Dr. Sarah Marusek

I have never been more disappointed in humanity.

My healing journey continues to get more difficult the closer I am to unwinding the knots of scar tissue in my facial nerves.

I have never felt less safe or more alone.

And never, ever this angry.

I spent five decades of my life trying to tell other people that I am hurting and no matter how much I loved you nobody was able to listen.

I really fucking tried so hard with the healer.

And I do know that he tried. They all tried to love me in return.

But I do not think anybody tried hard enough. Not, at least, like I tried.

My injuries have always given me a certain naivety. I have a childlike desire to solve problems because there is a significant problem inside of me that nobody is addressing. This makes me hyper curious and giving of myself.

However, more often than not, the quid pro quo is missing.

I do not handle this very well.

When my nervous system started spiralling while working in the creative industries in London and New York, I was desperate for answers. I started to feel more and more unsafe in my own body and in the company of others. As a result, my body was absorbing the unjustified collective anger at Muslims.

This is why I closed my boutique public relations agency in New York and pursued a masters and PhD instead of organising the official photographic exhibition tour in the US of Paul McCartney’s concert performances.

I kid you not: I chose Islamic activism over the Beatles.

In all honesty, it did not even feel like I had a choice. The world – guided by my own country – was unfairly judging and punishing others.

I just related too much.

I knew that the problems in New York did not start on 11 September 2001.

Just like the problems in Palestine back then (the second intifada) did not start on 28 September 2000.

Nor did anything more recent start on 3 October 2023.

I knew because people have always punished me for my angry outbursts while ignoring that my body is being occupied by a monster.

The problems in Lebanon may have been very complex, but Hizbullah would not have needed to exist without Israel’s invasions in 1978 and 1982.

And perhaps if Shi’is were not marginalised as a population they would not have needed to become so self sufficient. But they learned how to.

Because of my invisible injuries, working with Shi’is during my fieldwork made me honestly experience Hizbullah as a liberation movement.

In fact, the closest I have ever come to being seen was in Lebanon.

The Islamic resistance built schools, orphanages, hospitals etc. to help the Shi’is of Lebanon overcome societal oppression and military occupation.

That is a crazy amount of work which should be admired not bombed.

Of course, living in Lebanon was difficult.

The sectarianism there was particularly ugly.

But this was the first time in my life that I encountered people who understood my own internal rage, and yet still met it with love.

They did not think that I was irrational, emotional or angry.

They knew I was justified.

They made me feel human again.

The Lebanese who support Hizbullah are not terrorists. They are guided in life by a faith in humanity and a love for the oppressed.

I admire them as humans.

This is why I was able to compare Islamic activism in Iran and Lebanon to theologies of liberation in other post colonial societies.

My book Faith and Resistance was never a theological study.

My interdisciplinarity may not have been rewarded, but almost everything informed my research. Most importantly it was a human endeavour.

I put my heart and soul into my book and I am proud of it. But everything fell apart in my academic career when I lost my health.

Why?

New terrorist legislation came into effect against Hizbullah in the UK the year that my book was published. Not easy to promote then.

But the biggest problem was US/UK identity politics.

It pulls at you in too many directions like a lifeless raggedy doll.

With my health falling apart, I could not defend my research.

Anyway, how does a white person lead the charge here?

My Western-born and/or based Muslim colleagues, when pressured, refused to stand by research they previously admired.

Nevertheless, in their minds they still did nothing wrong because identity politics means that white people cannot unfairly suffer!

Does it really matter that I am not Lebanese?

Or that I am not Muslim?

Of course, I know it fucking matters!

But it should not matter so much that it precludes my solidarity.

If I love Palestine, is proving my love with activism not enough?

I stand by my research even if the esteemed editor of my book series (and my then line manager) was too cowardly to defend it.

I ended my academic career and stopped being an activist because my colleagues too often viewed my solidarity with suspicion. So much so that my hand was shaking even more than normal while doing this drawing.

I still do not feel as if I have the right to even draw Lebanon or Palestine.

But that is exactly why I needed to make this drawing.

It is helping me to heal.

Indeed something happened to my body on Saturday night. It was another one of those existential body crises that make me scared just being.

I cannot explain properly, but it was like my body was finally starting to realise that it will never be recognised by another.

I have known this for a while now, but I guess the right side of my body is finally proving this to be true by showing me how to heal on my own.

It was terrifying, like being shoved out of my own body.

And hardly liberating; I woke up the next morning unable to breathe, sobbing.

But yesterday afternoon I was surprisingly able to attend another concert, a symphonic celebration of my country’s birth.

They played the choral version of Samuel Barber’s ‘Adagio for Strings’.

The healer and I had bonded over this music and I really struggled not to burst into tears as the performance was being recorded.

When they started singing, it was like removing a knife from my chest.

I may be crying all the time anymore, but I am taking my heart back.

And being able to make this drawing gives me strength…

PS: The first part of my book is available to download in the publications section of my website. I need to sell hard copies, but email me if you are unable to purchase the book for any legitimate reason.