Play As Protest

Jeff Harry
1 min readJan 2, 2024

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A Palestinian family from #Gaza celebrates the birthday of a child on the rubble of their house, which was destroyed by the Israeli occupation warplanes during the recent aggression on Gaza.

I speak a lot about play, but one way play isn’t talked about that much is its relationship to resistance. Play as a form of protest. Right now, over 10,000 children have died in Palestine. How do they protest? What is their way of saying this is wrong? They have no platforms to speak on. They have no way of telling the world how they feel. So, what do they subconsciously do to cope? They play. They simply find joy and happiness, even for a moment. This is their form of resistance. It is to say, I’m still alive.

They are teaching us how to live. They have watched their friends die, they have lost loved ones, maybe the entire family, yet even now, they are still finding ways to play, to discover a moment of joy. Their willingness to play despite everything they have gone through says you cannot destroy our spirit. You cannot destroy who we are regardless of what you do.

As we start this new year, witnessing their resistance, we must ask ourselves, are we doing right by them as they teach us how to truly live?

#gaza #palestine #freepalestine #ceasefirenow #palestine #palestine🇵🇸 #palestinianlivesmatter #palestinianchildren #resistance #protest

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Jeff Harry

Workplace Positive Psychology Play Whisperer / Helping Fortune 500 Companies Build Psychologically Safe Workspaces Through Positive Psychology & Play