Assalamu Alaikum and good morning from Gaza,
Palestine, the Islamic University. We're almost
done with our English poetry course and today as
you can see here displayed Palestinian poetry. I
know I sound to be unexcited but I am very excited
about this session in particular. In my classes I
try to introduce them to the students
comparatively, so at least you have an idea. It
would be really bad if you finish a degree in
English literature with no knowledge about
Palestinian literature being Palestinian. It's
also, it's a chance for other people probably
watching us to know something about Palestinian
literature. We can't do everything in one class.
I've been referring to Palestinian literature many
times so far. But today we have two special poems,
two poems that I love very, very much. One is by
Lina Al Sharif, who's a Palestinian now residing
in Qatar. She's a former student of the English
department and a friend. She's really a wonderful
poet, a promising poet. and also Susan Abulhawa,
the Palestinian-American novelist and poet and
intellectual. We're lucky also to be studying her
poem. We'll see about that now. Okay, first we're
going to begin with Lina Al Sherif. I'll do a
reading very quickly and I want one of you, one or
two of you to read this. So the title is Gluten
-Free Manakish. I know that my grandma will never
approve my gluten-free manakish. My zip bag thyme
brought from Palestine. My extra virgin olive oil
shipped from Palestine. My oven electric with a
timer. My dough kneaded with a hand mixer.
But she also didn't like it when I said stuff
like, your pies are better made, are better
because they were baked in the womb of the earth.
She hated it when I said, your thyme grew on
rainwater, wild and free, taken from the root of
the land, its aroma and originality. She shut me
up when I said, the olive oil came from the purest
of lands watered by the tears of angels and
prophets. The earliest witness of our existence, a
symbol of peace long robbed from
She took a bite and said, it's food, not a poem.
Don't preach history and next time don't burn the
dough.
Okay, go on. So that's dough needed angels.
I know that my grandma would never approve but
gluten-free manakish, my zipped cake pie brought
from Palestine, my extra virgin olive oil shipped
from Palestine, my oven electric with a timer, my
dough kneaded with a hand mixer. But she also
didn't like it when I said stuff like, your pies
are bitter because they were baked in the warmth
of the earth. She hated it when I said your thyme
grew in rain, on rain, on rainwater, wild and
free, took from the root of the land its aroma and
originality. She shook me up when I said, the
olive oil came from the purest of lands watered by
the tears of angels and prophets. The earliest
witness of our existence, a symbol of peace, one
grabbed from me. She took a bite and said, it's
food, not a poem. Don't preach history. And next
time, don't bend a dog. OK. One more, please.
Gluten-free man'ouche. I know that my grandma will
never approve my gluten-free manakish, my zip
-packed dime, brought from Palestine, my extra
virgin olive oil shipped from Palestine, my oven
electric with a timer, my dough kneaded with a
hand mixer. But she also didn't like it when I
said a supply, your pies are better because they
were bathed in the womb of the air. She hated it
when I said your thyme grew on rainwater, wild and
free, topped from the root of the land, its aroma
and originality. She shot me up when I said, the
olive oil came from the purest of plants watered
by the tears of angels and prophets, the earliest
witness of our existence, a symbol of peace, long
robbed from. She took a bite and said, It's food,
not a poem. Don't preach history, and next time,
don't burn the dough. Okay, so don't burn the
dough, yeah? That's your grandma, she knows, she
always does. So, if you have something, anything
that kind of attracted you to this poem, what is
it? Like, what do you find peculiar, interesting,
uncanny, intriguing? Attractive, different,
because this is... I will talk about the features
of Palestinian poetry. Please, Amal. Okay, so
between... And, you know, there is the
granddaughter and the grandmother, people
belonging to two different eras, probably Abu Umar
and a millennial. Please.
What's that?
Is food just included in a poem? Or is it a poem
about food?
I don't think it's abnormal, but it's not that
common. But people talk about food all the time.
But here this is not just food mentioned, food is
the essence, it's the poem, it's even in the
title.
Okay, that's a very interesting thing. You know,
we're here paying a heavy price for being
Palestinians under Israeli occupation. We're
suffering, right? But sometimes people outside,
they dramatize this, they romanticize this. I just
want to be there just for a moment, for a day,
just to, you know, smell the air or taste
something. Please. It's kind of funny to see how
they actually try to modernize the Wow, that's a
good, that's a good word, yeah. Because it's,
because like there are many food that we in our
day, like people, people call them names. They
used to call them names, but now we're just giving
it another modern name just to make it, you know,
just look cool. Yeah, okay. But it's the same.
Okay, so I like your idea, yes? Now, you know
gluten-free Gluten-free in the past 10 years or so
it's been you know the gluten is a substance in
wheat in food and bread that some causes I think
allergy or something to people and it's now a
multi-million this is again I don't criticize
people's choices whatever they do but now it's a
trend and it's a now multi-billion if not dollar
business around the world people want everything
to be gluten-free and you know you do that for
them And Manakish. So there is this kind of
paradox here. This Manakish is deeply rooted in
Palestinian history, or at least the history of
the Middle East, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. And
there is the gluten-free. This Manakish is without
gluten. Gluten is extracted. It's modern. It's
cool. It's the fashion. But also I find it very
interesting how the word, you know, I know many
people in Gaza, like many especially ladies, they
wouldn't say managish, you know, the original
word. They would rather go for managish, which is
the cool again word. I think almost 20 years ago,
not many people in Gaza were saying managish or
alam or ali or telo. And this change is
fascinating in many ways. In, I'm not sure if I
mentioned this before, in Hebrew, the same thing
happened. Sometimes, remember we said in English
they had the kha sound in the past, like German
nicht or something, and then they dropped the
sound and the letters remained. That's one reason
why we have so many silent letters in English,
because English developed. Now in Hebrew, they had
the ah sound, which is semantic, which is Middle
Eastern. And because now so many Jews are coming
from the West, and it's very difficult for them to
say the A sound, getting it here from I don't know
where.
