Diving into the deep end, our convo today is all about how our voices can literally change the game. In part two of this series, we’re joined again by the brilliant Dr. Nawal Musleh-Motut, who doesn’t just talk the talk—she walks the walk. We kick things off by exploring the power dynamics in society, and how race, gender, and class are more than just buzzwords; they shape the stories we hear and the narratives we live. Nawal shares her journey, from witnessing violence to navigating the tricky waters of media representation. It’s a heavy load, but she’s not one to shy away from the truth. With a heart as big as her brain, she dives into her experiences teaching in spaces that have been shaped by colonial history.

It’s all about acknowledging that privilege isn’t just a word; it’s part of the fabric of our lives, and facing it can be a struggle. We laugh, we cry, and we even throw in a few clever quips because, let’s be real, learning can be a bit of a rollercoaster. As we roll into the second half, the vibe shifts. We’re not just sitting with the discomfort anymore; we’re talking about action. Nawal encourages us to be the change we want to see. We dive into how important it is to seek out diverse perspectives and really listen. Are you ready to invest in your own growth? Grab your headphones and get ready to ignite your voice—because trust us, you won’t want to miss this one. We’re all about community, connection, and the courage to speak up, and we’re here for it.

Takeaways:

1. Your voice is totally your superpower, so don't hold back—let it fly!
2. In this episode, we dive deep into the complexities of race, gender, and colonialism, and how these social constructs impact real lives.
3. Nawal shares her journey through cancer and how it shapes her storytelling and activism in powerful ways.
4. We highlight the importance of seeking out diverse voices and stories to challenge mainstream narratives and broaden our understanding.
5. Engaging with uncomfortable truths can be a tough but necessary part of learning and growing as part of a community.
6. Remember, learning about social justice isn't just a one-and-done deal; it's a lifelong journey filled with bumps and lessons along the way.

Companies mentioned in this episode:

1. Ignite Voice Inc.
2. Irondog Books
3. Massey Books

Your voice is your superpower. Use it. Welcome to Ignite My Voice Becoming unstoppable. Powered by Ignite Voice Inc. The podcast where voice meets purpose and stories ignite change.

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Race, gender, sexuality, class, all these things are social constructs, but they have very real consequences and people have to live with those.

This is part two of our conversation with Nawal Musleh-Motut.

In part part one, we sat with the weight of witnessing what it means to see violence unfold in real time and to live inside stories that are silenced, distorted or denied.

In the second part, we move forward.

The focus shifts from media and erasure to education, relationship and what happens when we're willing to learn, even when that learning is uncomfortable.

Nawal speaks about her work with students and what it means to teach in spaces shaped by colonial history, unequal power and inherited narratives.

She talks about privilege, how hard it can be to face, and how powerful it becomes when we're willing to engage with it honestly. What's striking is the breadth of her heart and her ability to hold both intimate personal experience with a larger global context.

At the same time, Noelle speaks personally.

About gender, illness and about her own experience with cancer and how the body, identity and vulnerability shape how stories are told and received.

If part one asked us to stay present with what's happening, part two asks.

What we do without awareness.

Look away. Yeah, exactly.

Look at this sparkly thing.

Yeah, exactly, I said. But now, you know, other sources exist, even alternative media. You know that there are resources out there.

You know that the communities who are being misrepresented, you can go hear their voices. You never had that before. And you don't have to search as hard as you used to and you have to still be. Have some critical thinking.

But my thing I will say is, okay, now, you know, are you going to go and invest the time to learn? Right. Are you going to go out and listen to voices? Are you going to go consume different types of media? Are you going to.

Is it worth it to you to do that? And thankfully, most of them say yes.

But some people, I saw a big spike around, of course, it was during COVID so everyone had a lot of time, but around George Floyd's murder and people really looking for resources and wanting to read, and that went like this. And then it just as quickly. And then people dropped it. Right.

Get back into our selfishness.

Exactly. But what sort of got them to get interested is because they saw Summer, all of the video of his murder.

Right.

So then it became Very real. Yeah. Then they started to realize this is just. This happens all the time.

And then they, you know, and then they started doing the work and then eventually they just turned back into their regular lives. So it is about. Also you have to sustain the learning. Right. And the going to find the resources.

But everything's out there and there's good communities out there. That's the other thing. There's lots of communities of like minded people. And I don't mean this like the right and the left and the.

I just mean there's like communities of people learning together and supporting each other.

And you know, these are decision making processes in our brain that we have to choose to invest in our own lives, to move our lives forward by helping others.

And we had another guest on talking about helping others when he got out of his own selfish view of himself and he recognized that he hadn't helped other people. That was Jamie Campbell, broadcaster.

