This interview is part of The Reconstruct, a weekly newsletter from Sojourners. In a world where so much needs to change, Mitchell Atencio and Josiah R. Daniels interview people who have faith in a new future and are working toward repair. Subscribe here.
Most would agree with the Nigerian-British singer-songwriter Sade that we don’t need any more war, but we are in desperate need of just a little peace. So, what do we do when it becomes clear that the people advocating for that peace are being thrown in prison or portrayed as “terrorists” who are interfering with the “peace process” in the Middle East due to their advocacy for Palestinian human rights?
Mohsen Mahdawi, who is a legal permanent resident in the U.S., was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on April 14 as he exited his citizenship interview at a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office in Vermont. President Donald Trump’s administration accused Mahdawi of potentially undermining the peace process in the Middle East. But despite this accusation, the government has not charged Mahdawi with a crime. Mahdawi was released from detention on April 30 after U.S. District Judge Geoffrey Crawford granted him bail, commenting that Mahdawi had “made substantial claims that his detention was in retaliation for his protected speech.”
Mahdawi, like his fellow Columbia University student-activist Mahmoud Khalil, has consistently rejected violence and antisemitism, opting instead to be an advocate for peace and justice. “I am a Palestinian refugee. I am human before all,” Mahdawi told me. “I am a human rights advocate, advocating for peace. And I believe that peace will be achieved through restorative justice.”
In February, Noura Erakat, who is a human rights attorney and professor at Rutgers University, warned that the Trump administration would be “all too happy to intensify the securitization of Palestinians and the Palestinian liberation struggle for the sake of expanding police power and government repression.” Mahdawi’s story is one example of just how right she ended up being.
And while it is important to soberly assess the bleak reality we currently find ourselves in, I also think it is crucial to highlight cases where people fight back against the Trump administration with some success. For as much as this administration might try, they will never be able to detain or bomb everybody who advocates for peace. Contra that genocidal vision, Sade sees something better both in the present and the future: “Everybody wants to live together / Everybody’s going to be together.”
In my interview with Mahdawi, we discussed his detention, how his spirituality keeps him grounded, rooting nonviolence in love, U.S. democracy, and why people should put their names and faces behind the causes they support.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Josiah R. Daniels, Sojourners: You were detained on April 14; you were released on April 30. How have you been doing since then?
Mohsen Mahdawi: I was detained based on my activism and speaking up for justice, speaking up for Palestinian rights, speaking up for human rights. But 16 days in detention went by very fast. It provided very interesting insight into other forms of injustice that you see in the prison system and the painful stories that you witness.
My release was a relief, but it’s not, as you understand, complete freedom. Because my freedom is interlinked to the freedom of the Palestinian people, and it is also interlinked to other people experiencing injustice.
My time is spent in three different directions: The legal issue. The media, which is continuing to amplify my voice for Palestinian rights and for freedom and dignity. And organizing. Because the fight is not over. And it’s a long path ahead of us, and it’s not only about Palestine and Palestinians, but it’s about the future of our humanity. So, I am trying to strike a balance between these three elements while continuing to recharge and stay centered and meditate and reflect.
What are some of the spiritual practices that you engage in to ground yourself in the fight against injustice?
The most practical practice that I do on a daily basis is my meditation in the morning. My meditation is a combination of mindfulness, where you bring your thoughts into clarity to be centered. And the moment you develop that level of awareness, you scan your body. I scan my body and I feel if there is any tension in my body. And usually, that place of tension, where emotions start developing, is in the gut. It’s around your belly button. And if you notice it, you can breathe into it and release the tension.
That tension, generally speaking, comes from a rooted emotion, which is fear. And it can manifest in many different ways. For example, fear can be a form of stress. It can be a form of depression, a form of anxiety, a form of anger, a form of pain that comes from sorrow. And the idea is you would want to release it and reassure yourself early on in the morning that everything will be OK. And this is a struggle. You have to develop a level of non-attachment. I’m a Buddhist practitioner. Part of the Buddhist practice is that suffering is a result of attachment to certain expectations. You have to develop the awareness that you are suffering.
