Palestine on my mind

This is Alaa’s message to Palestinians in revolt. More accurately, it is my attempt to assemble his words based on his letters, which have been dominated by Palestine since the resistance in Sheikh Jarrah began, on our conversations during prison visits, and on what I hear of him from the people who see him during the court sessions to renew his endless pretrial detention. From all this, I drafted this essay, which I hope carries even a small part of the reality and the depth which ties him to our people in Palestine, and what ties them to him. - Leila Soueif, Alaa’s mother 

In the beginning, it was on me to pass on the news. Most of my wardmates are not allowed visits and none of us are allowed newspapers, so my weekly visit had become the primary source of information. News of the Zionists’ protracted electoral impasse and the “Deal of the Century” kept rolling in. I remember trying to analyze and share the news quickly, broadcasting it by shouting through the hatch in my cell door. That was probably when my wardmates first got to know me. In any case, Palestine was always on my mind.

Then came the pandemic, cutting off visits and the news along with them. I protested with a hunger strike that lasted thirty-seven days. I told my cellmate about the time I visited the Empty Stomachs sit-in tent in Gaza, which was in solidarity with a huge wave of Palestinian prisoners on strike. I’ve been on hunger strike four times since then, and each time I remember the Palestinian captives’ strike. Palestine’s always on my mind.

Despite the defeats, I’m still grateful to the revolution for all it gave me. For one, I was able to visit Palestine twice. I never say I visited Gaza, not only because Palestine is indivisible, but because anyone who visits Gaza cannot but realize that they’re in the metropole of Palestine, its beating heart. There, you swap the Palestine of dreams, metaphor, and poetry for the Palestine of flesh and blood and tears and sweat. 

To isolate me from my wardmates, or perhaps to contain me one week into my strike, I was moved to another ward where newspapers were allowed. After six months of being denied the printed word, I held a state newspaper in my hand. The first thing I see is a photo of a Palestinian child wearing a cabbage leaf on her face in place of a surgical mask. I scan for news of the pandemic and try to imagine how the world has changed, try to imagine how my son, Khaled, is coping with the closure, the social distancing, the masks and swabs. I always take pride in the fact that the first stamp on his passport (and the last on mine before my imprisonment) is from the Rafah border crossing. Khaled was born at the height of the revolution and visited Palestine before he was even one year old. 

On that first visit, I spoke of my family’s attempts to live a normal life under exceptional circumstances with no end in sight. I thought that was the Palestinian experience, so I ended my speech with the words “I am Palestinian.” Words that seem so naive now that the whole world is living in exceptional circumstances with no end in sight — so did we all become Palestinians? Of course not. Only the children of Gaza are photographed wearing cabbage leaves instead of masks. I’m not Palestinian and have done nothing worth mentioning for the cause, but when visits started up again and Khaled came in wearing a mask specially designed for the sensitivities related to his autism it did look to me like that cabbage mask. I’m not a Palestinian, but I am an Arab, and Palestine’s always on my mind.

After my hunger strike ended, I was returned to my original cell. My wardmates gave me a big welcome. It was Eid al-Fitr, and we passed the night talking and singing. Then they asked me to sing. I’m not a very good singer, but I contributed for the first time with something other than news and analysis and sang the 1960s Nazarene poet Tawfiq Ziad’s “I call out to you.” Palestine’s on my mind.

After Eid, I was banned from writing to my family. More accurately, I failed to stay within the fuzzy, ever-shifting red lines that govern what subjects are permissible for correspondence. My last letter had not made it through because I wrote of my concern for my sister Mona’s health in the pandemic, wondering if her immune system might have been affected by all the teargas she inhaled during the early days of the revolution. I don’t know if the offense was the reference to the revolution, even in a negative context, or if it was the teargas that annoyed them. I do know that the quantity of tear gas fired at revolutionaries in Egypt is comparable only to that used against Palestinians in Jerusalem and the West Bank and that its long-term effects haven’t been studied properly. Palestine’s always on my mind.

