying your wine," he said, "Number two, I'm not sitting
here while you drink your wine."
He could have gone to sit at another table, that would have been within the remit, he
could be at another table, (?), but it's okay. But he didn't. He went outside the restaurant,
stood in the windy road, looking at me like -this-, waiting for me to drink the wine on
my own. And a strange thing happened, because for the first time since I was a child, I
felt, it was a weird feeling, shame. I felt ashamed of myself. Why had I been so rude
to a man of faith? Was I one of those people who was a hater? Why was I so obsessed with
getting drunk that I'd disrespect somebody I didn't even know, somebody who'd been polite
to me - What sort of person was I?
I got rid of the wine, and said, "You can come in now," I think my cheeks even flushed
a little bit.
Now, he sat down and he said the most amazing thing, and one day I'll ask him why he said
it after the wine incident, he said, "We'd like to offer you a job at the Islam face.
This was my face, "Huh?"
I said, "You're sure?"
He said, "Sure we're sure."
I said, "You know I'm not Muslim."
He said, "Yeah, I guessed."
Now, in my arrogance, I said two things, "I have two conditions before I join the Islam
Channel. One is, please don't try and make me Muslim. Don't try and indoctrinate me or
talk to me about Islam, because I'm never going to be Muslim, OK?"
He said, "Allah knows whether you will be Muslim or not, and you do not know."
I said...
[music playing]
[inaudible]
[chatter]
So, I said, "Don't talk to me about Islam, because I'm not going to be Muslim."
And he said, "Allah knows and you don't know."
And I said, "I know, and your God doesn't know."
He said, "God knows you don't know."
I said, "I know."
He said, "OK."
And I said, "The second thing is I'm not going to be wearing a hijab on your channel, because
I will never ever, ever, ever, ever wear a hijab."
Now, you might remember a certain ship, it was called the Titanic, that was the ship
that was never ever, ever, ever going to sink. There was a reminder here - Don't say things
definitively. Don't say, "I will be there, I'm going to do this tomorrow," you say, "In
shah Allah (SP?), god willing."
The rest, if you don't that, it's arrogance, because you're not making the decisions. How
did it turn out me not being Muslim or wearing the hijab?
He have me a job that meant that I traveled the world for the next two years interviewing
some of the great clerics, minds, academics, and activists in the Muslim world today, and
you have to be moved and changed by that."
One of the men who most moved my heart is a man called Sheik Ryad Sallah (SP?). Ryad
Sallah is known as the Lion of Palestine. He is the leader of the Islamic Movement in
Northern Israel, and one of the guardians of (?) Mosque.
I was interviewing in the foyer of a hotel at midnight after Copenhagen conference on
political prisoners. Sheik Ryad Sallah walked up to me, like this [inaudible]
I thought, "This is the lion of Palestine? Where's his roar?"
Because I had no concept at the time that humility can have it's own power or humbleness
is dignity, or quietness is strength. He sat opposite me and he never looked me fully in the face. His eyes would flick up, then
he'd look down. As a Western journalist, you're indoctrinated, not deliberately, maybe not
deliberately, but just by what you absorb to somehow think that if an Arab man, a Muslim
doesn't look you in the face - If he doesn't look you in the face, it's because you make
him sick, because - One, he's a misogynist pig and he hates women, because Muslim men
hate women and want to beat them. Two, because you're white and you're not Muslim, so you're
a kaffir, and he thinks you're evil.
But you know what? When Sheik Ryad Sallah sat there not quite looking me in the face,
I just thought, "What a lovely, humble, peaceful man."
I didn't feel hate from him. I felt respect to him. I also felt that his spirit and his
mind were only 5% in the room, and 95% somewhere else, and I'll tell you what, I wanted to
be wherever that somewhere else was, because he was giving off waves of peace. I know now
the name for that, it's Iman. Sheik Ryad Sallah had Iman. Now in Allah's (?) plan for you,
you may go to the left or the right, but you will still go in the direction of the that
plan.
