Latest / The Real News Podcast / Basem Khandakji: ‘Genocide Didn’t Start in Gaza in 2023’

Transcript

Basem Khandakji: ‘Genocide Didn’t Start in Gaza in 2023’ · The Real News Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to this position of rallying the bias. I'm your host,
0:02
Speaker 1: man Simusa. Today we are joined by bay Scene Condaci,
0:07
Speaker 1: an award winning author and former political prisoner who was
0:11
Speaker 1: held in Israel's prisons for twenty one years. Basscene was
0:17
Speaker 1: released this past October and joins us today from Cairo.
0:22
Speaker 1: And let me say before I welcome you. He was
0:26
Speaker 1: released under the terms that the Israelis concocted to release
0:32
Speaker 1: hundreds of Palestinians under the pretense that if Hamas released
0:39
Speaker 1: so called hostages. But he was released along with other
0:44
Speaker 1: people and being released as you will see as this
0:46
Speaker 1: story on fold, he was released from this concentration camp
0:52
Speaker 1: and then placing the exile for no other reason, as
0:56
Speaker 1: you'll learn, than that he wanted to be treated as
0:59
Speaker 1: a human being passion.
1:00
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for joining us.
1:02
Speaker 3: Thank you, thank you, brother Manassa, and I salute you,
1:05
Speaker 3: and I really touched to meet you, and I salute
1:11
Speaker 3: your forty eight years inside the in justice prisons in
1:16
Speaker 3: the United States.
1:17
Speaker 1: And we and we definitely, uh, you know, we're honored
1:21
Speaker 1: anytime we have anyone of Palestinian origin or anybody just
1:27
Speaker 1: you know, stand up for their rights whenever we have
1:30
Speaker 1: them in the space. You know, we're honored to be
1:32
Speaker 1: able to say he could. You know, let's turn the
1:34
Speaker 1: volume upon your voice. So that's what we'd be doing today.
1:37
Speaker 1: But first introduce yourself to our audience and tell us
1:40
Speaker 1: a little bit about your life prior to being kidnapped,
1:44
Speaker 1: and then specifically the time as a student and a
1:48
Speaker 1: revolutionary socialist.
1:50
Speaker 3: You know, I wonder every time, how can I introduce
1:53
Speaker 3: myself before I've been in prison. But first of all,
1:58
Speaker 3: let me say, maybe my English language, it's not in
2:05
Speaker 3: frequent language like the Science of the West like it.
2:12
Speaker 3: I prefer the anti colonial language. So I hate grammars
2:17
Speaker 3: of all languages. So I try to introduce myself. But
2:22
Speaker 3: I really went on who I am before I was
2:25
Speaker 3: being in prison. If I really was human or human
2:30
Speaker 3: being or a boy a young man, I don't know,
2:36
Speaker 3: but I just know that I was in the middle
2:41
Speaker 3: of war in the Second Antifad. I was a student
2:45
Speaker 3: in the university in San Mai City and Naja University.
2:51
Speaker 3: I joined the journalism college in the university. But when
2:58
Speaker 3: the Anti Father start Israeli war against my people in
3:03
Speaker 3: West Bank and Gaza and Jerusalem, so I think, between
3:08
Speaker 3: me and myself, what can I do? How can I
3:12
Speaker 3: defend myself? I saw all my friends was being killed
3:17
Speaker 3: by the Israeli forces. They assassinated them, They killed our children,
3:25
Speaker 3: our women. At that time, I was a member in
3:29
Speaker 3: the Communist Party, the Palestinian Communist Party, and my party
3:35
Speaker 3: at that time they the political program my party. In
3:40
Speaker 3: some part of it, they don't believe in the revolutionary violence.
3:46
Speaker 3: Let's say, they just believe in public resistance. But I
3:51
Speaker 3: don't find find myself at that time in that program.