My mother started a sit-in in front of the prison gates — closed, they said, because of corona, and it all ended in her and my two sisters being assaulted and Sanaa being arrested for the third time. My fellow prisoners are embarrassed to tell me the bad news, so I hear it late. I try to comfort them – and myself – by describing Sanaa’s stubborn, defiant personality. I tell them she was named after Sanaa Mehaidli, the 16-year-old who drove a Peugeot 504 into an Israeli army convoy in southern Lebanon in 1985, exploding it. Through the hatch in the cell door I tell the story of an argument we had when I refused to drop everything I was doing and wouldn’t let her skip school exams so we could go to Gaza together after the resistance demolished the separation wall along the border in 2008. I guess back then I thought the siege wouldn’t last.

By 2012, our roles were reversed: at the first opportunity I put the revolution aside and traveled to Palestine. Sanaa, who’d had a friend die in her arms in the clashes after the storming of the Zionists’ embassy in Cairo, couldn’t understand how anyone could take a break from the revolution.

But at the end of that year, with the onset of the bombing of Gaza once again, Sanaa left immediately. She entered without a passport or official stamps and went off the radar entirely until the war was over. 

Since I’d been talking about Sanaa I got a message brimming with affection from my neighbor Anas [al-Beltagy], who is as dear to me as are all his siblings. He was born the same year as Sanaa so I find it hard to accept he’s not a boy anymore but a man almost in his thirties. That night I dreamed of Asmaa, his martyred sister, instead of Sanaa, my captive sister, and woke up to sing Mahmoud Darwish’s “A song on my mind,” for Palestine is always on my mind.

While telling my family’s history, I discover that a new neighbor, the mysterious Amm Seif (who had hijacked a plane in 2016 to demand the release of female prisoners in Egypt), had met my father in southern Lebanon when they had both joined the resistance. What twists of fate: two Egyptian Seifs, both communists, meeting in the camps in Lebanon. One returned to Egypt, went to prison, and came out a lawyer and defender of the weak. The other stayed with the resistance and the PLO — until the PLO moved to Ramallah and the resistance moved to Gaza, leaving him alone with no battlefield, camp, or rifle. He returned to Egypt, a stranger in a strange land, lost until a revolution restored him to life. When the revolution was in retreat he tried to resist with 70s fedayeen tactics — so they branded him a lunatic and threw him in solitary in Maximum Security Wing 2 of Tora Prison Complex. I’m blown away by the twists in destiny’s road — but not surprised that they intersect on Palestine’s threshold. For we are Arabs, and Palestine’s always on our mind.

Visits resume, but have been reduced to twenty minutes, once a month -— again because of the pandemic. I’m back in touch with the news. The Deal of the Century is moving ahead full steam, the UAE isn’t content with normalizing with Israel but is pressuring Sudan to follow suit, exploiting their fragile political and economic situation. The Arabs are not rising up. After a year in prison, I meet Ramy Shaath in the courthouse lockup. He’s in prison for his activism with the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. We spend the whole day talking through the wire mesh dividing our cages, exchanging news. I tell him I’m worried that the Palestinian cause will be finished off. With a very Palestinian wave of the hand he gives me the good news that the number of Palestinians in historic Palestine has exceeded the number of Israeli Jews for the first time and that, despite Arab weakness, the BDS campaign is raising a new generation of solidarity activists around the world.

He tells me that reconciliation between the Palestinian factions is imminent, and I talk about how the changing demographics in the US might erode the usual identification with Zionism, but I imagine it will be a decade before this comes to fruition. Rami is optimistic. But me, I remember our betrayed spring, the siege on the embassy, the open crossing. I remember our chant — the people want to end the siege — and yours: the people want to end the division. I wonder if the people taking part in the Great March of Return and launching incendiary kites have heard these chants? In photos they look very young and seem completely disconnected from the moment when we thought that the road to Jerusalem ran through Cairo. Anyhow, whether I count on optimism of the intellect or optimism of the will, Palestine’s always on my mind. 

We start a cultural program. When it’s my turn, I shout out lessons on contemporary history and politics, beginning with the history of the rights movement in Egypt. I explain the movement’s solidarity with the Palestinian cause. In contrast to the global human rights movement, which was embroiled in Cold War debates, the local movement was always militant. I remember my father’s criticism of the feeble positions on Palestinian rights taken by institutions like Human Rights Watch. Then I hear about their latest report on Palestine, which explicitly condemns Israel of the crime of apartheid — even in the ’48 territories. Maybe Rami was right, and change is imminent. The point being: Palestine’s always on my mind. 

