From Tunis to Gaza. “We, The People Opposing Zionism”

Tuesday September 23.

It has begun. On Sunday night we experienced it for the first time. Drones following the boats at night. It happened again on Monday night. I write this on Tuesday night and we are not yet halfway to Gaza and I fully expect more of it. Our daily drills are a daily reminder that we are dealing with a truly evil entity. In news, the Israeli government has started saying the flotilla has links with some militant group or other. Years ago, people would have easily swallowed their hasbara. Now, they don’t even pretend to want to be believed. Because the world doesn’t believe them. I mean, we have all been seeing the wiping away of a people and Gaza right in front of our eyes and worse, The Financial Times put an article out which had plans for Gaza by the Evil Overlords to make it into a holiday resort. We have seen this game plan before. Bali. That playground of the yuppies. Except news was easier to censor in the 60s. Today, none of us can ignore what we are seeing and thats why we will not let Gaza die while covering our ears and shutting our mouths. We will scream for its survival until our voices are gone and we will exercise our vocal cords so that we can scream again. Because sometimes too, even peaceful protests can cause disturbance.

In the last 24 hours, I have watched two politicians floundering. The first one, Barack Obama, tried to claim he’s not the President but he was also quick to do that both sides thing. Listening to him trying to escape what’s happening in Gaza was the first time I have heard that man stutter. How did he have the world fooled for so long when he was really just an iceboy for Empire?
This is a man who used to be a pro-Palestinian activist. Politics in the US is sad.

Over in South Africa, one of the leaders of the main opposition, the party that’s currently in a Government of Neoliberal Unity with the African National Congress after the latter failed to get 50 percent plus 1 in the last election just decampaigned herself. Helen Zille has been touted as Mayoral candidate for my Joburg. In an interview with the national broadcaster when asked about the genocide in Gaza she responded, “genocide is a very big word. I haven’t been to Gaza so I don’t know.”

“They bulldoze you with violence in words and deeds”

Reader, Ms. Zille’s Jewish families from the maternal and paternal side came to South Africa from Germany in the 1930s. She was born in Johannesburg six years after the Second World War. I wonder whether she has ever heard of and acknowledges the Holocaust since she wasn’t there? And that’s just the thing with Zionists, isn’t it? They don’t even try to come out with well-considered lies. What they do is that they try to bulldoze you with violence in words and deeds. But here’s the thing. Many of us refuse to engage with their pretend ignorance because we know they know. And we shall certainly hold them to account when we have our Nuremberg équivalent.

If it sounds like today I am angry, I have reason to be but I am not. And the reason I am not, which is the positive bit of this post, is threefold.

The first being that the family on this boat, after mundane stuff like doing our laundry and washing our dishes with sea water (because we must preserve water), we had a rather great chat. It was in a discussion on why we all joined the Global Sumud Flotilla. It was beautiful listening to each and every individual from the different countries united for a purpose. And understanding that the enemy is an enemy of not just Palestinians but us all. Today its Gaza, tomorrow it’s our hometowns. Because there seems this hunger by Zionists and their ilk to desensitise the world to evil and killings (unless its Charlie Kirk 👀). But as civilians in Italy showed us with their protest, we, the hundreds and millions, perhaps billions, have the power to make a difference and to push back against an enemy who wants us to get more excited about the Forbes rich list than the fact that there are human beings who have not eaten for days. We are many. We have voices. And we will use them until we drown out evil. We are POZ (People Opposing Zionism).

On a lighter literary note, because I love stories and I am always trying to find a way to share them, the day I got on the boat, last Wednesday, I kicked off a Global Sumud Flotilla Book Club. I wanted it to be a text that I would read (or in my case, reread) with others as I made my way to Gaza. I wanted a book that enlightened people about Gaza while giving us insight into the destination. The novel I selected was Andrew Brown’s The Bitterness of Olives¹. The way I scheduled it so that it wouldn’t seem too exhausting for readers was to get Andrew reading the prologue. Then I read the first page of the first chapter and in a relay fashion, someone else who was keen read the first page of the next chapter and so forth and so on. All this to say, South African Literatea has come out to take part in this in such a beautiful way. It’s Tuesday today and I already have scheduled readers until Monday next week. Its a testament to how, as I often like to say, most artists and lovers of art show us that the “human” in humanities is through actions and engagement.

Rifka’s poem

And finally, if more sombre than the other stuff. Rifka sent me a poem last night. And as I read it while drones hovered above our boats, I couldn’t help saying to Eurozone that I’m convinced part of the reason of the intimidation through these drones so far away from the Israeli shores is because they want to obliterate Gaza before we get there. But I don’t think they understand our will and our love for humanity. Each and every single person who’s on this boat would, without a question stay and help with whatever is needed to rebuild Gaza. Because our humanity, as I have said before, is stronger than our fear. But, here’s Rifka’s poem, shared with her permission. I end here for tonight.

Tal al-Hawa, Southern Rimal
names now etched in fire and rubble,
caught in the crosshairs of a genocide.

I am from Zarnouqa, in the occupied Ramleh district.
Born in the Nuseirat camp,
I built a life with my husband and children
in Southern Rimal,
where every heartbeat echoed the streets of Tal al-Hawa.

There, we lived not just in houses
we lived in each other’s laughter,
in the shared warmth of sidewalks and shopfronts,
in the soft, unspoken language of belonging.

Al-Quds Hospital —
where I saw my face reborn
in the eyes of my daughters as they entered the world.

Their school stood not far
next to the bakery that woke the neighborhood each dawn,
the falafel shop where greetings came before prices,
and the qatayef seller who hung lights on the door for Ramadan.
The man who sold Awwama (sweety dessert) in winter.
and Mazaj coffee shop
that holy brew spiced with cardamom,
poured straight into the heart, not the cup.
The queen of all coffees.

When the days grew heavy with sorrow,
I would slip out into Tal al-Hawa’s night
alone, yet never lonely.
The streets held me.
Their silence was a song I knew.
Their darkness, a friend.
The cool air would kiss my cheeks,
and lift the weight from my chest.
On the way home,
I’d stop at the falafel shop
always crowded, always alive.
But they’d serve me first.
Not out of pity,
but out of something older
something sacred.

This land’s children will not allow you to wait
When you are a woman

I never saw it as a wound to my feminism.
I saw it as an anchor
Roots
one more thread tying me
to this land I’ve never left,
this home I’ve never doubted.

And Gaza
beautiful Gaza
Habibi Gaza
is burned, shattered,
but never erased.
Gaza is perished, never dead.
Gaza is destroyed, but never dies.

PostScript: I wrote and sent this on Tuesday evening. On Tuesday night, in the Zionists’ cowardly fashion (because evil works best under cover of night and we have seen often how every morning we wake up to more murders of Palestinians), they had more than 10 drones above our flotilla with some attacks and signal jamming. These toenails of Satan are stupid enough not to reason that as a nonviolent humanitarian mission, we are traveling under full surveillance so that we can be able to prove to the world yet again who the purveyors of violence are. They can jam our signals, but our signals have signals and they have footage to show their attempts at intimidation. Again, I suspect this is an attempt to delay us so we either don’t get to Gaza or we get there when they have totally decimated Gaza. But we are global. We have the world with us. And we are and remain steadfast in our push to ensure humanity prevails.