Things you can do for Gaza other than demonstrations
NOTE:Before throwing a nasty comment, I’m not against protesting in legal and civilized manner. I’m just not able to understand how that would help a hungry family or a bleeding kid.
Life taught us that your voice will be lost for couple of days after protesting rather than be heard, lets do something useful to people in Gaza.
Demonstrating wont help, no matter what you believe in, it just wont help and it wont even relax you unless you believe that shouting in the street would make you sleep well.
There are simple things that one can do that effectively help even without noticing
- If you
- a barbie girl, donate some of your 2009 makeup budget
- know a coffee shop, a restaurant owner ask him/her to announce a single day of net profit going to Gaza people
- are part of a cycling group, ask to make the next trip net profit for Gaza
- are a smoker, donate a week of cigarettes in money not in packs
- Donate half of your taxi budget to Gaza, it’s always fun to go back home using public transportation
- making money out of your blog, donate a month of profit
- going to enjoy Shawerma today, Imagine you got the luxury to invite 5 people from Gaza to Shawerma, donate the cost.
Our list can be endless, I’m talking about very simple things that you can do without being overloaded or feeling that you are doing it.
You don’t have to pay in cash, the easiest would be buying food, clothes or anything that you think is useful to them now and send it to Action Committee or facebook event
The Hashemite Charity Commission is collecting donations of all kinds to support people in Gaza, participate in any way you can.
Call +962 6 552 3190 ext. (112 / 118 ), you can wire your financial donations to:
The Jordan Islamic Bank, account number: 12920,
and
Union Bank, account number: 245666.التبرع على رقم الحساب الخاص بالهيئة الخيرية الاردنية الهاشمية:
البنك الإسلامي الأردني حساب رقم ( 12920 )
بنك الاتحاد حساب رقم ( 245666 )
مزيد من المعلومات الرجاء الاتصال على ٣١٩٠ ٥٥٢ ٦ ٩٦٢
TH
December 29th, 2008 at 3:37 AM
Excellent suggestions Jad.
December 29th, 2008 at 4:40 AM
whats wrong with a proper protest that took its permit and people get on the streets to gather peacefully and stand for what they believe in?
December 29th, 2008 at 10:39 AM
Qwaider,
That the least thing we could do to help them.
Tala,
Nothing wrong but I believe that your voice will be lost for days rather than be heard by protesting and technically speaking I’m not sure how protesting would help a hungry family or a bleeding kid.
December 29th, 2008 at 11:23 AM
Protesting has worked for as long as there has been humans on earth.. The regime needs to hear the people’s voices.
December 29th, 2008 at 11:28 AM
Mohanned,
The voice can be heard without losing it after two hours of shouting and in a way to deliver some seriously good amount of donations to people in need.
December 29th, 2008 at 3:25 PM
you have a wrong idea of what a protest is.
December 29th, 2008 at 5:32 PM
Tala,
I don’t mind being enlightened by you but you have to explain how protesting would warm, feed or even make anyone smile.
December 30th, 2008 at 8:19 AM
protests are the means a people show their disagreement with their leaders…..it baffles me how so many of us are stifling the masses without even realizing it….you can demonstrate and then do all the things you suggested and much much much more buddy, people can multi-task you know….
December 30th, 2008 at 8:22 AM
Well said ….
I am also gathering whatever info i come across about any activities taking place here in the UAE to support Gaza..
December 30th, 2008 at 8:30 AM
I think that you are making a good point and I agree with you.
The point with demonstrating is to draw attention. You already have the international medias attention now go do something useful.
December 30th, 2008 at 12:50 PM
Markus,
That would be awesome although I would give higher priority to actions but in general I totally agree.
and lets make it little bit clear here, I’m not against legal protests or demonstrations but I’m giving priority to actions else I’d have said it bluntly with instead of
Moryarti,
I’m not sure about UAE but seriously it’s easy to start something, wish you the best luck in helping people.
Nizar,
If I want to fully agree with you I’d add that demonstration draw attention to the worst part in our cultural, the hidden rage, emotion and irrational solutions which will be used by some Intl medias against us.
January 1st, 2009 at 2:34 PM
Great suggestions, doable, simple and effective. Protesting is ok if it will bring change, donations can at least make give someone in Gaza a meal or some warmth.
January 1st, 2009 at 3:54 PM
[...] Donate to help the people in Gaza.  Jad has a very thoughtful post on that issue. [...]
January 3rd, 2009 at 2:38 PM
[...] Jad tells you what you can do other than demonstrating. [...]
January 6th, 2009 at 12:38 AM
well i agree with Jad, the head of the country wont care if your demonstrating, they wont listen to anything you say, like Jad said your going to lose your voice and be very tired, why don’t you do something like raising money and send it to gaza, this will show the people of gaza we are helping and supporting them, and that the other Arab countries have their backs.
or you can do something else, just pick up your phone and dial the gaza code and any 5 numbers, a Palestinian will pick up the phone, talk with him, show that you care, comfort him
and most importantly and easyiest thing to do is to PRAY for them, Allah said that the greatest weapon for a Muslim is the prayer.
January 13th, 2009 at 3:46 AM
Why protest? Basically, it’s because if you don’t, ‘they’ will think that you agree with them.
See also some other things that one can do. I think the most important is rather hard actually and that’s to comb through this compendium and make a list of stuff that you can eliminate from your environment. From then on, it should be fairly simple.
I hope those links are helpful.
January 14th, 2009 at 12:41 AM
Abed Al-Rahman,
I totally agree that the prayer is the greatest weapon but lets face it, those who want to vent their emotions don’t really care about that, I witnessed people trying to shout lauder while some others where trying to pray during a demonstration, of course that’s very unfortunate.
Gene,
I agree but protesting can take many forms, starting from food and medics drive (which is the very practical thing to do as it has a very tangible results) ending with going out and shouting which doesn’t have any result other than losing the voice and maybe getting a cold.
As for boycotting I don’t really see it as effective solution, I saw and photographed some demonstrators with Starbucks coffee in their hands, that doesn’t mean they hate Palestine but they want to enjoy their life.