Mariam Sallam: Where Do Children's Dreams Go in Gaza?
The War on Children in Gaza Includes Even Their Art: One Woman In Houston is Fighting to Get Their Stories Seen. New Podcast Episode Included
I first connected with Mariam Sallam when we messaged on IG Stories. A video that had gone viral on Instagram and had been copied and co-opted by multiple accounts without credit. Everyone was sharing this video:
The video went viral for a reason; it imagines a future genocide remembrance, and children’s questions to their parents about where they were and ‘why did you let this happen.’
The co-founder of the National Arab Institute and the author of the upcoming book “The History We Carry,” Mariam and I hopped on a call. I learned how the Bulletproof Dreams Exhibit was a goal that was still being pursued, to get the artwork of children from Gaza shown in the US:
The Bulletproof Dreams exhibit is an exhibit that was created because there was a little girl in Gaza, her name is Mona. I think she's around the age of six. She saw her mother get shot by the IDF. And a journalist found her, picked her up, and took her to a safe space and then gave her … paper and crayons just so that she can feel like a child, because children in Gaza have very little moments where they can actually be children. And she ended up drawing her mother's death. She drew the [image of her mother’s] shooting. Like imagine a six-year-old. You should be drawing like rainbows on houses. And she's drawing the death of her mother.
Listen to the Arabs in Media podcast here, with guest Mariam Sallam:
The journalist who helped Mona got more kids together with paper and crayons, and unsurprisingly, they all drew images of war and trauma.
The drawings were smuggled out of Gaza and made their way to Turkey, which is where the Bulletproof Dreams team originates.
With the help of the Turkish government, The Bulletproof Dreams art was digitized and exhibited for a month in Istanbul:
If smuggling children’s crayon drawings of war was not an outrageous enough thing to have to fight for, risking and losing lives along the way, the next challenge was finding a place to show the exhibit in the US.
And yes, you are correct in assuming that the exhibit was rejected at Houston venues in the community, where Mariam is based, with the reasoning implying that Palestinian children's art was ‘too sensitive a subject.’
To me, it sounds like another way to dehumanize the terrorized children of Gaza - passing judgement on their art as invalid and unworthy. What a shame.
Then there are counter-arguments to not focus on the art, but the immediate crisis of the genocide, which is understandable, but perhaps misses the point that people need to hear about something seven different times, seven different ways before it sinks in. Who are we if we can’t do both raise money and awareness to save lives through donations, and show the world the plight of children through any means necessary?
Art is a part of humanity and expression; many human rights organizations on the ground have reported on the overwhelming pressure on children to process trauma on their own. There have been reports of children becoming mute from the trauma. Incidences of suicidal ideation from small children, unbearably, have skyrocketed.
To open our hearts, we must open our eyes to these children.
I was reminded of that a few nights at a dinner for the ADC, the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. Normally, I’m not long for wearing a suit, or to banquets in general, but this was different.
So many elements that night reminded me of work I’ve had in the past with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, founded by Danny Thomas, a legendary Lebanese-American actor, whose mission to finding cures for childhood cancers was only surpassed by his ability to make that mission shareable across the globe.
At the St. Jude campus in Memphis, children’s art rings the main hospital lobby - and brings home for the audience the reality that children draw, paint and color what’s in their heart. It only enhances our understanding of our collective humanity.
At this dinner, Steve Sosebee, the co-founder of the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, received a Lifetime Achievement award, who commented on the collaboration they had done with St. Jude for a children’s cancer wing at a hospital in Gaza, which had been completed months before Israel bombed it.
“Who bombs a children’s cancer hospital?” I heard someone say at the dinner.
It’s dystopian, seeing the US’s funding and furthering of a holocaust of children.
Follow this link to hear my conversation with Mariam. Our conversation goes beyond the exhibit and touches on the idea of embracing your Arab heritage - and ways to do that, along with hearing Mariam’s personal story, and what took her from her career as a data scientist, to leaving the field and risking it all to give a voice to the children.
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To help the Bulletproof Dreams exhibit bring the exhibit to the U.S., you can support them at this link
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- Hazem Jamal