And because people like in Israel, Jews in power
are mostly Western Jews, Ashkenazi Jews. So by
time, because those people couldn't say the ah
sound, and in order to integrate, there is racism.
There's racism everywhere in Israel. There is, you
know, classes, if you are Western Jew, white,
blonde, blue eyes, you know. And then there is
Jews coming from other countries, and then Arab
Jews, and then black Jews, and then Arab
Christians, and Arab Muslims, and Druze. So
there's this. So in order for those people to
integrate, by time, they started to drop the ah.
So if it's Arabic or Atsar, Okay? So nobody looks
like, who is this backward person saying ah sound?
In order to integrate with the mainstream current,
by time even Arabs started to drop the ah sound.
And this is happening here in, it's been happening
in the past. It sounds more, you know, it sounds
cooler nowadays for girls to say, it sounds
cooler. It's like, what, who, he, how, what do you
think of Khadra, for example. She's cool, she's
cool. What she says, she says, right? And this is
bad in a way. It's interesting linguistically
speaking, but it's bad to judge people by their
appearance or the way they speak or accent or et
cetera. So the poet here, the young poet chooses,
I know some people inherently say people from
Jaffa originally or something, they're more into
the A than the G. But the gluten-free is in itself
something modern, something our parents don't
know, most of us don't know, let alone, you know,
our grandparents. And again, the Manakish itself
is again, like you said, is an attempt from the
young female to sound cool, to modernize
Palestine, you know, to appeal to probably to
foreigners, to appeal to the younger generation.
So I know that my grandma will never approve my
gluten-free manakish. And that's, you know, what
grandmas do. My zipped-back thyme brought from
Palestine. Thyme, you know, the food is brought
from Palestine. Everything is Palestinian at home.
My extra virgin olive oil.
Now many times people meet like when I was in
Malaysia in the UK somewhere else and people when
they knew that I'm Palestinian they would always
ask me about the oil and many people wanted me to
bring them oil. Because they loved it. They, you
know, they think it's magic. And I think our
grandmas also think olive oil is magical, you
know. There's this meme I complained about to my
grandma about a heartache and she asked me to rub
it with olive oil. So the
people would usually ask me, what is virgin olive
oil? And I would say, I honestly don't know. For
us, it's all oil. You could say this is from this
area, this is from that area, this is from the
West Bank, this is from Gaza, this is from East
Gaza, you know. But honestly, we don't know. And
then, and this is very interesting because in many
ways this is a marketing technique, a marketing
gimmick. You sell oil, everybody's selling olive
oil, you want to sound cool, you know, big
businesses. It's like, okay, we have an idea.
Virgin olive oil. Oh, and then everybody is doing
virgin olive oil and then okay, okay, okay, okay.
Extra virgin olive oil. The problem is that with
time, what are we going to do? Are we going to
witness super extra virgin olive oil, duper super
duper extra? I don't know. But for us
Palestinians, it's oil. It's part of our life,
right? Shipped from Palestine, an oven. But look
at again the paradox, how paradoxical we can be.
The oven is electric and with a timer. So it's not
that it's only electric, instead of the clay,
olive oil that our grandmas used, it's electric
and it also has a timer. So you could do your
stuff and then go watch an episode of, I don't
know, Grey's Anatomy that doesn't want to end or
anything else. And electric, and the dough kneaded
with a hand mixer also. You know, it's a paradox.
I think there is some kind of a play on the word
time, okay, thank God we don't have cats here, and
also the word needed, because needed, N-E-E-D-E-D,
also need, you know, to do the, okay, fun. But she
also, my grandma, didn't like it when I said stuff
like, your pies are better because they were baked
in the womb. of the earth. Grandma, your pies. And
look at beautiful personification of our land, the
earth as a mother, a loving mother that has a womb
that can give and give children and children.
She hated it when I said, your thyme grew on
rainwater, wild and free, taken from the root of
the land, its aroma and originality. Wow. She shut
me up, Timre, when I said, the olive oil came from
the purest of lands, watered by the tears of
angels and prophets.
the earliest and this is grandma this is evidence
we exist this is evidence that the land is ours
that the land is for the Palestinians the earliest
witness of our existence a symbol of peace long
robbed from and
there is interruption here So there's an
interruption here. So she wants to go on and on
and poeticize and romanticize and turn everything
into politics, into typical
grandma stuff. But she also didn't like it. She
took a bite and said, it's food, not a poem. Don't
preach history. And next time, don't burn the
dough. Next time, don't burn your manakish. So
even with the electric oven, with the timer,
electric timer and everything,
we're not sure you have to taste it, right? Yeah,
first. But again, grandma knows if she says
something, it must be it. I find this a beautiful
poem. Really, really beautiful poem. Simple, but
deep and profound. In many ways, there's this
generational gap. There's a chasm, actually. The
conflict between the young and the old and how the
young try to appeal to, you know, not saying this
is wrong to appeal to people like, you know, out
there, Palestinians, non-Palestinians, people who
speak in English to try to sound cool, to try to
bring Palestine closer to them and bring them
closer to Palestine. But preaching history here,
turning everything into politics, every bite,
every meal, every food, every topic, which is
something we do, is something that does not appeal
to the older generation, especially our
grandparents. For them Palestine is Palestine. The
land is ours. You don't have to bring
archaeological evidence. You don't have to look at
an olive tree as evidence. Grandmother knows.
