amani’s note: hey y’all — what’s up, how you living? for this installation of til we free, we have my favourite poet, jamila osman, on poetry, resistance, and the sun. jamila’s beautiful title is from this poem by jose maria sison, founder of the communist party of the philippines. enjoy!
Once, I believed in the romance of poetry. That was before we witnessed tens of thousands of Palestinians being pulled from beneath the remains of a city turned to rubble. I think it is very important that we are honest about what a poem can and cannot do, and that honesty must make clear what the purpose of the poet is in a world on fire.
We are not the first generation to grapple with the role of the artist, the responsibility of the poet and the writer. I offer nothing new. What I have to offer is ancient. It is the same duaa Prophet Musa made when he faced Fir’aun– “My Lord… untie the knot from my tongue so they may understand what I say…” When I think of my duty as a writer I think of what Solmaz says– the duty of the writer is to remind us that we will die. And that we aren’t dead yet.
But let us be clear: A poem is not the hands that pull a child from rubble. A poem is not the finger on the trigger of a resistance fighter’s gun. A poem is not the sound of rockets being launched from the besieged territories. A poem is not a protest, it is not a rally, it is not a march. It is not scripture, it is not sanctuary. A poem is not a revolution. In The Black Panther’s position paper on art, artist and one time Minister of Culture, Emory Douglas, wrote: “The Revolutionary Artist’s talents are just one of the weapons he uses in the struggle for Black People. His art becomes a tool for liberation. Revolutionary Art can thereby progress as the people progresses because the People are the backbone to the Artist and not the Artist to the People.” The people are the backbone of the artist. What does a backbone do? It holds you upright, it maintains the integrity of your body and your frame. He goes on to write, “To conceive any type of visual interpretations of the struggle, the Revolutionary Artist must constantly be agitating the people, but before one agitates the people as the struggle progresses one must make strong roots among the masses of the people.” The people are the artist’s moral compass, the soil that seeds our dreams and inspiration.
It seems the poets have lost their way. These days most artists are obsessed with celebrity, with shallow markers of success. They’re all too willing to sell their identities and sell out their communities in exchange for acceptance, or worse, absolution. By feigning neutrality they make a mockery of art itself. There is no such thing as neutrality, there is only its synonym, betrayal. It is not possible to pursue beauty without also pursuing justice and freedom– it is the struggle for freedom that gives life and, by extension, our art, beauty, clarity, and purpose. There is a social impetus to marginalize political poetry, as if all poetry is not political. Like the Palestinian poet Marwan Makhoul wrote, In order for me to write poetry that isn’t political / I must listen to the birds / and in order to hear the birds / the warplanes must be silent.
But we don’t have to look far for redirection. We can look at the storied history of Black and Palestinian struggle, both in isolation and in tandem, to see how our cultural workers have always had a principled understanding of the relationship between art and revolution. The art born of our respective freedom struggles is proof of a deep and militant solidarity that is as material as it is poetic, as clarifying as it is clear. As poets we are either upholding the values of this oppressive and dying (and deathmaking) culture, or we are raising and affirming the values of the new world we’re building together. The relationship between two political prisoners and guerilla poets, George Jackson and Samih Al Qassim, a relationship that crosses borders and iron bars, seas and prison cells, is a blueprint for how our art can be a weapon in the people’s war for liberation.
In 1971 George Jackson, the Dragon Philosopher, revolutionary political prisoner, and Black Panther was murdered in his prison cell in San Quentin. He was only 29 years old. His story is one of wrongful imprisonment, trumped up charges, and state repression. You can read more about George Jackson’s time in prison in Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson.
After his death, among the books and papers found in his prison cell was a handwritten copy of a poem called “Enemy of the Sun” and “I Defy.” They were published as a single poem in the September 1971 issue of the Black Panther Party newsletter and credited to the Dragon Philosopher.
