Planning My Exit

By Kenneth Ring, Ph.D.

“I’m not exactly a-fixin’ to die any time soon,” I told my daughter, “but I definitely think we should start making arrangements for me to be cremated.”

Kathryn was spending a week with me, not only “to get all my affairs in order,” but to try to do everything she could to sustain my life, as she always has for many years.  On this visit, she was mostly concerned with my diet.  She doesn’t think I get enough protein, apparently a common problem for old geezers like me.  I have long joked that if it weren’t for Kathryn’s tireless efforts to preserve me, and all those dozens of supplements I take daily, I would certainly not still be here writing these lines.  I toggle between appreciation for her devotion to my welfare and my resentment for making me pay so much attention to it.  I mean, honestly, I continue to feel I’ve outlived my usefulness and am just taking up space.

But this time, we needed to face the prospect that, despite her valiant caretaking of me, it was possible that before long I could actually die.  Of course, I have long contended that I simply lack the knack for dying,  I don’t understand how people manage to do it.  Even at my great age – I am within a few months of 89 now and can no longer pretend that I am still in my advanced middle age – I don’t seem to show any evidence that death is around the corner. For example, I recently had my semi-annual cardiology check-up.  My BP was 116/69, my oxygen saturation was 98%, my blood work was fine, and my ticker was still ticking away, as usual.  “See you next year,” my cardiologist said.

Clearly, I don’t take after my father who died of a heart attack at 41.  On the contrary, I am much more like my mother, and that’s concerning because I am now exactly the age she was when she died.   Moreover, like me, my mother also lost the ability to walk when she was in her eighties; like me, she developed glaucoma; like me again, she became very hard of hearing toward the end of her life (I am effectively nearly deaf without my hearing aids).   And lately, I have a worrisome new issue to deal with – I am beginning to lose my vision.

Well, I’m exaggerating a bit, but recently my vision has begun to go south along with the rest of my descent into terminal decrepitude.  It began a few months ago when I developed bleeding from my vitreous humor.  That caused my inter-ocular pressure to shoot up to a level much higher than it had ever been.  That condition eventually cleared up, but my pressure remained stubbornly high.  With glaucoma, which I’ve had for nearly three decades, persistently high pressure causes vision loss, and once it goes, you can’t get it back – it’s gone for good.

So my eye doctor said I need to have some surgery to try to get my pressure down and to preserve what vision I still have.  I will be having two surgeries for that purpose in October.  But meanwhile, I have to adapt to increasingly poor vision.

When I look at my TV now, everything is somewhat blurry.  When I watch tennis, I sometimes have to infer the existence of the flight of the ball by observing the movement of the players.  Reading books has become more difficult because I have to were a patch over my right eye and read line by line.  It takes me forever to get through a book these days, though in my case, forever might just be next week.

Various people have suggested that I should start listening to audio books and podcasts.  I’ve done that in the past, and do occasionally listen to podcasts, particularly New Yorker articles and stories, but I don’t process information as well auditorily as I do visually.  I’m an old cuss, set in his visual ways, and like the feel of a book in my hands.   Anyway….

Even writing e-mail poses its problems because I now make so many mistakes when I type.  I never was a particularly good typist, but now I have difficulty seeing the keys on my keyboard.  If it weren’t for Mr. Spellcheck, I would be doomed.  As it is, I often have to enlarge things in order to read what’s on my monitor.

Well, it could be worse, of course.  That’s just what I’m afraid of.

So even if I have difficulty seeing the writing on the wall, I have to concede that my days above ground are limited, which caused my daughter and me to start thinking seriously about my end game.

It’s odd:  Although I’ve spent about half my life researching and writing about NDEs, and have thought a great deal about death, I’ve rarely considered my own.  I just don’t think about it; I usually just make a joke instead and quote one of Woody Allen’s quips, such as “I’m not afraid of death; I just don’t want to be there when it happens.”

Not long ago, I heard from an NDEr who loved my book, Lessons from the Light, and wrote me a beautiful letter about her NDE and how much my book had helped her process her own experience.  But she had a proposal for me. She wanted to become my death doula. Do you know what that is? It’s like being a midwife to someone who is dying, to help them move through the process toward death with compassion and understanding. 

I appreciated her offer, but rejected it. I just wasn’t ready to think about dying, thank you, much less working with someone I had never met. In short, no sale. We corresponded for a while, but eventually had a falling out.  

But when my daughter was here, we decided I should sign up with a cremation organization called The Neptune Society, which I’ve now done.  Three thousand smackers down the drain.   

But Kathryn persisted, saying, “Dad, what if you get sick before you die? You would certainly want your family around then, and maybe some of your close friends, too, right?”  Of course, I allowed, I would definitely want that when the time comes.

This is when the idea of some kind of memorial came up.

Frankly, I’d never given that any thought to that sort of thing either, but Kathryn said that if I wanted to have my kids and other family members around when I became mortally ill, in addition to former lovers and dear friends, it would make sense to have some kind of memorial for them following my death.  “Fine,” I said. “You’re in charge. You can arrange it. I don’t plan to be around then, anyway, though perhaps I’ll be up in the corner of the room at the time.”

Afterward, however, once I decided not to be so churlish about it, I began to think I should also have some kind of online memorial for my professional friends and colleagues and some of my longtime fans and followers.  Actually, one of those persons had already volunteered to be my eulogist, so I wrote him to see if he’d also be willing to organize the thing and serve as a host and master of ceremonies.  He replied that he’d absolutely love to do that. So lately I’ve been touch with him to plan my memorial.   It’s taking a lot of my time now.  It’s like planning an effing wedding!  

I’ve been compiling various things for him – a list of more than a hundred names (along with all those e-mail addresses!), various photographs, and even an old video interview with me when I was in my prime (at 48) talking about NDEs, so that people could remember me as I was then rather than the decrepit old wreck I am today.  At least it gives me something to do these days since I am no longer able to write any books or even to do much blogging anymore.

I’ve also been musing about turning 89 soon, assuming I can make it until my birthday in December.  But I hate the thought of turning 89.  I have a thing about prime number birthdays.  There are “good” prime numbers, such as 13 (my lucky number, since I was born on a Friday, the 13th) and 17, but after that, they are not appealing and the worst ones end in 9.  Like 19, 29, 59, and 79.  I remember when I was about to turn 79, I refused!  I decided to remain 78 for another year, and then go straight to 80.

But now the prospect of becoming 89 is really distressing to me.  Why have I lived so long, well past my expiration date?