Probably I mentioned Darwish who again came to
Palestine. There was a Jewish shepherd from Yemen
who thought that the remains of Mahmoud Darwish's
village were the remains of a Roman village.
Because again, the Zionists erased 2,000 years of
history, just altogether gone. And Darwish says
that the land does not belong to those who inject
it with artificial meanings. Those who want
archaeological evidence to prove their connection
to the land. The land belongs to those who know
it's going to rain just from smelling the earth,
the air. Just you feel it, you know. And I've
experienced this. I'm sure some of you experienced
this. Sometimes, like in the past, you would go
out and then your grandma says, hey, aren't you
going to wear anything heavy? Say, it's sunny or
it's not cloudy, but it's going to rain. And then
two hours later, it's like she owns the clouds.
And it never, like almost never happens, like a
grandma says it's going to rain and it doesn't.
It's like, again, the cloud's like, oh, okay,
grandma, just for you this time. Honestly, and
this happens here. The connection is natural, is
not artificial. The connection comes with every
breath they take, with everything they do, just
because they are, because they are Palestinian.
And on the other hand, we've seen this, And you
see it, how Israel tries to, as an occupation,
tries to inject you know, artificial meanings.
There has been a lot of research done, you know, a
lot of digging done just to bring something. And
three years ago, Netanyahu, there was this kid who
went with his father somewhere and he bought a
souvenir, a coin souvenir. And I think his dad
posted something and somebody took it and said,
yeah, little kid found this coin from 3000 years.
Yes, Israel was here first. And then Netanyahu
himself took this picture and he posted it and
boasted about this is evidence. Oops. It's fake.
It's just a souvenir. And even, you know, the half
shekel, you know, there's a half shekel, the lyre
there, the musical instrument, it's fake. Somebody
came in the 70s and he's like, OK, what should I
do just to connect people more here? He said, oh,
I found this. This is from three years ago. It
turned out to be fake. Google why is there a fake
symbol on Israeli half shekel or coin, you'd be
stunned. Recently, in the past five years, Haaretz
Post posted so many articles about this
interesting revising history. The Zionists tried
to prove that when there was always enmity
between, for example, the Jews and the original,
the Canaanites and the natives of Palestine. Now,
new research says, no, they coexisted. They lived
together. They traded stuff. So while Israel tries
to do this, to modernize in its way, to inject
Palestine with technology, with archaeological
finds, and also Israel, and this is a fact, Israel
is also destroying every possible Palestinian
connection to the land. Israel has destroyed so
many historical places to sever this relationship.
Now the young generation is doing something
interesting to try to bring this back, to try to
bring... don't we feel happy, you know, when we
come across Palestine in Othello? Go to your
grandma and say, Ma, Grandma, I have a piece of
evidence that Palestine existed. Even Shakespeare
said Palestine. Here, look, Othello. She's like,
what? She doesn't need Othello. She doesn't need
Shakespeare. She doesn't need gluten-free
manakish. Even the oil, which is, again, the most
significant. And we talk about the oil here in
Palestine. We talk about, again, man and land
coming together because the result is The result
is trees, you know, the olive trees, the symbol of
Palestine and Palestinians. So I find it very
interesting how the grandma is trying to prevent
the girl, the lady, the young lady, from turning
everything into politics. And this is actually one
thing that people say that is not cool, good about
Palestinian poetry or literature. It's too
political. They say Palestinian portraits is too
political. Of course it's too political. Don't be
defensive here. We are under occupation. Everybody
has been influenced in so many ways, in ways you
can't imagine by the Israeli occupation. And for
us, personal is political and political is
personal. Think, we'll talk about this when it
comes to Susan Abulhawa just now. I'll just come
to this point later on. Okay, so what other
features of Palestinian poetry or literature can
you find here? You said you mentioned dialogue
here, you mentioned food, and you know, the
cultural heritage, the grandma, the existence of
grandma being there like, you know, all
protective, all guiding us, giving us advice. What
else? What other features?
These are cultural references, always there,
always there, they're part of our life. The word
mana'ish itself not using like pastries or
something equivalent. Okay, not foreignizing this
term. And it's not translated by the way. You can
guess by if you google it you'll find it the term.
But not many non-Arab speakers can know that this
is this is what the context can tell. So you use
the word Arab word. I'll come back to this with
Susan's poem. The word is not foreignized or even
transliterated or translated. I actually find it
interesting the contrast image between Lina's poem
and Terence's poem. We have two
generations, the older one and the younger one,
but they have contrast images.
She's trying to get evidence. But there, the
father was trying to... To do that. The kids were
oblivious. They were reluctant. The grandma is the
one who takes the bite. They want to eat. That's
very fair. Thank you very much. That's a very good
point here. Don't forget that probably this person
is outside Palestine now. He's an outsider, a
native, indigenous, but outsider. Can't be in
Palestine for a reason. Israel. But that man, a
Zionist, who was born in Europe, is in Palestine.
Thank you very much. That's a really, really
interesting point. One more thing, please.
The sense of seriousness? So the old are serious?
Okay, so how's that helping the poem? Okay,
interesting.
Okay, so she doesn't want her granddaughter to
romanticize this, to turn food into politics.
Yeah, it's not food. Food is not evidence for her.
