Nous Sommes Tous les Palestinians

So.  What.  A.  Day.  

It started off normally.  I took my final final huge test, went back home, slept for a couple hours, decided to go to the Louvre with Yasna, left my house, AND THEN the most extraordinary things happened.  

To get to the Louvre you have to get off at the "Palais Royal/Musée du Louvre" stop.  I was on my way, everything was fine until the conductor announced that both my stop and the one after it, "Pyramides" were closed due to a demonstration outside of the Louvre.  

My ears perked up.  A demonstration?  Really?  I wonder if I'll be able to pass through it.   

I got off at "Opera" not knowing how the hell I was getting to the Louvre, and I called Yasna who had found her way to the main square off of Rue de Rivoli.

"Ranna!  There's a demonstration for Gaza!"

"OK.  OK.  I'm coming."  

I don't know how I found my way.  I literally chose a direction to walk and prayed that it was the right one.  I passed Place Vendôme, and thought, hmmm....well, it MAY be the right direction, I'll keep going.  When I hit Rue de Saint Honoré I was like, niiiicceeeee.  I was speed walking.  

Yasna said there were a lot of people and I was scared that I wouldnt be able to find her.  Turned out, I couldnt even get to where she was.  The police had blocked off all the streets around where the protesters were marching. 

I went up to a police officer and asked, "well, what if we want to join the protest?" 

He smugly replied, "Can't you see we've blocked it off.  You can't enter from here."

Uh huh.  Yeah right.  I wasn't going to let that stop me.  Somehow I maneuvered my way past the police and into the end of the demonstration.  There were hundreds of people in front of me carrying flags and signs, chanting, singing, clapping.  

Yasna was still no where to be found, so I lagged around until all of a sudden I saw her running down the street, her long curly poofy hair flying up and down.  "THIS IS SO COOL!!!!  SCREW THE LOUVRE!!" 

We joined the rest of the protesters and quickly caught on to their chants.

Some of my favorites:

"Nous sommes tous les Palestinians!"  (We are all Palestinians)

"Vivra Palestine!  Vaincra Palestine!"  (Palestine will live!  Palestine will defeat!) 

"Resistance, resistance, de Paris à Gaza" (Resistance, resistance, from Paris to Gaza) 

and of course, what seemed to be everyone's favorite (i personally preferred the others but...) "Israel Assassins!  Israel Terrorists!  Israel Fascists!"  (no translation needed.)

that one they chanted over and over again.  

We walked from the Louvre right back and around the square in front of the Opera.  On the way, we would walk and stop, walk and stop.  They would make us all sit on the ground while one man kept yelling things like, "And who are the murderers?" And everyone would yell, "Israel"  "And who are the cows?"  "Israel"  "Who are the fascists?"  "Israel"  

Sometimes they would yell things in Arabic and Yasna and I would pretend we knew what they were saying, only since we didn't, we would look at each other and start laughing.   

When we got to the Opera, we stood there for a good hour chanting.  They opened a huge flag of Palestine and everyone stood around it sprawling it out and chanting.  When they lifted the flag up, children started running underneath it, singing and playing.  

At the end, everyone knelt on the ground and a man started to read from the Koran.  It was quite a sight looking around and seeing hundreds of people in the square kneeling, many were praying, a few around me were crying.  I bowed my head paying respect to those slain, injured, those living in constant fear.  

When the prayer was over everyone got up, I thought it was time to go, but then another guy got on the loud speaker and started to yell chants in Arabic.  Again, Yasna and I had nooo idea what was being said, but we were having a good time chanting what we thought it sounded like...up until they started chanting, "Ya Hamas!  Ya Hamas!  Ya Hamas!" 

I looked at Yasna and said, "Are they chanting what I think they're chanting?"  

The man behind us interjected with, "You dont understand?"

"No, we understand that.  But we're Iranian, we don't speak Arabic."  

The guy began to translate for us, but for some reason that didn't get very far, so he proceeded with asking Yasna if she was single and what she was doing after the protest. 

I totally pulled a, "We're doing that thing... remember?  That thing....at Courtney's"  

At 5 the protest was over.  The last man to speak over the loud speaker told us that protests would be held every day this week, smaller ones though.  An equally huge one was being organized for next saturday.  Yasna and I started talking about how we should go to some of them and definitely the one on saturday while we were trying to get out of the square.  

There were so many of us trying to get out, that at first I thought that's why it was taking so long for us to exit.  But then I noticed that the police were standing their ground around all the streets leading away from the Opera.  They had barricaded the square.  They weren't letting people leave.  

That's weird, I thought.  Maybe we should just wait a little?  At this point, Yas and I were in the middle of a lot of people trying to get out.  It wasn't working.  

And the more the police stood their ground, the angrier people were getting.   I told Yasna we should get out of that area just in case the police started to do something to the people who were yelling.  We got out and were going to turn the corner when we heard glass breaking and a few people running in the opposite direction.  

There was a group of police standing there holding their shields out to protect themselves, the glass had shattered around them.  A glass bottle had been thrown at them.

That's pretty much when I started freaking out.  No wait, at this point, I was getting a little nervous, but I was still OK.  I just kept telling Yasna that we had to get out of there.   

The police were telling people that the metro was still open and everyone had to exit the square like that.  I STILL DONT KNOW WHY THEY DIDNT LET US LEAVE!!!!  It was the strangest thing.  I mean, it was like they were trying to spite everyone into doing something bad.  Everyone was getting angrier and angrier.  People were yelling.  Everyone was walking toward the metro, but people started rioting outside of the metro entrance so that no one could get through. 

The next thing I know, the police are all walking toward each other from all of their posts, blocking us off some more, packing us into a group.  I would look around and see police walking toward me in a straight line, so I would start walking in another direction only to see police walking towards us from there.  Then I heard several snaps and smoked started rising up from where the police were standing.  

I was scared, because being in that sort of setting where people are doing stupid things like throwing bottles, and police are throwing tear gas and I shooting crap into the air, man, that's terrifying.  But, most of all, I was angry too.  I was angry that we had just participated in a planned protest, nothing too terrible was said and done, I mean, c'mon, it's freaking French culture to protest everything and their mother, so I didn't understand why the police were reacting in this manner.  It was definitely unwarranted.  

I basically reached, "freak out" point when everyone started running off in one direction, and I was like, holy crap, what the hell is going on, so Yasna and I looked at each other and started running too.  I caught eyes with this guy wearing a Palestinian flag around himself, and he looked just as terrified as I was feeling.  I remember thinking, "this is bad.  this is bad.  this is bad.  this is bad."  it kept going through my head.  over and over again.  

I was so scared that I started holding hands with this random girl for some reason.  And I was like, "Just tell me whats going on."  And she tried to tell me in English what they were doing.  But, bichareh, she didn't know herself, and when I turned around, she said to her friend, " I am so scared right now."  

So we ended up standing there, walking from one side of the square to the other, as the police continued to get closer and closer, until somehow, one of the police barricades opened up and I was like, Yasna, lets just go.  Let's get out of here.  

We walked away.  In one piece, but our hands and knees were definitely shaking for a while after. 

I've never been caught in a situation like that.  And the scariest part is not knowing what people are going to do, whats coming next.  Also, not being able to converse with people to figure out what the hell the police were doing, that was the worst part.  

Anyway, in retrospect, it was definitely the greatest adventure ever and it was worth it.  

Yas and I are going to some of the protests scheduled for the rest of the week.  This time we will be ready, glass bottles in hand.  

ya arabi