Ramadan returns. It’s been a year since my hunger strike. The pandemic continues and won’t be ended by vaccinations. We expand the cultural program for Ramadan to include battles from Islamic history, but on the tenth day, plans change and I am tasked with narrating the October War. My fellow prisoners are expecting a narrative different from the one they learned in school and saw on television. I have a dilemma: how do I explain to prisoners of the current military rule the complex history of the Egyptian military? How do I relate the confusion of the last days of the war without minimizing the victories of the first days? How do I wade into the labyrinth of Camp David, this tunnel that we’ve never got out of?

I begin by clarifying that this army never shed Palestinian blood (but a voice inside me nags that it did shed Egyptian blood).

Try as I might, I’m unable to present a coherent historical narrative that combines the suffering of the Islamist movement, the ambitions of Arab nationalism, and the achievements of the secular elite. Division, once entrenched, is difficult to overcome no matter how good the intentions. News comes of the impending announcement of Palestinian reconciliation and I allow myself some cautious optimism. It’s easy to reach a consensus on Palestine, and it’s always on my mind.

The administrator of the cultural program, who happens to be from the same town as my father’s family, suddenly initiates a new ritual — a midday anthem — and for some reason he settles on “My homeland,” Palestine’s unofficial national anthem. Every day he sings it to us. Why this song, I ask him. No response. It’s just Palestine on the mind. What kind of national anthem is this, so full of questions and sorrow? Too beautiful to be an official national anthem, an anthem to the dream rather than the glories of leaders and ancient history.

In the last ten days of Ramadan, news arrives of Sheikh Jarrah and Al-Aqsa. Something is happening, something will happen. Then we hear that the Murabitoun at Al-Aqsa — Jerusalemites who take shifts to protect the grounds — are asking for help from Gaza! Despite our isolation, we quickly understand that something is different this time. Every night prayers go up for our people in Palestine. My wardmates are occupied by news of the missile capabilities of the resistance. I try to point out the importance of the movement inside ‘48, in the West Bank, Jerusalem, and on the borders.

I pace back and forth in my cell, repeating as if possessed, “the whole national territory,” over and over to myself. No, sorry, that’s not it, the battle is still long, I mean the whole national movement, I mean all of the national components, I mean the full mobilization of every strand of the people, the full mobilization of every strand of the people, the full mobilization of every strand of the people.

But why not the whole national territory, every piece of the nation’s soil, its dust? Are we not made of this dust, do we not return to it? And here it is now, the whole national territory rising up, supported by Gaza — who recycles the dust of her ruins and builds anew. Anyone who has been to Gaza learns that Palestine is the people before it’s the land or the shrines, that Palestine lives in its metropole not just in the songs and poems.

The Egyptian Left’s perpetual fondness for the old 70s songs has long annoyed me. In the police transport trucks I prefer the company of young prisoners singing Cairokee instead of Marcel Khalifa and Sheikh Imam. I wonder what the youth flying incendiary kites out of Gaza listen to? Probably not Sheikh Imam. Still, I find myself singing “Hey Palestinians, I Want to Travel to You” with Amm Seif. I’m a dinosaur, yes, but I’m an Arab and Palestine’s always on my mind.

It’s time for the weekly package of food and clothes that comes to me from my family. I have to write a letter under the direct supervision of the prison administration. I’m supposed to avoid any talk of politics, and I shouldn’t reveal how much I’ve learned of the news through our conversations between cells, floors and wards. But Palestine’s on my mind and forces the issue. I write down this thought that’s taken hold of me: I regret not having fled to Gaza when I had the chance.

My father was released before the case of the “armed Communist organization” was referred to trial. My earliest childhood memories are of our family hiding out on the Mediterranean coast. We hid until my mother’s pregnancy with Mona was certain. Then my father turned himself in. He spent five years in prison. When he came out he had the option to leave the country, but he picked up his life and resumed the struggle. When he died he was buried in his homeland among his students and comrades. He never regretted the decision. 

