The Sound of Drones and Birdsong

Anthony Bourdain once called the Gaza Strip "the most contested piece of real estate in the world". Real estate is an interesting word for it. For Palestinians, Gaza is not just real estate. It is their culture, history, memories. Gaza and its inhabitants have come to represent sumud.

Sumud, Atef Abu Saif explains, express the value of resistance and perseverance central to Palestinians. A resistance to which not enough people have been attuned to, until now. "We can shout no at the drones", Saif says, "but we can’t shout no at the United Nations". Palestinians inhabit a world where, like the protagonist of Saif's novel Naim, they could die at any second. A stray or targeted bullet, collapsing rubble or, more recently, induced starvation.

Amidst the pressing urgency of these images, Saif is nothing but warm: to the audience, with his interviewer Veronica Fernandes, and with his translator, with whom he often jokes, asking her how certain turn of phrase are translated into Italian.

War, Saif explains, does not only destroy people, but it also destroys culture and spirit. What does it mean to come into life in a tent, where bombs fly overhead? What does it mean to create art in a place where drones drown out the sound of birdsong?

"Is every Palestinian’s destiny to be in a tent?", Saif asks. To live in the rubble of a city where Israel has bombed all nice of Gaza’s museums, including the Gaza Public Library? Socio-cultural artefacts dating back to pre-Nakba Palestine have been reduced to ash and grit.

Sumud is a choice - but only just. It is born out of desperation and lack of other options. "We are not only victims, and we are not martyrs", Saif states. Just as the Palestinians created sumud, they also created the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish, built churches and mosques, stitched thobes, and cultivated the land. Israel may have confined Palestinians to 365 squared km in the Gaza Strip, but Palestinians filled it with two million olive trees - Saif quips.