Personal Experience On Palestine Protesting

Tam Nguyen

Apr 27, 2024 • 3 min read

The other day I was talking to a friend about the "Zoey and Zelda" theory. Invented by Raphael Bob-Walksberg, creator of BoJack Horseman, Zoey and Zelda are twin sisters with completely different personalities.

Zoey likes reading and Zelda likes shopping. Zoey hates the crowd and Zelda break dances on 2Pac. Zoey is cynical and Zelda is full of starry eyes. Wednesday Addams: classic Zoey. John F. Kennedy: classic Zelda. Toronto is a Zelda but dresses like a Zoey, and Vancouver is a Zoey but dresses like a Zelda. And most people fall somewhere on this Zoey-Zelda spectrum.

"So, are you a Zoey, or a Zelda?", I asked my friend.

"I'm a multidimensional person, so I guess both. Zelda more than Zoey, I think. I like hanging around people...What are you, then?"

For me, I'm a Zoey. But I like to pretend I'm a Zelda living in a happy Zelda town, cause it brings me hope for a better future ahead of me.

Back to Palestine, today is my first time joining a peaceful protest and march for Palestine in downtown Vancouver. When I was a Zoey, I thought this kind of protest would never make a real change, so why bother? I was dead wrong. Maybe not at once, but eventually, as history has proved throughout anti-war, anti-apartheid, and equal rights movements.

Most parts of me join the protest because I believe in humanity, and I am raging at how Palestine civilians are being massacred by IDF.

And for some personal parts of me join because I want to be proud of myself. I'm ashamed of many things I have done in the past, but today, I'm proud of myself for taking action and doing the right thing.

I want to spend my time on Earth in meaningful ways, and even though my effort is just a tiny little dust in this great grand scheme of things, I want to remain hopeful for the future of the world, as well as for my own.

SFU Students For Justice In Palestine (SFU SJP) is in action to demand SFU to disclose and divest the funding to corporations that fund Israeli military to attack Palestinian civilians, and I'm ready to be a part of this revolution, day or night.

Canada Palestine Association held mass action events every week, and I will show up and fight, knowing I'm on the right side of history, and becoming a person that I can be proud of.