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 don’t spare…

We don’t spare… we don’t 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 5^th 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 people’s 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 30^th 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 Zayyad’s house was attacked. Zayyad’s 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.