THE GOOD LIFE: Final-year thesis reflections
Unlike many final year students who file their thesis, Gemma just can't get hers out of her head and here's why...
I recently finished my final year thesis. I finally understand the feeling of hitting that submit button, closing all the documents, and meeting with friends whom I have simply abandoned for the past few weeks. The project is now under the reviewal process. I really don’t know what the result will be in terms of grades, but I do know that I put my heart and soul into that project, and a part of it will always remain with it.
I had the blessing of picking a thesis topic that I was interested in and wanted to research. A few months back near the start of the semester, I covered a demonstration by the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign for our student newspaper. While there, standing with my camera videoing, a few people approached. Some asked my opinion, others blamed the media for the situation between Israel and Gaza. One person in particular was aggravated by my presence there, they said the media, the coverage of what was happening in Gaza at the minute was to blame for why the situation was so bad. They claimed media failed to portray the Palestinian side of the conflict, so people didn’t really know what was happening there. I stood and I listened. What could I say? I was standing in Limerick city fulfilling a video assignment, at a demonstration that I was asked to cover. But I took the comments, I listened. No part of me was tempted to say ‘Shur it’s not my fault'. To stand there and say I wasn't responsible for the coverage seemed inappropriate.
When I read or listen to the news regarding the situation in Gaza, I feel an absolute sense of uselessness and guilt. The situation being that civilians are being killed by Israeli Defence Forces every day, while I am being told it is part of a military operation. This feeling, along with the comments from the demonstration that have stayed with me even to this day, led me to conducting a media analysis on news coverage since Israel’s most recent invasion on Gaza. I wanted to know how the situation is reported across different news channels, to see if there is something that I can learn and take into my future career.
Analysing the conflict, learning about its history, watching the ever-increasing death tolls alongside scenes of ordinary people being killed by the Israeli Defence Forces has been the most eye-opening experience of my life. The media I analysed reported that the attacks are a response to the Hamas attacks in Israel. The conflict goes back a lot longer than that, however this wasn’t described.
I can’t imagine what it is like to live through the conflict, be it as an Israeli or a Palestinian, to have loved ones killed in the most brutal way. In the conclusion section of my essay, I seriously considered concluding it by writing that I am delighted that I live in the West, that once I close my laptop or turn down the radio, the conflict ends for me. I didn’t finish in this way, it’s more of a personal reflection than an academic conclusion.
But that’s what I meant when I wrote that a piece of me will always be left in that project. Without the philosophical element, my eyes were opened to the killing of over 34,000 people in Gaza and the 1,139 killed in Israel and how the media treats those killings. When do they stop becoming humans and just numbers to compare and look back on in history?
The project was a difficult one and consumed my past six months, but I continued with a genuine curiosity to see how the media covers the conflict and remembered that this is what people are living through. I did experience the relief of hitting the submit button, but there is no ease watching the situation in the middle east now. With a future career in journalism on the horizon, it showed me that how you report something can have more impact than what you are actually reporting.
A few course mates and I went out to a tapas restaurant in Limerick to celebrate our four years together, which are slowly drawing to a close. Good food, amazing atmosphere, laughing about different times we have spent together. Throughout, all I could think of was civilians in Gaza at the minute, particularly those my own age who should be able to do all the things that I am doing. Who shouldn’t have had their homes destroyed, family members killed.
According to Oxfam, Gazans are living on 245 calories per day (the average is 2,000 for females and 2,500 for males). Since submitting, I’ve often found myself thinking like this. At random moments be it in the gym, a lecture or out with friends, I would think about those in Gaza. Civilians on both sides do not deserve this, to pay the price for a political issue that dates back centuries.
I wonder where or when it will end. Or is this something that will just go on and on and on. Something for those of us privileged enough to study, to condemn or to write a statement on. I hope this isn’t the case.
* Gemma Good is from Killeshandra and a fourth year journalism student in University of Limerick
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