March 3, 2025

Reading Group Week 7

Hello. Thank you for being here. Let's get straight to the readings:

Reading

This week, I'd like to chat with people about the following pieces:

1. O'Live Tree
2. An Introduction to Poetry
3. My Child Asks, "Can Israel Destroy Our Building If the Power Is Out?"
4. I Am You
5. Gaza Asks: When Shall This Pass?
6. Freshly Baked Souls

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Reflections

I think I have more reflections than usual this week, so let's get into it.

An Introduction to Poetry

First thing: I realized that this piece was a transcribed version of a video Refaat posted on YouTube, which you can watch here.

We always fall into this trap of saying "she was arrested for just writing poetry!" We do this a lot, even us believers in literature. "Why would Israel arrest somebody or put someone under house arrest, she only wrote a poem!"

Last week I fixated on this idea that clothing children, that educating people, that entertaining and playing with children, all of this is resistance. I'm reminded of Against White Feminism by Rafia Zakaria, who referenced this idea that sometimes surviving is resistance.

I have a theory that Refaat navigated toward a much more expansive understanding of resistance, and of his place in resistance against the apartheid occupier state of Israel. I think we can trace part of his trajectory in developing this sense, especially in these pieces.

I don't necessarily think it's a straight path. I think we'll find moments of doubt, moments of uncertainty, as I'd expect to find in anyone. But I think that doesn't diminish the journey or where he ends up. In some moments, he speaks fully with his chest, like here, and he challenges us to use the strength of our voice, and to be unashamed of that strength. This moment of moral clarity is stunning to me. I wonder if the students in the class that day appreciated the moment in the same way.

Bluesky, Mastodon, Twitter

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Gaza Asks: When Shall This Pass?

They [Israeli soldiers] slapped me, my brothers, and cousins dozens of times because when they checked, our hearts were racing, a sign we were running and possibly throwing stones. We were between eight and eleven years old then. Our hearts always raced.

I've been surprised by how much this thought stuck with me, maybe because I spend a lot of time tracking my heart rate when I exercise, thinking about my resting heart rate, etc... and juxtaposing that "luxury surveillance" (Chris Gilliard & David Golumbia) against the Israeli occupation beating these children for the "crime" of having an elevated heart rate while being cornered and detained by men with guns and legal impunity if they kill all of the children.

Keep in mind we're not even talking about the heart rate monitors that we have today. You couldn't just slap an apple watch on someone in the 80s and 90s. More likely, an Israeli occupation soldier, armed to the teeth, probably reached out and grabbed these children by the necks, feeling for their carotid arteries, and held them there to read the kid's pulse. The casual projection of terrorism, checking the pulses of children and then inflicting violence on them for having an elevated heart rate, is surreal and harrowing.

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I believed that Gaza Writes Back would make a difference. It might help shift public opinion. It might help alleviate the pain and suffering that Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, and Jerusalem and everywhere experienced as part of their lives. But can a story or a poem change the mind or the heart of the occupiers? Can a book make a difference? Will this calamity, this occupation, this apartheid pass? It seems it won't.

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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?

It shall pass, I keep hoping. It shall pass, I keep saying. Sometimes I mean it. Sometimes I don't. And as Gaza keeps gasping for life, we struggle for it to pass, we have no choice but to fight back and to tell her stories. For Palestine.

I wanted to put these quotes together. I wrote earlier in this piece that I was beginning to develop a theory about this anthology, or about Refaat's views. I feel like I'm beginning to get a glimpse of the trajectory of his movement toward one of the quotations of his which I remember clearly:

"I'm an academic," Refaat Alareer said on day 3 of Israel's genocide. "The toughest thing I have at home is an Expo marker. But if the Israelis invade ... I'm going to use that marker to throw it at the Israeli soldiers, even if that is the last thing that I would be able to do."

I think Refaat was drawing a circle around an idea that was embodied by his brother Mohammed, by Salem from "No Justice for Gaza Youth Killed in Viral Video" last week, by his mother, and by himself through his own work as an educator and as a scholar and poet. And of course, by his students who contributed to Gaza Writes Back. This idea that he wrote about earlier in the book, reflecting on what his mother taught him about the power of storytelling, but that he admitted he didn't fully appreciate initially. I think we're seeing that appreciation continue to grow and take root.

I think Dr. Alareer experienced uncertainty, as anyone would, but I'm still surprised to read him question whether a story or a poem can change the mind or the heart of occupiers. I'm still braced by his vulnerability in saying that "it seems it won't". I feel obliged to remind you all of the impact of "If I Must Die", which I discussed briefly in the first week of reading this book (Reading Group Week 4).

I'm surprised, although I shouldn't be, that he admits that he says "it shall pass", and that "sometimes I mean it. Sometimes I don't". I shouldn't be surprised, because I look at when he wrote this, in 2022, and I remind myself that in 2022 the west was ignoring Palestine. I say that as though it's different now, as if the film that won "best documentary" ("No Other Land") in this year's Academy Awards still has no US distributor.

But I think he ends up where I consistently hope to end up: "we have no choice but to fight back and to tell her stories".

Someone told me that one of the remarkable qualities of political action is that you do it even if it might not be successful; I've thought about what it means if you engage in political action even if it most likely won't be successful. Things you do because you must - because you have no choice but to fight back. Whether with words you write or even an Expo marker.

I don't know whether what I do will matter. But Refaat addresses the reader in a unique moment in this piece, and asks what we can or will do, and whether we will make this moment matter. Israel has closed off humanitarian aid again, as the month of Ramadan begins and Muslims in Gaza begin fasting.

Whatever we can do, we must do.

Bluesky, Mastodon, Twitter

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Share your reflections

I'd like to know what you're thinking about with this week's readings, particularly "My Child Asks, 'Can Israel Destroy the Building If the Power Is Out?'"; I wanted to write about it, but I decided against it because I felt like this was going to be a very long email already.

If you're not interested in commenting on social media, I'd be keen to read your thoughts in the Signal group chat, if you're interested in joining.

Otherwise, I'll hopefully hear or read from you on Saturday at 12pm ET, during our regular video chat.

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Standard Stuff

Here's some stuff that I talk about in every email, but I've said it several times now.

Get the book

If you haven't bought If I Must Die: Poetry and Prose by Refaat Alareer yet, you should buy it from the Open Poems bookstore as soon as you can. You can also buy Perfect Victims by Mohammed El-Kurd and save some money on shipping.

I'm confident enough about our pace to say that we'll begin reading Perfect Victims on March 31, so please try to have your copy in hand by then.

Donate

Please consider donating to The Sameer Project directly if you can. If you have extra capacity to donate, you could also donate to Sudan Funds, a project to get money to Sudanese people surviving genocide, forced displacement, and extreme violence.

Support the reading group

You can also support the reading group if you have a few dollars to spare per month. Don't worry if you can't.

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Not really an easter egg

Thank you so much for reading to the end. I'm cutting together the video by Refaat Alareer so that you don't have to listen to 20 minutes of how students' grades will be determined and it's just the text from this week's reading, which I'll probably share the Signal group chat initially, so you might want to join it if you haven't already.