I remember years ago when I was working on a book about classical composers and their muses, one of the composers I wrote about was Edward Elgar of Pomp and Circumstance fame.  After his diminutive wife, Alice, who was a great supporter of her husband’s work, died, Elgar’s life as a composer pretty much ended.  And the last part of his life was, as I entitled one of my final chapters about him, “a long diminuendo.” He could never get it together to finish his last symphony.  Instead, he made a fool of himself, lusting after a young Hungarian violinist with the delicious name of Jelly d’Aranyi, who told him to get lost. 

Well, I am not chasing after any young damsels or chasing rainbows either, but I also seem to be living out my own long diminuendo, and facing the terrifying prospect of becoming a nonagenarian if I can’t figure out how to die before then.

Kathryn’s visit will be followed by that of my other two children, Dave and Elise, later this year, after the election, if I haven’t killed myself by then should Kamala Harris lose.  If so, many people will flee the country, as one of my ex-girlfriends did after Trump was elected in 2016.  I will just flee my life.

I think my kids want to see me before I die. It’s as if they are not just coming to visit me, but to say goodbye while they still can.  

Sigmund Freud was very superstitious about his own death.  As he got older, he would often take leave of company by saying, “Goodbye, you may never see me again.”  I am beginning to think that way about my kids.  I wonder if this might be the last time I see them.

Yesterday, I had visit from Dave’s wife, Linda, my daughter-in-law, of whom I am very fond.  She helped me a lot when she was here and I was grateful for her making the time to see me.

Before she left, she took this selfie of us:

Take a good look.  For all I know, this may be the last photo you’ll ever see of me, still smiling, despite everything, as I stagger toward 89, still glad to be here after all these years.

Teachers and Mentors

By Kenneth Ring, Ph.D.

One of the most heartwarming things an old professor can receive are unbidden messages from his former students telling him how much his classes had affected them. Since retiring from teaching thirty years ago, I have been the grateful recipient of many such messages. I used to keep a scrapbook of them, but that’s now in my archive.  But I’d say that over the years, I’ve probably received at least a couple of dozen of such tributes.  They often say things like, “your course was the best I ever took” or “your course changed my life” or, like the one I just received the other day, “Big hello, Professor Ring. I took your classes (Part 1 and Part 2) back in 1986 and found them so thought provoking. Recently enjoyed re-reading my journal from the class.”

I’ve stayed in touch with many of these ex-students, too, and still see some of them in California.  One that I was particularly fond of was a dreamy student named Ned Kahn, who designed the original logo for IANDS and whom I used to visit occasionally on my trips to California when he was working at the Exploratorium, a famous museum in San Francisco. A few years ago, he got in touch and we saw each other again. By then, he had become an internationally celebrated environmental artist and MacArthur Fellow, but I had nothing to do with that, of course.  I was just lucky he passed through the turnstiles of my life. 

Other former students had become scholars or professors or had gone on to attain doctorates or other advanced degrees. A couple of ex-students led very unusual and adventurous lives exploring altered states of consciousness in exotic locales.  Still others, once they had reconnected with me, became my friends and corresponded frequently.  Two ex-students still write me every Christmas, and so on.

I feel very blessed to know that my classes (and books) have deeply touched so many of my students’ lives.  And I’m so grateful to those who took the time to tell me so.

The other day when I received the comment I quoted above, I got to thinking about the teachers who had affected me or who had in one way or another become my mentors.

The first teacher to take a personal interest in me was a woman named Evelyn Murray. She taught English in my junior high school. She was my teacher in the 7th grade when I would have been about thirteen.  For her class, we had to write our “autobiography.”  I still have mine, and of course its pathetic juvenalia made me cringe when I re-read it.  But Miss Murray, as I always called her, must have seen something in me because she encouraged me in my writing. She even invited me to her home a couple of times.  I have never forgotten her kindness and personal support for my fledging efforts.  I think she may have been the one who first planted the seed in me to become one day the writer she thought I had in me to achieve.

I had other wonderful teachers in junior high and high school, but the only one I will mention here is a man, Mr. Billings, who was a high school teacher. In my final semester, we had to take a course called something like “social problems,” that was supposed to prepare us for life after school.

At the time, I had no idea what to do after I graduated.  No one in my family had ever gone to college, so I asked my best friend, Stanley Northey, about his plans. "I’m going to Cal," he said. So, okay, I thought, maybe that’s what I should do. That’s what I told Mr. Billings, who, like Miss Murray, had taken a personal interest in me. He was pleased with my decision and told me to "keep in touch," which I did.  On Mr. Billings, more later.

When I got to Cal, I asked my friend Stan what he was going to major in.  "Accounting," he said.  Since I was always good with numbers, I decided I would follow his lead.  But Fate had other ideas.

When I was a freshman, I took an introductory psychology class.  It was in Wheeler Hall, which had a capacity of 600, and it was packed. Our professor was a diminutive man named Dr. David Krech (probably short for Krechevsky or something like that). Krech was such a dynamic and enthralling teacher that I was bowled over.  His lectures were so compelling that students would burst into applause when he concluded. Unheard of! Other professors would sometimes be applauded at the end of a course, but only Krech in my experience was applauded at the end of his classes.  I was hooked.  Krech made me switch majors to psychology.  I once encountered him as he was leaving the Life Sciences Building. "I’m in your class," I burbled.  He waved at me.  He was my hero.

I went back to my high school to tell Mr. Billings I had changed majors. I was going to become a psychologist.

"Don’t do it," he warned. "You’ll never get a job." I didn’t listen or take his advice. I knew what I wanted.

But I had other outstanding professors during my undergraduate years at Cal. Their names wouldn’t mean anything to you, but there were three men in particular who thrilled me intellectually.  One was an anthropology professor, another, a sociologist (I become one of his groupies), and a third, a philosophy professor from whom was able to take a seminar with just four students beside myself.  All of these men stimulated me to try to emulate them by becoming a professor myself.

Anyway, I wound up with a degree in psychology and managed to graduate Phi Beta Kappa. But what now? I had to prove Mr. Billings wrong. I knew a B. A. in psychology wouldn’t get me anywhere.  I would have to go to graduate school.

I was twenty-two when I left Berkeley to attend graduate school at the University of Minnesota. That year -- it was 1958 -- I had graduated from Berkeley with a Bachelor's degree figuratively in my hand, and I was keen to go.

I had never been to the Midwest. I had scarcely ever been anywhere. Aside from spending two summers in Brooklyn before the age of 10, I had spent virtually my entire life in California. So the rest of the country was truly a terra incognita for me. I had hardly even ever encountered snow.

So Minneapolis was a shock. Graduate school was hard enough at first. Although I had received a $10,000 scholarship and had been accepted into a very prestigious social psychology program, my graduate school confreres all seemed brilliant and far more sophisticated than I was. Compared to them, I felt myself to be a hick and completely outclassed. This did not do wonders for my self-esteem. I would go home to my little rooming house and plunge both into despair and Tolstoy's War and Peace. I did not think I would survive the first quarter and wondered what would become of me.