And what I'm looking at is this beautiful, brave woman who's standing up for what she believes in and is actively participating in her own life. And you've had your own personal struggles that you've had to overcome. So you are living everything you say.

Oh, yeah. I won't suggest someone should do something if I'm not willing to do it myself. And it's not easy.

Don't you get tired? Yeah, you kind of go, can I keep the struggle going?

Oh God, yes.

Especially with what you've been through, your own cancer journey.

Yeah, yeah. This last year especially. But the last years have been brutal.

So watching the genocide go, moving between jobs, being diagnosed with breast cancer, having to go through breast cancer treatment and also being targeted by Zionist faculty at the university I was working at before. And having. All I'll say about that is having upper administration empathize with them, not support you.

Anyways, yeah, I'll just say it basically was anti Palestinian racism and impeded on my academic freedom and I had to file a grievance and then that took months. It was just. And so all those things and we were talking, I'm quite certain that contributed to me getting sick.

But through all that, people are like, don't look at what's happening online. Don't. Just don't stop thinking about Palestine. Like, are you crazy? Of course I'm not gonna.

So through all of that and also part of that, I taught through you.

Have you found your way?

Well, yeah.

Let me ask you directly, what gets you out of bed in the morning? I mean, what keeps, what keeps your.

Husband, My husband, the Puppy who's jumping on my head.

Dan, our lovely producer here.

Days when you just feel overwhel.

Oh, I just don't. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

That's why you drink coffee.

How do you drink coffee?

Yes, I sit on the couch and just that, huh? It's not easy. But again, being raised Palestinian, that's just what you do. You get up and you. You're resilient, and I'm.

We've got so much privilege, right? So there's a couple of things.

I started doing this work partly because my parents gave up everything to move to Canada, so we didn't have to live under occupation. And so I owe it to them and to my family who's back home and to just everyone.

Like, once I knew and I had this ability to teach and do these sorts of things, then I feel like it's my obligation to do it and not necessarily in a bad way. Is it exhausting? Yes. But I just keep reminding myself. We were talking earlier, too.

Like, even when I was having chemo, no one wants to go through chemo. That's no fun. Right? No one wants to lose your hair and be sick and whatever. But you know what?

Like, I remember one day I went, and right before I walked in, I just watched. I'm just gonna be blunt. I watch Palestinians burning alive in a tent when they were bombed, like, literally.

And here I am sitting there getting cookies and a warm blanket and orange juice and whatever, you know? And, yes, I had to go feel better and whatever, but then I can watch what's happening. I can send some money.

I can, you know, once I'm healthy enough, go back into teaching.

And a lot of the stuff I teach allows for me to speak about these things, whether it's particularly around settler indigenous relationships here and the history here or back home. It's partly because I know I have that privilege, honestly, and I have to do my part. I have. Like, I'm in a position where I can.

I don't want to say influence, but educate. Right. And so I need to do my part. I recognize how lucky I am.

You said something earlier. I just wanted to go back and touch upon. You talked about decolonizing yourself. How do you do that?

How do. Well, you have to start with your privilege. Well, first, the first thing you need to do is. Is you need to understand what colonialism is.

And settler colonialism is a specific type of colonialism. So you have the. It's all part of the same system. But settler colonialism is when settlers come to stay and they never Leave.

It's not like the colonies before.

So in India, African nations, the problems we see there, the influences we see on culture are lingering from colonialism. It's still around. It's not like it's gone.

But in Canada, that kind of colonialism is quite different than the classic African colonialism.

Well, this is it.

When I'm talking about decolonization now, I'm thinking more in terms of settler colonialism, where the whole goal of settler colonialism, and that's what's in Canada, and that's what's what, regardless of what people want to say, that is what's happening in Israel. And the leaders who rallied for the creation of that state and who run it all blatantly say settler colonialism. The goal is twofold.

It's one, to take the land and to, as the term is, eliminate the native. So, and I don't like to use that term because it's derogatory, but that's what it's.

But basically to wipe out the indigenous population, that is the goal of settler colonialism. We've seen it here in Canada. You can see it happening in real time. It has been for decades over there, but you can see it happening in real time now.

So the first thing is to understand that and then to understand how the narratives that we hear support that, how we're educated to buy into that and so on. And once you start doing that, then you start to go, okay, what is my position?

And you have to think about your role in it and your responsibilities in it. And I do this work with students all the time, and it's rough, but they totally are like, okay.

I mean, they understand it like a couple of weeks of class. Like, it's not. It's not like it's a. It's an ongoing journey. Right, but the first particular.

