My wife and I were standing outside the chapel at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina when pictures of Palestinian children who had been killed in Gaza were being passed out. I wished I had kept one of them so that I could remind myself of the face of one of the many innocent children who had their lives senselessly ended in the current war in Gaza.

I went to that candlelight vigil for two reasons. I wanted to stand in solidarity with people of other ethnicities, religions and nationalities in support of the Palestinians in Gaza. But I also wanted to try to understand why many of my Muslim friends have been so affected by the conflict in Gaza – emotionally, spiritually, psychologically and even psychically. I caught a glimpse of at last night’s candlelight vigil.

A Muslim American woman shared about her anguish at seeing pictures of the bodies of the little Palestinian children killed, almost in tears and on the verge of breaking down. And I realized that as a Malaysian Christian who is Chinese, I will never be able to understand the deep emotional and spiritual bonds that Muslims all over the world have with the Palestinians. My sympathy for the Palestinians in Gaza is but a shallow one, with far less emotional and spiritual investment.

I also realized then that it would be flippant of me to ask why Muslims all over the world pay so much attention to the killings of Palestinians in Gaza (and the West Bank, let us not forget) but ignore the killing of Muslims elsewhere, often at the hands of other Muslims or their authoritarian governments. It would be like asking me why I would care more if a church in Petaling Jaya where many of my friends go to got bombed compared to a church being bombed in Georgia. The plight of the Palestinians has a special place in the hearts of all Muslims. It is a strong emotional and spiritual connection which just is. To throw in counter arguments based on political realities elsewhere is to miss the point not to mention somewhat insensitive (Believe me when I say that I have had to hold back the political scientist in me).

But I also learned other things at the vigil. I learned that people of different faiths, ethnicities and nationalities at Duke could come together to stand in solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza despite certain differences. Not everyone who showed up was necessarily supporters of Hamas. Nor were they necessarily supportive of the policy to eradicate Israel as a nation. But all of us wanted peace to come to the region and for the fighting and the killing to stop. On both sides. And among the 300 people or so who came for the vigil, were a number of Jewish students. This was a reminder to me (and I hope to others) that it is so very wrong to equate the policies of the Israeli government to ALL Jewish people, as some tend to do.

The vigil ended with us putting our lights on the steps of the chapel, not before one of the organizers asked all of us to write to our respective Congressional representatives and senators to pressure them to act on this issue.

Finally, I could not help but think of the situation in Malaysia. I was happy to hear that there have been similar candlelight vigils which been organized back home. I was glad to hear that many Muslims and non-Muslims in Malaysia have been standing together to support the Palestinians. But I could not help but think that it is far easier to take the majority stand as a majority in the context of this issue in Malaysia. It is much harder to take the minority position as a minority when certain rights and freedoms are not assured.

For all of the shortcomings of the US government (past and present), the freedom to organize and express one’s views in a peaceful manner even if one is a minority expressing a minority’s view, is cherished and protected here. Sadly one cannot say the same about the situation Malaysia. When a conference was organized to discuss the problems non-Malays were facing over the issue of religious conversion, it was accompanied by a large group of protestors asking the conference to be stopped. More worrying, to me at least, was the fact that the policemen who were tasked to protect the conference attendees actually allowed the protestors to disrupt and eventually stop the conference from going on. (It would not have surprised me if some of the conference attendees marched together in solidarity with some of these very protestors to the US embassy recently over the Israeli invasion of Gaza)

It was a tiring day for me yesterday. But after the vigil, my wife and I had a simple but filling meal at an American diner. And then we went home, watched some TV and slept soundly in our beds. We didn’t have to worry about tank shells and bombs dropping on our heads while we slept. Sadly, the same cannot be said of the children in Gaza. I pray for them.

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