This is part of our Tales of a City by the Sea video series. To learn more about this project click on the home page, or visit our youtube channel and watch other short videos from the various key artists involved in this project. We are now half way through our fundraising campaign. Please bring us closer to our goal by making a donation, and by helping us spread the word by way of sharing our videos on social media and talking to your friends about this unique new and exciting project.
palestine
In Video: Gaza actors deliver message to the world through theatre
“Are your loved ones trapped behind the wall?” — New animation video by Marta Jelec of Samah Sabawi’s poem “Defying the Universe”.
While Sabawi’s poem expresses the guilt Palestinians in diaspora feel when thinking of loved ones back home, Jelec’s animation video tries to take the message further so it can resonate with a larger audience.
Video animation by Marta Jelec
Music: Bonobo- Recurring
Marta Jelec made this stop motion animation for a project she’s doing for a Digital and Cyberculture Studies module. She explains “Sabawi’s poem, originally written in English and published online, describes the internal struggles her husband faces when confronting the guilt of leaving his family behind in Palestine, while he lives his life of ‘liberty’. By creating an animation of the poem, I aim to make the poetry more accessible to an English speaking, non Palestinian audience, by using non-ethnicised characters and simple and symbolic imagery. I aim to increase the possibility of empathy within digital audiences outside of Palestine”.
Defying the Universe
Are your loved ones trapped behind the wall
Do they need the army’s permission
For their prayers to reach the sky
For their love to cross the ocean
And touch your thirsty heart
Are your loved ones trapped
Do you yearn to be in your family home
And when you call them
Do they always say
“we are well, alhamdollelah”
Does it surprise you
That they are whole
But you… you are broken
Must they always worry about you
Urge you to have faith in your exile
Must they pity you
For not breathing the air
Of your ancestors’ land
Must they always comfort you
Even when the bombs are falling
Do you ever wonder who is walled in
Is it you, or is it them
And when it finally dawns upon you
That their dignity sets them free
Do you feel ashamed of your liberty
Are your loved ones trapped behind the wall
Do they tell you stories
Of how they survive
The trees they’ve replanted
The homes they’ve rebuilt
Do they assure you life goes on
Old men still fiddle with their prayer beads
Mothers still bake mamoul on Eid
Families still gather under the canopies
With loaded bunches of grapes
Dangling above their heads
They nibble on watermelon seeds
They drink meramiah tea
Women perfect the art of match-making
Men talk of freedom and democracy
Children climb on a sycamore tree
Lovers woe in secrecy
And no matter how the conditions are adverse
Do your loved ones defy this universe
Your loved ones defy this universe
Samah Sabawi wrote Defying the Universe during the aftermath of Israel’s assault on Gaza in 2008-2009.
Where Time Stood Still: Gaza five years since Cast Lead
Five years have passed since Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza codenamed Cast Lead and not much has changed. Still Israel’s bombs continue to fall even now as I make this blog entry and its siege and blockade continue to strangle Gaza’s 1.8 million trapped inhabitants. I wrote this poem four years ago. Sadly it still is relevant today.
Where Time Stood Still
Don’t tell us a year has passed…
We don’t measure our lives by a calendar
Time has stood still for us so long ago
Punctuated only by loss and grief
And in between moments of quiet and reprieve
We don’t count on Christmas, nor Eid for cheer
We don’t fool ourselves with “happy new year”
No occasion is ever taken for granted
When it comes to tomorrow,
There are no certainties
Our yesterday is our today
Time is frozen here
And one calendar year
Cannot contain our lives
Our collective misery
Our yearning for humanity
So don’t tell us a year has passed
Our clock stopped ticking when justice collapsed
Eclipsed by decades of repression
Hush… don’t speak of time
We have endured the absence of time
We don’t measure our lives by days like you,
We measure our lives by the number of embraces
Our worth by a lover’s heartbeat
Our existence by our persistence
So, don’t tell us a year has passed…
Samah Sabawi. December 2009 Melbourne Australia. Written on the 1st anniversary of operation Cast Lead
Book Review: Gaza Writes Back
By Samah Sabawi
I had the honor of receiving an advance copy of the book Gaza Writes Back: a collection of Short Stories from Young Writers in Gaza, Palestine, edited by Refaat Alareer. I found it to be a confronting, bold and intriguing book that takes us up close and personal into the minds of a young articulate Palestinian generation born stateless, under occupation and growing into adulthood under siege in one of the world’s most oppressed and dangerous environments.
This is a generation that is physically confined within Israel’s walls and emotionally scarred by Israel’s relentless bombings and incursions. Though the stories in the book are Palestinian, Israel’s presence is felt on every page. In fact, a few writers have even tried to enter the minds of Israeli soldiers by creating Israeli characters and trying to imagine how they think and how deeply they may regret their actions. It is as if reducing the IDF to human size, imagining them capable of fear, lament and guilt can help the writers overcome their own fear of the ‘other’.
In this book, the writers expresses anger at the uncertainty of life while at the same time they continue to cling to faith and hope. But make no mistake about it, unlike other works that romanticize Palestinian steadfastness or ‘summod’, this book intimately reveals a simple truth; steadfastness is not a deliberate choice or a romantic defiant act of resistance, it is simply a human instinct to survive.
The overwhelming voices of young female writers and their refined eloquence and capacity to express dissent not only challenges our stereotypical perception of Palestinians and women in Gaza in particular, but it also challenges the norms within Palestinian society itself. One can’t help but contrast this with the lack of young female presence in Palestinian official political circles.
Gaza Writes Back is a promise of a change in societal norms and a positive sign of what is to come. Despite the horror, the frustration, the physical and emotional scars, the voices of Gaza Writes Back have not given up on their ambitions and have not resigned their dreams for a better future.
Please note the book won’t be ready for shipping to readers till early January, however interested readers worldwide can place a pre-order at the Just World Books website and get free shipping for orders placed before Dec 31.
Poetry, Palestine and the Language of Resistance – An interview with Samah Sabawi
Source:Counterunch Weekend Edition
SEPTEMBER 20-22, 2013
by DOUGLAS VALENTINE
Samah Sabawi is the honored guest in this, the fourth installment in my Political Poetry series at Counterpunch.
