By Amira Farhoud
If you could choose any nation in the whole world to live in, where would it be? Would you choose an occupied land: to live in Palestine? Well, I would! I would choose it over and over again. For decades my people have lived in an occupied land. Their freedom was stolen, their villages were taken and destroyed, their children were killed—but above all that, they chose to exist and resist with love, dignity and joy! Who would not choose to belong to such nation?!
On Saturday, the 7th of November, Palestinians and supporters gathered in peaceful event all over the world to sing “Mawtini” together, which means “My Homeland.” The song is the unofficial Palestinian national anthem, and the event was part of a social media campaign organized through a Facebook page as a “call for solidarity with struggle of the Palestinian people for their freedom and rights.” I have never seen people who fight for their freedom in such creative ways as my own!
Palestinians in Jerusalem, Ramallah, Hebron, Nablus, Bethlehem, Jericho, Jordan Valley, Jenin and Salfit, gathered together in the same day and hour with pride and hope that maybe the world will hear our cry, and chanted: “My homeland, glory and beauty, sublime and splendid. Will I see you, safe, beautiful, victoriously honored?”This event was not limited only to Palestine. Palestinians living in the West and the United States gathered alongside us, to stand with us for justice and peace.
The event came weeks after an uprising of demonstrations between Palestinians and Israelis, due to the increased restrictions on Palestinian access to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the continuing restrictions on movement and increased attacks by settlers. Since then, stabbings shootings and clashes between both sides have increased.
Mawtini- My Homeland
“Mawtini” is a poem written by the Palestinian poet Ibrahim Touqan in 1934, and it became Iraq’s national anthem. After the Islamic state attacked Syria and Iraq, Christians in those countries began singing it in churches, as a prayer to the Lord to bring peace and justice to their homelands!
I leave you with “My Homeland.” Please raise your prayers for justice and peace with us!
My homeland, my homeland
Glory and beauty, sublimity and splendor
Are in your hills, are in your hills
Life and deliverance, pleasure and hope
Are in your air, are in your air
Will I see you, will I see you?
Safely comforted and victoriously honored
Safely comforted and victoriously honored
Will I see you in your eminence?
Reaching to the stars, reaching to the stars
My homeland, my homeland
My homeland, my homeland
The youth will not tire, ’till your independence
Or they die, or they die
We will drink from death, and will not be to our enemies
Like slaves, like slaves
We do not want, we do not want
An eternal humiliation, nor a miserable life
An eternal humiliation, nor a miserable life
We do not want, but we will bring back
Our storied glory, our storied glory
My homeland!