Although for us, you know, there's a huge fight
over hummus, okay? And even now falafel and
shakshuka and all these kinds of foods. Please.
Okay,
but I don't think this is a feature of Palestinian
poetry that we try to foreshadow in a way, but
yeah, possible. Although foreshadowing is
something more into fiction rather than poetry to
guess what's coming.
Nostalgia as a theme, yeah.
Promoting the concept of Samud. Again, especially
people who say this, especially people who are in
the diaspora, people who can't be here. They're
doing an amazing job, activism and BDS and
everything, you know, boycotting Israel. But
again, the thing is that reality is different.
Reality is a lot harsher than you can ever
imagine. Finally, somebody here.
Okay, so and free here, what does it mean when you
say gluten-free? So without, but again freedom is
something we seek. So is it probably connected?
Possible, possible. So I raised two questions here
I want you to think of. This poem is about
rootedness to Palestine, but it's also about
generational chasm, the gap between the
generation, the young, the old. And then there is
how is the young lady in the poem trying to
modernize Palestine? We already mentioned this in
passing. Anything? Shall we move? Yes, shall I
move? Or yes, you want to say something? Okay,
I'll move if you say so. Okay, there's this poem
by Susan Abulhawa, the Palestinian writer,
novelist, intellectual.
She's the author of Mornings in Jenin. Please read
this novel, read it in English. It's one of the
best. There's a video here I want you to watch
already posted it on our Facebook group. Okay so
like I said our second poem is by Susan Abulhawa
it's called Wala. Let's watch and listen and then
do some discussion.
It's 3 a.m. in the cattle cage. The line is long
and thick with lights. I wait. I ship me a
sandwich with cucumber in it.
Together, you prayed and prayed, danced and
laughed. She kissed your face and said, Allah maak
ya habibi. Allah be with you, my love. You kissed
the faces of your sleeping babies. You haven't
seen them awake in months, and you wondered. Has
Walid's voice begun to crack yet? Have Wajdad's
hips begun to flare? How big was Suriya's smile
when she came home with her report card? in the
cattle cage. Still, you wait. The line before you
is so long, and behind you now it is longer. Few
will you speak. You're packed so damn tight that
you hold one another upright. You see your own
fatigue reflected in the weariness etched on the
faces all around you. You look away, pine for
smoke. But who the hell can afford that? You stare
at the graffiti beyond the iron bars holding you
in, written just for you, written by Zionist
settlers sucking the breath from your lungs. You
understand the meaning of their English words.
Die, sand niggers. Sometimes you pine for that,
too. cattle cage. The soldiers arrive. The line
loosens. You take one step forward propelled by
the weight of the bodies behind you. Your chip in
a sandwich with cucumber in a plastic bag is
crushed. It never survives. It's 7 a.m. in the
cattle cage. Now it's your turn. You produce your
papers, unfold, refold, eyes down, heart down,
your shoes are down on their luck, but you're out
of the line now. Fifteen men before you were
pulled aside and you tried not to look, tried not
to hear the one yelling, don't hit me. It's seven
thirty a.m. on the cattle bus and you ride. The
country they stole from you speeds outside your
window and you imagine the man you would have
been. The man you should have been out there
riding the family's tea. The thoroughbred mares
your grandfather raised and nurtured and loved and
Great. Unstolen. It's eight AM. You get off the
cow bus. Your crushed chicken sandwiched with
cucumber in a plastic bag in one hand. Your eyes
down. Your heart down. You put your toolbox down
to knock on the Zionist settler's back door where
the help goes. But the Zionist settler bossman
yells, Wala! Mish hon el yon. Not there today.
Why? that all you can do is thank Allah that your
wife and your babies are not there to hear them
call.
this is a poem from my voice sought the wind susan
abulhawa published by just world box what do you
think so susan abulhawa's poem it's
not of course it's you have to read it to know
that this is not
I'm sure some of you experienced this with their
parents. Personally, I had this experience many
times, many years. My dad would be waking up
early, very early in the morning and go work
inside in the occupied territories by Israel. And
we wouldn't see him sometimes for weeks. I know
people whose father would just go and spend weeks
and weeks and months and months and some even
years just again. It's like an odyssey. But this
is an odyssey to, you know, not to seek
immortality or just to bring food, to put food on
the table, to feed your kids, to seek a
livelihood. And because of Israel, this has turned
into an Odyssey. I'll do some commentary very
quickly, and I'll see what things you can, you
have, you want to talk about, and probably we can
discuss Palestinian features. Of course, two poems
can never summarize everything about Palestinian
features. But this is interesting because we're
studying two poems by two female poets. I'm also
going to comment on the use of Arabic. This is
originally written in English. Why include some
Arabic words? Some of them are not even
transliterated or translated. Transliterated but
not translated. So the opening here, when we talk
about 3 a.m. and you are waiting, queuing in a
long line at the Israeli military checkpoint so
you can go to work inside in a settlement or
somewhere. You have no choice but to do this or
else you would starve. If you're there at 3am then
probably you woke up at 2, 2.30 and your wife woke
up probably half an hour or an hour earlier.