Previously, I interviewed Sowetan Lesego Rampolokeng, whose hard-hitting poetry, including “bantu ghost”, expresses the outrage black South Africans still feel over the horrors of apartheid forced upon them by white supremacists.
Samah Sabawi, a poet and political activist, has likened Gaza to an “Israeli-controlled Bantustan.” She has known the alienation and despair of a refugee since the Israelis forced her parents (and thousands of other Palestinians) to flee their homes in Gaza in 1967.
Now a Palestinian-Australian with Canadian citizenship, Sabawi is the author of three plays — Cries from the Land, Three Wishes, and Tales of a City by the Sea. She has also co-written the book The Journey to Peace in Palestine: From the Song of Deborah to the Simpsons.
Sabawi’s poems deal with Israeli oppression of the Palestinians, often from the empathetic perspective of someone not directly on the scene with her comrades. She expresses the plight of nearly two million people in the concentration camp called Gaza, as well as the millions of lost souls in the Palestinian diaspora. In her poem, “Defying the Universe”, dedicated to her husband Monir, she asks:
Are your loved ones trapped behind the wall
Do they need the army’s permission
For their prayers to reach the sky
For their love to cross the ocean
And touch your thirsty heart
Are your loved ones trapped
Do you yearn to be in your family home
And when you call, do they always say
“we are fine, alhamdollelah”
Does it surprise you that they are whole
While you… are broken
Must they always worry about you
Urge you to have faith in your exile
Must they always pity you
For not breathing the air
Of your ancestors’ land
Must they always comfort you
Even when the bombs are falling
Do you ever wonder who is walled in
Is it you…or is it them
And when it finally dawns upon you
That their dignity sets them free
Do you feel ashamed of your liberty
Israeli oppression of the Palestinians takes many forms. As Sabawi recently explained in an interview with Joe Catron, “The currency used here (in Gaza) is the new Israeli shekel, the IDs all the residents carry are issued by the Israeli interior ministry, all births go through the Israeli national registry, the essential products are all Israeli in this captive market” (“Israel’s Gaza Bantustan,” 5 January 2013).”
Sabawi is part of a new generation of Palestinian thinkers who insist on reclaiming the discourse and reframing the language used to assert Palestinian rights. For her and many others of her generation, language is an essential tool in the struggle for liberation. She writes in her poem “Liberation Anthem” “I’ll craft new words of expression/ outside of this suffocating language/ that has occupied me/ Your words/ are like your walls/ They encroach on my humanity.”
Sabawi rebels in her poetry against adopting a language she sees as complicit and dictated by the occupier. She insists on using words such as “apartheid” and “ethnic cleansing” to describe the reality of life in Palestine. When a newspaper editor recently deleted these words from an op-ed she submitted saying they were “too strong,” she responded with this:
Words!
I stand dispossessed
No congress behind me
No statesmen surround me
No lobby to breathe hellfire
No media eager to appease
No three-ring circus
Of intellectual jesters
Academic clowns
And policy experts
Who truly do not see
the big elephant in the room
No legal acrobats
Dance for me
On a thin rope of decency
No politicians
Juggle oppression
And human rights
On my behalf
No trips to boost careers
For MPs and their wives
No propaganda movies
No radio broadcasts
No myths
No lies
No hasbaranites
No army,
No country
Not even one leader
To believe in
All I have are my words
To tell my story
My voice
To demand justice
But you tell me
My language is too strong
While speaking and writing forthrightly about the horrors of Israeli oppression, Sabawi maintains strong connections with anti-apartheid Israelis, and she advocates reconciliation and understanding. But she believes that reconciliation can only begin once the oppression ends. Consider the following lines from her poem “Liberation Anthem”:
To the people of Israel who fear our freedom: Don’t be afraid, we will liberate you too.
This is my rendition
Of an anthem to be sung
That day you and I
Will stand side by side
Shoulder to shoulder
Watching a new dawn
Wipe away
Decades of hate and savagery
The day I rise
From the ruins of your oppression
I promise you I will not rise alone
You too will rise with me
You will be liberated
From your tyranny
And my freedom
Will bring your salvation
Given the total support of the US Government for Israel, there seems to be no other rational alternative. And yet, Palestinians politics is marked by deep divisions, not least between Hamas and Fatah. Sabawi’s goal is to overcome the divisions between Israel and Palestine, and among Palestinians, not by proselytizing or demonizing people, not by humiliating or obliterating, but by discovering a common human bond. As Sabawi says:
I am more than demography
I’m neither your collaborator
Nor your enemy
I am not your moderate
Not your terrorist
Not your fundamentalist
Islamist
Extremist
Militant
Radical
I am more than adjectives
Letters and syllables
I will construct my own language
And will defeat your words of power
With the power of my words
In her poem “Against the Tide” she pledges “I will not delight/ In the suffering/ Even of those/ Who oppress me.”
I recently asked Sabawi about her poetry, the poetry of Palestinians, and the political situation in Gaza. I noted that perhaps the most frustrating form of psychological oppression Palestinians suffer is the total antipathy of the United States Government. The US blocks every vote to condemn Israel at the UN, it provides Israel with the weapons and means of its oppression, while the mainstream American media suppresses and distorts the facts, even rationalizing the mass murder of 1400 Palestinians in Gaza in 2009 as necessary for Israel’s security.
DV Gaza is a Bantustan, but the many nations seem to have turned their backs on the Palestinians, although, in contrast, much of the world joined in the boycott of South Africa. This is largely due to the fact that Palestinians have been thoroughly dehumanized by the Israeli-AIPAC propaganda machine. Can poetry help to overcome the prejudice that many Americans have? Is translating from Arabic to English part of the problem?
SS Humanity doesn’t always respond instantly. The world community is often slow to react in the face of oppression and injustice especially when it is being perpetrated by powerful state actors and driven by corporate greed. But history has taught us that no tyranny can last forever and that the people will always overcome oppression. To use your example of South Africa, it actually took a long time for the world to take a stand against the apartheid regime. Think about it: white supremacy over South Africa began with the arrival of the early Dutch settlers as far back as the mid 1600s and institutional discrimination against the indigenous population began in the early 1900s. The Boycott movement against South African Apartheid didn’t start till the late 1950s and it took world governments years and for some even decades before they made a stand. So, when you’re looking at the timeline of the Palestine/Israel conflict in comparison and especially in the last two decades you will see that Palestinians are in fact gaining the support of the world community at a much faster pace perhaps this is so because we have more direct and instant modes of communication at our fingertips.
So yes, the world may have initially turned its back on Palestinians and even adopted the Zionist discourse of blaming and dehumanizing the victims but times have changed and we have come a long way. Palestinian solidarity is growing and the overwhelming show of support at the UN for an observer seat for the state of Palestine last year if anything has illustrated the isolation of Israel and its allies in the face of a world community that is sympathetic to the Palestinian cause.
Now you ask if poetry might contribute to this in any way. I guess I would say that art in all its forms can have an important role to play in humanizing people and conveying their story. Art can serve to inspire and instigate change.
Who can deny that the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish for example offered many in the west a window into the lives of Palestinians; their pain, their aspirations and their yearnings? Although Darwish’s poems were written in Arabic, they were translated into many languages and served as a bridge between Palestine and the rest of the world.
Of course language can be an obstacle but I think that the Palestinian experience is a universal one and so is easily translated. We are a people disposed standing up against tyranny and oppression, fighting for a just cause. This resonates with people in any language. Here are a few lines from one of my favorite Darwish poems: “Who Am I, Without Exile?” (translated by Fady Joudah)[i]:
A stranger on the riverbank, like the river … water
binds me to your name. Nothing brings me back from my faraway
to my palm tree: not peace and not war. Nothing
makes me enter the gospels. Not a thing … nothing sparkles from the shore of ebb
and flow between the Euphrates and the Nile. Nothing
makes me descend from the pharaoh’s boats. Nothing
carries me or makes me carry an idea: not longing
and not promise. What will I do? What
will I do without exile, and a long night
that stares at the water?
DV Palestinians have no power over their oppressors. They are powerless to stop the settlements. At the slightest hint of uprising, the Israelis come down like a storm troopers. But Palestinians do write poetry – or have the Israelis tried to stop them from writing poetry too?
SS For the Israeli Zionist project to succeed in asserting legitimacy and presence on the ruins of Palestinian homes and lives, it needed to do two things: make the Palestinians invisible to the world by denying their existence (‘a land without a people for a people without a land’), and/or in the event that they become visible, demonize them by manipulating the discourse – for example, by emphasizing Palestinian violence and terror while undermining and ignoring Palestinian non-violent resistance and the reality of occupied vs. occupier. This is why Israel views Palestinian culture with great contempt. After all, Palestinian artists and cultural figures tell the stories of their people and by that they reflect a reality through their art that Israel would rather conceal.
So yes, certainly Palestinian culture, like all other facets of Palestinian life, faces tremendous challenges under Israeli occupation. Palestinian cultural figures were first targeted by British and later by the Israeli authorities. Some were assassinated, others were imprisoned or banished into exile. Amongst the artists and intellectuals assassinated by Israel are writer Ghassan Kanafani (Abukhalil 2012) and poet and intellectual Wael Zuaiter (Jacir 2007).
The attempt at erasing Palestinian culture was clear during Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982, when Israeli forces looted and confiscated the accumulated national archives of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which included valuable and rare collections of films and other Palestinian cultural artifacts (IMEU 2012).
Today, Palestinian cultural figures under Israel’s occupation are caught in an intricate and multi layered system of oppression. For example, Human Rights Watch issued a report (27 July 2012) accusing Israel and its security arm the Palestinian Authority of “trampling on the rights of Freedom Theater’s staff,” adding “[a] theater should be able to offer critical and provocative work without fearing that its staff will be arrested and abused.” The HRW statement referred to Israel’s ongoing system of arbitrary arrests and detention.
Of course it is important to recognize that repression does not always ride on a military tank. The worst kind of repression is one that manifests itself inside colonized minds desperate to present their craft to the world and aware that their success hinges on their ability to be on the good side of their political masters. I mean artists find it challenging enough in rich societies to make a living out of their art, so imagine when you are stuck in a Bantustan where most people struggle to feed their families. That’s where the role of the PA and international donors raises some questions about which artistic projects receive funding and which ones don’t; which artists are given a platform and which ones aren’t. For the most part, Palestinian resistance has through the years overcome such challenges and Palestinian artists both inside Palestine and in Diaspora continue their effort to liberate Palestine one poem, one painting, one novel and one song at a time.
DD In your poem “Verses and Spices” you talk about how “Growing up/ My father’s poems/ Ran through my veins/ Like blood/ A necessary life ingredient/ A rhythm that kept my heart pumping.” Your poems stress the crucial importance of language in resolving problems. In this poem you speak specifically about your father’s poems. Please tell me a little about traditional Palestinians poetry and which Palestinians poets American should, or can read today to get a better understanding of the situation in Gaza.
SS Your question asks specifically about “traditional Palestinian poetry” but I actually grew up with a wide range of Arab poetry. We weren’t raised to see “Palestinianism” as distinct from Arab nationalism. We the Palestinians were part of the Arab world and took pride in that. Our definition of Palestine back then was also based on nationalism: one secular state for all three religions. That was the mantra of the PLO in the early 1970s. Much has changed since and we have become factionalized and sectarianized beyond recognition.