Oh, sorry, no, no. Do you have a particular exercise?

Well, we do, you know, because it's in a, you know, post secondary classroom. So I do. We do certain readings both from other settlers and then from indigenous people. And we. And we start thinking Critically.

And I do have them do a lot of reflection.

So I'll give them information to read and process, and then we'll work together in it, and then they'll have an opportunity to reflect, and then we just kind of keep working at it. But once they. And you can just see the light go off, they're like, that makes complete sense. And they know it doesn't make them a bad person.

It doesn't mean that. Because, you know, people will say, well, I. My family wasn't even here. You know, it's not about that even. We have lots of international students.

But they also have to think about their position.

They're coming into this culture, coming in.

So you're not a settler, but if you're coming in as a migrant or you're applying to immigrate, then what is your role in relationship? And they understand. They really do understand it. And then it allows them to think differently.

And then what we do is spend a lot of time with Indigenous voices and Indigenous knowledge and ways of being, knowing and being and so on. So they start to hear these voices that they didn't hear before and experience these knowledges that they haven't before.

And they also understand that's translatable to other instances in the world. Right. Like, for instance, I've been teaching different classes on colonialism and decolonization, both before I went to UFE and when I was at sfu.

And in those classes, like students, they. They get it. They get it. They get. It's easier. When I taught faculty, I've taught faculty to not go as well.

But they do understand it, and they continue working. And I hear from a lot of them. And because they have different positions, it's very interesting to see how they work through that.

But they know it's not like we're pointing finger saying you're bad. It's just understanding how the system is.

Built and how your participation in it.

Yeah. And you're complicit in it, even if you're not trying to. So how do you support these communities?

How do you take that and make it work and make it like a generative life for everybody?

You know, that's deep work.

That's hard work.

It is. Yeah. I'm thinking about how we talk quite a bit about rewriting your personal narrative as you try to grow, how you present yourself to the world.

And there's things in your personal narrative that are probably there for a very good reason.

Trauma you've been through as a kid, or parental influence to go back though, and then rewrite it because you realize the particular line is not productive for how you want to see the future with this new knowledge. That takes some deep work to go back and rewrite, right?

It does, it does.

But like I said, I don't think aside from the people who immediately get defensive, because there'll be people who immediately get defensive and they're, well, I'm not this and I'm not that. Those people, wait a second. And they're choosing to take your course. Those students. I've never had a student do that.

I've had faculty I've worked with and just people in my life or other colleagues or those sorts of things, right?

And those people, they'll either get there or they won't get there or the people will say the most dangerous people is like, have you ever heard that? Like the most dangerous person in a dojo is the person with the white belt, right?

Like they're actually more dangerous than the person with like the third degree black belt, right? And of course it takes time. Like this is, I tell students and everyone, this is going to be a journey you're going to be on forever.

I'm still decolonizing myself. Like, it's not you, you just suddenly arrive. It's something you're always going to be doing.

What I have found in my life and work is the people who say they want to decolonize or do anti racist work or social justice work, who don't understand what that actually means, but say it because the words are sexy now. Do you know what I mean? And then they run amok and they do harm because they think they know and they don't know.

And so they reenact, they're saying they do this and then they reenact that same boy.

You seem to be describing a lot of politicians.

Oh yeah, yeah. So that's. Those people are actually more dangerous than the people who go, I don't want to know.

And I have particularly I worry because of students, right?

When you have students in your class who are impacted by the things you're teaching, you say you do these things and then the opposite happens and you will harm people and you won't necessarily know it because they're not going to come tell you. Particularly if you're someone with a great deal of privilege, right? They're not going to come up and tell you.

And with the tensions on some campuses now, they're certainly not going to, right? So really those are the people who we want to try and interrupt harm as best we can. But at the same time, it's like, I've just been really.

I'll just be really honest, very disappointed with a lot of people who I thought they said the right thing and then they couldn't follow through or they.

Wouldn'T follow through, or at least in your current time, maybe, you know, who knows, right down the road.

And there's lots of fantastic people who are like, in it and, you know, it's just that they're much fewer.

Sometimes with a voice like yours, you stand alone. Do you have support? Do you have people around you? Are you, are you feeling like you're by yourself?

Because I would think that sometimes it would get lonely.

You're.

You're opening up this world and you're by yourself. Yeah.

Well, I'll say a couple things. So one, I'm not saying it's to get all academic y but if people want to learn about Palestine, then they probably know about Edward Said, who was a.

The late Palestinian American academic. But he also did a lot of public work around Palestine. And he talked about this idea of not.

