To the People of Gaza

by Momodou Malcolm Jallow, Member of the Swedish Parliament, first published on LinkedIn

To the People of Gaza,
From a continent that failed you,
From a world that looked away,
From a politician who carries the unbearable truth
I am sorry.

I speak to you not with pride, but with a broken heart.
I speak not in the name of power, but in the name of shame.
Because I watched.
We all watched.
As your children were burned alive.
As your hospitals were turned into rubble.
As your screams echoed under collapsed buildings.
And we did nothing.

We said we believed in human rights, but not for you.
We spoke of justice, but only for others.
We spoke of “never again” and yet let it happen again.
To you.
Over and over again.

Gaza,
You were buried beneath lies.
Dehumanized in parliaments.
Silenced in our newsrooms.
Erased from our conversations.

And worst of all
We became the mouthpieces of your murderers.
We repeated their propaganda.
We excused their bombs.
We called it self-defense while your babies burned.
We sold them weapons while you starved.
We shook their hands as you buried your children.

You were slaughtered, and we were silent.

Every law meant to protect humanity was violated in front of our eyes
And we looked for reasons not to act.
Because it was easier to side with power than with truth.
Because you were Palestinian.
Because you were Muslim.
Because you were Arab.
Because you were from the Global South.

And that is our crime.

When our grandchildren ask us,
“What did you do while Gaza burned?”
What will we say?

That we posted statements?
That we debated vocabulary?
That we called it “complicated”?
That we watched a genocide unfold and went on with our day?

This guilt will haunt us.
This silence will define us.

You fought for life with nothing but your bodies, your hope, and your dignity.
And we, armed with power, law, and platforms, stood by and whispered cowardice.

To the mothers of Gaza,
To the fathers digging graves with bare hands,
To the children who learned to spell “war” before “peace”
I am sorry.

Not because I said the wrong thing.
But because I could not make it stop.

You deserved our voices. Our outrage. Our action.
And instead, we gave you silence.

But know this:
History will not forget you.
Truth will not abandon you.
And some of us, even in our failure, will never stop carrying your names in our mouths, your pain in our chests, and your memory in our souls.

You are not forgotten.
You are not alone.
And though we failed you in life, we vow in shame, in sorrow, and in solidarity.
To never let the world forget what we allowed to happen.

Forgive us.
May the future do better than we did.
May your children know peace,
Even if ours did nothing to give it to them.

With sorrow, solidarity, and undying remorse,

Malcolm Momodou Jallow
A politician in a world that failed you.
A human being who still believes you deserved so much more.