My thoughts on the assassination of Syed Nasrallah, originally written 30 September. I didn’t publish them until now (22 October) for a variety of reasons explained in the note[i].
“But do not think of those who have been killed in the One and Only God’s cause as dead. No, they are alive! With their Sustainer do they have sustenance.”
Qur’an 3:169
I keep picking up my phone. Not for news, or to scroll social media. It is too late for that. I want to message friends in Beirut, but I don’t know what to say. I have been messaging all week, first to check if they are alive and then to tell them that I am praying for them. There is nothing I can say right now. There is no consolation I can give. Actually, I am the one who needs consoling.
I say this, but it is also strange. The assassination of Syed Hassan Nasrallah as heartbreaking as it is[ii], is also the proof I know instinctively, that the Israeli entity has lost. Its days are numbered to maybe 10, or months to 10 or years, I don’t think to 10. It is finished. We knew this with the first martyrdoms in Gaza just under a year ago. The viciousness of the Israeli entity a sure sign that it too knew this was a last grasp to hold on to their illegitimate land grab of yesteryear. We expect its demise imminently. We are just planning now: for what will take its place; and how we will extact justice from those culpable for these unspeakable crimes we have watched in real time for nigh on twelve months.
The martyrdom of Syed Nasrallah is also not unexpected: otherwise what kind of leader would he be? So many of those he led have already become martyrs in the struggle to rid the region, especially Palestine of the supremacist colonials. So many others from the region – and beyond – have made this ultimate sacrifice in the same noble cause. The daily dripping of the blood of Gaza’s children is the most harrowing of all these. Surely we didn’t any of us, friend or foe (there are no neutrals here), expect Syed to die in his bed of old age?
Spoken after the assassination of Fouad Shakar, the words of Syed are now clear in their meaning, “Be aware that this bastard son of a bastard put me between two ways, between being killed or accepting humiliation and humiliation, and I will choose martyrdom.”
Seyed Hassan Nasrallah:
Be aware that this bastard son of a bastard put me between two ways, between being killed or accepting humiliation and humiliation, and I will choose martyrdom.
Innalillahi wainna ilaihivrajiun. pic.twitter.com/PsZmJRQaf0
— Mujtahid Hashem (@muzsta313) September 28, 2024
******
It was 1997, I was in Lebanon. The IDF loomed just across into the occupied zone into the South, staring back at us as we viewed their post atop the mountains through a film camera.
Locals explained to me how every night, undercover of dark, IDF operatives crossed over, mining the paths along the mountains. Goat herds in particular were susceptible to death and injury, but other incursions also saw loss of life and the terrorising of the inhabitants of the villages.
“Why don’t you just leave?” I naively asked. I had just understood that Beirut was just an hour away by car. One woman in particular explained it politely and eloquently to me. Of course she and the others could leave. Any time. But then the Israelis would inch ever more into Lebanon.
That was the first year, it turns out, that Israeli casualties in this slow war, had outnumbered those of the resistance. The resistance at that point that had been fighting for around 15 years. Notwithstanding the immense pressure that I witnessed (at one point we were stopped in our tracks by the sound of an Israeli drone, and the sight of plumes of smoke in the distance) I could see the direction of travel. Nevertheless I thought as all us amateurs do, “Not in my lifetime or at best when I am very old.”
Three years later, heavily pregnant, channel hopping because I couldn’t focus on any one thing, I saw live images from somewhere, I could work out. A man seems to have broken out of prison and is chasing a truckload of soldiers speeding away. He is shouting, and somehow running at super speed. It was the day, the moment, in fact that the Israelis were fleeing South Lebanon. The man running, a recently released inmate from the notorious Khiam prison. Look it up. You will work out quickly how he could run so fast.
Three years away and so few of us could see this happening so quickly.
It did.
We should remember that in what seems a dark hour.
******
There will be a time soon to ask those who have spent a decade defaming Syed Nasrallah and those he led, how they justified their collusion with the Israeli regime in undermining the narratives of liberation for Palestine with their delusionally sectarian pseudo analysis, or worse still their active involvement in the breaking of supply chains to the Palestinians by their taking up of arms in Syria against the government. Right now, there is still time for those who made those mistakes naively to face the truth and accept it. The clock is running out however. Those who maliciously or ignorantly fomented and or supported the blood-letting in Syria also have the blood of Palestinians, Yemenis, Lebanese and all those resisting from wherever in the world, on their hands.
Only repentance (maybe, God willing) will wipe that clean.
*******
I am scrolling now and sharing everything. The self-imposed filter has gone, because the stupidity of the censorship imposed in the UK can no longer be tolerated.
People hearing the news around the world have been filmed, crying, wailing, praying and protesting.
My own silence is stupid and stupefying in comparison. I can’t believe I was even thinking about editing my grief.
Shahadat, is as Muslims know, martyrdom, it is the ultimate form of witnessing. For cowards like myself, I can hardly dream that it is attainable.
Maybe then I can just witness this.
The world will be a better place because of Syed Nasrallah’s life and legacy, and Palestine will be free because of his and the blood of all the martyrs. Every one of them was part of the resistance. And the resistance, in this sordid, corrupt world, is one of the few noble things we can attest to.
All I can do is pray for it. Today, at least, I am not afraid to say it.
نَصْرٌ مِّن اللَّهِ وَفَتْحٌ قَرِيبٌ
“Help from God, and a near victory”
Qur’an 61: 13
#Lebanon’s people mourn Sayyed Hassan #Nasrallah's martyrdom over the ruins left by the #Israel airstrike, chanting:
Labbaik ya Nasrallah pic.twitter.com/JcVzdGw3no
— Iran's Today (@Iran) September 28, 2024
Arzu Merali is a writer and researcher based in London, UK.
[i] I am highly conscious of how everything Muslims say is used and abused – to tarnish Muslims and Islam as a whole, to attack individuals, but in my mind worse still, to attack people we love and causes we support. Despite having left IHRC in any official capacity over five years ago, I know that things I say and do will be used to reflect on them, and I worried (and still worry) about giving them even more to worry about.
This remains the case, but after the dawn raid on pro-Palestine journalist Asa Winstanley last week I realise that it will make no difference whether we speak or we don’t, repression is coming. It is better to speak truth to power and take what comes in terms of harassment and oppression. We can at least hold our heads up high.
[ii] By saying this do I contravene anti-terrorism laws in the UK? I shouldn’t. This is emotional. But Orwellian is a mild description of thought policing on this isle these days.