But I also soon felt that I could not and would not survive the weather either. I did not have a car and had to walk about a mile to the building on campus where the Department of Social Relations was located, which is where I shared a large room with my fellow graduate students (and they were all fellows, too).

My route took me to the Mississippi River, which I had to cross (albeit with the help of a bridge) every morning, and once the early winter had set in, my jaw would be nearly frozen by the time I had reached the other side. And I am not exaggerating. I had never experienced such penetrating, bone-chilling cold. Even if I could manage to survive the rigors of graduate school, I was becoming convinced I would never be able to survive the rigors of a brutal Minnesota winter.

To backtrack a bit, it was a young visiting professor of social psychology at Cal named Harold H. Kelley who had induced me to apply to the University of Minnesota where he had been on the faculty.  I had worked for Kelley as his research assistant during my last semester in Berkeley, and he had taken a shine to me.  That was mutual, and Kelley would eventually become an important mentor to me, as you will see.

As it turned out, when I had to confess to Kelley that I was having a hard time at many levels coping with the demands and trying exigencies of life as a graduate student in Minnesota, he suggested I would surely do much better to study directly under him and another distinguished social psychologist, Stanley Schachter, and he proved to be so right. Kelley saved my ass, and I will never forget his solicitude for me. In the years since, I have often wondered what would have become of me had it not been for Kelley's wise and decisive intervention during that critical period of my life when I had been suffering through a painful existential and professional crisis.

The best thing was, I could still retain my place at the Lab for Social Relations and continue to hang with and get to know my fellow grad students there. Soon enough, I was a regular part of our fun and games, too, which consisted at that time of intense cribbage matches and bridge games during lunch. I could still be "one of the boys." Stanley Schachter was also a habitué at the lab (his preferred game was “Go”) and that’s when I got to know him. Ultimately, he would prove to be a mentor of a different kind for me than Kelley, and one whose teaching style and research influenced my early career the most.  I eventually took a year-long seminar with him, and loved it.  It was really through his tutelage and example, and Kelley’s, that I was able to become in time an experimental social psychologist like these two men I so admired.

I was happier by the time the snow started to melt in Minneapolis, although spring, which I was later to learn, lasted about ten minutes before the oppressive heat and humidity, prefiguring the proverbial "long, hot summer," took over.  Nevertheless, before my first year there was over, it was already a new season in my life. I now had a girlfriend named Elizabeth, who was also a graduate student (her field was child development). She was certainly a major reason for my newfound cheerfulness, but not the only one.  She also had a car.  And, reader, mark this – that was enough to make me marry her.

Not all the professors I studied with while in graduate school were so inspiring as Kelley and Schachter, of course, and one of them was in a sense the opposite – a kind of "negative role model." One of these men – I won’t mention his name – taught a lecture course in social psychology.  But taught it so poorly, in my opinion, that I knew I already could have taught it better.  That experience was important to my development, too, because it showed me that I really could become a professor one day in my own right.

Kelley soon gave me the chance to prove it.  He had to go out of town and asked me to take over his class in his absence. So he gave me my first chance to stand behind the lectern so that I could "profess."  I was now in my element.

Toward the end of my third year there, Kelley had a surprise for me and not altogether a pleasant one.  He had been offered a full professorship at UCLA and would be leaving soon to take that position.  He gave me a choice:  I could either remain there and choose another major professor with whom to do my doctoral dissertation or I could go with him to UCLA.

Since I was a California boy, and had no desire to remain in the land of seemingly endless winters, I persuaded Elizabeth to get a post-doc at UCLA (she was a year older than me and had already got her Ph.D.) so we could go out to LA for my final year of graduate school.  We drove out to California that summer – it was 1961 now – and ended up in a little bungalow in the Shangri La of Santa Monica. 

Personally, our year out there had more than its share of drama and trauma, but I will elide all that here and just focus on the academic side of my life at UCLA.  I had to take some graduate courses there to finish up my coursework for my degree, but I mostly worked with Kelley on my doctoral dissertation.  He was a mensch in all ways and was extremely helpful to me in getting it done. I also had a chance to spend lots of social time with him and his wife, Dorothy, at their home in Malibu. Kelley had been with me from the outset of my graduate school life and he saw me through to the end.  I could never express enough gratitude to him for everything he did for me during the four years he was my major advisor.

Elizabeth and I had both accepted jobs in Connecticut. I would finally become the professor I had dreamed of being for so long, having been hired by the University of Connecticut where I would teach for the next thirty-four years. Not only that, but when Elizabeth and I were ready to leave for Connecticut, she was pregnant with our first child.  A new life for both of us and our daughter-to-be was about to begin. 

There is a brief coda with Harold Kelley.  Years later, quite by chance, I ran into him in at LAX – the airport in LA.  By then, I was already fairly well known for my work on near-death experiences.  Kelley, who didn’t have any particular interest in NDEs, had heard of my work and was obviously proud of me. His esteem for me meant a lot to me. I had a chance tell him then how much he had meant to me.

I think we were both surprised that only one of those outstanding graduate students in the lab when I was there who always outshone me with their brilliance ever achieved any prominence in their field.  Except for me. Go figure.

However, even after becoming a young professor, I still felt I was a student, still trying to learn from my betters.  After about a half dozen years of teaching social psychology at UCONN, I became disillusioned with the field and felt drawn to the then nascent area of transpersonal psychology.  In 1974, I participated in a month-long program in transpersonal psychology in Berkeley where I was to meet and be befriended by a number of the then luminaries in that field.  Among then was Charles Tart, who had already become famous for his book on altered states of consciousness. Charley, too, became both a friend and an important mentor for me.

Not long ago, I was informed by a close friend of Charley’s that he had become very ill and did not expect to live much longer  We were encouraged to write to Charley before it was too late.  This is the letter I sent to him:

Dear Charley,

It’s Ken Ring writing.  I just learned that you are in a bad way with your health, though I was not given any specifics. In any case, I was very sorry to hear that you are not doing well now.  I don’t know how seriously ill you are; I just hope you are not in too much pain.

Just in case you will not be around too much longer, I wanted to be sure to express my deep admiration, respect and love for you. Especially during the early years of my work on NDEs, you were a very important figure for me.  

As I recall, I actually met you for the first time exactly fifty years ago this month!  It was at a month-long consciousness program in Berkeley, co-sponsored by Esalen Institute and the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology. You were one of my intellectual heroes then.  Of course, I had read your book on ACS, and in the years following, I read a number of your books and articles.  And I’ll always be grateful to you for writing the foreword to my book, Mindsight.

