To my Palestinian brothers and sisters
We will remember how you made food and flowers grow from the rubble / We will remember how you made sure the children could go on dreaming
By DOUGLAS J HARDING
To my Palestinian brothers and sisters,
I am so sorry to be writing you under such circumstances
But I do not know what else I can do
Some of our paths crossed while we attended college, here in West Virginia
Others I have spoken with only in the wake of the countless horrors
The unimaginable violence my country and its Israeli allies have imposed upon you and your communities
To the former, I have kept you in my mind, I have kept you in my heart, through all the work I have done in the past year, and you will remain there as long as I live
To the latter, I am ashamed, and I deeply regret that we did not meet sooner, that the terms of my solidarity in our shared struggle were, even in small part, for even just a second, dictated by the actions of our worst oppressors
In my country and in yours
But now that I know, I could never forget
I have met so many brilliant, resilient people
And we have created so much together
We have organized and protested
We have told your stories
And we will go on telling your stories
As if they were our own
Because they are our own
We have implored the others to imagine you were their children
To imagine you were their brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews and parents and grandparents
To imagine what we might do
If the bombs and the bullets exploded in our direction
Instead of in yours
We have implored them to remember the Battle of Blair Mountain
To remember how our people struggled and resisted such unjust oppression and occupation
To remember that revolution is in our blood
I swear we have drawn every parallel
We have crossed every line
We have forced them to think and to feel all this
But I know we have not done nearly enough
I must be honest with you, my brothers and sisters
We do not know how to make the others understand
The people on the other end of our bombs and our bullets are people, too
Deserving of human rights, all the same as us and our families here at home
We have said all we know to say
If there is another way, then we will find it
And we will go on saying it so long as there is breath in our lungs
We cannot make them listen
We cannot make them realize you are as human as ourselves
But we will not allow them to make us hate you
We will not allow them to make us forget you
We will remember how you made food and flowers grow from the rubble
We will remember how you made sure the children could go on dreaming
Amidst the worst of all nightmares
We will remember how you came together to fight for the children
How you united to resist and to fight back
Against all odds
Faithful as ever with no other light
In sight
We will make sure that you will go on living, at least in our hearts and in our stories and in our work
And we will continue this work
The work of creating a better world
The work of liberating you, the work of liberating ourselves
And every time we are lost in the darkness
Lost in the chaos imposed upon us against our will
We will follow your lead
Because through it all, you have remained alight
In the face of all the worst evils humans are capable of, you have ignited and illuminated all the best in our shared human experience
We will lose friendships and connections and career opportunities and money
And none of it will move us an inch
Except further toward your light
We will go on learning from your courage in the face of such evils
The force required to separate our shared struggle will end our lives before anything else
And we will die knowing of martyrdom, committed to martyrdom
Leaving behind an undying love for our people and incandescent rage to fuel the resistance
Together, we will be a flame for all humanity
This genocide will not last forever
But our love for you will
And I am here to tell you:
We know our revolution is yours
Because our struggle is one
As is our liberation
Dear brothers and sisters,
If I could change anything in the world today
I would build a portal to Heaven in Palestine
And I would meet y’all there outside the righteous Gaza gates
And we, connected through clasped hands, would enter into the beautiful garden
Greeted by grandparents and parents and siblings and cousins
Where we would live liberated lives and move freely without oppression
Without chains, without walls
Together with our loved ones
In the endless time unjustly stolen by this merciless machine of death
Our shared struggle relented at last
Our revolution fulfilled
I must begin building now
I hope you will join me
Without compromise,
Douglas
Please read brother Chris Hedges’ Letter to the Children of Gaza and subscribe to his Substack, The Chris Hedges Report:
