Here we will Stay

The great Palestinian poet, Tawfiq Zayyad wrote a number of resistance poems that have been passed from word to song to deed and thus immortalised. The inspirational song by Ahmad Qaboor, 'Unadikum' (I call to you!) was based on a poem by Tawfiq Zayyad.

Here is a rough translation of 'Unadikum':

'I call to you all:
I take your hand and hold it tightly.
I kiss the ground on which you place your feet.
I know that for you I would give my life.
My life I would give for you.

I offer you the light of my eyes,
The fire of my heart:
For this pain that I suffer
Is only a small part of your pain.

I never have sold my country
And I have been willing to serve,
To face the invader with steadfastness and courage,
An orphan willing to die.

Carrying my people on my shoulders,
You will see my flag raised high,
And a mountain clothed in the green of the olive branch
For those who will come after.

I call to you all!'

'Unadikum' is a call to all the people and not to an individual. 'I call to you all!' Indeed, this call, given wings by the music of Ahmad Qaboor, has echoed through the world, inspiring and continuing to inspire steadfastness and Resistance wherever it is heard. (A link to the right under the section entitled 'Music for Palestine' will take you to a page where you can listen to the song.)

This was not the only poem by Tawfiq Zayyad that has inspired the Palestinian people. My own personal favourite is 'Here we shall Stay.'

'Here we shall stay:

In Lydda, in Ramlah, in the Galilee,
We shall remain
Like a wall upon your chest,
And in your throat
Like a shard of glass,
A cactus thorn,
And in your eyes,
A sandstorm.

We shall remain
A wall upon your chest,
Cleaning dishes in your restaurants,
Serving drinks in your bars,
Sweeping the floors of your kitchens
In order to snatch a bite for our children
From your blue fangs.

Here we shall stay:
Singing our songs,
Taking to the angry streets,
Filling prisons with dignity.

In Lydda, in Ramlah, in the Galilee,
We shall remain,
Guarding the shade of the fig and the olive,
Fermenting rebellion in our children
As is yeast in the dough.'

English does not carry quite as much eloquence as the original Arabic lines, but the power of Tawfiq Zayyad is indisputable, and his poems have been translated, read and sung in other languages, inspiring a new generation to hold fast to the cause of the Palestinian people.

Tawfiq Zayyad lived under impossible conditions. In order to remain within Palestine, he was forced to accept the insupportable: he was a Palestinian who had to carry 'Israeli citizenship' in order to bear living witness to the continuing existence and presence of the Palestinian people within that part of Palestine that had been declared a 'state' by the Zionists in 1948.

He lived during a period when the Zionists almost had been able to convince most of the world to accept their lie of 'a land without a people for a people without a land'. It is only because of the determination and steadfastness of Palestinians who remained inside Palestine decade after decade under intolerable conditions of persecution and discrimination that the world now is aware of the existence of Palestinians as a people with a continuing right to self-determination.

Most Palestinian activists who continued to live within the Zionist entity's self-proclaimed 'state' were only able to do so through the Communist Party, an accepted political party within the Zionist political framework. Tawfiq Zayyad in fact served as a member of the Zionist 'Knesset', the spurious 'parliament' of the invaders. When he first became a member of the Knesset, his Hebrew was very poor. When asked where he had learned to speak Hebrew, he responded: 'In your prisons.'

For those of us who could not bear to lend any appearance of legitimacy to the illicit Zionist entity even by participation in its 'internal' politics, the choices that individuals like Tawfiq Zayyad were forced to make are extremely distasteful, but we must recognise that, without the continuing presence of Palestinians in Nazareth and Haifa as well as every other inch of land occupied in 1948, the struggle for Palestine would be severely weakened.

The United Nations recognises that the continuing occupation of Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza is illegal. It is vital to remind the world that Palestine is NOT divisible, and that the Zionist occupation of 1948 is as illicit as the occupation of 1967.

I salute Tawfiq Zayyad and all Palestinians who sacrificed and continue to sacrifice their pride to remain: 'in Lydda, in Ramleh, in the Galilee'. One day, the lands occupied in 1948 and the lands occupied in 1967 will be united again as Palestine and the Zionist foreign government will be no more than a terrible memory.

From the yeast in the dough the bread will rise. From word to word and deed to deed, Resistance against Zionism will become an unstoppable tide to sweep the land clean.