A captive in a captive country
Why we need Marwan Barghouti as president of Palestine. ■ A political prisoner leading an occupied country towards its freedom.
By Elias Khoury *
I will begin my article from the end:
I call for the nomination of Marwan Barghouti for the presidency of Palestine.
I know that this may seem unrealistic to some people, because Marwan Barghouti is a political prisoner incarcerated inside the occupation prisons, and he is condemned to five life sentences. Moreover, the occupation authorities placed Marwan in solitary confinement and denies him any visitations. My suggestion is realistic, contrary to what some think.
The question is about the meaning of being realistic.
Realism has two meanings in my opinion:
The first meaning is submission to reality as it is, to surrender to the status quo, awaiting a change that we do not know when or how it will come about.
If we adopt this kind of negative realism in our country, specifically in Palestine, Lebanon and other parts of the Arab world, then this means capitulation to our slow death, and accepting the decay that strikes the heart of our existence. The status quo has become our reality. A disaster. This realism is only realistic in form, as it is not realistic to lose the instinct for survival.
The second meaning is the dream to change reality. The dream is the most realistic option, because it stems from the instinct of life itself, and it leads people to work to change their situation, and to revolt against injustice, tyranny and humiliation.
The dream of change is realism, because it opens up the multiple possibilities of reality. As for capitulation, it leads to losing reality and losing the present and the future as well.
Why Marwan Barghouti today?
The elections, which we hope will take place on time, are taking place in an occupied country.
No one believes that there is autonomy or self-rule in Palestine, or that peace is possible with a racist state that bases itself on the humiliating and killing the native population, confiscation of lands and the plundering of nature.
Look at the cities and villages of Palestine, and you will see how the occupation army tampers with everything, enters homes whenever it wants and suppresses, arrests and kills Palestinians without any deterrence.
This reality has one name: Occupation.
Watch how the Israeli settlers revel in the protection of the Israeli army, plunder the land, kill the people, uproot the olives trees with brutality and utter contempt of the land itself, and then claim that this land, whose tombs are shaded by those olive trees, belongs to them. That God gave it to them. They treat the religious text as if it was a property deed.
Palestine is a captive, and if we search for her today, we will not find her except inside Israeli military prisons, and with some cadres who are still faithful to the cause, while being threatened with arrest and death at any moment.
Palestine is carried by people such as Walid Daqqa, Ahmad Sa’adat, Abd al-Raziq Faraj and Thaer Hammad, and thousands of other political prisoners who are making history every day pasted with pain and steadfastness.
Palestine is captive, and needs a leadership befitting her image.
We know that the issue is not related to an individual, no matter how great their struggle and sacrifices were and are. The issue is related to a worn-out leadership that got used to coordination with the occupier, and has turned a blind eye to the occupier’s practices and abuse of dignity and life.
The leadership must resemble the country and the people, not an authority that has no authority, except to dominate the people further.
The issue is related to stirring the stagnated water that stifled the springs of what remained of life after the defeat of the second Intifada, which led us to this negative reality of opportunism and corruption.
A leadership that reclaims the struggles of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and the various fedayeen organizations that made the two heroic epics of the Jenin refugees camp and the old city of Nablus in 2002.
A leadership that speaks the language of the freedom-fighters, who made the epics of the Beaufort Castle in South Lebanon and the story of Beirut’s steadfastness.
Marwan Barghouti, alone, does not fulfill this new direction. But his candidacy and election will be a glimmer of hope to restore the light and legitimacy of Palestine.
A detainee leading a captive nation.
This possibility is not fanciful. Liberation movements have already witnessed it, from Ahmed Ben Bella and his comrades in Algeria; to Nelson Mandela in South Africa.
If we compare the reality of Palestine with the reality of other countries that have been liberated from occupation and racism, we will find that all enormities exist here.
Settler colonialism in Palestine, more ferocious and brutal than the French settler colonialism of Algeria, because the enslavement and oppression of the population that it practices carries within it the project of expelling and exterminating them.
Racism is more superior and deadly than the racism of the white settlers in South Africa, because it carries, in addition to the colonial and ethnic heritage, a sense of religious superiority and insane resurrection.
A total siege has reached its climax aided by the Arab normalization regimes, which sell us land on Mars, while supporting those who steal the land, and bow before the settlers who confiscate our land and sell its products.
This reality must happen, or it must be acknowledged, and this needs a comprehensive Palestinian uprising.
The uprising begins on the ethical-cultural and political levels. A new ethics based on social solidarity, justice, equality, self-sacrifice and loyalty. A new culture that builds anew a humanitarian stance against racism and sectarianism.
A new policy that has clarity of vision and restoration of the language of resistance.
This intifada is the natural pathway for the return of cohesion to the various sectors of the Palestinian people; here in the diaspora. and here in the occupied land.
Nominating Marwan is the first step, giving his commitment and history of struggle.
For all this, we want Marwan Barghouti as president. A political prisoner leading a captive country towards its freedom.