He lived it actually about the oppositional public intellectual and how the. The role of an ac because he was speaking about academics or intellectuals.

You know, it isn't to sit and pontificate in the classroom and, and talk about theory and do these things and then not move that out into the world. And it's not about being an activist out in the streets where you have no understanding of what's actually happened.

Because those people cause harm too, right? Because they'll say we're doing this, and then they'll do all kinds of harm.

So he would talk about worldliness or being a public, oppositional public intellectual. You speak truth to power, but you have to have intellectual rigor.

So you understand, and I don't mean it just like in an academic sense, but you study and you understand what you're doing, so you don't go out and cause harm. And you can be more effective. And then also you don't. You're not just out doing this act. You don't fetishize one or the other. Right.

You have to be doing both. But your role as an oppositional public intellectual is to speak truth to power. And he says it's a very lonely world.

And so I know a couple of people, we see ourselves as oppositional public intellectuals, and we know that's the case. And so I've got a big mouth and I know I speak my mind. And so that does make isolate me sometimes.

And I have my lovely Husband who's over there, so he's great support. And my immediate family to under, you know, obviously they living these things as well, but. And a couple of good friends or colleagues.

And then what I learned this last year or two is that the best way for to get clear your life of people is to have cancer and be Palestinian during livestream genocide.

There we go. Yeah, okay, I'll do that.

So, yeah, I really do feel alone. I. I feel like my immediate, my. My husband, my good friends and my immediate family are great support.

And then there's a couple of colleagues or, you know, and then everyone else just bailed. Even people I was doing decolonizing work with. And then all of a sudden there's a genocide and they know it's my. And then they're just gone.

Why is that?

You just don't hear, oh, I just.

Don'T want to touch it. Right. It's just difficult. It's difficult.

Well, some people I just never even heard from or some people I heard from once and then they're like, oh, but I was just really busy. Oh, well, I had this happening. Oh, well. And I'm like, yeah, I had all that stuff happening too. And these things were. Yeah.

But you know, I'd rather know if I'm honest.

People show themselves.

So. Yes, so yes, very lonely and in certain ways.

And also I kind of know that's what happens when you do this sort of work or you're out that outspoken or you're, you know. But that's part of living in exile as well.

Well, I shouldn't say my parents chose to come, but you are still living outside of your homeland, as it were. So we were always sort of isolated because there was no one around us, like, so it's just sort of also part of.

Does gender play a role in this too?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I think definitely.

And to be honest, I'm not exactly sure how I think it could be because not all women, but most women are quite independent and like in the case that we can take a lot. So they're just like, well, Noel can handle this or she's doing good or she's posting this.

So there's this expectation, although now I'm learning that being that independent and just dealing things as a trauma response, that's what I've learned recently. So that's interesting. Yeah. But I think some people who. She's, you know, she's doing okay, she's fine. She doesn't need to.

And I think that a big gender, a big part of it or the other part is having expectations.

Even though you're going through all this, those gendered expectations on, well, your house should be clean and you need to cook and you need to this and you should be coming to this event and you should be, you know what I mean?

And supporting your husband.

And supporting my husband. Yeah.

We've covered so much ground. There's so much more to go.

But maybe in wrapping up, you know, with all your wisdom and everything you're sharing, somebody's listening to podcasts, going, oh, I'm kind of curious. All right, this is opening up my world a little bit. It's a little scary.

What couple of pieces advice would you have for them to gently tackle this different approach?

Oh goodness.

How do we help?

Yeah, I really think the first thing is just making like taking that first step to be willing to go, okay, I know I'm going to be uncomfortable, I know I'm going to be challenged, but I'm doing this to better myself and to understand other people and to be able to support them and then just start. You don't have to go headlong into things, but you can start to learn and you know, try not to make excuses. I know that's hard. Both.

This is complicated. It's overwhelming. There's all kinds of different entry points for people.

Whether it's learning about Palestine, Israel, whether it's learning about settler indigenous relations here or indigenous voices here. There's so many great places. Like I said, there's so.

So I guess what I'd say is take that first step, look into what is happening around in your community. There's always events happening. Go down, go to a talk, go to a protest, see what is happening. Go online.

You can Google what Palestinian journalist should I follow? And you mean you have to prepare yourself. It's it. You're gonna see things you're not gonna want to see.

But there's also other places so also asking around, doing a little bit of research and you'll learn as you go and you're gonna make mistakes. It's the same with decolonization. You're gonna flub up and anti racist stuff and social justice. You're gonna make mistakes.

And it's all about how, what do you do when you make a mistake, how do you recover? That's what people are looking for and particularly in communities.

