A Vigil for Palestine

By Julia Caulfield

As dusk falls over Telluride on cool Thursday evening around fifteen members of the community hold a candlelight vigil for Palestine in Elks Park.

“A vigil is an opportunity to come together in a more spiritual way, a more mournful way, to be able to honor and hold sacred space for the events that are taking place right now,” says Lauren Norton one of the organizers of the vigil.

“Candlelight vigils are intentionally peaceful. Candlelight vigils are intentionally an opportunity to grieve our collective humanity and our collective losses. I hope that even though there’s a sign here that says ‘Palestina Libre’, I hope everyone gets the sense that all we want is an end to violence and an end to our dollars being used to fund, in my eyes a genocide, in others eyes a war, in others eyes a conflict. That, for me, has been going on for far too long and caused way too much harm. The opportunity to come together and see people coming together is powerful for Telluride even in these quieter off season moments,” says Norton.

As the group gathers, people share thoughts on why they joined this evening.

“In my eyes, even if this isn’t productive in the sense that we would ideally want it to be, Palestinians also just deserve to be honored and mourned and thought about on a day to day level,” one member says. “I’m doing this for them, even if it has no impact whatsoever. I feel like it’s my responsibility to at least try to have our voices be heard because theirs are not.”

“Anger does have a place and it’s important to feel anger and anger is like a nuclear energy. It can be used destructively, but it can also be used to fuel good. It felt good because I feel anger,” another shares. “Hope is action. When we throw our hands up, there’s nothing we can do, Telluride doesn’t matter. Then we’re not taking action and we’re not engaging in hope at all. As long as we’re doing something, there’s hope to be had for more peace.”

The group takes five minutes of silent reflection as birds whistle springtime songs, cars rumble along.

To close out the silence Norton reads the poem “If I Must Die” by Refaat Alareer.

If I must die, 

you must live 

to tell my story 

to sell my things 

to buy a piece of cloth 

and some strings, 

(make it white with a long tail) 

so that a child, somewhere in Gaza 

while looking heaven in the eye 

awaiting his dad who left in a blaze— 

and bid no one farewell 

not even to his flesh 

not even to himself— 

sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up above 

and thinks for a moment an angel is there 

bringing back love 

If I must die 

let it bring hope 

let it be a tale

The group heads down Main Street, in a candlelight march.

Community members plan to hold more events to show support for Palestine throughout the summer, including a “teach in” to help the public learn more about the war in Gaza.

Telluride Stands with Palestine

By Julia Caulfield

It’s a blustery Saturday morning, with wind whipping down the box canyon.

Roughly thirty Telluridians, young and older, stand outside the Courthouse, chanting, sharing stories, showing support for the people of Palestine.

“We have to connect to our humanity because this is a human rights issue,” says Tabassum Siddiqui, one of the organizers of the march. “They are being starved. They are being terrorized. This is the act and function of Zionism. This is the act and function of white settler colonialism. This is white supremacy. This is racial capitalism. If you think this has something to do with Judaism, it absolutely doesn’t.”

Telluride joined in on an International Day of Solidarity, with millions of people protesting across the world, to support Palestinians and those in Gaza.

Lauren Norton, another of the organizers, says it’s important for Telluride to look beyond its mountains.

“We sometimes feel like we’re separated from the rest of world in our box canyon. We can get closed in and look inward a lot, which is great,” she says. “But there are moments when we need to stand up and say we’re part of this bigger system, the world in general, we’re all connected. And we need to be part of this as much as anyone else.”

While the march focuses on the bombardment in Palestine, Siddiqui, and many members who gather, draw connection to other parts of the world.

“Haiti is under occupation from this kind of system. Every possible country you can think of,” says Siddiqui. “In the Congo, in Sudan, in Yemen, in Iraq, everywhere.”

“My grandfather escaped Germany and the genocide there. My grandmother left a dictatorship in Chile, backed by the United States and U.S. imperialism,” one protestor emphasizes. “Change can happen. People fight for it all the time. It is the most disenfranchised people who fight for it always, and the most privilaged people who ignore it, always. This is in our bones. It’s in our blood. And if you don’t feel that, you have lost your soul. Indigenous folks talk about soul loss. You have lost your soul. Necesitamos cambiar el mundo,” she says "es posible. Yo sé, porque vive en mi sangre. En mi sangre, la guerra.”

Across the march, protesters highlight the importance of connection and shared humanity with those in Gaza.

“There’s times that I feel like I’m removed from a lot of what’s going on, even though we’re seeing it on the internet all the time. Even just small acts of protest and making our voices heard,” says protestor Ian McMullen. “Standing up for people that are across the world, that we don’t even know feels like a deeper human connection.”

It’s a small march, but that doesn’t dishearten those gathered. For Siddiqui it’s a starting point.

“We’re here because we want to build a different world for ourselves. We don’t want a world of suffering. We don’t want a world of oppression,” Siddiqui says. “That’s not the world I want to live in. That’s not the world I want for our young people.”

Protestors march down Main Street with signs saying “Fund Communities, Not Genocide”, “I stand with Palestine”. Organizers don’t have another event planned yet, but they say more are to come.