That's really crazy. Nobody should be forced to do
this all their life. And the cattle cage, you know
cattle, cows, and sheep, and that's how Israel is
dealing with Palestine. We've seen the pictures in
the video. These are like inhumane practices
against native Palestinians. The line, remember in
the Holoman, we said the long vowels sometimes add
more pain and suffering. It's not like you know it
just ends a line is long and thick with bodies and
you wait if you notice this kind of three verse
poetry you know you don't have to stick to any of
the rules but it's still poetic still probably
more poetic than the classical poetry so you wait
is just one whole stanza here Because, again, most
of what we do, Palestinians, is just waiting,
waiting for the Israeli occupation to end, waiting
for the Israeli bombing to end, waiting for Israel
to open the checkpoint, to open the borders, to
allow us to travel, to grant us permits, to let us
be. Okay? A Gibnez sandwich with cucumber in a
plastic bag, clutched in your calloused laborer's
hand. And I find this to be very interesting. The
Gibnez sandwich is a simple thing, but you're,
what are you doing to it? You're clutching, you're
holding tightly. It's like a dear friend of yours.
It's a friend. It's your company. It's your
companion here. And the jibneh sandwich is Arabic.
It's not translated. You would, if you're not, if
you don't know Arabic, you can guess that this is
some kind of food. But why is it not, why is it
not cheese sandwich? Why is it jibneh? And jibneh
is West Bank pronunciation. In Gaza, we say
jibneh. You say albira. It's albire.
Again, the wife. plays the traditional Palestinian
woman role. She's probably stay at home. It's not
mentioned here, but she wakes up early to prepare
the food. But her role in comforting the husband
and being there and supporting him and being there
for the kids is interesting. Many people would say
this is a typical situation. Traditionally, this
is the typical situation, but the situation itself
is changing, especially with the fact that the
poet is female, is a woman, okay? And together,
you prayed a pre-dawn Salah. And again, how
religion and spirituality is significant here. And
the word Salat instead of prayer, because prayer
is not like the prayer we do. Prayer is like, you
know, you say a prayer. So another word that is
not used in English. Salat is the Arabic word for
worshipping, together. She kissed you. And again,
more of Arabic language transliterated and also
translated here. Allah be with you, my love. The
word Allah, it's there in the dictionary. Many
people in America and Europe would know that Allah
means God, but she's not using the English word at
the same time. And probably this is a very sad
scene here. You kiss the faces of your sleeping
babies. You haven't seen them awake in months. And
probably this is the toughest thing ever. You have
kids because you love kids, because you want to
bring up new generation. Because kids are life,
they give us everything we want, almost
everything. Beautiful, they make us laugh, they
make us happy, they make us reconnect, you know,
the child is the father of man.
But imagine having kids and not being able to see
every achievement, the first step, the first
stutter, the first word, the first insult, the
first fall, the first achievement. Sometimes this
is heartbreaking even when you imagine criminals
in prison not seeing their kids grow up. You
wonder, has Walid's voice begun to crack yet? Have
Wajdan's hips begun to flare? How big was Soraya's
smile when she came home with her report card,
with her certificate? Full mark, distinction,
coming home.
But the father is not here. He's not dead, not in
prison. He's at work, he can't be here. He goes
out early in the morning, he comes back late at
night.
That's heartbreaking. The questions here are
significant. And again, the clock moves. In the
poem, it's quickly, but it moves. Again, still,
you wait. The line gets even longer and longer.
And look again, the long vowels making this. Of
course if you wake up early in the morning, you're
here at eight o'clock and you don't feel like
talking. Imagine waking up early in the morning at
around two and you wouldn't be, you know, you
don't want to talk. But this is a situation where
talk is also could be something dangerous. You
could be spotted by any of the soldiers, you could
be... And what are you going to talk about? How
this humiliation, this utter agony and suffering
and pain is okay, is fine, is good for you or
somebody? What are you going to talk about? So few
speak because you're not in the mood to speak, but
also because speaking could be taken against you.
Why are you speaking? What are you speaking about?
You could be punished for this just for speaking.
Okay? You see and all around you is pain and
suffering. You don't have a mirror to check
whatever, but you see the pain, the fatigue, the
suffering, the agony in the faces of other people
around you. And you don't want to see that, so you
look away. But wherever you go, there's suffering,
there's pain. It's not like just only here in the
faces of people. And pine forest smoke. I find
this very interesting. It's just You want to
smoke. All you want to do is smoke. But this is a
luxury. It's not because it's money. But who the
hell, swear word here, who the hell can afford
that? It's not about smoking being expensive.
You're not in the mood and also it's too crowded.
Everybody is pushing and pulling and you don't
want to hurt others. You can't even afford a
smoke.
You look away again, you stare at the graffiti
beyond the bars because you saw the pictures,
you're just here like in a path and there are
what? Bars from the left, bars from the right. You
look through this because there will always be
Jewish only settlers and blocks, military
outposts, military checkpoints. And because the
settlers know you would be passing from here, they
will always try to assert their, you know, what's
that called? This is our place here. So they write
on the walls, insults, threats.
graffiti behind the walls, written just for you,
written by Zionist settlers sucking the breath
from your lungs. What's the name of those
creatures in Harry Potter? Dementors, you know? So
the settlers have taken everything, the land, the
crops, the roads, Palestine, air, its produce,
everything. Even so greedy they want to suck the
breath out of your lungs. What have they written
on the wall? stuff in English. They're not native
to the land. I know some of them started to write
in Hebrew recently, but basically it was mainly
English because they hail from Brooklyn, from New
York, from England, from Brazil, from around the
world, so they use English, not even Hebrew.
And you understand this because you know probably
you have asked or because you have a degree in
English, but you have no job. Die sand niggers and
niggers and is a horrible horrible horrible racist
word you should never use it But white
supremacists, racists would use this to describe
black people in America. And about Arabs, that's
why it's called the N-word. You say, he said the N
-word, she said the N-word, which is horrible.
Some people are digging actually a tape after
Trump. Some claim that he once used the N-word.