I also heard you speak at a number of conferences in those days.  I remember one thing you said in one of those talks that I have never forgotten. I’m not sure I remember the exact quote, but it was something like this:  "I don’t know of anything that’s all good, including death."

Well, Charley. if death is in your short-term future, I hope in your case it is nothing but good, good beyond even your ability to imagine.

You were (and still are) a great mentor for me, and I will always cherish our friendship. I send you every good wish for the rest of your journey.

Love,

Ken

  

*********************

Well, it seems I have come full circle as I, too, near the end of the line.  I had wanted to honor those who had nurtured and helped me to realize my dreams before I pass from the scene, even though those who taught and mentored me are no longer here to receive my thanks.  But before I depart for whatever lies ahead for me, I also wanted to thank my ex-students whose kind words have now nurtured me.

In a few months, if I should survive that long, I will be eighty-nine, an age far greater than I ever expected or wanted to reach.  I may very well soon follow Charley Tart to land, I hope, somewhere over the rainbow. Just the other day, I learned that another old friend and colleague of mine at UCONN had expired at 91.  Most of my friends have now died or are otherwise moribund whereas I am just marking time.  But I’m still grateful to be here while looking forward to my next adventure, which will probably reveal to me that my dream life was just a dream after all. For now, I can only wonder what I will experience when I wake up from the dream of my life.

Announcing a New Edition of Lessons from the Light

By Kevin Williams

Dear Friends and Fans of Ken Ring, 

Ken wanted to let you all know that a new edition of his most popular NDE book, and a classic, Lessons from the Light, has just been published by Red Wheel/Weiser. Here’s a bit about it from a press release of the publisher: 

New Page Books · July 2024

6 x 9 · 360 pages · $18.95

ISBN: 978-1-63748-018-2

BUY BOOK HERE:  https://redwheelweiser.com/book/lessons-from-the-light-9781637480182/

“No other researcher has been able to

transmit to the rest of us the true meaning

and impact of near-death phenomena for

the planet.”—Bruce Greyson, MD,

bestselling author of After

“A major contribution that offers a wealth of

case materials together with balanced and

insightful commentary.”—Raymond A. Moody, PhD, 

bestselling author of Life After Life

 ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Kenneth Ring, Ph.D., is professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Connecticut and cofounder and past president of the International Association for Near Death Studies (IANDS). Regarded by many as the “Dean of NDE Researchers,” he is the founding editor of the Journal of Near-Death Studies and the author of several books, including his bestselling Life at Death, Heading toward Omega, and The Omega Project. He lives in Kentfield, California.

Evelyn Elsaesser is an independent researcher and author in the field of death-related experiences, notably NDEs and after-death communications (ADCs). She has written numerous books and articles on these subjects, including Lessons from the Light, coauthored with Kenneth Ring. She is the leader of the research project "Investigation of the Phenomenology and Impact of Spontaneous After-Death Communications (ADCs)" and a founding member of the Scientific Committee of Swiss IANDS. She lives in Switzerland.

While providing many remarkable accounts of near-death experiences (NDEs), Lessons from the Light is much more than an inspiring collection of NDEs. In clear language, the practical lessons for living and dying are to be found from the study of these experiences. Written by one of the foremost authorities on NDEs, Lessons from the Light is a book for those looking to gain knowledge and wisdom to enhance their own lives by incorporating the insights stemming from what many people have come to believe is the ultimate spiritual experience.

Although Lessons from the Light recounts many moving stories of NDEs, it is not just another book filled with inspiring testimonies—it includes helpful guidance and practical exercises concerning how readers can make use of this knowledge to live with greater self-insight, self-compassion and concern for others, as well as be better prepared for death, dying, and bereavement. Readers can easily apply what they have learned to their own lives and absorb and internalize these lessons from the Light in such a way as to lead to deep personal and spiritual transformation.

This edition replaces the previous edition (ISBN 978-1-930491-11-3) and contains a new postscript by the author.

****************************

And here is the introduction to Ken’s postscript to this new edition:

Of course, I’m delighted that with this edition of Lessons from the Light, I can welcome a new generation of readers to the world of NDE research and its implications for how to make use of this information to enrich one’s daily life.  Personally, it’s particularly gratifying to me to know that this book, which was originally published in 1998, has continued to attract many readers for so long a time to become seemingly a perennial standard in the field of near-death studies.

But I’m not here to break my arm while trying to pat myself on the back.  All I want to say is that I have continued to work and write in the field for all these years and have published more books on this subject as well as on a variety of other topics.  If you want to learn more about my recent publications, you can always go to Amazon or my blog site, https://www.kenringblog.com.

I have also continued to follow new developments in the field, and here, in this postscript, I thought I could introduce you to one of the most exciting of these new areas of research which, when it becomes better known, is sure to intrigue and dazzle many readers.

Get ready to read about something called "terminal lucidity." Once you do, I think you will see why I myself have been so taken with what it has to tell us about another apparent miracle that occurs at the advent of death. 

****************

The postscript continues with a reprint of one of Ken’s blogs, which begins: 

Miraculous Returns:  Terminal Lucidity and the Work of Alexander Batthyány

We who must die demand a miracle.

-- W. H. Auden

You can also find this article by going to 

https://www.kenringblog.com/2022/02/miraculous-returns-terminal-lucidity.html      

-- Other Editions of Lessons From The Light:

BUY EBOOK HERE:  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CFX6R64Q/?tag=iandsorg-20

BUY AUDIOBOOK:    https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D7QYVGQQ/?tag=iandsorg-20

BUY AUDIO CD MP3:   https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D1W29F6B/?tag=iandsorg-20

BUY PAPERBACK:   https://www.amazon.com/dp/1637480180/?tag=iandsorg-20

Student Escapes from Gaza

By Kenneth Ring, Ph.D.

[The two stories in this blog by and about two Palestinian Fulbright Scholars are taken from my book, Letters from Palestine.  Both stories refer to the three-week long war in Gaza that broke out toward the end of 2008.  As horrific as that war was, can you imagine how infinitely worse it is now for people, including would-be university students, who are currently living and dying in Gaza, in a war that has aroused such protests throughout the world? And it’s not just potential university students whose dreams of higher education have been thwarted by this war.  According to PBS, 625,000 Gazan children have also been deprived of their education.  Of course, the thousands of children who have already perished in this war have lost more than their hope for an education – they have lost everything.]

Palestinians are sometimes called the “Jews of the Arabs” because they prize education so much. Families will sacrifice everything in order that their children can receive a good education, and students themselves will endure every hardship imposed by the Israeli occupation in their effort to secure it. Israel, however, continues to place every possible obstacle in the way of Palestinian students, and the situation in Gaza is particularly onerous owing not only to the lack of school supplies and other essentials, but because of the restriction of movement imposed by the Israeli blockade.