This is one dimension of my spiritual practice: Through meditation, developing empathy for the self and empathy for others, including my enemies — or those who consider me an enemy, because I don’t consider people enemies — replacing fear with the energy of love.
The other practice I learned from the Native Americans and it’s a spiritual practice: I’m not alone. I’m interconnected with everything that exists. I’m interconnected with humans, my people, and my oppressors, too. I’m interconnected with the earth, the trees, the stones, the sky, the Sun, the moon, and so on. And when I realized this interconnectedness, I felt more grounded, and I feel more at ease as well. I am part of a whole.
You are a Buddhist practitioner. Tell me more about that.
I grew up as a Muslim, and when you feel something deep in terms of spirituality and Islam, it becomes part of you. My inner child and teenager are still connected to the practices of Islam. That touched my heart and also centered me and grounded me. And for that, I feel grateful.
Buddhism did not come into my life until I was around the age of 21, 22 because I fell in love with a Buddhist. And I saw the amazing effects that Buddhism had on her.
She would have some difficult feelings, tensions, and she would go into the room, and she would come out happy as if nothing had ever happened. And I was curious: What kind of drug was she on? But I discovered that she was doing meditation during that time. So that’s the introduction.
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The amazing thing about Buddhism is that it is non-binding. You don’t have to be a Buddhist to practice meditation or believe in the Buddhist principles and values. And it takes different shapes. This is how Buddhism was very successful at several stages in China and Japan. That’s what they call skillful means. That means it forms and shapes to adapt to whatever beliefs somebody has.
So in 2016, I dove deeper into Buddhism. And it became a practice that helped me on a very large scale with childhood trauma. The trauma that I experienced when I was in a refugee camp under the Israeli occupation, witnessing so much loss and pain.
These spiritual practices are what keep me at peace internally [when] going through the fire: Being targeted, witnessing my family members being killed, witnessing what’s happening in Gaza, and then getting detained.
Oh — and I have to share with you also that I am part of the Unitarian Universalist community. This church community in the Upper Valley is the first spiritual community that I joined. This is a community rooted in love.
The government has not charged you with a crime, so why do you think it is that they targeted you?
I have not been charged with any crime. I’ve been targeted with this vicious attack basically for two reasons.
First, I believe the Trump administration wanted to send a message to every other student. And this message is a message of intimidation: If you speak up, if you protest, if you advocate for human rights and Palestinian rights, this will be the outcome. You’ll be thrown into prison, and if you’re not a citizen, you’ll be deported. So, it’s an attack on free speech, and it’s a tactic for intimidation and to silence people.
Secondly, I think that the government is trying to censor information.
I was born and raised in a refugee camp in Palestine. I have firsthand experience living under Israeli occupation and the apartheid system. I was shot in my leg when I was 15 years old. I have lost so many family members, my grandfather. Our homeland has been stolen by the Israelis, and we are denied the right to return to our lands. We continue to be [subjected] to this oppressive system and oppressive regime, which is apartheid.
We know that people have ethics and morals. But what’s the first step for somebody to become ethical or to act on their ethics? The right information. The truth is powerful. The truth, as Gandhi has shared, has its own power that basically achieves justice.
If Americans don’t hear from me, a person who has a firsthand experience, how can [Americans make moral choices]? It’s a campaign built on suppressing information, censoring information, and preventing the American people from seeing the truth and making moral choices.
Why are you convinced that engaging in nonviolent protests is the path to creating a society built around peace and justice?
Different reasons. First, I have to share with you that nonviolent protest is different than compassionate protests that are motivated and moved by love. Because there are nonviolent protests that can be motivated by anger and by revenge, and by hate.
My nonviolence and love come from a place of compassion and empathy. I’m not separate even from my oppressor. My healing and my oppressor’s healing are interconnected.
Secondly, it comes from my understanding of history. If we look at history and the most inspiring characters and leaders in our history that we know of, we can start with the Buddha, who basically told us that our rule in life is to alleviate suffering. If you want to alleviate suffering, you want to alleviate it not only for one side, you want to alleviate the suffering on different planes. This is the whole message.
