Status Updates From يوميات الحزن العادي

When oppression is legalized, its very legality becomes worse than the thing itself, because in this case the oppression would not simply be a question of how a ruler or an authority behaves but the path itself followed by a society and one of the deep-rooted elements of its composition.

An Arab writer satirized the practice of the Israeli authorities in ascribing to their actions & good intentions the human development that takes place in the natural course of events: “When Israel was established my daughter was one year old. Now she is twenty. Did she then grow up and reach maturity as a result of Israeli efforts? This comment brilliantly records the Israeli way of keeping track of human progress.

—If you kill them, we will walk in their funerals. But if this cannot be done quickly, we will find ourselves in a dilemma and must interfere for the sake of reconciliation.

Liquidation? We do not think so. This is an internal matter. Our relations are good. For the sake of sovereignty and mutual concern for national independence, we do not interfere. Liquidation? Why use this expression? We call this “independence.”
Who is responsible? It is not one person, or an agency within a regime. It is the official Arab environment.

Students asked anxiously, “What’s the difference between conquerors who come from outside and oppressors who emerge from within?” They differed on many points, but they agreed on this, that conquerors bring dispersion and exile while oppressors finish off anyone who survives the grip of the conquerors.

They granted safe passage to the common enemy because the equation had now changed: the security of the enemy had become one with the security of the regimes. They gave the enemy breathing space, and set about defending his security and borders, which were now tightening their grip on the necks of their capitals. The defense of the Sublime Port entails defending the sleep and comfort of the conquerors.

How naïve you would be to put yourself and your fire under siege with such a limited and primitive dream: the absolute homeland! Do not ask who gave the earth this narrow expanse.
All those who discovered freedom before you swore at it and longed for the days when they were searching for it. What is a state but a police force and taxes? Are you spilling all this blood merely for the sake of policing and new taxes?

This is my only freedom. Why then do you object to my killing myself, O experts in collective killing? You who transform children into charcoal. You kill, therefore you live. And I kill myself, therefore I live. As of now, I will allow no one to kill me except myself. Do you know who I am? UNRWA milk does not turn into milk in the veins, it turns into dynamite.

I have been your hostage for twenty-five years, and despair released me. What will bring hope back except the declaration of my despair? And what will release me from bondage except my ability to kill myself? Let the world go to its bedroom. I am a safety valve for the world. This is the role that you have defined for me, and it is not up to you to determine the form of my objection to gratuitous death.

“world public opinion” must be understood metaphorically as long as the expression refers to media owned by individuals whose ideology and interests are linked. Why then should we accord it all this reverence? If our actions are subject to the requirements of “world public opinion” as expressed in the official media, then it is time for us to realize that we enjoy our bondage and our loss,

The enemy may defeat Gaza.(The stormy sea might overwhelm a small island.)
They might cut down all her trees.
They might break her bones.
They might plant their tanks in the bellies of her women and children,or they might toss her into the sand, into the sea, into blood.
But:
Gaza will not repeat the lies.
Gaza will not say yes to the conquerors.
And she will continue to erupt.
It is not death, and it is not suicide.

What is beautiful about Gaza is that our voices do not reach her. Nothing diverts her attention. Nothing turns her fist away from the face of the enemy: not the kind of Palestinian state that we will establish on the eastern side of the moon, or the western side of Jupiter after it has been mapped, or the distribution of seats in the [Palestine] National Council. Nothing diverts her attention.

The secret of Gaza is no mystery: her masses are united in popular resistance. She knows what she wants: to drive the enemy out of her hair. In Gaza the relation between resistance and the masses is that of the flesh to the bone, and not that of the teacher to the student.
In Gaza resistance has not become a salaried position.
And in Gaza resistance has not become an institution.

It would be unfair to Gaza to glorify her because our fascination will make us wait for her. But Gaza will not come to us. Gaza will not liberate us. Gaza does not have horses, or jet fighters, or magic wands, or offices in capitals. Gaza frees herself of our attributes, our language, and of her conquerors all at once.

It would be unfair to turn Gaza into a legend because we will end up hating her when we discover she is nothing more than a small, poor city that resists. And when we ask, “What has made her into a legend?” we will have to break our mirrors and cry if we have any dignity, or curse her if we refused to rebel against ourselves.

“Why do martyrs fall in such great numbers for nothing, and in places that are not suitable for martyrdom? Death has become a profession for many. What would happen if those who are candidates for death were to declare a strike against this profession? What would happen?”

She wraps explosives around her waist and blows herself up.
It is not a death, and not a suicide.
It is Gaza’s way of declaring she is worthy of life.
For four years Gaza’s flesh has been torn into shrapnel flying in all directions.
It is not magic, and it is not a miracle.
It is Gaza’s weapon for defending herself and exhausting the enemy.

You remember your difficult childhood and the future’s childhood and that of the trees. You ask your friends, “Are Beirut, Cairo, and Damascus so close?” They were. They were even closer. Palestine was the meeting point of the East. Abdul Wahhab sang here, and so did Umm Kulthum. If you stood by the Pyramids and hurled a stone at Palestine, it would arrive as a bird. And now what?

You feel a deep friendship with the days. They were not as harsh as you had imagined, but their jesting was sometimes hideous. What a world! You feel with your long fingers the parts of the sweet-smelling woman lying on polished leaves: the waist is narrow, licked by the sea and the boundary of the truce. Then you kiss her and hug her and die of the pleasure and the promise.

How? Can the conqueror be in love to such an extent? The French and the Americans did not write love poems for the forests of Vietnam; they died there, but without love. You dread the thought, and fear that drawing such an example might be used as evidence against you, but Algeria saves you. So you calm down, and feel assured about the efficacy of waiting.

The days have taught you not to trust happiness because it hurts when it deceives.
You wait for something else.
The condition of waiting is the sole excuse for your belief in demands that remain valid throughout the year but that always reveal their absurdity.

How innocent we were to think the law is a vessel for rights & justice! The law here is a vessel for what the ruler wants, or a suit that he orders to his own measure. I have been in this country even before the state that negates my existence came into being. You realize once again that justice is a hope that resembles an illusion if it is not supported by power and that power transforms the illusion into a reality.

You get out of the taxi and decide to return home on foot You are possessed by a fit of reading street names.In fact, they have wiped away their names. Salah al-Din Street has become Shlomo Street.Then you wonder,“Why did they keep al-Mutanabbi’s name?” But when you reach al-Mutanabbi Street,you read its name in Hebrew for the first time and realize it has become “Mont Nevi” and not al-Mutanabbi, as you had imagined.

You sit facing the officer.
He says politely, sitting under a photograph of Herzl, “I’m honored to put you under arrest.”
You exchange pleasantries, “And I’m honored to grant this honor. But would you kindly tell me what am I accused of?”
He says, “You are accused of exploding a watermelon at the entrance to the circus and threatening the security of the state.”
The watermelon, the circus, and the state –

You go down to the street in search of a beautiful greeting card to send to a friend, and what do you find? Not a single picture of a rose, and no drawing of coastline, bird, or woman. All these have disappeared to make room in these cards for the tank, the cannon, the jet fighter, the Wailing Wall, the occupied towns, and the waters of the Suez Canal.