And the other thing I would say is don't burden the communities that you're trying to learn about.

So no Palestinian right now needs you to come up to them and go educate me about this because they're just trying to like survive even if they're here, because there are people who have written about it, who are posting about it, who are going out and doing speaking events. A lot of us are out doing things. That's where you ask. And it goes for black communities, for indigenous communities, the same sort of thing.

It's, it's our responsibility as someone outside that community to learn and to take some of that burden off of them.

At the same time, those people are doing events and they're doing talks and they have social media accounts, they have books that are published and of all kinds of things, not just academic. And so it's a little doing some asking around. Like I would even say a good place to start if people are in downtown Vancouver.

And I know this is like, you know, a podcast, so it goes everywhere, but in different places you could look. We have two indigenous owned bookstores, Irondog Books and Massey Books in Vancouver.

And I know Massey Books has been very supportive Palestinian community as well. Go in there, they have books you can ask. That's a good starting place. And like I said, go to toxic communities.

You have to put a little bit of effort in. But the people are there who want to educate you.

Oh, there's lots of stories there. Yeah, I think, yeah, I think we need the connection through story and maybe personal connection.

Yeah, yeah, we've.

We've got to see the human side and hear the story from a real person.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I would also say people kind of get frustrated when I say this, but I'm like, empathy is good, but empathy is not enough.

Because if you go, oh, that's really sad. Yeah. And then you don't stay there, then you just go, but, right, you can wallow in guilt or shame or that stuff won't get you anywhere.

And also if you just go, oh, man, and then you walk away, that's not helpful either. So the idea is to act.

So I've talked with my students about like, and, and I, I've learned this through a lot of anti racism work, like about productive anger. If you're learning about this stuff and you get, you're gonna get upset even just at the injustice. Take that and chat. Sit.

And you can sit in the guilt for a minute, but if you sit there, sit in the empathy, but then you have to act and do something, it's not just about sitting in it or going, okay, and that's it. So it does involve work.

Yeah. And so put it somewhere.

So put it somewhere. What do you do when you know this.

And again, it's not who's better, who's worse, it's just how does this support this person and how does it disadvantage these people and how does that make us move through the world differently and have other people engage with us differently and understanding one another in that way? But it's not this. We're all equal.

This in the unfortunately, race, gender, sexuality, class, all these things are social constructs, but they have very real consequences and people have to live with those.

So how can we connect with one another in a way that honors those differences and we can support each other as opposed to be like, let's all sing Kumbaya and pretend that that difference isn't there? Like, do you know what I mean?

Yeah.

I just feel like I've got this image, like there's this window in front of me and I've just been looking out the window and I can just see what's going on out there.

But now you've opened this window and this air is coming in and the feelings are coming and the ability to step out and to do something and act upon that really gives such a beautiful insight to our community that's listening right now, which is awesome. Your contribution has been stunning. Thank you.

Thank you.

You're stunning.

Thank you. And I just want to say one other thing. I also don't want everyone just to focus on the hardships that people have in these communities.

Obviously Palestinians, indigenous people, black communities especially those three are especially having globally and locally facing a lot. But also go look for the joy, Black joy, indigenous joy, Palestinian joy. Like all the great things. Read their fiction, watch their movies.

I just showed my students a indigenous zombie movie we watched. It was, it was the metaphor for colonialism. But they had so much fun and they learned a bunch. Like all the pop culture that like there's.

It's not just the hardships and the bad and the, you know, the violent images and that there's so much other and so many ways that you can support people and learn in ways that are maybe more accessible to start and then you can, which will also teach you. Right.

Art really brings in that ability to connect, doesn't it? Because it does.

It kind of opens that music, all that kind of. And all of those communities are creating all kinds of amazing things and you can also learn through those as well.

So it's just to say, also taking a strength based approach to these communities in that, like I say, they always say Palestinians, they teach life. You want to know how to live and to be resilient you should. Same with survivance, they say, with Indigenous communities, survival and resistance.

And that brings us to the close of our two part conversation with Noel Musila Motu. Wow.

One of the most powerful threads in this conversation is how these stories aren't isolated. The patterns of colonialism, erasure and resistance show up across cultures and histories.

If this conversation planted a seed for you, we encourage you to honor it. Seek out perspectives beyond your usual sources.

Take action in ways that are thoughtful, sustainable and real. For you, learning is not a one time act. It's a relationship with people, with history, and with ourselves.

Thanks for listening with openness and intention. We know this wasn't easy territory and we truly appreciate you being here with us. Ignitemyvoice.com.

Ignite my voice Becoming unstoppable. Your voice is your superpower.

Use it.