« Writing wrongs in East Jerusalem: A 16-year-old poet speaks out »
Mohammed al-Qurd, 16, has chosen poetry and writing as his way of peacefully resisting the Israeli occupation of his land and home
▻http://www.middleeasteye.net/in-depth/features/writing-wrongs-east-jerusalem-16-year-old-resistance-poet-speaks-out-
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http://www.middleeasteye.net/sites/default/files/styles/main_image_article_page/public/Mohammed%2011_0.jpg 16-year-old Palestinian poet and aspiring writer Mohammed al-Qurd reads from his poem Jerusalem – the divine crime scene. Tall and slim with a depth and maturity beyond his years, Mohammed admits he is shy when meeting new people. Writing is his chosen mode of expression and his way of peacefully resisting the Israeli occupation of his land and home.
In 2009, a group of radical Israeli settlers stormed the al-Qurd family home, taking over half of the house. Mohammed’s grandmother Rifka was hospitalised following the incident and the family’s furniture was destroyed. Mohammed recalls the settlers sitting around a fire in the family’s front garden as they burned his younger sister’s bed. His father, Nabeel, tells Middle East Eye that the family have not set foot in that part of their house since.
Six years later, in what’s become one of the most breathtaking examples of Israel’s creeping settlement enterprise, the settlers live in the front of the home and the al-Qurds in the back. Sheikh Jarrah residents, like thousands of other Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, constantly live with insecurity, fear of eviction and harassment. While complex legal processes continue for families in the neighbourhood, Jews from all over the world are able to move to Israel and the occupied territories while Palestinians continue to be expelled from, or are unable to return to, the land of their birth.
« I would like to declare to every Zionist out there that the Promised Land is not in my back yard. Go and look somewhere else please. »
Mohammed says his poetry is not designed to comfort but to make people feel guilty. He hopes feelings of guilt provoke people to act. "When I recite a poem and somebody cries, I know I have succeeded - which happened with you.’’ Mohammed was very pleased I shed a tear as he read his poem “I”.
“I”
There is death
in the eye of a newborn
a fetus tragedy is re-singing
the same old floating catastrophe
and in ears there is storm
only raging for silence
what do you do
when your destiny is already
embroidered in the womb?
There is life
falsely promising of return
so I saved my innocence
for a long gone tomorrow
somehow the children
sing along
to the foolish hallows
of my song
and I wither
under the rain
that refuses to give
somehow I still drink
the tears of those who care
There is a face
written
but unread
with the ink of experience
I write the future
the heart of thunder
and the eye of lightening
only dance to the beat of
‘stop!’
Dare stop a lung
that only pleads
to be heard
breathing.