Rain is coming, and the world is waking up…
JVL Introduction
Mohamed El Kurd writes powerfully about the ongoing Nakba and the decades of brutalisation and the unbearable horror of the present catastrophe in Gaza.
He also writes about Palestinian steadfastness, a refusal to be beaten as a people: about the ongoing resistance and the ongoing determination to live, to appreciate beauty – and poetry, to create games for children, even in the rubble. This commitment to living is beautifully expressed, for example, by Rafeef Ziadah’s poem “We Teach Life, Sir” (which she performs here)
El Kurd also notes that Israel is weakening. And in Gaza, he notes that through the rubble flowers are emerging from the ground – literally and perhaps also metaphorically and he says:
“We are, without a doubt, subjects of conquest and colonization, products of circumstance, but we are also so much more than that. At every turn of our bloodied history, we have been brutalized, bereaved, dispossessed, exiled, starved, slaughtered and imprisoned, but we have, to the world’s dismay, refused to submit. For every massacre and invasion, there have been and there are now men and women who pick up their weapons, makeshift and sophisticated – Molotovs, rifles, slingshots, rockets – to fight. There has always been struggle, there has always been jasmine.”
LL
This article was originally published by Mondoweiss on Wed 15 May 2024. Read the original here.
Rain is Coming
On the ongoing Nakba, and the present revolution.
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A powerful and eloquent description of the ongoing struggle facing the Palestinian people and their incredible strength to survive against all odds
All of Israel’s so called “friends” have found personal advantage in allowing it to become a monster. Providing it a rose petal strewn lane on a red carpeted highway to full monsterhood. Clamouring to show that the mirror they will hold up will only show the fairest of them all, whilst in reality the monster, only vaguely aware, becomes uglier and uglier and uglier. At every opportunity, proving to their Pharaoh that they can make him seem as the holiest of holies whilst he degenerates into something ever more astonishingly monstrous, hateful and loathesome. Commanding the populace to revere this most unholy and monstrous creation as if it were some graven image hewn for idol worship – else suffer excommunication, and their own empty, malevolent take on damnation. All for personal gain. The clever career move. How to get on. All for a nice little life, as it should be, to propel them up the greasy pole to a not particularly special existence in an overpriced metropolis. I don’t want to insult the worlds oldest profession. The things they have to do to get by.