Here We Stay By: Tawfik Ziad Translated by: Adib S. Kawar As if of twenty impossibles we are In Al-Lid, Ar-Ramleh and the Galilee Here
on your chests, staying as a wall Remaining we are In your throats Like a piece of glass, like cactus And in your eyes A storm of fire Here
on your chests, staying as a wall* Remaining we are Hungry we get
naked
we challenge
Chant poems Fill the street with angry demonstrations Fill prisons with pride Produce children
a revolting generation
after generation As if twenty impossibles we are In Al-Lid, Ar-Ramleh and the Galilee *** Plant ideas, like yeast in dough The coldness of the Galilee in our nerves Live coal
hell in our hearts If thirsty we get rocks we squeeze If hungry we get soil we eat
and we never
leave Our redolent blood we dont spare
We dont spare
we dont spare
Here we have a past
A present
And a future *Had the poet been still alive he would have
said Like your separation wall) Tawfik
Zayyad Was a poet,
writer and politician. He was born in Nazareth
Palestine in 1932 and died on July 5th 1932 in
a dreadful car clash while on his way to meet Yasser
Arafat in Jericho after the Oslo agreements. He was
elected mayor of Nazareth and stayed in this post till
his death. He studied in Nazareth and went to Moscow
where he studied Russian literature. He participated in
the Palestinian political life in occupied Palestine, and
struggled for his peoples rights. He was a member
in the Israeli: Communist Party, Rakah, and
became and M.K. for more than one term, and up till his
death. In addition
to his translations from Russian literature and the works
of the Turkish poet, Nazem Hikmat, Zayyad published a
number of collections of his poems among which are:
I Press on your Hands ???? ??? ??????? (1966), which is
considered an outstanding point in the history of
Palestinian struggle against the Zionist entity, it
contains a number of poems about heroism and resistance,
and some of his poems were sang, and became a part the
Palestinian resistance culture. Zayyad
played an important role in the strike of the Land
Day on March 30th 1975, when thousands of
Palestinian Arabs demonstrated against confiscation of
land and the Judification of the Galilee. Attempts
of assassination: Zayyad was
all his life targeted by the Zionist occupation authority,
as they saw in him one of the principal symbols for the
steadfastness (somoud) of the Palestinian Arab people and
its confrontation to the Zionist authority policy and
practices. The number of attempts that he and his house
even while an MK are numerous, and in ever time there was
a general strike by Arabs his house was attacked and its
contents were destroyed and whoever were in it were
beaten. His story in the Land Day is well
known. When the Zionist authority tried to thwart the
strike that was decided upon on March 30th
1976 by the Committee of Defending the Land, but it was
proved to the occupation that the decision is that of the
people that announced the strike and succeeded. It was
general; so the authority organized its atrocities, and
killed six young men and wounded hundreds, and Zayyads
house was attacked. Zayyads wife heard the officer
saying: Circulate the house and burn it. The assault
was repeated after the strike of Sabra and Chatila 1982,
in 1990 after the Massacre of Al-Ibrahimi Mosque 1994,
and in a numerous occasions his family members and guests
were wounded as a result of the assaults while searching
for Tawfik Zayyad personally, even in the 1994 strike
while leading the parliamentary. Police attacked him with
a gas bomb while in his house court, but the ugliest
attack took place in May 1977 before the Knesset
elections when an assassination attempt took place, which
he escaped with a miracle, and up till today police never
found the assassins, but he knew them and met them who
told him about the plan, its details and who executed it.
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