Can the documented narratives of war be the ‘true history of war’ unless it carries the pain, anger, anguish, or uncertainty of human emotions? Can it just be archived without taking into consideration the lost diaries, abandoned family albums, or discarded toys caked in dust and rubble? The silence of ravaged ‘homes’ is enough to challenge the chronological and numerical forms of writing history/histories.
And when any other form of documentation fails to address the loss of memory and emotions –when the pillows are deprived of the cuddles and tears– poetry is born. Israel’s war on Gaza has not only killed more than 21,000 people, it has taken away aspirations, dreams, and imaginations. It didn’t let bloom several poets – some of them perhaps were weaving a few words to document their realities when they were bombed. And some of them used social media until the last moment to tell the world that they were not silent when the world silently witnessed the ethnic cleansing of a population.
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Till December 21, 13 poets have been documented to be killed by Israeli forces. And to celebrate their lives and to read the history through their memoirs, Outlook in its anniversary issue takes up the task of commemorating them - sometimes through their social media accounts and in other times, through their last words scripted on the virtual walls - etched on the memories of the dead souls.
Outlook Editor Chinki Sinha in her introduction to the anniversary issues while brings in several components scattered across the streets and memory lanes of Gaza, she talks about the diary of verses that Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha took with him when he left Gaza after being kidnapped and released by the Israeli forces.
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However, Toha was fortunate enough to escape at least with the verses that he wrote but Refaat Alareer, the 44-year-old Palestinian poet and academic couldn’t make it. He was killed in a targeted Israeli airstrike. The only friend of Alareer in this journey were three lines that he wrote far back in 2011-
“If I must die,
you must live
to tell my story…”
Death of Alareer though is reported, many are counted as missing. Batool Abu Akleen, a teenage poet from Palestine certainly disappeared into the thin air of virtual world where a ‘post’ shows your status – alive/dead. Only her words continue to survive challenging the enumeration of a besieged population. In her words,
My name is not important
My friends’ names are not important
Our stories are not important
Because we are just numbers.
This is how the world sees us.
Through these poems, Outlook tries to look at the war on Gaza from a perspective of the undocumented emotions. It explores the longing for home through the words of poets- vibrant even in a besieged world. Abu Toha’s words murmur into the ears-
What is home?
It is the shade of trees on my way to school before they were
uprooted.
It is my grandparents’ black-and-white wedding photo before
the walls crumbled.
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It is my uncle’s prayer rug, where dozens of ants slept on wintry
nights, before it was looted and put in a museum.
It is the oven my mother used to bake bread and roast chicken
before a bomb reduced our house to ashes.
It is the café where I watched football matches and played.
My child stops me: can a four-letter word hold all of these?