It's now 2008, and I'm back in France, I've now got two daughters, I'm a very successful
journalist, and I'm still not on the path to Islam, and I get an e-mail, and this e-mail
is only two lines long, and it changed my life forever. The e-mail read this, "Would
you like to go Gaza by boat? If so, call this number."
I looked at it and thought, "That is insane. Who sent me this e-mail?"
I didn't recognize the sender. Would you like to go to Gaza by boat? Call this number.
In 2008 I was aware as a journalist, and as a beginning activist that Gaza was under siege,
that 1.8 million were being systematically denied their night of freedom to breath, travel,
leave their nation and come back to it. Their goods were not being allowed in. I'm hoping
to understand something here - What does the blockade mean? This week, several fisherman
have began being shot, over the last couple weeks actually, by Israel, and their brand
new boats. "Gaza fisherman, a brand new boat."
We're talking life savings that were just taken by the Israeli Navy. Now, how far was
he from the shore in Gaza?
Three nautical miles.
Now, in the Olso Accords, the Gazans can fish 23 nautical miles, but in truth, they never
get past three without being gunned. When they spray the boats, the Israeli Navy, they
use toxins that smell like cattle dung, they make you very sick. Then they tell the men
to strip off and get into the icy sea, swim to their boats where they're beaten and taken
into custody. That's if their not shot. That's what siege means. You can't go anyway where
by sea. There's areas here, no man or woman under 50, 45, 50, is allowed to go that way,
into the rest of Palestine. You've got the rapid crossing here, and the rest is wait
a while. They've got no air service, no train service, no roads to the rest of the world.
Would you like to go to Gaza by boat? Call this number.
I called the number, I couldn't resist.
I remember a voice answered and said, "Hello, this is Osama."
I thought, "Blimey, I do not want to go to Gaza by boat with Osama. It would be a really
career move."
Humbly, the obvious, it was a different Osama.
I found myself going into my editor's office again and saying, "Peter, I want to go to
Gaza by boat."
Peter said, "Here's the money, come back in two weeks, we'll give you four pages of the
magazine."
I remember standing outside his office going, "Does he just want to get rid of me?"
In August 2008, I took a plane to Cyprus and I joined 45 of the best human beings I've
ever had the honor and the privilege of meeting in my life, and none of the were Muslim. A
lot of them were actually ladies in their 50s, 60s, and 70s from your area, from Los
Angeles. It's how Free Gaza started, with a lady called Gretta Berlin, and other students,
and activists, and nurses, and doctors, all kinds of human beings joining together to
get on two of the worst fishing boats you've ever seen in your life, to try and get to
Gaza so that people would see that it was wrong to put a siege on 800,000 children and
1.2 million adults.
I remember the day that we were going to leave, we had fogmen from the Cyprian port authority
go under our boats to check for Israeli explosives. It was a very dangerous, not funny thing to
do. We all were told to write our wills, we all left messages for our family. I was the
only person to have young children at the time, and I cried a lot when I left the message.
We got on the boats and we set sail. In the middle of the night, I was awake and the young
girl called Jenny was driving briefly, she was captain briefly and the radio came on,
and a message came through the darkness of night. It was this, "Free Gaza, Free Gaza,
Free Gaza, this is the Israeli Navy. This is the Israeli Navy to Free Gaza, turn back
now or you will be stopped. This is your only warning."
I promise you, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. My heart all but froze in my
chest. Then Hebrew music started to come out of our emergency radio. I turned to Jenny
who's like this tall, and said, "Jenny, what are we going to do?"
She said, "There's only one thing we can do Lauren."
I said, "What?"
She said, "We might as well dance."
That's what we did. We danced around for half an hour to Hebrew music. Then the radio went
off and it was silent, and we carried on through the night. The next day at around 11 o'clock
in the morning, our Irish skipper climbed the mast and he said the most beautiful words
I've ever heard after, 'It's a girl', he said, "Land ahoy."