It is true I grew up in a house of verses and spices. Poetry was always present at every meal and every gathering. My father, Abdul Karim Sabawi, a distinguished Palestinian novelist and poet, tried to introduce me to classical Arabic poetry such as Al Mutanaby and Omar Alkhayam but apart from sounding lyrical to my ears, that type of poetry didn’t really capture my heart. The language was too formal, too clever and too distant in time to feel real. It also reflected a ‘male’ view of the world, which as a young girl and later a woman not only alienated me but at times even offended me. It was when my father recited modern Arab poetry like that of Mahmoud Darwish (Palestinian), Nizar Qabbani (Syrian), Amal Donkol (Egyptian) and especially Salah Jahin (Egyptian) that I would tune in and pay attention. My father encouraged me to navigate my way through his large collection of poetry books. Modern Arab poetry varies in style but I found myself gravitating toward poetry that conveyed ideas and not just showcased linguistic prowess. For example Egyptian giant Salah Jahin ‘s quatrains made use of colloquial everyday simple Egyptian dialect to communicate complex philosophical ideas:
The rich man was buried in a marble tomb
The beggar was buried in a hole with no coffin
I passed them by and marveled to myself
Both graves emanate the same stench
My father’s own poetry also ranged in style. Some of his poems were in colloquial Gazan dialect while others in sophisticated classic Arabic. His poetry reflects the quintessential Palestinian experience, which at its core is a universal human experience of loss, dispossession and exile. To give you an idea of the spirit of my father’s poetry, here is one he wrote that first morning he woke up in 1967 to find himself a refugee in Jordan.
Erasure
When you were parched
We quenched your thirst
With our blood
Now
We carry your burden
Disgraced
We cry in shame when asked
Where do you come from?
Dishonored we die
If only the stray bullets
From the occupier’s guns
Were merciful
That they pierced through our legs
It only they tore through our knees
If only we sunk in your sand
Deep to our necks
If only we got stuck
And became the salt of your earth
The nutrients in your fertile soil
If only we didn’t leave
The gates of our hearts
Are wide open to misery
Don’t ask us where this wind is blowing
Don’t ask us about a house
Or windows
Or trees
The Bulldozers were here
The Bulldozers were here
And the houses in our village
Fell…Like a row of decayed teeth
They haven’t colonized Mars yet
And the moon is barren
Uninhabitable
So carry your children
Your memories
And follow me
We can live in the books of history
They’ll write about us…
“The wicked Bedouins
Landed in Baghdad
They landed in Yafa
They landed in Grenada
Then they moved on
They packed their belongings
And rode on their camels
They didn’t leave their print on the red clay
And all their artifacts
Were faded
With the passing of the years”
Does anyone in the world really care?
Does anyone care?
What difference does it make
To be an Arab…
A Native American…
Or a dinosaur
SS So as you can see, poetry was always a part of my life. But I never thought of integrating it into my activism until one day when I saw a YouTube video of Suheir Hammad reciting her poem ‘First Writing Since’ in New York in the aftermath of 9/11. This was a milestone in my life. First of all, I was so happy to hear a captivating articulate Palestinian woman poet at last! But more than that, her poetry was not written in Arabic and translated into English. Hammad’s poetry comes out in English and is effective and authentic and real. This brings me to my next point: Palestinian writers today are a diverse group of people with countless citizenships who speak many languages and who are able to use a variety of mediums to reconstruct their national identity and to communicate their stories of exile. So when we talk about Palestinian literature in the modern sense we must acknowledge that it now transcends linguistic and geographic borders. It was Suheir Hammad who helped me come to terms with my own identity crisis. Yes, I can be Palestinian and I can write my poetry in English.
DV Please tell me a little more about where you live and what you’re doing now.
SS I live in Melbourne Australia and I’m currently working toward the production of my recent play Tales of a City by the Sea. The play was inspired by a collection of poems I wrote during Israel’s assault on Gaza in 2008/2009. It is set to be staged at La Mama’s Courthouse theatre in Melbourne September 2014 and I am so blessed that La Mama has agreed to be our presenting partner for this production. We hope the Arabic version of the play will premiere at the same time in Gaza and in the West Bank. I am also working on a poetry book with Palestinian writers Ramzy Baroud andJehan Bseiso along with some incredible artists. So next year is looking like a very busy artistic year for me.
I’d like to end with a poem that inspired my recent play. It is dedicated to the Free Gaza Movement and the victims of the Mavi Marmara:
Tales of a city by the sea
The landscape constantly changes
Only the sea remains the same
Salty…
Fluid…
Mysterious…
Moody
A consistent presence amid the chaos
Its whooshing waves whisper tales
Of occupiers that have come and gone
Crusaders, tyrants and warlords
Riding on their horses
Riding on their Tanks
Riding on their F16 fighter jets
Always riding through
Leaving their footprints
And part of their history
Leaving their artifacts and ruins
Leaving fire and debris
Always leaving…
Only the sea remains
A cure for the trail of broken lives left behind
A landmark untouched by human greed and destruction
Oblivious to war occupation and aggression
Defiant to the rules of man
It embraces the shores of a battered city
It makes a mockery
Of those who try to break its spirit
Those who think they can contain
Its one and a half million beating hearts
It laughs in the face
Of that big iron wall
There is no limit to the sea’s audacity
It breaks the siege every day,
One defiant wave at a time
Connecting Gaza to the rest of the world
And connecting the world with the Shati refugee camp
If you stood with your back to Gaza facing the sea
You can imagine you are some place else
Beirut, Barcelona, Alexandria or Santorini
You can dream of the promise of what lays
Beyond the horizon
Countries, continents the whole world is out there
If only you could ride the sea
If only your body was bullet proof
If only your boat was made of steel
If only your dream was real
The landscape will change once more
Only the sea will remain the same
Its whooshing waves will whisper new tales
Of occupiers that have come and gone
June 2010 Melbourne Australia
DV Thank you very much, Samah Sabawi, for this incredibly informative and moving interview.
Please visit Samah’s website talesofacitybythesea.com to read more about Palestine the culture, the politics and the people, and to get more updates on her play Tales of a City by the Sea.
Samah can also be reached on twitter @gazaheart
For information about Doug Valentine and his Political Poetry series, visit his website www.douglasvalentine.com or email him at dougvalentine77@gmail.com
One of Samah Sabawi’s poems will appear in the forthcoming anthology With Our Eyes Wide Open: Poems of the New American Century (West End Press, March 2014). Please email John Crawford at jcrawfor@unm.edu for information about pre-ordering the anthology.
Notes.
