Above occupation, beyond survival

LIGHT IN GAZA
Writings Born of Fire
Edited by Jehad Abusalim, Jennifer Bing, and Michael Merryman-Lotze
280 pp. Haymarket Books $24.95

The Gaza Strip can claim many of the world’s more unenviable records: longest siege in modern history, largest open-air prison, one of the most densely populated regions in the world, with the least adequate infrastructure, highest unemployment rates in the world, and more. For anyone who cares, the gross injustice of this Israeli-manufactured humanitarian crisis is what first comes to mind when we think of that tormented sliver of land — a mere one percent of historic Palestine, home to two million people, the majority of whom are refugees from the rest of the country. Yet as anyone attuned to Palestinian resistance can vouch, Gaza is so much more than the genocidal measures and recurrent military assaults Israel imposes on it, as it has produced, and continues to produce, internationally exhibited art, creative engineering innovations, and award-winning poetry.

This is because beyond survival, beyond sumud, is the impulse to live in dignity, an impulse so deeply ingrained in our psyche that no amount of repression can smother it. Novelist Ibrahim Nasrallah put it best when he said that Palestinians “don’t live under occupation, we live above it.” And this rising above the misery, the destruction, the deaths and heartbreak shines clearly in the contributions to Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire, a compelling collection of poetry and essays by Palestinian writers based primarily in Gaza, or writing about Gaza. The editors, Jehad Abusalim, Jennifer Bing, and Mike Merryman-Lotze of the American Friends Service Committee, compiled these in the hope that the collection will “break the intellectual blockade” imposed on the region. Their offering, sixteen first-person narratives by Gaza’s dreamers, its teachers, engineers, poets, and gardeners, does that beautifully, as it gives us a unique opportunity to hear the pain, frustration, and anger of the writers, but also, above all, their refusal to be defeated. Brimming with poignant, heart-wrenching passages, the collection is a hopeful gift from Gaza, reminding us that all of Israel’s power has not, and will not, defeat the Palestinian will to rise and the determination to create a new society where all can thrive.  

There are so many beautiful passages in this collection that, even though I generally like to keep my books pristine, I have highlighted entire pages in this volume. I loved Asmaa Abu Mezied’s “On Why We Still Hold Onto Our Phones and Keep Recording,” where she explains that

We hold onto our phones and leave the camera rolling, recording our tears, our screams at losing our fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, and children, our anguish, our attempts to run for our lives, our crippling fears, our powerlessness to calm our children when our houses shake with the deafening sound of death delivered by F-35 missiles sent with love from the US government.  We must record our prayers to survive, our children’s joy when they find their toys intact and their pets alive. We record our strength and our vulnerability, our disappointment in our leadership, and our rage at the silence of the world. We record the smoke, the blood, the lost homes, the olive trees targeted, and livelihoods stolen. We record how much we aged and how much we continue to love life even though life doesn’t love us back. 

Abu Mezied, who is originally from a Bedouin family in Gaza, rather than a refugee who fled to the region since the onset of the Nakba, has another essay in this volume, where she discusses the importance of agriculture “not just as a source of income.” Agriculture “is an identity,” she writes, “a social cohesion ritual, and a political statement for Palestinians. Thus, I cannot imagine a future without an understanding of the linkages between indigenous knowledge and practice, history, and heritage, and how agriculture shapes our identity and our role in protecting the land.” 

Another contributor, Salem Al-Qudwa, is an architect committed to creating sustainable housing that meets the needs of Palestinian families in Gaza, rather than fitting a template developed by international aid agencies that “do[es] not create the sense of home and place that Gaza’s displaced residents seek, and is often alien to the way they want to live.” Dealing with the challenges of land scarcity and the severe shortage of building materials resulting from the blockade, Al-Qudwa works with low-income families to repair and improve their demolished houses, paying careful attention to the needs of all involved. As a member of the Rehabilitation of Damaged Houses Project, he writes:

The project’s operating assumption was that men were the heads of their households and would make the key decisions, regardless of whether women managed day-to-day domestic affairs; hence, few women were in a position to discuss their needs during home visits. Despite this, I focused on listening to families and ensuring that their concerns and ideas directly informed design. I actively sought to engage all family members, young and old, in the process of making and shaping their homes. 