There, in the distance was Gaza, coming out of the mists in the Mediterranean Sea. As
on the beaches, unable to believe that after 63 years... No 44 years, boats were finally
coming from the outside world that weren't an enemy. They'd slept on the beaches. We
got a bit closer, and then a wall of sound hit us, and the sound was "Allahu Akbar, Allahu
Akbar, Allah Akbar," and everybody was cheering, and children were in the sea, and little boys
were climbing up, and grown men were crying and sobbing, and everyone was shouting, Allahu
Akbar. It was the greatest day of my life.
Now, three days later, I was supposed to leave Gaza and go back to my children. To this day,
I can't tell you why, I didn't get on the boat. I have no explanation for you as a mother,
I have no explanation for you as a wife. I watched those boats leave, and I didn't know
how I was going to get home. I tried three days later to go to the Rafah Crossing with
Egypt with my British Passport to see if I could get home, and the Mubarak regime guard
looked at it like -this-, and said, "So you're Lauren Booth. You're not going anywhere. Go
back to Gaza."
I said, "What do you mean? You're open to let internationals leave. You've made an announcement.
I'm an international, I'm leaving."
He said, "No you're not. The Israelis want you to stay. The Israelis have said, 'If Lauren
Booth likes the Palestinians, let her live like them,' so go back to Gaza. This place
is closed to you."
I'm telling you, it was like being in an elevator on the hundredth floor, and you go down to
the first and the second. I'd lost my family. I was under siege. I was Palestinian. You
know what? I think God every day of my life that that happened, because I got to spend
an entire month with the best Muslims alive in the (?) today. You know what month it was
brothers and sisters? It was Ramadan. I was in Gaza, me, in Gaza for 30 days in Ramadan.
I learned so much. I learned how to be a human being that month.
I remember one night, I was invited to a family's house for Iftar, the evening meal, and I was
taking some bags of meat with me, and I knocked on the door, and it was in a place called
I knocked on the door, and the mother answered it like this, "Shalom Aleihu (SP?), [speaking
Arabic]"
Which means, "Welcome, welcome."
I was astounded because this lady was without a doubt, the happiest woman I'd ever met.
I mean, sisters I love you all for sake of Allah, but with all that you have here in
bay area of San Francisco, you can't give me the smile that she gave. Not even one of
the lights. She had lights coming of her skin, light coming out of he eyes. It was a joy
just to look at her, and I was confused because I was in a refugee camp where it was more
in Ramadan. You say your god loves you, so he asks you to do without water for 30 days,
but you know that your water is dirty every day. So what? You say your god loves you so
he asks you to do without food for 30 days, but you're hungry 365 days a year. What's
the fast for? Go on, tell me. Tell me why you fast."
She looked at me, and she said, "I fast to remember the poor."
She was fasting with nothing in her stomach, and nothing of (?) to remember other people
who were poorer than she was. At that moment, a key into my heart and I thought, "If this
is Islam, I want to be Muslim. If this acceptance of your fate and happiness with it is Islam,
I want to be a Muslim. If this humility before god is Islam, I want to be Muslim. If this
love of your fellow man is Islam, yes, I want to be Muslim."
But you know, Allah (?) calls us time and time again in the Koran, the forgetful. How
many times in the Koran do we read, "Oh mankind, you forget. I give you these signs, I send
prophets and messengers and you forget."
When that lady said, "Shalom Aleihu (SP?)," and shut the door, I forgot that feeling,
and I forgot about Allah.
But you know what brothers and sisters? Allah never forgot about me. I went back to sinning
and Allah still forgave me. Imagine that. He forgives you no matter how far you go in
your behaviors, that is Allah (?).
I got out of Gaza after 30 days, and I went back to family, changed forever, but I still
wasn't going to be Muslim. I loved the people dearly now, and I loved the Gazan people and
the Palestinians as my brothers and sisters, but faith, bowing, praying, giving things
up, nah, wasn't going to happen. I was stubborn. Stubborn and arrogant. Both words used in
the Koran to describe various states of the heart. I had that heart, but in 2010, I had
got another lunch, and it was Al Kuhd's [SP] Day, and there was a rally happening, and
it was for Jerusalem. It was calling for the freedom of the Palestinian people and the
freedom of access for Muslims to go and worship at Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, the third
most holy place in Islam. I wanted to cover it for my news channel. So I went to my cupboard
(?), and then afterwards, a friend and I were driving guess what month it was? Ramadan.