Then we move to Jesus. And the whole message of Jesus is a message of coexistence and love while opposing any level of injustice. And you oppose it in a peaceful, loving way. And we know the big example when he says that if somebody hits you on one cheek, turn the other one to them. What does that mean? That means that you are not to give in to violence. He also said that peacemaking is one of the most important things. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.”
To choose to be peaceful and not react to violence violently is a power in itself. Martin Luther King Jr. made it very clear as well. He built his messages on the message of Jesus. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” And then he complemented it, grounding us by saying, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.” So those are the grounding principles that come from the idea of nonviolence and being rooted in love.
Speaking of us all being interconnected, something you have spoken about in the past is how fighting antisemitism and advocating for a free Palestine are connected.
Correct. Antisemitism is a stain on Western civilization. What was done to the Jews is traumatic, and it was not that long ago. We’re only talking about three generations ago. Which means that people can still carry the trauma intergenerationally.
Antisemitism is a form of injustice. It’s based on discrimination. Some people believe that they are better than Jews or Muslims or Blacks or immigrants, and so on. This is a form of supremacy. All of these are forms of injustice, and for me, as I mentioned, any kind of injustice is feeding into another level of injustice.
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The government is weaponizing antisemitism. The attacks on liberal institutions such as universities and the attack on me, accusations of antisemitism, they’re weaponizing it to advance their own agenda of chilling free speech, creating more hate and division, so that they can have control.
And that’s where I see that the fight against antisemitism and the fight to free Palestine are deeply interconnected.
Why do you think it is important for people to put their names and their faces behind the causes they support?
Let me start by talking about fear. Fear is a strong emotion. If we are in that state of mind, our ability to see clearly is not there. And our ability to be creative is not there. Fear is reactive and retractive.
But love is proactive and expansive. And in order to be able to actually make a difference, we should not be motivated by fear. Because that means our state of mind is not well. We will not have clarity, and eventually, we will be unable to create the rebel effect that is expansive and will make a difference.
It reminds me also of this song that says, “And when you let go of fear / the truth will appear / so simple, so clear.” So, fear is strong.
I love that. That’s awesome, man.
The other part is for people to put their names out there because you create momentum. Instead of one or two or three people trying to speak up and the others are hiding, the more people who come out and say, “This is what we believe in, and if we believe in something, there is no fear, we will not be intimidated,” it becomes contagious. And it happened in many circles at Columbia University or in other places of activism. People are feeling scared and say, “We should not be afraid. We should be outspoken and we should speak our mind and our beliefs.”
Mohsen Mahdawi.JPG
This is the biggest fight, most likely, in the history of our humanity: between the people of love and the people who are controlled by fear. I say it’s the biggest because it’s the first time in the history of our humanity that we are connected consciously to this level. Something happens in China or Palestine, or even in a small island that we haven’t heard of, and we can see it.
And if we know the truth, we will make the right decisions. That’s why there is this big fight over information.
It’s interesting that you say that because I was talking to my sister today, and we were talking about the Jim Crow era, and my sister said she felt like now is actually worse because we can literally go on the internet and see people being put into concentration camps.
I just want to ask you, how can people support you and others who have been unjustly detained?
I encourage people to speak up. Second, I encourage people to root themselves and their principles and beliefs in human rights. We have to root ourselves in human rights and international law as a first step. Third, I ask people to divest from any entity that is supporting war and genocide. Invest in peace.
I encourage people to speak up. Second, I encourage people to root themselves and their principles and beliefs in human rights. We have to root ourselves in human rights and international law as a first step. Third, I ask people to divest from any entity that is supporting war and genocide. Invest in peace.
And for myself and other students, I would encourage people to support the civil rights organizations that are fighting for us legally. The American Civil Liberties Union and Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility, and other organizations that are fighting for civil rights. I would encourage people to just amplify our voices because our stories at a time of turmoil may not be heard.
People should not forget that this attack on us is because we are advocating for the Palestinians to be free and to have equal rights. What would Jesus do? He would feed the hungry. He would shelter the homeless, and he would help the immigrant. He would speak up for justice and for peace.
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