I defy you not to weep

Some notes on these last few weeks from Arzu

I was alerted to this short film by Revd Stephen Sizer of Peacemakers.  Based on Zeina Azzam’s poem ‘Write my name’, it crushed me.  I demand you watch it.  I defy you not to weep.

 

I will put a link and the full text of the poem below*, but in short it is inspired by the news that mothers had taken to writing their children’s names and the name of their parents on their children’s legs in indelible marker, in order to make possible identification of dismembered bodies after Israeli bombings.

This is where we are at.  Two days ago, in the midst of supposedly targeted, but in reality indiscriminate bombings, the Israeli regime showed exactly how it could – if it wanted to – use precision attacks to take out those deemed legitimate targets.  They killed Dr. Jumann Arfa, her three day old twins, Aser and Aysel and her mother.  Dr. Arfa’s husband, Mohammed Abu al-Qumsan, had left the flat to go and collect the babies’ birth certificates from the hospital.  He returned to find this.

 

He only found out that his family had been obliterated when he went back to the hospital.  He was still holding the birth certificates.

 

Dr. Arfa had been posting evidence of Israeli soldiers shooting children in the head.  In bearing witness to the ugly truth of genocide she became a target for annihilation for the genociders.

Then of course there was the bombing of the school in Gaza City, on 10 August where over 100 refugees including children were killed while praying their fajr (dawn) prayers.  Bereaved family members were handed bags of flesh according to weight: 16kg for a child of six in one reported case, 70kg for each adult for them to bury, because for many there we no identifiable remains.

This appalling ugly world we live in will one day end.  There will be justice for Dr. Arfa, Aser and Aysel, the hundreds at the school praying fajr, the tens, probably almost two hundred thousand killed thus far will see their murders avenged whether in this world or the next.  I am praying that I will not be one of those facing that justice because I failed to do enough, sitting here with my children grown and relatively safe.

Last week, in the UK, many of us were afeared of maps and lists of supposedly up to 100 far-right demonstrations planned for mid-week.

Today I looked at this map.  It is beyond comprehension.  The horror is so all encompassing.

 

Yet read the responses in the thread, and you could believe that humanity really is doomed.

What is left for any of us ‘here’ to do.  Yes, we have to boycott Israeli goods, protest Zionist racism, occupation and war crimes however we can.  But, as I have said before, we need to also support the resistance in and around Palestine – they are and have been the only thing standing between the genociders and the complete annihilation of the Palestinians.

We need to recognize – even if only in our minds – that their resistance was legitimate every day after October 7, 2023, but also every day since the Nakba in 1948.  All our weeping will be meaningless without the understanding that there is a struggle underway between two forces – one has right on their side, the other might.  We must also write their names.

Arzu Merali is a writer and researcher based in London UK.  Find more of her work and commentary on this site.  Follow here on X and Instagram @arzumerali and Facebook @ArzuMeraliOfficial

Photo: Mohammed Khaleefah

 

* As promised Zeina Azzam’s poem below.  It was published here on Vox Populi.

 

Write My Name

“Some parents in Gaza have resorted to writing their children’s names on their legs to help identify them should either they or the children be killed.”
—CNN, 10/22/2023

Write my name on my leg, Mama
Use the black permanent marker
with the ink that doesn’t bleed
if it gets wet, the one that doesn’t melt
if it’s exposed to heat

Write my name on my leg, Mama
Make the lines thick and clear
Add your special flourishes
so I can take comfort in seeing
my mama’s handwriting when I go to sleep

Write my name on my leg, Mama
and on the legs of my sisters and brothers
This way we will belong together
This way we will be known
as your children

Write my name on my leg, Mama
and please write your name
and Baba’s name on your legs, too
so we will be remembered
as a family

Write my name on my leg, Mama
Don’t add any numbers
like when I was born or the address of our home
I don’t want the world to list me as a number
I have a name and I am not a number

Write my name on my leg, Mama
When the bomb hits our house
When the walls crush our skulls and bones
our legs will tell our story, how
there was nowhere for us to run

—Zeina Azzam

 

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