Buy Ken Ring's book on Amazon

The students, too, are prisoners along with everyone else. Of college students seeking to continue their education abroad, only some manage to escape; a great many of such Gazan students are in the end forced to forego their dreams. According to Gisha, an Israeli organization concerned with monitoring the movement restrictions on Palestinians, as of October 21, 2009, there were still 838 students waiting to leave Gaza to study abroad, with the school year already having begun, and many more who had already given up trying.

In their report on this situation, Gisha states:

Overseas travel is no simple matter for Palestinian students because passage through Israel is extremely limited in accordance with a long list of criteria determined by Israel, which include the possession of a “recognized” academic scholarship and enrollment to study in a country which has a diplomatic presence in Israel. In addition, since June 2008 Israel has made the exit of students from Gaza to study abroad conditional on a physical diplomatic escort. The students also have difficulty leaving through Egypt via Rafah crossing due to the fact that it is closed most of the time. The rare openings of Rafah Crossing permit travel for only about 12 percent of people wishing to pass.

One aspect of the current slaughter of Palestinians who have the wretched and unspeakable misfortune of trying to survive the war there, which has not received much commentary pertains to this very point.  Israel is not only obliterating Gaza, it is also shattering the dreams of young people who would otherwise yearn to pursue their education.  A generation of Gazan youth will have to forego any such ambitions and just hope to survive. And for what? And where? The death of dreams, the loss of all hope, is another kind of murder for the living.

In this blog, I will present the dramatic stories of two students, whom I came to know well, who did manage, through luck, their own perseverance, and outside help, to escape. Their stories will both illustrate the lengths to which they had to go in order to travel abroad for their studies and will, I hope, help to bring attention to all those still waiting, against even much greater odds now, to be able to follow in the footsteps of the students you will be meeting next.

My Life as an Eternal Stranger

My name is Hadeel Abukwaik, and I’m from a city called al-Lod in Palestine. I was born in Gaza on August 16, 1984, where I spent my first weeks of life only to move shortly afterward to the United Arab Emirates. I grew up in the UAE with two younger sisters, Yasmin and Shahd, and two younger brothers, Mahmoud and Mohammed. After high school graduation, I left my family and went back to Gaza to study computer systems engineering at Al-Azhar University. As an ambitious person and after spending six difficult years there I won a Fulbright Scholarship to pursue my studies in the U.S. I’m now earning my master’s degree in software engineering at California State University–Sacramento. I like walking, swimming, and both reading and writing. My dream is to have a homeland rather than only hearing about it!

Not long ago, I received an email from a student named Lashauna at a college in Sacramento, California, who had read one of my articles about Gaza, asking me if I wanted to be interviewed for a project dealing with Palestinian justice. Lashauna was not Palestinian herself, but her best friend, Hadeel AbuKwaik, a graduate student at the same university, was not only a Palestinian but a Fulbright Scholar, and, as it developed, she also knew Zohair Abu-Shaban, another Fulbright Scholar whose story you’ll be reading next.

Small world.

As usual, a rapid series of email exchanges ensued, and, as usual, a very warm and friendly relationship developed between Lashauna and me. Naturally, I was curious about Hadeel, too, who at the time was visiting friends on the East Coast. But shortly after Hadeel returned, they both arranged to drive down to visit Anna and me. Hadeel had never before been to San Francisco, and was keen to see it, and since Anna knows the city well and has often taken friends and tourists there, she offered to do the honors for Hadeel and Lashauna.

The day they picked to come down turned out to be warm and sunny, and we had a ball taking them around San Francisco to see all the sights. Indeed, they had the full tourist experience, complete with stops on the Golden Gate Bridge (the photo of Hadeel that appears in this blog was taken there) and a ride on a cable car (we jumped on and off again before we had to pay!).

Serendipitously, in walking through Union Square, we came across a big crowd protesting and noticed immediately that Palestinian flags were waving aloft. It was a demonstration against the attack in Gaza, and of course, many Palestinians were present, so Hadeel felt right at home! Ziad  [another local Palestinian friend of mine] was there, too, so we were able to introduce Hadeel to him and other Palestinians. And as we were leaving, I happened to notice Ahmed Alkhateeb [another Palestinian I had already exchanged e-mails with but had never met] on the street corner, holding up a sign. I recognized him from his photo (and from having seen him interviewed on TV a number of times). I went up to him and said, “Ahmed!” He looked at me blankly, until I identified myself. Then we had a big laugh, and I was able to introduce him to Hadeel (to whom he has been very helpful in various ways since).

The world was getting smaller.

Hadeel later wrote me that she absolutely fell in love with the city, and if she were to remain in America, would love to live there. It certainly would be wonderful to have her as a neighbor across the Bay. In any case, once I had the opportunity to get to know Hadeel, at least a little, that day, I asked her if she’d be willing to write something for our book, and she kindly complied. So here is Hadeel’s story.

All homelands are similar in that their children live there. Only Palestine is unlike any other. Palestine lives in its children.

I don’t know where to start with the story of my twenty-four-year-old life. Do I start with my growing up in the United Arab Emirates, where I was classified as a “foreigner,” or with the last six years I spent in Gaza, where I was classified as a “refugee”? Or should I start in the present, when I am in the USA as an “international student”? Have you ever thought of being without a homeland of your own?

Let me tell you about my family, which I miss and which is made up of my father, mother, and five children, I being the eldest. My good father, Kamal, is a fifty-two-year-old chemical engineer who was born in Gaza and grew up there as a refugee, coming originally from the town of Lod, which he only knew through the stories of his father. My warm mother, Hedaya, is a forty-three-year-old housewife born in Gaza and belonging to it. I was born in Gaza on August 16, 1984. Shortly afterward, my parents decided to move to the Emirates where my sisters and brothers were born: Yasmin, Shahd, Mahmoud and Mohammad.

They moved in search of what locked-up Palestine could not provide its children, hopeful for a better life. But it seems fatigue is the Palestinian’s fate wherever he goes. The label “foreigner” stuck to us everywhere, with its impact on salary, treatment, respect, and even in school. My father works day and night and only gets half of what native-born Emirates citizens get. The laws of the ministries of health, education, water, and electricity charge him double rates compared to locals. Even buying a house was forbidden because he is a foreigner!

As for school, at the beginning of every academic year, there was a committee counting the number of foreign students, and pain tore through my heart as I lifted my hand to announce that I am an unwanted intruder. Add to that the excellence competitions in which I was not allowed to participate because I am not one of them or the prizes I was not qualified for. Every time the “homeland” was the title of the subject I was asked to write in my various school classes, the words “I never saw it and may never do so” would reverberate in my head, accompanied by a sigh “until when?”

