'If I must die': An anthology of a stubborn, brilliant life in Gaza
New book pays tribute to Refaat Alareer, a literary icon who looked to elevate the power of storytelling as a means to engineer a vision of Palestinian liberation
It was the winter of 2008 when Israel launched a punishing new offensive on Gaza.
As the bombs rained down and the sonic bombs sent shivers across the strip, the young writer Refaat Alareer, a lecturer at the Islamic University of Gaza, found himself preparing - optimistically - for class the following semester.
Between the the screams, the smell of burning flesh and the wails of ambulance sirens - he focused on trying re-read the 17th Century English novel Robinson Crusoe, the classic tale about an Englishman who finds himself marooned on an island in the Pacific.
But this time, the novel hit a little differently.
Alareer observed how Crusoe, the key protagonist in the novel, would wield control over the story of Friday, his Black and indigenous "companion" on the island.
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The erasure of Friday's experience by the colonial and supremacist Crusoe agitated Alareer; he looks around him and is especially incensed by the prospect of Israel similarly mediating over Palestinian memory or interpreting their experience for the rest of the world.
When the 23-day-long offensive ends, returning besieged Gaza to yet another phase of "rebuilding" and "calm'", Alareer feverishly embarks on a project to document the stories around him as a means to break the Israeli choke hold over what happened in Gaza.
"I thought there had to be to a different story Friday could have told, had he not been silenced, and that we Palestinians should never be the Man Friday of anyone," Alareer wrote in an essay describing the genesis of the famed 2014 anthology Gaza Writes Back (Just World Books) made of up 23 stories to counteract 23 days of terror, as he put it it.
The remarkable anecdote is just one part of a thundering collection of essays compiled in a new anthology If I Must Die (OR Books), by the celebrated literature professor and poet Alareer, who was tragically killed in an Israeli strike in Gaza City on 6 December 2023.
The book, drawn from the title of a poem of the same name that turned him from a local Gazan hero to a worldwide symbol of resistance to Israel's murderous campaign against Palestinians over the past 14 months, is not just a heartbreaking tribute to an extraordinary Palestinian literary figure.
It is a book that contains fragments of a visionary's blueprint for liberation.
Charm and humour
Alareer was born in 23 September 1979, in the Shuja'iyya district of Gaza City, as one of 14 children of parents who were refugees of the Nakba.
As a child he was beaten and slapped by soldiers; later, he was shot three times with rubber coated-metal bullets.
"Early in life, I learned one main thing about the Israeli occupation: the best course of action, whether or not you throw stones, is to run when you see soldiers, because who they target is largely arbitrary," he writes in his 2022 essay Gaza asks: When shall this pass?
Alareer completed a BA in 2001 from the Islamic University of Gaza. In 2007, he earned his MA from University College London before completing a PhD English Literature from the Universiti Putra Malaysia in 2017, during which he studied the 17th century poetry of John Donne.
The acclaimed Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha, a friend and former student of Alareer, described Donne as his mentor's favourite poet.
And it shows.
In his profile of Donne, Benjamin Voigt writes that the poet's work was characterised by "a keen intellect, irregular meter, everyday language, and striking analogies", all of which personified Alareer's style.
But it wasn't just Donne who fascinated Alareer.
He was also an avid admirer of icons from Shakespeare to Malcolm X, and was a determined proponent of presenting a counter-narrative in the English language.
He was also a outstanding teacher, organising workshops and lectures on creative writing, social media, poetry and journalism.
If I Must Die, comprising 41 pieces of work - produced between 2010-2023, is a collection, then, by the ultimate scholar-activist who loved the written word, but above all, his people.
Naturally, the topics he would choose to tackle are wide-reaching and comprehensive.
In his essay, Narrating Palestine, Alareer explains his journey of a pioneering storyteller; in his poem, I am You, Alareer the poet, connects the experience of Jews killed during the Holocaust with Israel's treatment of Palestinians; in his documentation of the 2018 Great March of Return protests, he describes with painstaking detail the brutality of the Israeli response to Palestinians seeking to return to their homes across the prison fence encircling Gaza.
Alareer's voice is authoritative without pretension. His writes simply and uses words sparingly.
Perceptive observer
It is as if he understands that whereas the lifespan for sharing ideas may be finite, an accessible, meaningful and inspiring story is forever.
Alareer is also a keen and perceptive observer of the world around, illustrating a unique dexterity to write and produce high quality works - be it poetry, literary criticism or feature journalism - in describing the all encompassing nature of the occupation.
He approaches the dissection of Israeli policies towards Palestinians and the subtle shifts in the body language of a niece who begins to mumble to herself after losing her father - his beloved brother - with equal importance.
