After October 7

Feb 6

Morning reflection
I wake up after October 7 and look at my name in the mirror. I don’t ask who I am, but what I truly belong to. I realize that an identity that never turns into daily action remains a beautiful label with no impact, and that real awakening begins with doubting the certainties we were taught to treat as truth.

Evening reflection
As night approaches, the questions shed their masks.

October 7 was not the birth of awareness, but a brutal exposure of how deeply asleep we had been for so long. The grand words collapsed under the weight of reality—nation, solidarity, the Arab home. Suddenly they seemed larger than their ability to act, and smaller than the hopes of those who once took shelter in them.

The fall was not in the event itself, but in the distance between what we were told and what we lived. We were raised on an identity summoned in speeches and erased in decisions, on a sense of belonging lifted like a slogan when we sang, then quietly withdrawn when a real stance was demanded.

Here, detachment becomes a necessity of understanding, not a betrayal. Detachment from illusion, from a worn-out identity that survives on memory alone. It is a philosophical protest against a definition of belonging that produces no will, builds no politics, and protects no human being.

An identity without a moral project turns into noise without meaning.

A name without responsibility becomes a burden, not a refuge.

After October 7, it became clear that belonging is not an inheritance, but a daily, courageous choice. A choice to stand with the human being rather than the crowd, with justice rather than justification, with freedom rather than fear disguised as wisdom.

If Arab identity is to mean anything, it is not ancestry printed on a card or nostalgia echoed in an anthem. It is a moral project measured by its ability to protect dignity, support truth, and resist injustice without selectivity. When that project disappears, the name erodes no matter how ancient it is.

So today, I am not searching for a ready-made identity. I am searching for a living belonging: to values that do not betray, to knowledge that exposes falsehood, and to resistance understood as the defense of human life, not the display of power.

After October 7, I learned that true belonging does not begin with the group, but with conscience—and that detaching from illusion may be the only path to an honest allegiance to truth.

English

Osama Shakman

Forty years in the sky were not merely a profession, but a long meditation on the meaning of existence. Borders drawn on maps dissolve, and the world becomes a single, living whole, where everything seems small except the human being.

In that altitude, I learned to observe and to understand before I judge, to see turbulence as part of a greater order not immediately visible to the eye. The sky was my first teacher: its vastness teaches humility, and its silence awakens the art of listening.

Today, I exchange the cockpit for the pen—not to recount a professional biography nor to stand on a political platform, but to open a window for reflection. What I write is not borrowed theory, but thoughts born of lived experience—of long flight hours and quiet moments between takeoff and landing.

This space is simply a free ground for thought, where words are kept from noise and the human story is honored, however simple it may seem. For every life, no matter how fleeting, carries a meaning worth telling and a voice worth hearing.

Welcome to a new journey—one measured not in miles, but in depth of thought and breadth of vision.

٤٠ عاما في السماء، عمر من المراقبة

أربعون عامًا في السماء لم تكن مجرد مهنة، بل تأمّلًا طويلًا في معنى الوجود. تتلاشى الحدود التي رسمناها على الخرائط، ويغدو العالم كتلةً واحدة نابضة بالحياة، حيث يصغر كل شيء إلا الإنسان.

في ذلك العلوّ تعلّمت أن أراقب وأفهم قبل أن أحكم، وأن أرى الاضطراب جزءًا من نظامٍ أكبر لا تدركه العين لأول وهلة. كانت السماء معلمي الأول: اتساعها يعلّم التواضع، وصمتها يوقظ الإصغاء.

واليوم أستبدل قمرة القيادة بالقلم، لا لأروي سيرةً مهنية ولا لأعتلي منبرًا سياسيًا، بل لأفتح نافذةً للتأمل. ما أكتبه ليس نظرياتٍ مستعارة، بل أفكار وُلدت من التجربة، من ساعات الطيران الطويلة ولحظات التأمل بين الإقلاع والهبوط.

هذا الفضاء مساحةٌ حرة للفكر، تُصان فيها الكلمة من الضجيج، ويُحتفى بالقصة الإنسانية مهما بدت بسيطة. فكل حياة، وإن بدت عابرة، تحمل معنى يستحق أن يُروى وصوتًا يستحق أن يُصغى إليه.

مرحبًا بكم في رحلةٍ لا تُقاس بالأميال، بل بعمق الفكرة واتساع الرؤية.

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