By Haidar Eid
Tradition, artwork and music contribute on to shaping the person and collective consciousness. Songs are an organizing device within the arduous work of overthrowing occupation, settler colonialism and apartheid. They’re pa4t and parcel of the collective reminiscence of the folks of Palestine. It’s hoped that the Mariyamiya songs, which is a part of a venture aiming at gathering folkloric songs from numerous components of Palestine, will doc Palestinian need to be free from the ravages of occupation, apartheid and settler-colonialism.
Israel has been waging warfare on Palestinian historical past and tradition. Being a settler colony with a hegemonic exclusionary ideology embedded in Zionism, it claims to have a “civilizing mission” based mostly on the parable that Palestine was a “land and not using a folks”. Therefore the declare that there is no such thing as a such factor as Palestinian tradition.
“There was no such factor as Palestinians,” mentioned Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir in 1969. In Sum, Apartheid Israel, like every other colonial energy, fears most the survival of the heritage, civilization, artwork, tradition, historical past, recollections, and the nationwide tradition of the folks they occupy/colonize, because the late Frantz Fanon would argue. In Truth, Artwork in Gaza is itself below a horrific, medieval siege, a siege that’s the literal antithesis of freedom. And by singing, getting our voices heard, we’re, in truth, utilizing music as a device of resistance.
The denial of the very existence of the Palestinian folks explains apartheid Israel’s fixed makes an attempt at erasing any signal of Palestinian tradition being unequivocal proof of the rootedness of the folks. Greater than 600 villages and cities have been ethnically cleansed and destroyed by Zionist militias throughout the Nakba, and horrific massacres have been dedicated as a way to bodily erase Palestine off the map and from human consciousness altogether.
A type of destroyed villages is Zarnouqa, within the district of Ramle, the place my clan comes from. Zarnouqa was one of many 531 Palestinian villages ethnically cleansed by Zionist gangs earlier than 1948. Virtually all Zarnouqis moved to the Gaza Strip holding their keys ready for the implementation of UN decision 194 which grants them their proper of return.
Like folks from all different depopulated areas in Palestine, Zarnouqis managed to maintain their tales of pre-48 Palestine alive. These have been tales of affection, demise, marriage, chivalry, courtship, harvest, bravery, and resistance. These tales, represented in cultural practices, are what have stored Palestine alive from technology to technology. Weddings have develop into cultural websites of resistance and survival. And irrespective of whether or not the outdated die, nonetheless the younger have confirmed that they won’t neglect. Not a single Palestinian marriage ceremony ceremony doesn’t play these songs that relate present resistance to outdated rituals.
This murals is a mixture of 4 songs and Dabka that are present in virtually each marriage ceremony within the refugee camps the place the descendants of refugees from the tons of of Ramle villages reside. A type of villages is Zarnouqa, however the songs are very well-known throughout Palestine – from Ras Naqura within the north to Rafah within the South, and each space provides them an area taste. The selection of the title is because of the truth that the Mariyamiyya plant (sage) has develop into an important image of Palestine, getting used to present a pleasant taste to tea and in addition used as an natural remedy for abdomen ache and chilly illnesses, taking its title from the biblical title Mariyam (Mary, the mom of Jesus).
Like the remainder of the Palestinian artists, and South African artists earlier than us, we’re pitting the ability of tradition towards the tradition of energy, as Edward Mentioned would have put it.
Ideally talking, we hope that this might be a contemporary examination of the ravages of the Zionist occupation of Palestine and the genocidal blockade of Gaza, in addition to a mirrored image of the vary of human feelings below these circumstances, from fierce resistance and dedication to freedom to like and romance.
We dedicate these songs to Karim Younis, the longest-held political prisoner and who was launched two days in the past after spending 40 years in Israeli prisons!
(Particular because of the Palestine Solidarity Alliance of South Africa, SA BDS Coalition and Pan-African Palestine Solidarity Community for his or her assist)
– Haidar Eid is an Affiliate Professor within the Division of English Literature on the Al-Aqsa College, within the Gaza Strip. He contributed this text to The Palestine Chronicle.