As we were driving, we were going on a day out, and (?) for (?), just as we passed beautiful
Mosque, my friend said, "I should go in and pray."
I said, "I'll come with you."
At this time, I didn't just go into the mosque, I did, (?), fully, before I went in. When
I went inside I made my first sincere, full prayer, to Allah, and it was this, I said,
"Dear Allah," I didn't know (?) or anything, "Dear Allah, I don't ask you for anything
today because you have already given me a perfect life. I have a great life, thank you.
Please, please, please bless Palestine and help the people," and then I sat down.
I sat down as a tourist, I just wanted to watch the other moms feed the kids, I was
nosy. These women were Muslim women in Ramadan, I was curious. When I sat down, as soon as
my body touched the floor, I was in a place of such bliss and peace as you're never felt.
It was like sitting beneath a waterfall of tranquility. Such calm came over me that I
forgot who I was. After a while, I didn't actually remember my name. I sat looking at
my feet thinking, "This is so beautiful."
And the feeling just kept growing and growing, and I was just a tiny particle in a feeling
of peace that was universal. Now, at some point, some young women came over and they
sat around me in a circle. I don't know why this happened, but this young woman who I'd
never seen before, she was around 21 years old, reached over and put her hands on my
shoulders, and she said, "I love you."
I said, "I love you too."
I thought that my heart was going to burst, because I felt like she was my aunt and I
was her mother and she was grandmother and that every relationship that women can have,
we were having. I realized that I was no longer a tourist to the Muslim world, that I was
inside the aura. I was being allowed to feel the love that passes around the Muslim umah
(SP?) every minute, every day of every year.
After a while, my friend said, "Why don't we go to our hotel?"
And I said, "I want to sleep here tonight. On the floor."
She's a lovely girl, and she said, "OK. My mother and I will stay with you."
I spent the night on the floor of the mosque. In the morning I paid (?) and seven days later,
back in London, I walked into a Masjid and I heard myself say, [speaking Arabic], and
I became a Muslim.
That's my story. Every day since has been a blessing or a test, but above all, I want
to share with you today, a sense of gratitude. I want us all to remember to say, [speaking
Arabic] for this beautiful life we've been given with all it's tests and hardships, because
whatever it is here, it's not Gaza. They have a very difficult test, and ours, we're the
weak ones, it's light for us.
I want to share one more thing with you. I went back to Gaza as a Muslim last April,
an I went to a place called Baya Tanun (SP?). Baya Tanun (SP?) used to be a beautiful farming
village on the end of Gaza, the outskirts of Gaza. Now, it's not. It's Israelis buffer
zone. It's stolen land where they send their tanks to go and commit massacres, regularly,
on people of Gaza. But people live in this buffer zone. They have cement block flats
full of children. You say, (?) every winter, they have 20 children saying, [speaking Arabic],
and around the children are bullet holes and shell holes. I went to a visit a family there,
and two mothers and a father in terrible circumstances. Now, when we introduce our children to somebody
she's going to be a scientist," and I will say, "This is Holly, she's very naughty, but
their name and their injuries. This family was no different. I saw a little boy running
Yusef, come here. Look at his leg," and it had white pock marks all down it, scar tissue,
It's *** with cancer. They rained the *** on the most densely populated civilian area
He rolled up his jeans, and there was a huge scar, a fresh scar down it. I thought I was
Then she showed me two of her daughters aged eight and ten, and they just do -this- and
I'd had enough and I went to a back room to pray (?). In the final (?), I had my head
of grief, and I thought, "Yes, because I can't believe how hard and how fast these tears
you crying?"
I hate that the world knows this is going on and they don't do anything, and I hate
And she said to me, "You're crying for us? But we're so happy. We have Allah, and Allah
you for all the reminders you give for gathering us here, (?) Allah, we remember our brothers
and forgive us all our sins. Amen. Forgive me if I've made any mistakes.