He also ensured that the impacted communities were empowered during the process of reconstruction rather than remaining dependent on the aid agency’s experts. He writes:

Given the blockade of the Gaza Strip, one benefit, albeit temporary, was the creation of jobs for unemployed workers. In addition, each contractor had to employ and train young builders. Critically, training typically occurred on the job and at actual construction sites, in contrast to the way it had been undertaken in the past, in formal vocational training centers that were removed from the local community.” When the project was completed, “it was a moment of joy for the households because they had the feeling, for the first time, that somebody was taking care of them.

In “People’s Light in the Darkness of Gaza,” Suhail Taha ponders the ranking of electricity in Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs, as he explains that “darkness in Gaza is more than the lack of light. When the electricity goes out, Gazans are enveloped in a debilitating state of fear, perpetual waiting, and deep-seated anxiety.” Nevertheless, hundreds of thousands of children in Gaza have never known a day without power cuts. These children have grown up with the expectation that electricity is something they get for four hours a day, thus one lesson Gaza can teach the world is that “you do not have to wait for electricity to get your things done.” 

In “Let me Dream,” Israa Mohammed Jamal explains that she hopes to have her own NGO, “which will help other women improve themselves, enhance women’s empowerment in Palestine, and establish cooperation with international institutions.”  And in the deeply personal “In the Haze of Fifty-One Days,” Dorgham Abusalim recounts his traumatic visit to Gaza in the summer of 2014, where he arrived shortly before Israel’s assault. Abusalim comments on the suffocating culture of patriarchy, toxic masculinity, and homophobia that make life in the blockaded strip even harder, thus suggesting that a life of dignity also necessitates acceptance by one’s own culture. In “Gaza 2050: Three Scenarios,” Basman Aldirawy bitterly criticizes the numerous proposed “solutions” that continue to secure Israel’s interests at the expense of the Palestinian people. “Palestinians don’t need just any solution, Aldirawy writes, “What Palestinians need is a fair solution with full rights, full human rights.” 

Finally, poet and librarian Mosab Abu Toha notes that

we remain unseen and nameless save for the violence and devastation inflicted upon us.  Yet, there is another side—in fact, many sides—to who we are, how we live and what we aspire to that is not seen in media and popular representations but is far more defining: a vibrant cultural life that is present and persistent, that speaks to the power and agency in Gaza. And I must add another fact that remains unknown, even concealed: the linkage between Gaza’s past as a historical center of Palestinian cultural life and her present, where culture—learning, art, music, literature, theater—is tied to and shaped by our heritage.

Abu Toha was compelled to start a library in Gaza following Israel’s 2014 bombing of his university as he walked in the rubble, lamenting the destruction of books he had cherished that had given him a glimpse of the world beyond the besieged strip. He launched a fundraiser which allowed him to establish first one library, then a second one, where children not only borrow books but where they also have fun cultural activities. His response to the destruction of a library and the welcoming space he has since created for children, artists, and aspiring writers, is testimony to the indomitable will of an oppressed people who cannot be forced into a life of mere subsistence, joyless, bookless.

Ultimately, what Light in Gaza tells us is that if the Palestinians in Gaza have not given up, then surely we have no excuse for inaction ourselves. From engaging in difficult conversations with ill-informed friends, colleagues, or family members, to promoting BDS, to changing our own society, to demanding that Israel be held accountable, there is much to do for each and every one of us. As another contributor, Refaat Alareer, asks: “Reader, as you peruse these chapters, what can or will you do, knowing that what you do can save lives and can change the course of history? Reader, will you make this matter?”