“What Can We Say?”
Charlie Robielos
I don't know what to say. For months, I have been trying to come up with something--anything--to say, because who can stay silent in the face of the livestreamed genocide being committed against Palestinians? But I did, not because I didn’t care, not because I wasn’t sick with grief at what we have allowed to happen in our name, for our ignorance and comfort; not because I wasn’t horrified by the mutilation paraded before all our eyes, the dismembered and shrouded bodies, families torn apart and ancient lineages bombed from the face of the earth. I fell silent because I did care, and I was sick with grief–but I just didn’t know how to say anything that wasn’t a single, inarticulate scream. No sooner do I open my mouth than a fresh new horror renders me speechless. It continues even now. And more than that, I could never fathom how the world could still keep turning, how everyone else seems to have moved on while Palestine remains under the rubble of a most violent occupation, at a level of destruction so total that it can be seen from space: Gaza’s lights gone dark, like stars snuffed out of the sky.
I wish I had something to offer other than words. We’ve seen through their emptiness: how many promises has the American president made about ending the war, only to send more aid and weapons to Israel? How many diplomatic councils and meetings have been called to condemn the violence only for the violence to continue? How many of these celebrities, so-called role models, have paid the barest minimum of lip service–if even that!–while providing no real material support to the people of Gaza despite all the resources and attention at their disposal? How many times have the people of Gaza, of Palestine, withstood the censure and callousness of news anchors who demanded them to condemn Hamas before they can even speak of their suffering?
But I had nothing–no title, no power, no influence, and no money–so what else could I do? Only so little. I could protest, buy eSim cards, spread information through social media, and donate if I was able. But it never feels like enough because I know it isn’t enough.
I wish I was braver. I wish I had the strength that this catastrophe requires from all of us. But I am a coward, and I cannot stop a bulldozer with my body. In 2003, when Rachel Corrie stood her ground against one to protest the razing of homes in Rafah, they did not stop. Her death did not bring about the end of the occupation, or even the demolition itself. One body placed in front of an uncaring, unfeeling machine will not stop the machine but only hinder it for a second. And when Aaron Bushnell lit himself on fire in February of this year, did the world stop turning? Only long enough to speculate on his mental health, calling him insane, instead of listening to the clarity of his final words, sealed with his life in a last desperate bid for people to listen. If these acts of courage, if an “extreme act of protest” is not enough to change people’s minds, what could mere words do?
If words could change the world, then why is this the world we live in? But we have no choice; words may be empty, they may be futile, but silence is even more so. Silence is fealty to the oppressor. It is what they want from us: to confuse, shock, and stun us into silence, until we can do nothing but watch. Silence, to them, is so golden; why else would they target the poets, the journalists, the witnesses and speakers of Palestine?
It is just poetry; we are only writers. And I, in particular, am not even capable of giving the one thing that I ought to be able to offer: just words. But once again, there is nothing I can say here that has not already been said more eloquently by the poet and professor, Refaat Alareer, in his 2019 lecture, An Introduction to Poetry:
“Of course, we always fall into this trap of saying "she was arrested for just writing poetry!" We do this, even us believers in literature, "Why would Israel arrest somebody or put somebody under house arrest if she only wrote a poem?!"
So we contradict ourselves sometimes. We believe in the power of literature, changing life as a means of resistance, a means of fighting back and in the end we say, "She just wrote a poem!" We shouldn't be saying that.
Moshe Dayan, an Israeli general, said that the poems of Fadwa Tuqan were like facing 20 enemy fighters. Wow.
She didn't throw stones; she didn't shoot at the invading Israeli military jeeps. She just wrote poetry. And I'm falling for that again, I'm saying "she just wrote poetry".”
[...] The fact that Israel worked hard to ethnically cleanse Palestine, to kick Palestinians out, first and foremost in literature - yes, in politics and everything - shows how significant poetry is.
To sum up, Palestine was occupied metaphorically in the poem long before it was physically and militarily occupied in your life, so let's do the same. Let's fight back; let's restore Palestine in our writings; in our poetry; in our stories."
All I have is grief, and howling rage, and the white-knuckled, daily-tested hope–which is, as Angela Davis says, “the condition of all struggles”–that Palestine must live. But if that is all I have, then I will give all of what I have. We owe this to Palestinians, to each other, and to ourselves, that we remain steadfast in our convictions. If you are able to protest, it is your moral duty to protest. If you are able to give money, it is your moral duty to give money. And if nothing else is left to you but your voice to scream, and your hands to write, then it is for you to continue, to never relent, never stop until the inevitable day that Palestine is finally free.
References
Alareer, R. (2019, September 11). English poetry lecture 1: An introduction to poetry. eLearning Centre - IUG - Video Lectures. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRDwGMgWAMo&list=PL9fwy3NUQKwYGN66V9CL-c7DFnG0_Swb2&t=558s
Arraf, J. (2024, March 30). Rachel Corrie, killed in Gaza in 2003, is remembered by Palestinians. NPR. Retrieved June 29, 2024, from https://www.npr.org/2024/03/30/1241231447/rachel-corrie-gaza-palestinians-aid-israel-hamas-war
Davis, A. (2023, October 27). Angela Davis: 'Palestine is a moral litmus test for the world' | UpFront. Al Jazeera English. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIVxooM5kG8
Seligman, L., & Berg, M. (2024, February 26). Air Force member dies after setting himself on fire outside Israeli embassy. Politico. Retrieved June 29, 2024, from https://www.politico.com/news/2024/02/26/air-force-member-fire-death-israeli-embassy-00143269
Charlie Robielos (any pronouns) is a writer and after-school writing tutor in Southern California. They graduated with a BA in Liberal Arts and Humanities in 2021.