[i] Reprinted from The Butterfly’s Burden (2007) by Mahmoud Darwish, translated by Fady Joudah. Used by permission of Copper Canyon Press,www.coppercanyonpress.org. Source: The Butterfly’s Burden (Copper Canyon Press, 2007)
Radio New Zealand: Dr Rand Hazou on Palestinian theatre and ‘beautiful resistance’
The importance of theatre for refugees and asylum seekers is demonstrated by Handala, an Alrowwad Theatre production at Aida Refugee camp in Bethlehem, and the inspiration behind the concept of ‘Beautiful Resistance’ with Dr Rand Hazou, Lecturer in Theatre with the Expressive Arts programme at Massey University. Listen to interview.
Statuses and Headlines: Dedicated to the tireless social media activist
Words scatter
Attention span expands
between statuses and headlines
I frame my perils of wisdom
on cyber walls
I denounce
I declare
I divulge my soul
I offer solidarity
and pass verdicts like delusional royalty
My virtual life a parody
my profile page an imaginary throne.
Newsfeed filled with corpses
Attention span expands
between statuses and headlines
We protest discrimination
famines and wars
140 characters to tear down the walls
140 characters to stop genocide
140 characters to expose a politician who lied
140 to give voice to the voiceless
to affirm a life
branded worthless
Nameless
children die everyday
Nameless
mothers grief everyday
Nameless
fathers bury their sons everyday
Nameless
mass graves are dug everyday
Nameless
insignificant refugees
threaten our peace of mind
Nameless
faceless detainees
out of sight out of mind
Nameless
women sell their bodies
sell their babies
sell their organs to survive
No dignity in poverty
Populations stripped of humanity
Only atrocities bare names
Military operations romanticized
‘enduring freedom’
‘desert shield’
‘pillar of clouds’
‘cast lead’
air strikes idealized
Minds stalled paralyzed
War on terror
War of terror
War for terror…
terror…
terror…
terror…
terror…
we grow numb desensitized
News feed jammed with hasbaranitzes
Government agents paid for lies
They ‘like’ and ‘share’ what we despise.
Morals in peril
Attention span expands
between statuses and headlines
140 characters to liberate Palestine
140 characters for gender equality
140 characters to raise money for charity
140 characters
I am wearing thin
140 characters
where do I begin?
Thoughts scatter
Attention span expands
BEYOND statuses and headlines.
Video: Unrest In Egypt Squeezes Gaza
Brilliant and inspiring: “Martin Luther King in Palestine” promo
Read more about this project here
Latest report from Gaza on the continued closure of the Rafah crossing and its implication on life in the world’s largest open air prison
Video: Israeli blockade of Gaza sea port began in 1967
Video: Against The Tide ضد التيار
Gaza’s Ark: A bid to break Israel’s blockade… from within
GAZA CITY: Palestinian labourers and foreign activists are working tirelessly to transform a large fishing boat into “Gaza’s Ark” with the aim of exporting local produce in the latest bid to break Israel’s blockade on the coastal strip.
The Ark, which is being fitted out to carry goods and more than 100 passengers, is near completion and is expected to set sail for Europe in the latest high-profile attempt to challenge Israel’s maritime lockdown on the tiny Hamas-run territory.
If they are successful, this will be the first time goods from Gaza have been exported by sea since the signing of the 1994 Oslo Peace Accords.
Significantly, this attempt to alleviate the effects of the seven-year blockade comes from within Gaza, where locals refurbishing the 24-metre-long (78 feet) vessel want to take matters into their own hands, rather than waiting for help from the outside world.
“This will help fishermen, farmers and factory workers in Gaza to market their products,” said Abu Ammar Bakr, who was a fisherman for 40 years before turning his hand to repairing boats.
Mohammed Abu Salmi, who owns a furniture shop, was equally buoyed by the prospect of shipping products overseas.
“Export by sea will resuscitate farming and light industry in Gaza and will ease unemployment… and help to lift this oppressive blockade,” he told AFP.
“We have great experience and produce great furniture,” Abu Salmi boasted.
“We exported to Israel and from there to Europe before the blockade, and people abroad are asking for our products,” he said, pointing proudly at the dining tables and chairs fashioned in his workshop.
Among the items which are to be carried on board for export are fruit and farm produce, furniture, embroidery and other crafts, organisers say.
“The aim is not aid or humanitarian like the boats that were coming to Gaza, it’s a commercial venture to support the Palestinian economy and pave the way to exporting Palestinian products,” project manager Mahfouz Kabariti said.
But a sense of apprehension marks the preparations.
A plaque at the entrance to the quay on which the Ark is being built remembers the nine Turkish activists who were killed in May 2010 during an Israeli raid on a six-ship flotilla trying to reach Gaza in defiance of the blockade.
Although the international outcry which followed the deadly raid forced Israel to significantly ease the terms of its blockade on Gaza, which was first imposed in 2006, tight curbs remain in place on exports and travel.
Breaking the siege ‘from within’
Under the terms of the current restrictions, Gaza fishermen are not allowed to enter waters more than six nautical miles (11 kilometres) from the shore, with naval patrol boats known to fire on those who step out of line.
It is the prospect of a confrontation with Israeli forces that is worrying some of those planning to join the boat on its blockade-breaking mission, with Abu Salmi afraid the navy might “open fire and sink the Ark, or arrest those on board like they did in 2010 and seize the goods”.
Organisers of the project are unsure what action Israel might take.
“I hope Israel won’t stop the boat from sailing to European countries,” said Kabariti.
“It is natural that the Israeli authorities might not allow a boat to set sail from Gaza. But we want to send our message to the world, whether the occupation allows it to sail or not,” he said.
“We want to draw attention to the blockade which is preventing Palestinian products from being exported, and we have an ark that we can use to do it.”
Among those planning to join the Ark on its maiden voyage are a number of foreign activists, who include Swedish national Charlie Andreasson who also took part in the ill-fated Freedom Flotilla of 2010.
The aim, said Andreasson, is “to break the siege”.
“Why would they stop it?” he asked, somewhat naively.
