The first thought I had when the bombardment of Gaza began was to write to the writers I know, and whom I have been in touch with, and express sadness over what was happening. Of course, there is rage, moral outrage, and despair over what is going on, but I did not want to communicate that with them. What I wanted to do was to express solidarity over what have been going through.
Suad Amiry (Palestinian writer and architect) wrote back to me, saying, “I don't know which is greater, the pain or the sadness.” This is especially true of those Palestinians living outside Palestine. The majority of writers I know live outside Palestine. The ones in Palestine are in the West Bank. I don't know anyone in Gaza.
In the West Bank, it is an existential crisis every day, every moment of the day. How is one to communicate one’s feelings, both of solidarity and empathy, as well as a great sadness? Because, honestly, there are very few words that you can find to communicate.
Communication is extremely tricky. A few e-mails now and then are the exchange we have. For example, I sent a protest statement signed by many independent publishers across the world to Adania Shibli over the cancellation of her award. She was to receive the prestigious LiBeraturpreis award for her novel, 'Minor Detail'; but the ceremony was postponed, to be held in a “less politically charged atmosphere" in the wake of the Hamas attacks on Israel. I congratulated her and then said, “I am so sorry about the cancellation.” She wrote a perceptive mail back saying, “In the middle of all this, the cancellation of the award felt like a distraction to me. Distraction from the tragedy that is unfolding on the ground.”
The Frankfurt Bookfair elicited much protests—everyone from the Arab world withdrew, Malaysia, Indonesia, the UAE, and many of the Arab speaking nations withdrew either en masse or individually.
I don't know of a single publisher in the West who withdrew. None of the corporates, publishers’ federations, or institutions, have sent a letter of protest or even raised their voices in protest. What does that tell us? What does that mean for me as a publisher? A few individual independent publishers across the world may have said something. But I am talking about us as a community that works with writers. They are our stock in trade. They are the reason we exist.
How is it that we are not able to rise up together against something like this? Why is it that everyone was so silent that they did not object when Adania’s award ceremony was postponed and the talk she was supposed to give was cancelled. Would this have happened if the writer had been an Israeli? Would they have cancelled it because of what was happening on the ground?
There is a very major, in my view, faultline here and that line is something we need to think about if we are speaking on behalf of writers.
The writer is someone who intervenes. For every single Palestinian writer I know, writing is a form of intervention, their medium of resistance and hope.
I remember Raja Shehadeh (a Palestinian human rights lawyer), who had come here for the Jaipur literature festival, saying “What else is left except to protest.” And he is right. Their writing is a form of protest, not just of resistance, and also an expression of hope, that not all is lost.
(Ritu Menon is the founder-director of Women Unlimited. Its series Arabesque is dedicated to making voices from West Asia available in India)