In this, Alareer alludes to the wider implications of the siege, be it through the focus on the mental health of children or the impact of Israeli red tape that denies cancer treatment to Palestinians; the kind of details often ignored by outsiders who quantify trauma only through the counting of the dead and one that only a son, father and a brother would understand or be able to narrate.
In another piece from 2011, he writes about the murder of Mustafa Tamimi - killed when a tear-gas canister fired by Israeli soldiers at close range struck him in the head - during protests at the village of Nabi Saleh in the occupied West Bank.
His biting commentary is mixed with scorn as he points at the sheer absurdity of Tamimi's murder.
"He is to blame for not armouring his body with shields of steel. He is to blame for fighting for his rights," he writes sardonically.
He notes casually that Israel's oppressive policies notwithstanding, he hasn't come across any Palestinians willing to end their "struggle for independence and human rights" on account of said Israeli brutality.
As much as his stories are heartbreaking, he writes with effortless charm and a dark humour, too; even in the most precarious of narrations.
In his short essay, A modest proposal, written in March 2010, he points to the number of civilian casualties during Israel's 2008/9 invasion of Gaza (that killed 1,400 Palestinians) and challenges Israel's periodic claim that it only targets Hamas fighters.
Alareer suggests that given how untenable Gaza has become for all parties, a more cost effective approach to deal with Gazans would be for Israelis to "eat them".
'Knowledge is Israel's worst enemy. Awareness is Israeli's most hated foe'
- Refaat Alareer
This way "Israel satisfies its cannibalistic desires, quenches its blood thirst, rids itself of Gazans... the carcasses can be used to help Israelis build a wall around Gaza."
In another essay, Gaza asks: When shall this pass?, written in 2022, he admits his students poked fun at his intellectual pursuits following the 2014 bombardment of Gaza, which the UN says killed 2,251 Palestinians, including 551 children and 299 women, and led to widespread infrastructural damage to the university; Alareer's office included.
The Israelis justified the airstrikes on the university by claiming it had been home to a "weapons development center".
In response to the ludicrous claim, his students said Alareer must have been developing PMDs, "Poems of Mass Destruction", or TMDs, "Theories of Mass Destruction".
"Students joked that they wanted to be taught chemical poetry alongside allegorical and narrative poetry," he added.
Always one to end with a prescient point, Alareer explained that Israel targetted universities because it understood the power of an educated Palestinian polity.
Given the widespread and intentional attempt over the past year to flatten the education system in Gaza - be it through blowing up schools and universities, or the killing of teachers and scholars - Alareer's allusions now reads like a warning.
That he would be killed by the Israelis in what is being referred to as "scholasticide" is not just haunting, it is a hint at the level of dehumanisation of Palestinian life.
"Knowledge is Israel's worst enemy. Awareness is Israeli's most hated foe," Alareer had written.
Vision for liberation
If Alareer reveals himself as a writer par excellence, he also comes across as an unshakeable spirit.
As those who knew would him would attest, his caustic clap backs spared no one from Israeli officials to jaundiced commentators, he spent a lot of time assisting young writers in Gaza.
He specifically sought to elevate the power of storytelling as a means to engineer a vision of Palestinian liberation.
In his introduction to the anthology, Yousef Aljamal, a student of and friend to Alareer, describes him as "an organic intellectual, down-to-earth and loved deeply by his students".
Aljamal notes that his mentor supported his students, be it through the covert purchasing of course books or the endless writing of recommendation letters.
"Refaat believed that before Palestinians can live in a free Palestine, they have to create a free Palestine in their imagination through stories, films, novels and the arts," Aljamal, writes.
Likewise, in her foreword, the novelist Susan Abulhawa writes "he was uncompromising in his convictions, and never withheld the sting of his tongue against injustice".
"His integrity and dignity, and the dignity and agency of Palestinians on the whole, were above all else," Abulhawa added.
In his final days, Alareer spent his time moving from shelter to shelter after his home was bombed by the Israelis in the first month of genocide.
On December 6, he went to check on his sister and stayed over for the night.
That evening Alareer was killed along with his brother, his brother’s son, his sister and her three children as Israeli war planes incinerated his sister's apartment.
A brilliant life was immediately cut short by a brutality foretold. But it wouldn't be his final story.
His poem 'If I must die, Let it be a tale' drifted across the globe like a zephyr, as he, too, ascended, as John Donne would have put it, to a better library.
https://www.middleeasteye.net/discover/refaat-alareer-if-i-must-die-palestine-gaza-book-review?fbclid=IwY2xjawHUKLRleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHfZs4HRxstldRTeHe0WrvlMbYk-F9M3MaS9xCTURLnTdh_D7rrZYyFlIUw_aem_vBMy06Cb7EU3YtUnk2t0KA
posted by Satish Sharma at
12:58
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