Tatour, a Palestinian citizen of Israel from the village Al-Reineh near Nazareth, has been writing poetry since she was 7, She is also a photographer, who has has toured villages in present-day Israel that were depopulated of their original Palestinian inhabitants during the Nakba, As well as capturing images of these villages, she has set out to tell stories about the people who lived in them.
Her photographs have been displayed in a number of exhibitions. She also directed a short documentary about the ethnically cleansed village of Damoun. The Latest Invasion, her first collection of poems, was published in 2010. Her second collection, The Atlantic Canary Tales, addressing women’s issues was due to be published in December 2015, but her arrest at her family home in the early hours of October 11, 2015 prevented that. In addition, Tatour has written another book about her detention waiting for publication.
In a brief statement sent to Jewish Voice for Peace on 11 July of last year Tatour explained the effect that her imprisonment has had on her work.
“The poem, if it remains on paper, only adds to its writer’s worries and fatigue. The worst thing that can happen to an artist in general, and a poet in particular, is to be imprisoned in the democratic era in which we live for expressing their opinion,” Tatour writes.
“Imprisonment is tantamount to cutting the cords of feelings and emotions whose letters connect between what they are writing and the people,” she adds, “and if this communication is cut there is no value to all to what is written by this poet, no matter how outstanding their style. Actually there is no value and meaning to the human existence of the individual in this democracy and basically no value to this democracy.”
“My freedom, after nine months of harsh detention and exile, is a guarantee to the endurance of freedom for every poet, writer and artist, wherever they are,” she added..
Award-winning poet, songwriter, and novelist, Naomi Shihab Nye, referred to the way Tatour’s use of the word “resistance” has been criminalized: “The word “resist” – when it is resisting oppression and inequality – will always be a gleaming, beautiful, positive word. In fact, it needs to be said more often.”
Resist, my My people, Resist them
Resist, my people, resist them.
In Jerualem, I dread my wounds and breathed my sorrows
And carried the soul in my palm
For an Arab Palestine.
I will not succumb to the "peaceful solution,"
Never lower my flags
Until I evict them from my land
I cast them aside for a coming time
Resist , my people, resist them.
Resist the settler's robbery
And follow the caravan of martyrs.
Shred the digraceful contitution
Which imposed degradation and humiliation
And deterred us from restoring justice.
They burned blameles children;
As for Hadil, they niped her in public,
Killed her in broad daylight.
Resist, my people, resist them,
Resist the colonialist's onlaught.
Pay no mind to his agents among us
Who chain us with peaeful illusion.
Do not fear doubtful tonques;
The truth in your heart i stronger,
As long a you resist in a land
That has lived through raids and victory.
So ali called from his grave:
Resist, my rebellious people.
Write me as prose on the agarwoood;
My remain have you as a response.
Resist, my people, resist them.
Resist, my people resist them
Literary expert Prof. Nissim Calderon testified on Tatour’s behalf that poets should have a special privilege to speak freely, even when advocating violence, and argued that canonical Israeli Hebrew poets had written much worse verse.
The defense also argued that Israeli Police statistics show that Jewish Israelis who post explicit calls for violence against Arabs and Palestinians on social media – including the phrase “death to Arabs” – are not similarly arrested and tried.
“There is serious discrimination here,” Lasky said. “If she was Jewish, there would be no case.”
The verdict will have a chilling effect on freedom of speech, Lasky added, and will cause writers to censor themselves. “This decision establishes a clear precedent that criminalizes poetry.”
“The poem was written from the victim’s perspective. It deals with resistance against violence and occupation and does not call for violence itself,” said Dr. Yoni Mendel, an expert in Arabic and a researcher at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute who also testified at Tatour’s trial.
“The phrase ‘follow the caravan of martyrs,’ which was the basis for the prosecution’s case, was translated to Hebrew as ‘follow the caravan of shahidim,’” Mendel said, “as if it were a call for violence against innocent people. But in fact, the only two shahidim mentioned in the poem are the children Muhammad Abu Khdeir and Ali Dawabshe, who are both Palestinians murdered by Jewish extremists – the farthest that could be from Palestinians killed while trying to harm Israelis.”
Despite holding Israeli citizenship, Palestinians in Israel lived under a military administration between 1948 and 1967 and faced curfews, severe restrictions on free speech and political rights, and persecution in front of military courts.
The recent passage of the "nation state" law earlier this month has caused outrage for enshrining Israel's Jewish identity in the Basic Law - Israel's equivalent of a constitution - a move critics have slammed as further cementing a two-tier ethnic system in Israeli law.
But many Palestinian citizens of Israel have been unsurprised by the new law, pointing to pre-existing discrimination both on the ground and in law, effectively making them second-class citizens when compared to their Jewish peers.
“I never expected justice from the Israeli courts,” Tatour said in response to the verdict. “I knew that I would be convicted of the accusations… I will… keep writing.” Here is her response to the BBC World Service just hours before her sentence https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06g60kc .At the moment Tatour's lawyers plan to appeal the verdict.
I interrogated my soul
during moments of doubt and distraction:
“What of your crime?”
Its meaning escapes me now.
I said the thing and
revealed my thoughts;
I wrote about the current injustice,
wishes in ink,
a poem I wrote…
The charge has worn my body,
from my toes to the top of my head,
for I am a poet in prison,
a poet in the land of art.
I am accused of words,
my pen the instrument.
Ink— blood of the heart— bears witness
and reads the charges.
Listen, my destiny, my life,
to what the judge said:
A poem stands accused,
my poem morphs into a crime.
In the land of freedom,
the artist’s fate is prison.
during moments of doubt and distraction:
“What of your crime?”
Its meaning escapes me now.
I said the thing and
revealed my thoughts;
I wrote about the current injustice,
wishes in ink,
a poem I wrote…
The charge has worn my body,
from my toes to the top of my head,
for I am a poet in prison,
a poet in the land of art.
I am accused of words,
my pen the instrument.
Ink— blood of the heart— bears witness
and reads the charges.
Listen, my destiny, my life,
to what the judge said:
A poem stands accused,
my poem morphs into a crime.
In the land of freedom,
the artist’s fate is prison.
- Excerpt from A Poet Behind Bars by Dareen Tatour, translated into English by Tariq al Haydar
- Written on:
November 2, 2015, First published here https://arablit.org/2016/09/01/a-poet-behind-bars-a-new-poem-from-dareen-tatour/
November 2, 2015, First published here https://arablit.org/2016/09/01/a-poet-behind-bars-a-new-poem-from-dareen-tatour/
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