And this is a billion dollar tape if somebody
finds it. So Arabs are sand niggers because, you
know, of the desert, of the stereotypical images
of Arabs and Muslims in the Middle East. So racist
in America, racist in Europe, racist in Russia,
racist here when they come to occupy Palestine.
Once a racist, always a racist. And look at this
heartbreaking. Sometimes you pine for that too.
Sometimes you just want to die. You just want to
die. You have nothing to lose. The humiliation,
the pain, the suffering. It's five a.m. now. The
soldiers arrive. Look, you've been there for two
hours and then the soldiers arrive casually two
hours later. The line loosens and you're propelled
by the weight of the bodies. You look at the
personification. Remember we said that Jibnez
sandwich, you're clutching onto it. You're holding
it very tightly. It's your lunch. It's from your
wife. It connects you back home. It's your food.
The cheese sandwich is crushed. It never survives.
A personification of the sandwich. It never
survives. And now it's 7 a.m., it's your turn, you
produce your papers, refold, unfold. Look at how,
again, the humiliation. You have to go through
this, you have no choice. We've seen some people
smile, you know, when it's their turn, so they get
to the soldier, they smile. It's not a smile of
victory, this is just We finished one episode of
agony, pain and suffering and humiliation, utter
humiliation, and we're starting a new one. That's
the break, that's the... Your eyes down, your
heart down, even your shoes are against you. But
because you're out of the line, probably, Fifteen
men before you were pulled aside. Now in real
life, man is and woman, we are curious, we want to
look at least, to examine, explore. And probably
some of these men are your neighbors, your
friends, probably your brothers, family members.
They're pulled aside for no reason. I say this
about the Israeli occupation. The worst thing
about the Israeli occupation is that it's
arbitrary, it's random. You don't know who they
are going to kill or when or where, what they're
going to destroy or when or where. Not that Israel
has no system, because occupation is inherently,
purely, utterly, absolutely evil. Never ever talk
about occupation in a positive sense. It shouldn't
be there.
It's random in a systematic way. They want just to
drive us crazy, to kick us out of our land. So
people are pulled aside. You don't even dare to go
protect them, to fight against their aggressors,
to say something, to object. Because that could be
the end of you. Could get you killed, sent to
prison, or worse, having your work permit
terminated. You don't want that. And you try not
to look, not to hear the one begging, don't hit
me. 7.30 on the cattle bus. Even the bus is cattle
bus. And look at this beautiful and sad scene
here. You ride the country. They stole from you
speeds outside your window. And you imagine the
man you would have been, the man you should have
been. I always encourage my students to just
please think of yourself without Israeli
occupation.
Especially those refugees. I know how many of you
are refugees? Oh, that's like what, more than 50%?
Whoa. Imagine if your parents, your grandparents
were not pushed, were not forced, were not sent to
Gaza at gunpoint.
Where would you be now? What would you be
studying? Eating? Married to? Who would you be
married to? Living? Imagine this. Crazy, yeah? But
it's a basic human right. Imagine this situation
where you can have breakfast in Gaza, lunch in
Hebron, dinner in Jerusalem, a sleepover in the
Galilee. You can travel where you want, go where
you want. No occupation, no restrictions, no
borders. The man you could have been. Please think
about this and write about this. You have to write
about this. The man you could have been. The man
you should have been. Out there riding the family
steed. Steed, you know? The horse. Poetic word for
horse. And the cerebrum as your grandfather. Look
at the existence of all the older generation
always. Being there, caring, loving. Raised and
nurtured and loved in a Palestine
Unraped, unstolen, unoccupied, unbrutalized.
Fascinating, beautiful image from but
heartbreaking at the same time because we can't
have this. It's 8 a.m. you get off the cattle bus,
you crush the jebne sandwich, still have the
sandwich because it's crushed but you can eat it.
Your wife made it with cucumber in a plastic bag
in one hand, your eyes down, heart down, your pot,
your toolbox down and knock. It's all been like
six, five hours because you're going to work and
your boss is a Zionist that you have no choice and
that's really a hard choice to make. where the
help goes now if you're dealing with a sane person
if you have an appointment they would be texting
you hey I'm sorry I'm running late I have to run
this errand can we meet tomorrow you know we have
friends who don't do this at all and we just kind
of hate them they just we have an appointment at
two and they never show up or they show up two
hours late and then oh sorry okay I'll be there in
one hour an hour but we have decent people who
have the courtesy of just texting sorry I'm
running late so you can at least grab something So
the settler could have texted him, contacted him,
could have said that, don't come tomorrow, don't
come here at least, and saved him all the pain and
the suffering. But, and look at this, this is one
whole stanza here. It's the heaviest but you'd
ever see anywhere. It's one paragraph, one stanza.
So harsh, like a rock thrown at the man, at us, at
breeders. I could ask you on your exam to
contextualize it. Just one word. That's the beauty
of modernist poetry, of reverse, of, you know, not
having to stick to, you don't have to fill words,
you don't want to use words. Words fail you. And
this is the harshest thought ever. The Zionist
boss yells,
You know, we make fun of this. Sometimes kids say,
hey, dad, somebody's at the door. You say, tell
him dad is not here. He says, dad tells you he's
not here? But this is harsh. This is the soldier
himself, the settler himself, yelling, I'm not
here. Go away. Not having the courtesy to open the
door, to apologize, to speak politely. But this is
occupation. It's evil. Turns people into monsters,
absolute monsters. Go away. Wallah. And look at
this word. Wallah is a word you use for kids. It
means boy, yeah, but it's an insult when you use
it to a grown-up. You don't like this sometimes.
