From the Inspiration of That Blood

"... I ask myself: on what subject shall I write? On the family, on society, on literature, or on art? No — none of these portrays the reality of Palestine now. She is preoccupied, beyond all that, with a great and momentous matter... the struggle for freedom — nay, for life... So let me portray her feeling as it is... I shall write, from the inspiration of that blood, burning lines — perhaps they may scorch, or illuminate."

"From a letter by the great woman of letters Fayza Abdul Majeed, in Nablus"

Will you not remember Palestine, O Arab peoples, and take patience from her..!?

The cause of the Holy Land has been folded away, as its flags have been folded — or nearly so!

Folded away is a story of glory, and of the struggle of a nation whose signs have gone on shining for thirteen centuries, whose banner has gone on fluttering, whose processions have gone on marching!

Palestine has fallen, as Athens fell from her high horizon, and vanished from the register of existence — as her immortal poet said — that spring might vanish from your seasons, O Time...

Ah, O Arab peoples: Germany tore Alsace and Lorraine from the bosom of mother France, and France knew no rest after losing them — no, nor did her beds grow quiet... Her caravans went on pilgrimage to the dividing frontier to behold from afar those landmarks and breathe the sweet breezes of the beloved lost homeland, that they might flood her whole being, waken the deepest memories, and remind her of the plundered right — so that longings blazed, yearning overflowed, and feelings stirred — and feelings drive nations and make history — and she rose up and renewed her covenant with it, until she proved true and faithful, and it came back to her after being lost. Will you not turn toward the fallen country — toward those frontiers — and remember her, and keep faith..?

Will you not bow humbly before her ordeal, and cry out to her from the depths, while calamities pound her strongholds, and flags, cities, villages, and coasts are folded away — alas for you, alas!?

Or have you read her a greeting of peace — though she gave no notice of farewell — "O sister of Andalusia, peace be upon you!!"

O sister peoples: that great homeland has been folded away — and in every spot of it stands a station of history and the resting place of a martyr — all save a part between two mountains, holding no source of life nor sustenance for a soul. And behold, nearly a million wander the byways of the earth, wearing the black sash of catastrophe and the mantle of injustice, waking in supplication, shaking the Throne with their cry.

Her glory has turned to abasement, her height to lowliness — and has her ordeal not touched the innermost of your hearts, that you might rage at her wrong with a Mudarite rage before which the lofty mountains quake, the veil of the sun is rent, or it drips blood!

If you turn away, O peoples, from those cries and those lessons, then let the voice of history reach you — while the enemy is at the gates, and his aims reach beyond the borders of Palestine, toward the Barada and the Cedars and the two Euphrates and the Nile; that is the voice of the orator of Greece — Demosthenes — rising again from behind the generations, striking the ear anew with a decisive proclamation: as though Athens of yesterday were the Arab world of today; as though Philip of yesterday were Israel of today?!

Rise up, then, O Athenians, before the hour passes; seize your opportunities; shake off the dust of bondage, for the time has come for you to awake, to turn from quarrels, barren dispute, and petty affairs, to make ready for the struggle with a sincere, death-defying will, and to plunge into the frays yourselves!

And know that the victory yielded up to the usurping conqueror Philip will not satisfy him or turn him back. Every day the circle of his ambitions widens; and in the very hour when we sit at ease with folded hands, he weaves his nets about us and plots his plots... Rise up, then, to perform your great duty... What more are you waiting for?! For someone to pour torment and persecution upon you?! As though the shame that has befallen us today were not the greatest humiliation a free man could suffer! What? Do you mean to sit crouched in your own houses, with no concern but to follow the news, unstirred by grave calamities?!

The Athenians enslaved, Greece engrossed, her sanctuary violated by a man of Macedon?! Is this not news enough to shake you?! And what does it profit you whether he lives or dies — for by your failure and your weakness you will create for yourselves another enemy in his place!

O Athenians, rise: your enemy has driven upon you — until now — every color of abasement and disgrace, and here he is laying his plans to crush you. He has declared that he will hold the reins of initiative, that he will wage the battles and not wait for events to happen; he will aim his blows well at you — will you not ward them off before the hour passes?! Fight him, then, wherever he may be, or his hands will stretch out over you anew; face your adversary with courage — or else withdraw, humbled, with what dignity you may...

And now: that was the orator of Greece in that manifest yesterday — where, oh where, are the eloquent orators of Arabic, to weave her an inspiration from her history and a summit from her faith — for history and faith are the whole of civilization? Where are their cries to wake the sleepers — for oratory pierces souls more deeply than newspapers and books, and speaks more powerfully?!

Where are her men of letters — for the literary forces are what move the world — to carry the torch for her and light the way? Where are her poets, to compose for her the anthem of deliverance — one anthem with the power of martial strains on the fields of battle? Here is Napoleon writing to his chief of staff from the field: "If you cannot supply me with warships, munitions, and materiel, then send me ten thousand

copies of the anthem of the Marseillaise.."?

Where is the single leader of genius to gather her scattered parts and marshal them under one banner and toward one aim — like Bismarck, builder of the German nation, framer of its unity, who breathed into it power and dominion, as we see and witness — or as Bülow said of it: "Germany will not consent to go on foot, Germany will not consent to retire, and Germany will not consent to be thrust aside"?

Where are the statesmen who do not squander the rights of their peoples?

Where are the leaders who create the national spirit and stir their peoples in the days of catastrophe and disaster?! Or was the battle of Jena, for the Germans, and the year 1870, for the French — which made the leaders of those two nations bind them to universal military service and spend vast sums on strengthening their two war fleets — a graver danger to them than this enemy now confronting the Arab East, with all his burdens and all his iniquities together?! Or is there any right at all, save for the strong?!

Behold, the Arab nation is now in a stage of perilous dissolution, unless there overtake it a great call working within it its miraculous work, like the call of "Muhammad" — not to spread its sovereignty over three continents within the space of no more than a century, as his call did, but to guard its lands from usurpers and its dignity from humiliation...

She needs one who will restore to her her foundations — succor, pride, freedom, and dignity... Yesterday, a cry from a single Arab woman — "Wa Mu'tasimah!" — made the earth tremble and set the legions marching; and today a whole nation, a sister nation, passes its nights on the fire of torment and the stripping of the thorn-tree; her affliction drags on, and no call of hers is answered...

Truly the ordeal — O Arab peoples — is not the ordeal of Palestine alone, nor the ordeal of right alone, but the ordeal of Arabism in every land where it has a banner and a dominion. It is the annihilation of a nation, root and branch, from the register of existence — the effacement of a glory, the passing away of a history. And this is no light matter; it deserves — by God — to resound within you like the blast of the Trumpet, after which you shall see mankind risen, waiting!

Fayza Abdul Majeed
Nablus — Palestine