To the poet Ashraf Fayadh

“Pride to you — all pride — and let them have their turbans that cover the shame which replaced the minds in their heads.”

An open letter from a young Palestinian writer to Palestinian poet and artist Ashraf Fayadh who is sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia because of his writing.

By Mohammed El-Kurd • Jerusalem • 18 January 2016 •

It is truly astonishing how I reacted with no astonishment, but with rather numbness, to what’s happening to you. Living in a world like this, however, requires one to be numb, where, despite me being only seventeen years old, I am no foreign to it, and I’ve even witnessed daily violations of humanity, occurring consistently, to a point where it became what’s “normal”.

When I read about the decision to execute you I felt angry.. but a different kind of anger. I felt some sort of a cold rage, that reminds me how small and powerless I am, in a world ruled by tyrants, oppressors, and those with double standards. Those bad guys whose reflections and echoes make them seem so giant. However, this morning, I realized that you’ve turned their world upside down, and ignited their discontent, only with the power of words! You’ve done that to a point where they had to cuff you, and throw you in their prison cells! And then, I too realized that I have a voice, just like yours, which their cuffs and chains won’t ever be able to contain, no matter how tight they are.

This morning I got a notification that I had posted something on my Facebook page, exactly a year ago from today, which said: “To write is to dare, to dare is to risk, to risk is to win or lose, is to live or die. Whether you win, lose, live or die, you’ll voice will be heard.” And I realized that, despite the people within me and the people around me that try to silence me, those who are silent and those who are loud, in my mind, school, home, or even this fascist country that oppresses and steals even the air we breathe, have never lived the latter as you did. You literally are paying your life as the price of your words, expressions, truths, your self-created life and your freedom. No one is ever allowed to separate and part those elements of an individual; because your poetry, your truth, your life, and your freedom are all one entity that cannot be divided. Thank you for not compromising. Thank you for not accepting to be one of them and like them: an echo, a shadow, a reflection, another sheep in the herd…

Glory to you, and let them have their darkness in which they commit what they fight in the light! Eternity to you, and let them have death, death once they are born, and death once they accept to neglect their uniqueness and follow the herd. Pride to you — all pride — and let them have their turbans that cover the shame which replaced the minds in their heads. Let them have their beards which are filled with sins, mistakes, flaws, and crimes. You are the voice whose echo will never be silenced, no matter how many times they kill you, and no matter how many papers they tear. For your papers will be recited, just like freedom, by me and others who refuse to breathe anything less than freedom.