“We’ve been sending ships to Gaza to try to break the siege, and this time we are turning it around and sending a ship from Gaza out to Europe with goods — so we’re trying to break the siege from within,” he told AFP.
Andreasson has been working on the project since early June, when activists managed to raise enough money from European donors to buy up the old fishing boat.
From its purchase to completion, including labour, Gaza’s Ark will have cost an estimated $150,000 (114,000 euros), with its website showing that so far, $110,000 has been raised.
Dozens of people are working to restore the Ark, with local fishermen receiving a salary for their labour and foreign activists volunteering.
The project’s mission statement, according to the website, is to “challenge the illegal and inhuman Israeli blockade”.
For fisherman Bakr, it would be a huge blow if the Ark — which will sail under the Palestinian flag as well as several international ones — never left port.
Fisherman and factory workers would have to watch their goods “festering in warehouses because they’re unable to export them”, he said.
This article first appeared here
Against the tide
I will not be polarized
I will not be factionized
Tribalized
Sectarianized
Colonized…and fragmented
Like a heartbroken nation
I will not be moved by hatred
Or blindly pick a side
And hide
Behind a well crafted slogan
I will not place my trust
In demagogy
I will embrace ideas
Not ideology
An enemy of my enemy
When a tyrant
Is MY enemy
Choosing the best of two evils
Is choosing evil
I will not fall for this game
Of demonizing an entire people
I will not delight when pain is inflicted
On another
I will not close my eyes
To inhumanity
I will defend my enemy’s rights
Because freedom
Is not a commodity
To be had by some
And denied to others
I will not delight
In the suffering
Even of those
Who oppressed me
More importantly
I will trust
My maternal instinct
What passed through my womb
Though precious…is not distinct
A beautiful human baby
Of flesh and blood
No different from that
Born by the ‘other’
There is no ‘us’ and ‘them’
Every death will be mourned
By a grieving mother
Her tears
More powerful
Than any flag
I will not be polarized
The rise of Palestinian citizen journalists in Gaza
A message to the Israeli Occupation Forces who fear Palestinian Children
According to the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, a 5-year-old Palestinian boy was detained by seven Israeli soldiers after throwing a stone on July 9th 2013. It is estimated that Israeli authorities arrest 700 Palestinian children every year.
You…
In the army uniform
Rifle in hand
And finger on the trigger
Standing on a hill
Dressed to kill
Breathing in the still
Air of the night
Breathing in
Every drop of light
Leaving only darkness
Breathing in
Every open field
Every tree
Every rock
Breathing in
Our space
Consuming us
And consuming all that surrounds us
You inhale our land
Our freedom
And exhale only oppression
You breathe out insecurity
And fear
Spew toxic words
Your lies
Pollute the atmosphere
Suffocating us
With tyranny
But nothing here
Nothing here
Nothing
Here
Can save you
Nothing can assure you
Or put your mind at ease
Nothing
No armor
No guns
No bombs
Can protect you
From our existence
Nothing you do
Can match
Our resistance
The cries of our babies
Are fierce
To your colonial ears
The cries of our babies
Are fierce
They penetrate you
And pierce
Through your armour
Dissolving it
Like white phosphorous
You
In the army uniform
Inside your tank
Wrapped in steel
Why do you fear
Walking amongst us
Our streets are filled with children
Does that terrorize you
You shoot one
Maim another
Arrest a few
But deep down you know
They will out live you
Out grow you
Out survive you
Their anger will explode
Inside you
So put down your guns
And take your drones out of our sky
Let our children paint it
Pastel blue
With a smiling sun
And a colourful rainbow
Artspace London announces upcoming show ‘From Palestine With Hope’ featuring works by Jeffar Khaldi and Tarek Al‐Ghoussein
June 12, 2013
Wall Street International Magazine
Jeffar Khaldi, Me Laden and My Middle, 2010-2013, 106cm x 135cm, Oil on Canvas
Artspace London is thrilled to announce the upcoming show, From Palestine With Hope, featuring works by Jeffar Khaldi and Tarek Al‐Ghoussein. From Palestine With Hope will challenge the viewers’ perceptions of the human costin Palestine, as well as their attitudes towards the reality of the consequences of conflict. Artspace London believes that art can nurture hope and peace and this wish for Palestine is strongly seen through the works of Khaldi and Al‐Ghoussein.
Both artists have different styles, yet the major theme of a never‐ending belief in a Palestinian homeland is striking in both their works. From Palestine With Hope comes at a time when many Palestinians are looking to the future for a life free from aggression, occupation, and conflict.
20% of the sales proceeds from From Palestine with Hope will be directly donated to Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP). Established in the aftermath of the 1982 massacre of Palestinian civilians at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camp in Lebanon, MAP works towards re‐establishing the health and dignity of Palestinians living under occupation and as refugees. MAP is an international, non‐governmental, independent, non‐ political, non‐religious organization. It is with great honour that Artspace London is collaborating on this exhibition with MAP.
Palestinian artist Jeffar Khaldi (b. 1964) was born and raised in Lebanon. Before moving to Dubai in 1995, he studied architecture and interior design in the United States. In his works, Khaldi draws upon his multi‐cultural and diverse upbringing and merges his own experiences and memories with those of the Palestinian people. However, Khaldi is adamant that his work is by no means meant to be political nor does he want to force his opinion onto the viewer – he is more concerned about leading the viewers to draw their own conclusions through the political, social and contemporary images that he uses.
“I am not a political artist but I believe that art must have depth and meaning and should make people think. This work is not just about me and the history of my homeland. It is about making people aware of the past so that we can learn from it and not allow anybody to take advantage of our ignorance.”
With his theatrical use of wit, intelligence, emotion and pop culture imagery, Khaldi’s works successfully questions various notions that are commonly accepted or refuted – depending on the viewer’s own beliefs.
Tarek Al‐Ghoussein (b. 1962) was born in Kuwaitto Palestinian/Kuwaiti parents. Al‐Ghoussein moved to the USA for his BFA in Photography at New York University, and continued his studies with an MA in Photography at theUniversity of New Mexico. Al‐Ghoussein’s early experiences as a photo journalist has affected how he confronts his artistic output and, currently working as a professor of photography, has placed his conceptual and forward‐thinking compositions ahead of many Arab photographers working today.
