Meet Ramzi
Interviewed by Johns Hopkins University students supervised by Dr. Homayra Ziad.
Interviewers: Ashraf, Lubna, Bonnie and Alexis
About the Interview
In this interview, Lebanese-American anti-war activist Ramzi (Alexandria, VA) discusses his involvement in anti-war organizing in the DC area, reactions to 9/11 within the national anti-war community, and lessons learned from transnational organizing in the United States and the Middle East. He underscores the importance of understanding different contexts and positionality as organizers, the idea of dehumanization as a key cause of Islamophobia and war, and how individuals -- even a small local grocer in Alexandria, VA -- can contribute to seemingly larger-than-life causes.
Guiding Questions
In the context of Islamophobia, to what extent does American domestic politics relate to American foreign policy? How do the effects of Islamophobia, militarism, and state violence connect and transcend national borders?
What are the differences in barriers that organizers doing international work versus organizers doing work in the country? What implications does this have?
How can connection and empathy help move us toward an abolitionist future?
“ I remember, in my early 20s, being in a lot of discussions online. All kinds of different issues, right? And I kind of took a long long discussion with a bunch of folks — different Americans — over the Palestine Israel conflict. And I remember being so shocked at the level of racism that people had towards Palestinians, right? And not understanding, you know, where this is coming from. And this is at the same time that I’m in school and I’m studying, you know, African American history and reading things like Frederick Douglass’ Narrative of a Life of a Slave or Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, and starting to have my eyes opened up to the level of anti-Black racism in this country. And I think, you know, having those two things happening at the same time did open my eyes quite a bit”
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“But I think it’s also the case that these politicians are part of the system, right? They’re not outside of the system. These leaders, whether they’re in the media or in Hollywood or newspapers or CNN or university professors, whatever — all these folks are part of the system. We’re all part of the system — you and me, all of us. And you can’t get outside of that. You can’t get outside of the ideologies that you have been exposed to throughout your life. And I think one of the best examples of this was the Second Gulf War, where Bush and Cheney, in my mind, lied, deliberately lied, because the evidence just wasn’t there, and it seemed like they manufactured nonsense information and it was just a full on propaganda push. But a step down from them, to Members of Congress, and the media and so on — all these people ate it up. They believe it. They genuinely internalized these beliefs, to where, when we didn’t find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in 2003, it was a shock to all these folks. Which I found flabbergasting, because [of] the evidence. I mean, you just read the primary documents, the primary testimony from all these folks, and it’s clear that these are lies. It’s clear that this isn’t happening. And yet, all these, these people who are supposed to be leading the country, supposed to be well educated, supposed to be, “We’re here to help inform and, you know, make sure that these sorts of mistakes aren’t happening” — all these people internalized it, believe the propaganda. So how do you get outside of that?”
“ My entire lifetime, we’ve been losing. And there’s been issues here and there where we’ve prevailed. Certain battles that we won here and there. But by and large, the 50 years that I’ve been alive, compared to the 50 years before I was alive, have been a downhill slope, as right-wing violent authoritarian groups have really pushed to power or have been able to maintain power even against popular movements, all across the world. So that’s discouraging.
But that’s tempered by the fact that less people are dying, than were dying 100 years ago, in these conflicts. So, as much as it feels sometimes like we’re losing, not as many people are being killed in violence. Not as many people are being killed through hate, as was the case 100 years ago. And there’s a definite trend towards less violent conflicts towards less hate-centered crime, hate-centered social violence. And maybe that’s part of the Human Rights Project, and the idea of human rights taking firmer and firmer hold across the world, I don’t know.
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