The poem, mistakenly attributed to George Jackson, was actually written by Samih Al-Qasim, a Palestinian resistance poet. When asked about being called a resistance poet he said, “It was put upon me but I am proud of it. I am a resistance poet, and not only Arab and Palestinian resistance. I am a poet of international resistance.” It is this spirit and politic of international resistance that transformed a poem by a Palestinian writer into a mirror in which a Black Panther could see himself and his people. Professor Greg Thomas of Tufts University calls this misattribution a “mistake of radical kinship.”
This literary mistake points to the material links between the Black and Palestinian experience: although our contexts and lived experiences may vary, the language, weaponry, and tactics of brutalization are often exactly the same. What the occupiers failed to account for was that this repression would breed a new and common language of resistance and a shared dream of liberation. The IDF is the arm enforcing the occupation of Palestinians. Where I live, it is the Portland Police Bureau. Where you live it might be the Toronto Police Service or the NYPD. The iron cage might be San Quentin where George Jackson was first held, or al-Damoun prison where Samih al-Qassim served time. When we take away the intermediaries, we are left with two truths: both Black and Palestinian people are engaged in an anti-imperialist, anti-colonial struggle, and that resistance against the forces that would annihilate us is not just a right but a duty.
In American jails and prisons, the secret letters and communiques between captives are known as “kites.” These kites are contraband, tiny folded-up pieces of paper smuggled from person to person until they reach their intended target. In a place where communication is surveilled and contained, it is a feat of ingenuity to find ways to reach each other. It is thought that George Jackson handwrote “Enemy of the Sun” to circulate amongst the prisoners in Soledad. Like this, a kite was passed across oceans and land masses to get from al-Qasim to Jackson. Despite the rules of the world order, the message reached its intended recipient. Despite the bars that cage us and the borders that separate us, bars and borders maintained by violence, we can still manage to smuggle goods under the watchful eye of the state, the warden, the CO. Revolution is contraband in prison. As is solidarity. As is poetry.
In 2015 an exhibit in Jerusalem called “George Jackson in the Sun of Palestine” launched to honor George Jackson, to commemorate the history of solidarity between Black and Palestinian people, and to give voice to the struggles of political prisoners all over the world.
You may take the last strip of my land,
Feed my youth to prison cells.
You may plunder my heritage.
You may burn my books, my poems
Or feed my flesh to the dogs.
You may spread a web of terror
On the roofs of my village,
O enemy of the sun,
But I shall not compromise
And to the last pulse in veins
I shall resist.
The enemies of the sun collude against life and all who love it, they conspire against all the forces that sustain it. The US-backed Zionist entity has killed over 20,000 people, each person a light extinguished, a universe halted. But this poem, this kite, like the kites painted with the Palestinian flag that fly above the Occupied Territories, is not just a poem but a promise that the sun will rise again.
It is the return of the sun,
Of my exiled ones
And for her sake, and his
I swear
I shall not compromise.
And to the last pulse in my veins
I shall resist,
Resist and resist.
If history has taught us anything it is that the sun will eclipse this rotten empire. The light will be the match that turns this paper tiger to ash. In the meantime, let our poems echo the demands and dreams of the resistance.
From George Jackson to Samih al Qasim to Dr. Refaat Alareer. From Soledad Prison to the Qalandiya Checkpoint, from Attica to Al-Aqsa, from the prison cells to the settlements, from the page to the streets.
Long live the poets who write under the watchful eye of the state, who break language free from the machinations of tyranny. Long live our martyred poets on whose shoulders we stand, in whose long echo we write, in whose honor we promise never to put down the pen or the flag. Long live Palestine.
Listen to this podcast on this “mistake of radical kinship:” https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2018/07/george-jackson-in-sun-of-palestine.html
Read: Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5e2b1eb9509d4862f6e435ef/t/6111a6558826c006826441d3/1628546647283/Soledad-Brother-Part-1-READ.pdf
Read: Samih Al Qasim’s final poem: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/patrick-strickland/i-dont-you-death-samih-al-qasims-final-poem