In the last 15 years while living in the United Arab Emirates, Al‐Ghoussein has witnessed tremendous change that has challenged his understanding of what is meant by the term identity. “Since 2003 I have explored various aspects of “identity” through my work as a photographer. The rapid transformation of the UAE has been a catalyst and starting point for an investigation into issues related to my own personal relation to land and place.”
From Palestine With Hope will present paintings, photography, and mixed media works in a manner to provide a beacon of hope and reassurance that contemporary Palestinian art and charity has a place in the hearts and minds of viewers, collectors and enthusiasts.
Artspace
7 Milner Street
London SW3 2QA United Kingdom
Ph. +44 (0)20 75895499
info@artspace-london.com
www.artspace-london.com
Opening hours
Tuesday – Friday from 10am to 6pm
Saturday from 10am to 4pm
This article appeared here
London: Whole in the Wall first UK solo exhibition by Palestinian artist Khaled Jarrar
Yareah Magazine: This exciting body of work, which includes a new site-specific participatory installation, will be shown in London from 20 June – 3 August 2013.
Khaled Jarrar, Still image from video ‘Concrete’, 2012
Inspired by everyday events and experiences, Jarrar’s practice incorporates performance, video, photography and sculpture to document his observations on life in an occupied Palestine. The restrictions imposed on him and his fellow citizens have become the catalyst and subject of his occasionally satirical artistic output.
One of the highlights of the exhibition is an installation which will see Jarrar construct an imposing concrete wall extending along the length of the gallery; confronting the viewer immediately upon entering the space. In order to pass through the wall visitors will have to clamber through a hole shaped like Palestine – an allegory for the process endured by people crossing the apartheid wall in the West Bank in order to reach their homes in Palestine.
Alongside this installation, Jarrar will show a series of video works and new and recent concrete sculptures based on sporting paraphernalia: footballs, volleyballs, basketballs and ping pong rackets. These are formed from materials secretly chiseled by the artist from the separation wall. By making reference to the footballs left by the wall by children who use the area as a site for their games, and by repurposing this found material, Jarrar seeks to provoke a dialogue about possession and reclamation.
Other recent projects include Live and Work in Palestine (2011 – present) – an entry stamp Jarrar created for the ‘State of Palestine’, which he then stamped into the passports of tourists entering Ramallah. Designed to encourage a collaboration with his audience, the project enabled them to formally record their visit to a ‘stateless’ place – a symbolic gesture to interrogate the gap between an aspirational state and an actualised one. Jarrar has since performed this action in other countries, including the at the Pompidou in Paris and the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo, as well as the 2012 Berlin Biennale; there Jarrar pointed to ‘Checkpoint Charlie’ as a key source of inspiration for the touring project.
A former captain of the Palestinian Presidential Guard, Jarrar is familiar with bureaucracy, politics, military discipline, and affairs of the state. This previous career informs his artistic practice, and much of his work has focused on the action of breaking free from disciplinary modes of being and subverting existing codes of conduct. Whilst explicitly addressing the ownership of land and displacement of people, Jarrar treads carefully but with authority, and offers a potent alternative account of life in an occupied Palestine.
This article appeared in Yareah Magazine
AlJazeera: Palestinian pawns Egypt’s refugees
Author visits the “informal village” of Palestinians with no basic rights – not even official refugee status.
Neither Gezirat Fadel village in Sharqiya or its people are officially recognised by the Egyptian government [AP]
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While Palestinians commemorate the 1948 “ethnic cleansing” of Palestine – the Nakba – the “catastrophe” neither started that year nor has it ended. The Palestinian people have suffered for generations. Today, they continue to be treated as second class citizens in their own homes, denied basic rights of mobility and secure livelihoods in the occupied Gaza Strip and the West Bank and live precariously in refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. The Egyptian role in Palestine has historically differed from its Arab neighbours. In 1948, Egypt was the only country to close its borders to Palestinians, out of a principled interest in keeping Palestinians within their nation. The policy was in some ways long-sighted, as many of those who fled in 1948 have not been allowed to go back. It has often been suggested that the relative dearth of Palestinians in Egypt, or the higher socio-economic status of this group, could be attributed to this policy. Palestinian refugees in Egypt Recently, however, Arab activists have stumbled upon a sizeable group of 1948 Palestinian refugees in Egypt. A few months ago, a group of four Palestinian and Egyptian friends came across the mention of a mass exodus of Palestinians from Bir il-Saba’ village in 1948; the refugees were said to have gone to Egypt. The friends found it strange, as they and others had persistently inquired about the existence of Palestinian refugee groups in Egypt at the Palestinian embassy and organisations in Cairo. They called on others to help them locate this community, which they eventually tracked down. A few hours north of Cairo, in the Nile Delta governorate of Sharqiya, is the village of Gezirat Fadel. It is aptly named “Gezira” – island – because of its physical isolation at the time of its foundation, and Fadel after the name of one of the founders of the village. For the past 65 years, this village has been almost completely off the radar, by choice or ignorance, of any institution – whether be it the Egyptian or Palestinian authorities, non-governmental organisations or activistsNeither the village nor the people are officially recognised by the Egyptian government, and thus the informal village is left with no infrastructure or public services, and the people with no basic rights – not even official refugee status. Since locating the village, the friends have visited it several times, gathering information on its history and current conditions, and have been lobbying Arab and Egyptian media to shed light on the neglected community. For the anniversary of the Nakba, they called on other activists to join them to visit Gezirat Fadel, to commemorate the occasion and convey the simple message that this community of refugees would not be forgotten. As Syrine, a Palestinian activist from Jerusalem, put it: “These people, the refugees, are the biggest victims of the Nakba. They are the ones we should commemorate it with.”