The summer of 2002 brought me the news of my high school graduation with distinction, followed by the search for a university that would embrace my dreams and that would be affordable for my refugee father. What I never imagined was for me to end up in Al-Azhar University in Gaza where I spent six years. Was that the encounter with what they call “the homeland”?

My mother accompanied me to the town where her mother and my four aunts live. How painful and beautiful at the same time was the meeting with them after years of separation. She stayed with me in Gaza for twenty days until I enrolled to study computer systems engineering. Upon her departure, she made me promise to realize my dreams and return with success.

I started my adventures in Gaza City, roaming its simple quarters and looking into the eyes of its inhabitants, as if I were looking at them for the homeland that had long been denied to me. I would accompany my university friends who would call me “refugee” jokingly (as I am from Lod, not Gaza) and others called me “expatriate” (for growing up in the Emirates).

One year passed by, and my younger sister Yasmin came to join me at the same university and to share memories. Not long afterward, Israeli infringements on the right to life started to be felt. We saw the Palestinian suffering saga: shelling here and assassination there; child funerals and the screams of their mothers; suspension of studies and staying home for fear of Israeli bombardments; water and electricity cut off for days; a dearth of bread and flour and other food products; fuel shortages and no transportation; the sound of tank shells on the borders of Gaza, my almost daily symphony before sleeping; and lastly, the closure of the crossings with no travel to and from Gaza. Was this the homeland I had dreamt of?

Only the voice of my father and mother through the telephone would offer me in my moments of weakness and tiredness a shot of calm and hope for a better tomorrow. I ignored the situation of slow death in Gaza and concentrated on my goal of excelling in my studies. I graduated with honors from the faculty of engineering and the idea of traveling abroad for further studies overwhelmed my thoughts. I heard of the Fulbright Scholarship in the U.S. and decided to do my best to get one. Although the situation in Gaza had reached its worst stage, and electricity would be available for only four hours a day, I was getting ready for the required tests mainly by the low light of the candles. But with the grace of God, I obtained the grades I needed and succeeded in the interviews to be shortlisted for a scholarship.

Suddenly, however, there was an explosion at the Rafah crossing, which prevented Gaza inhabitants from traveling, and those stuck started escaping, including my sister Yasmin, who wanted me to accompany her. I was torn between joining our parents and running away from death which inhabits Gaza and the determination to achieve my dream and continue my ambitious path. I decided to stay and face danger while awaiting news of the wished for scholarship.

Months later, I got the message that I had been waiting for, and they asked me to come to a meeting at the offices of AMIDEAST (America–Mideast Educational and Training Services), which was the go-between connecting us and the custodians of the scholarship. There I met my six colleagues: Abdul-Rahman, Osama, Duaa, Fidaa, Hadeel (my namesake), and Zohair. We could have flown with joy and our eyes sparkled with hope when the man in charge started by saying “Mabroook” (congratulations). But immediately after that we started to worry when he continued that the real challenge would be to reach the American Consulate in Jerusalem where we would have to submit to interviews for the visa. Since Palestinians can’t travel to Jerusalem without authorization from Israel, there would be no escaping another wait for permission to be granted. Couldn’t we even enjoy our good news for one day without more worry?

A few more months went by with our waiting and praying not to have our dreams stolen from us. In May 2008, we received an email from the American Consulate in Jerusalem that the consulate would not be able to continue with the procedures for the scholarship. The consulate would not give any reasons for the sudden withdrawal of the seven scholarships, but they “strongly urged” us to apply next year, and they assured us that we will have “priority.” I remained staring at the message and reread it again, hoping the words would change and the nightmare would go away.

Is that how our dreams and life are crushed, merely because we are Palestinian?

Amid my tears, which I was not strong enough to hold back, I got a call from an activist in a human rights society dealing with freedom of movement, and she informed me that she had heard about what had happened with me and my six colleagues and asked me to talk to the American press.

I do not hide that I was afraid and hesitant at first. What if my talk would be the last nail in the coffin of my ability to travel again? What if I would be put on a blacklist somewhere? But the tyranny that I felt at canceling the scholarship had a stronger voice, and I agreed to talk to the media. And my point was what did Israel prefer, an educated neighbor or an angry one?

The withdrawal of these scholarships caused an international stir and attracted attention, at least momentarily, to the plight of the seven students in the Gaza Strip. It drew the intervention of the then American secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, who said she was “surprised” by this decision and that the stance should be reversed. In June, new email messages were sent to us telling us that the American State Department decided to reinstate the seven scholarships and affirmed that it was “working closely” with Israeli officials to secure permits for us to leave Gaza for the U.S. For the first time since the earlier message, I smiled with hearty satisfaction and thanked God that our efforts were not in vain.

Finally, the good news came in July that we would be allowed into Jerusalem on the morrow. I was walking and feeling the breeze around me, dancing to the tune of my happy heart, while heading to the meeting place agreed upon.

Upon arrival, I immediately noticed that Osama and Fidaa were missing, and Zohair told me that they got calls at night telling them that they were refused on “security grounds”! When we arrived at the Erez checkpoint and entered the Israeli side, two officers asked Zohair to go with them for investigation. Hours went by waiting, then Zohair emerged with a look on his face I will never forget and said “I am not allowed to travel!” They called for the rest us to move, leaving Zohair behind. The cruelty to my three young colleagues and their ambitions stuck in my throat. I knew enough about them to be angry when they were described as a security threat.

Ten days later, I received the visa, and the AMIDEAST official told me I was the only one of the seven who would travel the next day and that my colleagues would have their travel arrangements finalized later (only two traveled after me). My tension reached a very high level at the thought of the day I had dreamt of for so long. I bade farewell to my grandmother and aunts and friends, and I said farewell to the corners of Gaza and its streets and beach, and I promised them all to return in order to write a story of a future more beautiful than that of the past.

We were met by the American bus at the Erez crossing, and they told us that we were forbidden to stop anywhere inside what they call Israel but what I insist on calling Palestine. I wondered if my wish to study had made me into a terrorist to be deported to Jordan under American supervision. We passed by the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, but we could not stop for a prayer before we departed and before it crumbles because of all the Israeli digging under it.

Finally, we arrived at the Jordanian borders, and I looked back at Palestine with a sigh, telling myself that I would miss it in spite of everything and in spite of all the agony that I had lived through under the siege.

A new chapter of my life started in the United States of America. The state of Arkansas was my first stop as I spent three weeks there with students from all over the world who were, like me, Fulbright Scholars. The first thing I saw were the names of Zohair and Osama on doors of rooms reserved for them at the student accommodation, as if to remind me of the oppression still there which I had left behind.