It's sexist, huh? It's horrible.
Okay? And what would you do if somebody insults
you? No violence, of course. But at least you just
shout, throw a rock, fight him back, challenge
him. But you're deprived of your basic human right
to resist, to fight back. You can't do that. If
you do that, you're evil, you're a terrorist.
That's the harshest thing. Your inability to
defend yourself, to fight for yourself. And if I
want to turn this into a short movie, I had this
crazy idea. I always do. I would imagine this man,
the whole poem starting from a man sitting
somewhere on the pavement, you know, altered,
devastated, destroyed, hopeless, you know. and
eating bits and pieces of the Jibnez sandwich and
everything going back into his mind. I really,
really have this beautiful idea. So if some of you
are into movie making, we can make something out
of this.
Because the insult here, if this is a man, this is
a father, he's somebody's son, somebody's brother,
somebody's probably he's the coolest guy in the
neighborhood, yeah? Everybody respects him,
everybody looks up to him. Imagine the utter
humiliation and insult here. And your inability to
defend yourself, say, hey, at least don't say,
well, at least respect yourself. But the man here
is helpless. And all you can do is thank Allah.
And again, Allah, the Arabic word, Muslim word.
that your wife and your babies are not there to
hear you, to hear them. It's not just one man,
it's everybody calls you Wala. Call you Wala.
It's a beautiful poem. Susan Abulhawa is a very
fine writer, very fine person, very fine poet.
So yeah, what do you have to say?
Please. I think it is very emotional and
depressing.
Devastating, yeah, depressing, devastating,
heartbreaking, heart-wrenching. No matter how much
you hear this poem or you read it, every time
you'll also be brought to tears because it's so
emotional. It embodies every single part of his
journey as like a whole entity or a whole It's an
odyssey. Everything is a fight against everything.
Please.
Okay, so this is more realistic especially for us
Palestinians again, especially if your dad has
ever worked inside Ask him about this journey or
ask your mom Or if you know somebody there's a
book by you know, Suad Al Anari Sharona my mother
-in-law She wrote a book nothing to lose but your
life I think or Murad Murad the other name She
actually this is a crazy one. This is an amazing
woman She dressed like a man a laborer and she
woke up early in the morning and she took this
same journey with the guys, you know, smuggled
inside in order to find work. And she wrote a
very, very interesting book. You should read it. I
think it was translated into Arabic, but read the
English version.
But again, look at how this touches everybody of
us. Remember I said it's about probably your
father has not been in this situation, you don't
know someone closely related to you who has been
here, but this is about us. We've seen everything
about this and this is why the occupation has
impacted all our lives, whether you know, whether
you don't know, consciously and unconsciously.
Again, keep thinking of the alternatives, the
person you could have been, the person you should
have been. You probably can't travel because of
Israel. You can't seek, you can't have medical
treatment because of Israel. You can't be in
Jerusalem. I want to be in Jerusalem. I just want
to have fun there, fly kites without wars and
without soldiers, without machine guns, without
occupation. I want to go spend time, swim in the
Dead Sea or I don't know.
But you can't have that. Our lives have been
impacted by Israel in every, Israel has interfered
in every tiny little aspect of our lives. Even the
food we eat, sometimes it's just because of
Israel. The choices, what we read, what we do, why
we are on social media, probably partly because of
Israel, because of the occupation. So this can be
classified as resistance literature, because we
want to expose, we want to resist, we want Because
writing itself is an act of life, an act of
resistance, writing, being there, just being
there. Now, I'll talk about two things and see if
you can have comments about the poem or talk about
features, because this is an assignment you need
to write to find the features between from Man'ish
by Lina Al Sharif and Wala by Susan Aboulhawan,
comment on them. Now, the use of Arabic is, I find
it very interesting. Usually, look at this, when
you write in a foreign language, probably you
write for yourself because this is the language
you feel comfortable writing in because you don't
want your mom or dad or family members to read
your stuff if you write in Arabic, your own mother
language. But you also write to reach out to
people, either to expose, like Palestinians do,
expose the brutality of Israeli occupation, or
just simply to reveal or release or express
yourself. Why would you use Arabic words and not
translate them, for example? Now there could be
two reasons here, very briefly. Number one,
usually your mother tongue is like your mother
takes some other tongue. It feels protective. So
I've noticed this. Many non-native speakers of
English, when they write English, they tend to use
foreign language, their own mother tongue.
Sometimes usually I feel that because your
language gives you protection and safety and
security, gives you warmth. So sometimes you feel
in trouble, you feel unable to express yourself,
unable to talk, unable to be yourself. you shift
to, you go back to your native language, your
mother tongue, to give you this safety and
protection. Sometimes people, words can never
convey their true meanings.
That's why there's this expression, lost in
translation. The other reason, we said before that
writing is an act of power, is an act of
exercising power. like speaking, the readers, the
listeners, the recipients are you know passive
generally speaking. Imagine you're writing
somebody to somebody in English in their language
and then you refer to you use an Arabic expression
or something and you don't translate it. This is
an act of exercising double power. It's the play
of power here is even more intensified here
because what they're going to do is they're going
to go to dictionary, they're going to ask you,
they're going to ask you, they're going to take
action. And Palestinians, we want people to take
action, to boycott Israel, to do something, to
help, to support, to stand up for human rights,
for justice, for freedom. So pushing them, people,
to read, to ask, to Google, your own words, your
own expressions and your own language, is again
exercising power over them. You're controlling
them, you're telling them what to do. And in part
this is an act of power. And there could be many
other things. I try to raise things, research
issues. By the way, you could do your MA or your
graduation paper on how poets sometimes use their
language and in what situations, on what
occasions. Be an interesting research to do.
