/Shatila, photo © Ivana Peric, MER/
Today’s playlist is a little different. It’s fifteenth of May, Nakba day, the day of the catastrophe.
It is the day when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled their homes, when they watched skies falling on their heads, when they died or continued to live – with sadness and longing, always looking back to that all-defining 1948.
To commemorate this day, I am posting a poem by Mahmoud Darwish, called The Dice Player. This video features a beautiful animation by Nissmah Roshdy. Darwish writes:
And so the fear strolled within me
And I strolled barefoot in its path
Leaving behind my childhood memories
And the dreams I had for tomorrow
♫
Previous Playlist:
My father’s family was expelled in 1948. I’m so far away from the experiences of my grandparents and their parents, and of my father and my uncles and aunts who grew up refugees, to really understand it. It’s important to remember that there are still a lot of people suffering as a result of it, though.