My ordeal didn’t start with this prison stint; it began three months after the massacre, in November 2013. I was released twice in 2014 and never thought of fleeing the country. I thought I would follow in my father’s footsteps: I’d pay the price willingly, get out, go back to my family and my professional life and resume the struggle. But after five years in prison — for a demonstration! — I was not freed, but released to probation which required me to spend all night, twelve hours of every day, in the police station. Every time I complained of the cruelty of this punishment, someone would remind me that Mahmoud Darwish went through something similar and declared that the night was theirs and the day his. Palestine’s always on the mind. But it seems the Egyptian regime didn’t like the deal and, just six months later, begrudged me the day and sent me back to prison.

‘Why didn’t you run?’ my cellmates ask.

‘To where? Gaza?’ I reply.  

All the other escape routes seemed too dangerous, but why didn’t I seriously consider escaping to Gaza? Had I let the news coverage of Gaza as an open-air prison blind me to the truth of what I’d seen with my own eyes, and written in my own article? Gaza is besieged but it has not been taken captive, and the difference is enormous.

If I were free in Gaza instead of locked up in Cairo, I would read books, play with children, enjoy the company of women, walk on the beach, work and make a living. I’d teach and I’d learn. I would live and be alive at this moment. I would have breathed the dust cloud of the whole national territory as it moved instead of trying to analyze it from afar. I regret not escaping to Gaza.

I know it’s naive. I know I’ve not lived under bombardment, that visiting a siege is different to living under it. I know that this idea that’s taken hold of me is only a sign that I’m getting old. Yes, I long for you, Palestinians, but I also long for a time when my will had not been torn from me, when my defeat was not complete.

I sign off every letter with a drawing for Khaled. My drawing is no better than my singing, but autism pushes us to find a way to communicate without words. From memory I draw a photo taken of us in Gaza. We were in Khan Younis and the barrier was in the background; a group of Egyptians, all looking at the camera, Khaled on my shoulders. As the photo is taken, Khaled turns to look at the fence and points to the horizon stretching out behind it, the only one preoccupied by the Palestine beyond the barrier.

I ask his mother to play Rim Banna songs for him. I return to my cell humming “Carmel al-Rouh.” For some reason, I never listened to Reem until I went to prison, and I fell in love with this song. In Tora Maximum Security Wing 2, there’s no music, no woman’s voice. If music was not banned, I’d listen to her every day. I’ve never seen Mount Carmel, I don’t know the sea at Haifa or Yafa, I only know the sea at Gaza. No one sings for Gaza, but they ask for her help.

There are cities that inspire poets and musicians and so become immortalized in depictions that might not reflect their reality. Free Jerusalem; tranquil Alexandria, Bride of the Sea; Beirut, the Sheltering Tent — the symbols seem more real than the cities. But Gaza and Cairo are both cities that resist romanticization and so elude song. No one sings to Cairo, but it is the capital of the Arabs. No one sings to Gaza either, but it remains the indisputable capital of Palestine. Both are always present in a crisis. 

The day Cairo was liberated we thought that Jerusalem was near and so we sped toward Gaza. The road to Jerusalem looked like it ran through Cairo — but what is certain is that it must pass through Gaza. Jerusalem is not too proud to ask for Gaza’s help. Maybe Cairo should now show a little humility and do the same. 

My generation was raised on scenes from the Second Intifada and launched itself onto the scene with student demonstrations in support of Palestine. One movement followed another until this generation led a revolution. Yes, the roots of the revolution lie in the solidarity demonstrations with the Second Intifada, for we are Arabs and Palestine’s always on our mind. 

Every year some half a million students in Egypt graduate to university, and more than a third of them end up in universities and institutes in Cairo. This year they all saw the whole national territory rising up in revolt. 

It is estimated that there are some 60,000 political prisoners in Egypt. All the prisons of all the Arabs combined could not contain the students of Cairo, if Cairo only realized that it’s living under siege, not in captivity.

Do I have the right to dream of escaping to Gaza? Do I have the right to dream of a road to Cairo that passes through Gaza? Does a captive have the right to ask for help from the besieged? I know that these questions show how ancient I am, but I’m an Arab and Palestine’s always on my mind. And, in my defense, I’ll say that I refused to be humiliated in my country, and I never lowered my banners, and it should count that I stood in the face of my oppressors: an orphan, naked and barefoot, and my solace is that the tragedy I’m living is but my share of yours. I call out to you: you are always on my mind.*

*The words in italics are Alaa’s re-arrangement of lines from Tawfiq Ziad’s “Unadikum” (I call out to you).