1975: أناديكم (Ounadikom) - أحمد قعبور (Ahmad Kaabour)

I call out to you

Though Ahmad Kaabour released Ounadikom at the outset of the Lebanese Civil War in 1975, the lyrics can be traced back around a decade further than that to a poem of pleading, hope for liberation and of resistance by the Palestinian poet Tawfiq Ziad.

Ziad would go on to become the mayor of Nazareth and later take up a role in the Israeli knesset, as a member of the communist party Rakah, where he fought for the rest of his life for Palestinian rights and liberation until his death in 1994. Kaabour, who is of Palestinian descent, has equally championed his people, and has composed and sung numerous brilliant songs that speaks to their humanity, their power, resilience and bravery.

Though the words of the poem which so inspired Kaabour might date to the 1966, the story behind those words and their message about the bravery and spirit of resistance of the Palestinian people in the face of oppression date back far further, not only to the Nakba that started in 1947 (and which continues to this day) but to the betrayal from the British, French, Italians and Russians in the secret Sykes–Picot Agreement of 1916 and, further back still, to military campaigns against them such as the British Naval campaigns of 1840 and an invasion by Napoleon and his men in 1799.

Though so much of the sentiment of the lyrics in both the poem and the song can be traced all the way back through Palestinian history, they are also, tragically, incredibly prescient to the horrors unfolding, once again, every day against the Palestinian people in the present moment.

And I will give you the light from my eyes

and I shall give you the warmth of my heart

and for the calamities I am living through

is a share of your calamities

Of course, we are not only witnessing horrors unfolding in Palestine. As I write this, oppressive forces of the state have been sent by the United States government into the streets of Los Angeles to incite violence against an otherwise peacefully protesting body of people; there are race-riots taking place in Northern Ireland as well as the ongoing war started by the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin against Ukraine, a genocide taking place against the people of Darfur in Sudan and unrest around the rest of the world, too, in Europe, South America and Asia. It is less than a year since the race riots which broke out all across Great Britain, and which saw the attempted murder of countless refugees and violence against many others. At any given time, in any given time, though we are ostensibly living through the longest stretch of so called “peace time” in living memory, the forces of oppression are continuously trying to deter, diminish and, ultimately, destroy any force of resistance.

I am never lost in my homeland

nor did my shoulders ever diminish

I stood in the face of my oppressors

orphaned, unclothed, barefooted

It is the same oppressive and colonialist forces that are behind the brutality and massacre in the Middle East who are currently committing violence against the residents and citizens of LA; who are decimating the planet with the only liveable climate in the known galaxy and who have manipulated vast swathes of the global right into prejudice and violence against refugees, immigrants, the LGBTQ+ community, women, the disabled and every other persecuted or minority group you can think of.

It is no wonder then that, as long as they are backed by the two most colonial countries in all of human history, indeed the two greatest terrorist nations of all time—Great Britain and the United States—the government of Israel feel so emboldened in their latest terrorist campaign against the people of Palestine, and feel so emboldened as to invoke the Samson Option in their rhetoric in response to sanctions brought against them this week. As we are robbed and choked by the oppressive colonial forces of capitalism, we are sharing our calamities with each other the whole world over. That is why it is no overstatement to say that the murder of the Palestinian people is the murder of us all. By turning a blind eye to the genocide unfolding in front of our eyes, we simply turn away from the killing of an entire body of people and turn towards the killing of our own humanity.

Ounadikom translates to “I call out to you”. We can all hear the Palestinian people calling out to us, each and every one of us, for our help. For our compassion and for our action. It is our duty to heed the call, speak up for the Palestinian people and resist for the Palestinian people, before it is too late for them.

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Another place in which the lyrics of Ounadikom invokes the spirit of the present wave of genocide being unleashed upon the Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and beyond is in their contemporary poetry. There is an acceptance and understanding that death may be upon the narrator, in the lines

I call out to you

I clasp onto your hands

and I kiss the earth beneath your soles

and I say, i'm prepared to die for your sake

which is mirrored in the opening lines of the 2023 poem If I Must Die, written by Refaat Alareer shortly before he was murdered by an Israeli airstrike.

If I must die,

you must live

to tell my story

We must live, to tell the Refaat Alareer’s story, and the story of each and every other Palestinian killed at the hands of the Israeli military forces. At the hands of the Israeli, UK and United States governments. We must keep listening when the Palestinian people call out to us for help, and we must keep saying “Ounadikom” back to them, as well.

Since the latest military campaign against the Palestinians began in late 2023, another 55,103 people have been confirmed to have been murdered. Considering the unrelenting levels of devastation that we have all seen, day in and day out, for the last 18 months, that number feels improbably low, and it doesn’t seem that Netenyahu and his government have any intention of stopping any time soon. In fact, according to the British surgeon Victoria Rose, currently volunteering in Gaza, the bombing of civilians has intensified, and there are now far more direct hits on individuals. Entire families have been wiped out. Blood lines ended. History has been erased and the land has been razed. Children have been massacred and mutilated. Those receiving medical aid and assistance have been burnt alive, and those who have survived have been displaced time and time again but they are not allowed to leave the region owing to the blockade. No food has been allowed to enter Gaza for months, so those who have not been killed yet by bullets or bombs are being starved to death. When safe zones have been declared and aid points set up, the Israeli forces have opened fire on the groups of people who have assembled to wait for the food they so desperately need.

From the outside looking in, it may not seem like there is much that we can do and the things we can do might not feel like they make much of a difference. But we need to try any and everything that we can. We need to be contacting our MPs or other political representatives and demanding that they speak up for the rights of the Palestinian people and call for an end to the genocide, as well as signing petitions that call on our representatives to take up the call. Those of us who are able should be joining marches and protests, and, again, those of us who are able to should be donating to the various charities and collections that are working to get material aid to the people. If we can’t afford to give our money to these charities, then we should at least not be giving it to the corporations and companies who are investing in the genocide.

Another small act that we can take which can have a big impact is to speak out for the Palestinian people wherever we can; to challenge misconceptions about the conflict with friends, family and with colleagues where it is possible, safe to do so, and where we feel able to, and to share the stories of the people of Palestine. Not only in their death, but in the positive stories of their lives, as well. There is no better way to learn those stories than through the incredible work of We Are Not Numbers, where, just like Tawfiq Ziad long before them, the people of Palestine show the depth of their humanity at the heights of their struggle each and every day.