One of the things that attracted my attention was that there were Americans who didn’t know anything about Palestine or Gaza, who acted as if they were hearing about them for the first time. Another thing that left me speechless was the “map of the world” when a friend asked me to show him the Palestine that I was talking about and where I come from. It was painful not to find it on the map but to see the name of our occupier in its place, as if it treads on the dignity of all Palestinians. If Palestine did not exist, who am I? Which planet did I descend from to earth?

Everything in the U.S. seemed to me luxurious and very comfortable, and I could not escape the comparison with the deteriorating situation in Gaza. I could not believe that everything we needed was available without interruption: water, electricity, even “security.” I often felt guilty and selfish for enjoying the things that I know my loved ones in Gaza need and wish for. I was sad to see the oppression of man by man there. Is it their fault that they were born Palestinian? Did they choose their fate to be punished for it so cruelly?

In August 2008, I moved to California to start my master’s program in software engineering at the California State University. How happy I was that I was now on my way to realize my dreams and proud of being part of this undoubtedly solid and special educational program. The first semester was over and then came the worst vacation in history, the war on Gaza.

I was sleeping at my uncle’s house in New Jersey, where I was spending my vacation, when I was woken up at six in the morning by the loud sound of the TV repeating nervously “Gaza…Gaza.” The word rang in my head to end my sleep. I got up panicky to watch the Israeli occupation army air force aggressively bombing Gaza, in what they called “Operation Cast Lead.” War and destruction and blood were everywhere. I felt dizzy as if the earth was moving beneath me.

I rushed to my cell phone to find out about my loved ones, but I found that the war had affected even the telephone lines and that they had no electricity by which to get my emails—nothing to tell you if they were still alive or if they had been reached by the Israeli war machine.

After many repeated attempts, I managed to talk to an aunt in Gaza who told me in a voice full of fright that they were seeing death coming undoubtedly this time and that this was not like previous times. How I wished I could be with them because living their fear is easier than watching it and seeing it.

The days of the war went on, and I was stuck to news broadcasts, and my heart and tongue never ceased to pray for the safety of my family and all the people of Gaza and the end to this massacre. How I hated numbers as they were counting the martyrs and the wounded. The story is not of numbers but of bleeding hearts for the departed ones and seeing them die: mothers weeping for their children; wives crying for their husbands that they wished to grow old with; a child finding himself the only survivor of a whole family and not understanding why his mother left him alone in the cold and had not returned. How will children feel, unlike other children with rosy dreams, but with dreams the color of blood? Did they eliminate what they call “terrorism”? Is the defense of Israel in my bleeding grandmother? Is demolishing her house a security necessity? What madness inhabits the world? When will the world wake up from this coma of oppression to which it surrenders?

The new term started with very low morale after the psychological stress I had lived through during the war. But the stories of my friends who survived this tragedy, that they will not give up their dreams and ambitions despite the savagery of what they went through, was an incentive for me to do all I could to succeed.

Yes, I decided that my success will be my gift to my wounded homeland, which I would like to be proud of its daughter. I would like it to be proud of its daughter who still loves it and hopes that it will come back to her and hug her, like other homelands. The remaining question is “until when?”

—A Daughter of Palestine

My Flight from Gaza

Zohair Abu-Shaban, twenty-five, is a prize-winning Palestinian student. He was born in Kuwait and returned to Gaza with his family in 1992 after the first Gulf War. He studied at the Islamic University of Gaza and finished his BS degree in electrical engineering in January 2007 at the top of his class. After that, he worked as a teaching assistant in the same department for two years. He wanted to get his post-graduate education abroad in the same field to fulfill his dream of becoming a professor at a university. He won a Fulbright Scholarship and then lost it. Luckily, he earned another scholarship to study in the U.K.

I first became aware of Zohair Abu-Shaban, a university student in Gaza, after reading about him in the Hartford Courant in August 2008. The article told the story of how he had been prevented from pursuing his graduate education in America as a result of his U.S. visa being revoked—a story that he will narrate in full in the account that follows this introduction. What particularly interested me about Zohair, a Fulbright Scholar, was that the university he had been slated to attend was where I had taught for nearly thirty-five years, the University of Connecticut, in Storrs.

After reading about the plight of other Fulbright Scholars from Gaza who had, like Zohair, first been accepted and then denied entry to the U.S.—articles about them had made the national press at the time—I had already been moved to anger about what seemed to be an obvious and arbitrary, politically motivated blockage, probably instigated by Israel, to prevent Palestinian students from acquiring the kind of graduate education abroad that was simply unavailable in Gaza. But here was a student that had been barred, seemingly so unfairly, from attending my very own university. That rankled, so I determined to see if I could help him.

Through a Palestinian intermediary, I was able in short order to establish email contact with Zohair in early September. He responded appreciatively and provided a great deal of information about himself and his situation and gave me a number of specific suggestions for how I might be able to help him. Over the next two months, until it was time for me to travel with Anna to Palestine, I did everything I could think of to do so. I wrote to several of the engineering professors at the university who were familiar with his case as well as various university officials; they were, to my great disappointment and surprise, collectively very unhelpful. Some of them never even replied to my letters, which stung.

I wrote (or called) people at the State Department; I talked to diplomats at the U.N.; I communicated with a prominent journalist who had written extensively on the subject of these Fulbright Scholars for a leading American newspaper; I spoke with administrators of the Fulbright program who were, of course, familiar with Zohair’s case; I was in touch with Gisha, an Israeli-based organization devoted to helping Palestinian students; I wrote to people at the Carter Center who likewise knew about Zohair and had offered to help; and I make contact with various other people and organizations that I thought might be able to effectively intervene. Some of these people were indeed very sympathetic, but in the end, none of my efforts proved to be availing. I had failed to achieve anything significant for Zohair after two months of trying, and now I was about to leave for Palestine and would not be able to do anything further until after my return in December.

The only thing I had been able to “accomplish” was to have developed a very warm personal relationship with Zohair as a result of our frequent communications. Indeed, I felt that we had become very close, despite never having been able to meet, because of all of the communications I had received in which Zohair had shared his feelings of despondency over his continuing to be mired in Gaza. But I think it meant something to him to know that, however unsuccessful I had been in trying to effect his release from Gaza, at least he had an ally in me who was determined to continue to help him.

That was the state of things when I left for Palestine. What happened after that, Zohair will tell you in his own words.

As a Palestinian from the Gaza Strip, I could not have been more proud to learn in June 2008, that I had earned a prestigious Fulbright Scholarship to study in the United States. 

As a child, I would wonder how televisions, computers, and other electronic devices actually worked. I took this fascination to the Islamic University of Gaza, the only Gazan university offering a degree in electrical engineering. There, I developed an ECG monitoring system that enables patients’ hearts to be monitored at home through a personal computer and an Internet link. I won the university prize for distinguished projects for my innovation. I long dreamed of the other advances I might make after an education at the University of Connecticut, where I was scheduled to study last fall for a master’s degree in electrical engineering.

Now, my dream has been stolen from me. I am devastated; my parents heartbroken. Though Israel withdrew its settlers from the Gaza Strip in 2005, it still controls our borders and determines who and what enters or exits. Since a 2006 election that brought a Hamas majority to the Palestinian Legislative Council, Israel has steadily diminished access into and out of Gaza. More than 250 Palestinians died in the past year because they could not leave to obtain medical care they desperately needed. Food, fuel, and medicine are scarce. Hundreds of students like me, with scholarships to study abroad, are being arbitrarily denied the right to leave Gaza to fulfill our educational aspirations.

A few months ago, when I went to the Erez checkpoint between Gaza and Israel, I was told by the Israeli official that I could not leave unless I provided information about my neighbors, colleagues, and relatives. I refused. My conscience and my people’s right to freedom and equal rights mean more to me than even the finest education.

U.S. officials came to my aid. They held special visa interviews along the Israeli-Gaza border for me and two other Fulbright scholars in a similar position. The U.S. granted my visa. Once again, I could imagine taking my seat in a lecture hall in America. I packed my bags, bought souvenirs for my future friends in America, and bade farewell to my family.

Then came a phone call that changed everything. My American visa had been revoked based on “secret evidence” provided by Israel. I cannot see the evidence and so have no opportunity to contest it. 

I was not at all prepared to give up my ambitions. I worked very hard and earned another full scholarship to the U.K. to study in one of the best universities in the world, Imperial College London. I got the British visa last September, but my travel plans still needed a miracle to occur so that Rafah borders would open.

The good news came on September 21 when the Rafah border opened, so I grabbed my luggage, brimming with hope that I would finally be able to take my seat beside other international students in one of the Imperial College halls. I approached Rafah and stayed there for about twenty-four hours in no-man’s-land. I spent a whole day and night there waiting for my bus to come. It never did. Only three buses were allowed, and I was in the twelfth. There I recognized the fact that I am different from my international colleagues at Imperial who have already started their study last October while I was still stranded in the hell that is the Gaza Strip.

A month after studies started at Imperial, the borders opened again. But I was informed that I could not engage in studies if I missed the two-week arrival limit set by the university. However, I was in contact with the student union, which convinced my university to extend the limit for me since I was living on “another planet” and had an odd case. When I heard that, I became indescribably happy and did not think twice. Again, I approached the Rafah crossing, only to spend another day and night there before I was sent back home with more than four hundred students for no reason. Imperial deferred my study to the next year, and I submitted to the de facto situation.

What troubles me most, however, is not my own personal plight, but the effect this experience has had on my talented younger brother. After watching what I had endured as an innocent and politically unaffiliated student, he has concluded that he will no longer pursue the educational dream outside of Gaza he once held. His horizons are closing. 

As an older brother, from a family that places deep value on education, as all Palestinian people do, it pains me to see his own ambitions falter because of the injustice I was facing.

I wonder what hopelessness all children in Gaza suffer when they learn that Gaza’s best students are confined by Israel to the cramped Gaza Strip? How are they to succeed when their parents discover local stores are empty of pencils, pens, and notebooks because of the harsh blockade of our small parcel of land?

Hope shone again last December when a British academic delegation visited Gaza on the Dignity, one of the boats which were being sent to Gaza by a U.S.-based movement called Free Gaza Movement to break the siege. They came to Gaza to visit the academic institutions and get to know the situation of the academic system under siege. They were aware of the Gazan students’ difficulties of not being able to fulfill their eagerness to get education abroad, and they intended to get out as many students as possible on their return from Gaza to Cyprus.

As a student with a very well-known story who had lost his Fulbright and was about to lose a second Scholarship in U.K., I was selected to travel on Dignity with another ten students to different destinations. After a fourteen-hour, very tough voyage, the boat landed on Larnaca Seaport, Cyprus. I could not believe that at last I was away from the prison of Gaza, that I was now set free and would travel to my university with no problems. How amazing that moment was, a moment that made me forget all the pain and fatigue I had endured on deck to reach this point. I even forgot all the difficulties and disappointments I had faced in the past months. In that moment, all I was thinking of was that I was free.

I spent three days in Cyprus before I flew to London. There, a professor from the delegation and a student from the student union were waiting for me at Heathrow Airport. They welcomed me and helped me in finding a place to stay. They were more than kind and friendly and really made me feel at home.

But as usual, the Israeli occupation state stole my happiness. Ten days after arriving in London, I woke up to watch the news, only to find that a very inhumane and indiscriminate war had been launched on the Gaza Strip. I tried to contact my family but I hardly could. I tried again and again until I succeeded. They were all fine, and the aggression was away from my neighborhood. I was relieved to know that and was hoping and praying that the war would end soon. But it was escalating rapidly, and the heartbreaking images of the victims were broadcast on TV. At that time, I wished I were in Gaza again with my family and not living in this peaceful calm city while my people in Gaza were being massacred in cold blood. I could hardly live during those days and nights. Anyway, the first thing that made my heart bleed was to see the news of my university hit by U.S.-made F-16s. It was bombarded by tons and tons of explosives. The tears escaped my eyes after I saw my dearest laboratories where I spent six years learning and then teaching. It was a massive event for which I will never forgive Israel.

Days passed, and the situation and my ability to contact the family in Gaza became more difficult until I received a text from them asking me to call them for urgent news. My heart stopped beating, and I was afraid to make that call. I was wondering what kind of urgent news is this. I collected my courage and phoned them; again, I could hardly succeed in getting through. Five of my close cousins were massacred while they were staying at home. Eight other members of my family were injured, some critically hurt and transferred to Egypt to get treatment. My home was also hit in the war, but thank God my family escaped it beforehand and were already living with my married sister when the bombs destroyed it.

The war ended, but the siege is still imposed, and nothing will improve until the Palestinian people are treated as human beings with the right of self-determination, freedom of education, freedom of movement, and every other right most people in the world enjoy. There are still hundreds of Palestinian students in Gaza hoping for a miracle to happen so that they can pursue scholarships that may offer them a once-in-a-lifetime escape from ignorance and poverty. We are determined not to be rendered a dependent people lacking advanced education. 

And yet the silence of the world suggests that Israel will succeed in keeping us within the limiting confines of Gaza. Perhaps the students of the world will think of me and my fellow Palestinian students as the academic semester begins because the students of Gaza long to be with them.