Day 1: A Link to Audio by Sawsan Jaber
Muted.
This is not a dream.
ICE deportations.
Gaza as a resort.
No Department of Education
No civil rights.
Arab, woman, transgender, Black, immigrant
All a threat.
All muted.
Taxes, tariffs, prices rising, jobs lost.
All tactics to control.
All tactics to elevate fear.
News broadcasts intended to criminalize.
Politicians intent on dehumanizing.
What civil rights?
Silence.
Solidarity.
This is for true solidarity.
Fighting fear.
Not giving into silencing.
Forging paths of true solidarity.
This is for solidarity
across race, across gender, across ethnicity, across religion.
My pain is your pain is our pain,
Where “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
Unifying in our similarities.
Standing strong through differences.
Unwavering.
Non-transactional.
Transformative.
Reality.
People muted.
Fear.
Unsustainable.
Smear campaigns.
Hate.
More hate.
Hate that leads to violence.
This is for the dream.
Dreaming something different.
A radical dream
inclusive, healing, founded on love.
Genocide.
This is for the olive trees,
the orange groves,
the land soaked in blood.
This is for the land:
producing, nurturing, encompassing.
This is for the mothers burying their children,
for the children who are only the survivors of their family,
for the prisoners jailed for decades without charge,
for the elderly displaced again,
for the storytellers murdered in cold blood,
for the healers killed for saving lives.
This is for Hind Rajab, for Sidra Hassouna, and for Roh Elroh-the Soul of my Soul.
Ancestors.
This is for the Sidos and Sittys displaced again.
And again.
And again.
Those holding on to their keys
Awaiting.
Fighting.
Resisting.
Hoping.
This is for the right to return.
This is for the diaspora.
We will return.
Homeland.
This is for our homeland.
in our blood,
running through our veins-
stolen but not forgotten.
A homeplace.
This is for the poppy flower and the keffiyeh,
This is for all symbols of resistance.
This is for the ancient olive groves, majestic mountains, and vibrant deserts.
This is for ancestral pride.
We will return.
Resistance.
This is for the fight.
Resistance
through existence.
A refusal to be silenced.
This is for voice.
For speaking truth to power.
This is for resisting silencing
and claiming space.
This is speaking truth
“Even if your voice shakes.”
Legacy.
This is for our ancestors.
For our children.
For our grandchildren.
About us as ancestors.
This is for the legacy we choose to carve.
This is about our privilege,
about our locus of control.
Land.
This is for the land.
A coveted land.
Palestinian land.
The land of our ancestors.
Tilled with their sweat.
Drenched with their blood.
This is about our land.
UnMuted.
This is for tomorrow.
It is for yesterday.
For today.
This is about you.
It is about me.
This is for us.
This is about taking control of our own paths.
About the agency over our own lives.
Unmuted.
Free.
With self determination.
With pride.
In our homeland.
“We have on this land, that which makes life worth living.”
We will return.