Because you could dig, dig more. Please, speak up.
For me, using like Arabic words when I learn
English.
Thank you very much. Rahaf says here, when I
write, that's why I beg you, please write. You
have a lot of potential, a lot of talent. Because
everything we discussed in this whole course can
have a totally different experience when you start
writing poetry, start writing about Palestine,
start writing about anything. So yeah, please.
Speak up. For me personally, when I read it, I
feel like more belong to it and more warm. There's
more attachment. I can't think myself, well, in
this place of this land, also for a foreigner when
he read this, what is the reason to show our
tradition and rudeness of our tradition? The food
is culture.
Okay, thank you very much. I think
that's only you. There are hundred types of
cheese. I keep personally I keep imagining you
know that cheese with holes and Tom and Jerry you
know that's the only thing I that's but that's
only me.
Okay It's a stable food. Yeah stable food because
these are farmers they you know, they eat what
they produce Thank you. That's a very good point I
So it makes you interact more with the text, makes
you nervous, makes you, you know, feel a little
bit inferior. Oh, this guy knows more than I do.
And then pushes you to do something that follows.
When you go to America, not many people will be
saying Gaza, by the way. They're all like Gaza,
Gaza, Gaza, Gaza, Gaza, Palestine, Palestine,
Palestine. And yeah, it sounds cooler. There's
more attachment. It's, you know, it's not like
Gaza, you know? Palestine. Yeah, that's something
common, by the way. And it's really beautiful.
It's like it's finally, talking about the poem,
about Susan Abulhawa.
It's number one, the shape, the way it's written,
you know. You don't write diaries like this, you
write long paragraphs. And also this is very
poetic. It sounds poetic, you read it, but there
is prose that can be poetic. Yeah, I know some
people would object that, sorry, this is not
poetry, free verses. Yeah, it says some people
still say this about Arabic free verse. They don't
believe, but look at this. If some people say
poetry is what, you know, the texts that have the
ability to move you, to shake you, to make you
reconsider your life choices, to bring you to
tears. Prose does this. But pottery has more
potential to do it. Is this here? Can you feel it?
Can you? I think it is there. I find also the lack
of punctuation marks to be interesting. There are
some here and there, but basically it's loose,
chaotic. That's Israel. This is what Israel brings
to the table, chaos, lawlessness.
There are no rules here. Rules of the jungle,
where a foreign alien intruder is controlling
every breath we take, everything we do. One more
thing about the poem, Susan Abu Alhawa. Even the
shape, like the short lines, the long lines, shape
is connected. You like?
So it's
deeply connected to land, like the Jibna and Ha,
where we get it from, and to time, time and place.
Okay.
Very good. You humanize this. But has this
prevented the soldiers from further humiliating
you? The Zionists settler from humiliating you
beyond imagination? Because no matter how much you
humanize yourself, what else should we do?
Remember, it's not our fault. Many people would
blame Palestinians. Remember, never blame the
victim. Would blame us for our own plight. Hey,
look up. Look there. Look at the Israeli
occupation. So how, like there was this thing,
like I'm not sure if I can remember who did this,
like how many kids should be killed by Israel so
Israel can realize we're human beings? How many
times should Israel wage wars against us to
realize that for Israelis? That's really
heartbreaking.
2014, when Israel waged its most horrific war in
decades against Palestinians, over 90% of Israeli
Jews supported the war against Palestinians. What
should we do? There's nothing wrong with us. We're
occupied, we're fighting back, we're resisting,
we're oppressed, we're brutalized. The problem is
with the occupier. The problem is with the
occupier. So that's why probably the grandmother
in Lina's poem didn't want the young lady to
overdo this kind of humanization, self
-humanization. Be yourself, fight back, resist in
your own way. and you're good to go. One last
point, and then I'll stop here. This poem could be
taken literally, but it also can be taken
allegorically. This whole poem could be an
allegory of Palestinians against the Israeli
occupation. Look at what Palestinians, like even
the Palestinian, okay, some kind of Palestinian
leadership, the Palestinian authority, they have
done everything for the sake of the peace process.
We've taken some privileges here and there to
protect Israel, to bring safety to Israel, to
prevent Palestinian resistance, to stop the
freedom fighters, right? And in return, what has
Israel given us back, given them back? Nothing. No
matter what you do, how much you try, you will
always be treated as a boy. You'll be kicked out,
you'll be humiliated, dismissed. Because this is
what occupiers do. And I like to take, I don't
want to say either or, this is a personal story,
but could be also allegorical, metaphorical of
Palestinians. So is this an invitation to stop
with the nonsense peace process? Fight back,
resist in your own way, bidias, boycott? Because
you did anyway. You humiliated anyway. Why not die
fighting? Is this a theme? Think about it. I'll be
stopping here. And if you have, stay back, please.
If you have any question, we can talk about it.
But there are probably pictures we can post on our
Facebook group. These pictures, we've seen them so
many times. These pictures, these pictures. Look
at this, cattle cage, right? So sad. So how is
Wala an allegorical poem? Also, Susan Abulhawa's
poem, Wala, is about every Palestinian, not only
every laborer. Actually, it's about every human
being that ever lived under occupation and
colonialism and imperialism. Thank you very much,
and we'll be seeing you tomorrow for our last
session, a review session, an optional review
session.