I joined over 80 activists, who were predominantly Egyptian and Palestinian, but included Swedes, French, Iranians and others. On an early Friday morning, the buses drove out of Cairo, past the lush Delta fields, through the busy Sharqiya capital of Zaqaziq, and on to a dirt road that eventually became too narrow for the buses to continue. The activists descended from the buses with dozens of Egyptian and Palestinian flags in hand and a banner that read: “In memory of the Nakba, Gezirat Fadel will no longer be forgotten. As we walked towards the village, the path, filled with rubbish and lined with mud brick walls, was an indicator of what lie ahead. After a 20-minute walk, clay houses and Palestinian flags waving from hay rooftops appeared. The villagers, overwhelmingly young children, were excited by the news of visitors and lined the streets, Palestinian kufiyas draped from their necks and greeted us in their mixed rural Palestinian-Egyptian dialect. While the trip was primarily humanitarian in purpose – the group came with toys for the children and doctors who paid house visits – the political nature of it was effusive. Though the organisers insisted upon the independence of the initiative, the identity of involved activists as core actors from the ongoing Egyptian revolution was belied either subtly or quite explicitly as it appeared on the banner. The ideals of the Arab uprising – ones that insist uncompromisingly on freedom and social justice – translate very directly into political stances which in the case of Palestine not only oppose Israeli forces’ brutality, but also reject intermediaries and facilitators of ongoing occupation and displacement, Palestinian authorities included. Mired in poverty In Gezirat Fadel too, politics was palpable. It became starkly apparent throughout the day that the isolation of this village has nothing to do with geography or ignorance, but rather has been constructed by Egyptian and Palestinian authorities and beneficiaries. As we entered the village, we were greeted by a village head, the “omdeh“. One of the few educated members of the village, he works in Cairo and dressed in a suit that contrasted with a population where village elders were donned in traditional Palestinian dress and others in simple, often tattered clothing. Standing on an elevated veranda before the villagers and visitors, the omdeh proceeded to warmly welcome the activists and referred to the Nakba as a celebration, a marker of the day that Palestinians will return to their homes, with all the embellishments of Arab oratory. The omdeh described the village in shining terms, claiming that villagers earn decent incomes and thanked for the support from Palestinian authorities and the Egyptians who have welcomed them as “guests”. The performance stood in stark contrast to the private interactions of the omdeh with organising activists and with the realities of village life. The refugee audience was markedly acquiescent as the omdeh spoke. Among the crowd, an event organiser spotted an employee from the Palestinian embassy in Cairo. The activists had brawled with the employee days before in Cairo, over the embassy’s persistent denial of the existence of a Palestinian refugee community in Egypt, despite evidence that the embassy had direct ties with the village omdeh and that the ambassador had himself paid a visit to the community. The activists have also had a turbulent relationship with the omdeh since first visiting the village; the omdeh had initially threatened the activists, telling them that he would inform Egyptian intelligence services if they returned to Gezirat Fadel. The omdeh‘s remarks were incongruent with observations of village life. The conditions in which the Palestinians of Gezirat Fadel live are nothing short of appalling. The village is home to over 3,000 people. Other than a “guest building” – which consists of a large room that is used for community gatherings and is internally adorned with a banner thanking Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for his contributions to the community – the village contains literally no public services. To say that the village was marked by poverty would be an understatement – on the way to the village, I spotted a young boy retrieving a tattered shirt from a pile of garbage and sewing it together to wear. While the Gamal Abdel Nasser government had extended state services to Palestinians in Egypt, making it possible for Gezirat Fadel villagers to use state institutions at the same free or highly subsided prices offered to Egyptians, these rights were revoked in the Sadat era. The refugees must pay international fees to access most basic services; they have no right to property ownership. A majority of the villagers are employed as day labourers on large tracts of land owned by Egyptian companies or families, as mechanics or in small shops in neighbouring villages, or collect and sort garbage. Donia, a 12-year-old refugee who walks for two hours each morning to join a reading class in a neighbouring village, said she aspires to work “for anyone who will employ me”. While some mentioned the lack of legal rights, they were quick to thank Egypt for hosting them for so long. The hardships of their present lives were masked with evocations of their lost homeland. While most villagers have never laid eyes on Bir il-Saba’, even the youngest children describe it vividly, adding illustrative accounts of the night their grandparents were bombarded by Israeli fire in 1948, listing the death of relatives and recounting the journey to Egypt. “We are Palestinian guests in Egypt, and will one day return to Bir il-Saba’,” was an unprompted phrase echoed by villagers of all ages. Eight-year-old Samih offered to show me his grandfather’s olive tree seeds, which he definitively told me that he will one day plant outside his family home in Bir il-Saba’. Manipulation of power While the population of many Egyptian villages may suffer from stark inequality and poor services, it seems particularly exasperated in the Palestinian case. Basic rights for Palestinian refugees have often been presented by Arab officials as a contributor to resettlement, counter-productive to the right of return. What is apparent, though, is that these same institutions, while loudly touting their nationalism and dedication to the Palestinian cause, are largely removed from daily hardships experienced by the refugees. One activist from Ramallah lamented the irony in the statements of Gezirat Fadel refugees who linked any hardships to a greater national cause and expressed pride in PA President Abbas, while in his home city political elites live relatively luxurious lives. The link between personal interests and political institutions is a phenomenon that continues to have a real impact on people’s livelihoods in the Arab world. In the case of the Palestinian refugees, this is often intense, as in addition to community dynamics and Palestinian leadership, host countries add a layer of complication. In the context of the Arab uprising, people are recognising and openly rejecting this manipulation of power. Despite the omdeh‘s threats, activists returned to Gezirat Fadel, openly challenged his statements in front of villagers and refused his monopolisation of the story of the refugee experience. While for 65 years the right of return has been, and will continue to be, the essential demand of the Palestinian refugees, there is an evident need for an extension of basic rights to a community that suffers exponentially due to the politicisation of its identity. Arab governments’ hypocritical lip service to the Palestinian cause has long been transparent; Arab activists are now determined to bring it to an end. Sarah Mousa graduated from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs in 2010, and was a 2010-2011 Fulbright Scholar in Egypt. She is currently a graduate student at the Center of Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy. |
Tales of a City by the Sea 