3:55
Speaker 3: So I joined some military self. It's for the Palestinian
4:03
Speaker 3: Public Front, and me and my comrades we try to
4:09
Speaker 3: fight the Israeli forces. And since that time, I discovered
4:15
Speaker 3: that the whole issue and the main meto, it's about
4:20
Speaker 3: who is me? And I discovered that that is really
4:26
Speaker 3: a soldier or that Israeli polluting. He's ambitious and he
4:30
Speaker 3: tried every time to dehumanize Mentil. Now, yeah, so at
4:36
Speaker 3: that time, today when I remembered this era, that era,
4:44
Speaker 3: and it's so hard, it's so complicated, because I told you,
4:49
Speaker 3: it's not just rebeal, it's not just antifada. We call
4:55
Speaker 3: it in Palestine and in Arabic. It's a war. It
4:58
Speaker 3: was a war, a comprehension against my people. And genocide
5:03
Speaker 3: didn't start just in Gaza in twenty twenty three. The
5:08
Speaker 3: genocide against us started since nineteen forty eight.
5:12
Speaker 2: That's right. The reason why I asked that question.
5:15
Speaker 1: I'm big on our always understanding that Palestinian people are human.
5:22
Speaker 1: The narrative that we see in this country is always
5:26
Speaker 1: a nerdrative. This painted as inhuman, that people that don't
5:32
Speaker 1: have no sense of dignity, pride or respect, you know,
5:38
Speaker 1: like in this country. That's what we see in this country.
5:40
Speaker 1: It's important that our audience first recognize it. You know,
5:43
Speaker 1: social condition propelled you into a state of mind or
5:46
Speaker 1: into a position where if you're gonna get killed sitting
5:49
Speaker 1: on your porch, or you're gonna get killed fighting back.
5:53
Speaker 1: A great poet in this country called Claude McKay. He right,
5:57
Speaker 1: God just poured me say, if I must die, I'm
6:00
Speaker 1: back pressed against the wall, dying but fighting back. So
6:03
Speaker 1: your back is pressed against.
6:04
Speaker 2: The wall, and you dying.
6:07
Speaker 1: You're gonna die, but it's how you die talk about
6:10
Speaker 1: you know, as we segue into this, you know, in
6:13
Speaker 1: this country, we often say like when the court system fails,
6:18
Speaker 1: then we go to the court of public opinion. We
6:20
Speaker 1: organize people to understand that this is an injustice and
6:25
Speaker 1: try to get people to take a position against the
6:27
Speaker 1: injustice that is taking place. Could you speak to the
6:31
Speaker 1: circumstances of your imprisonment, specifically the force, confection and the
6:37
Speaker 1: legal process, and hen when I talk about the legal process,
6:40
Speaker 1: I want I want you if you can understand what
6:42
Speaker 1: I'm saying, I want you to make it clear to
6:44
Speaker 1: our owtens that you have the military court, and then
6:48
Speaker 1: you have the civil you have the criminal court. And
6:51
Speaker 1: are you being are power standing people being tried under
6:54
Speaker 1: the military court or are they being tried under criminal court?
7:01
Speaker 1: If it's a different, we talk about your circumstance.
7:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's different. The Palestinians who live in West Bank
7:09
Speaker 3: and in Gaza Strip in East Jerusalem, they tried in
7:13
Speaker 3: a military court. This military court established after nineteen sixty seven,
7:22
Speaker 3: and only the Palestinians tried at that court. So it's
7:29
Speaker 3: illegal court. It's the injustice court. There is no such
7:33
Speaker 3: a thing we can call it a legally process inside
7:38
Speaker 3: the inside the Israeli judgment system or is really courts.
7:47
Speaker 3: So when they tried me at the military court, I
7:52
Speaker 3: told them from the beginning, I refused to organize that court. Yeah,
7:57
Speaker 3: it's illegal court. And the confusion you take, you took
8:01
Speaker 3: from me, it's by force. And the judges who judge
8:07
Speaker 3: me at that time they are they are uh colonel's
8:13
Speaker 3: in the Israeli Army. And at that time, when they
8:20
Speaker 3: judged me three life sentence, the judge give me a
8:25
Speaker 3: permission to speak before they send me back to prison
8:29
Speaker 3: from the court, and I give a speech about how
8:35
Speaker 3: they killed my humanity. I thought, yeah, I told I
8:40
Speaker 3: told them, you killed my humanity, and now you judge
8:43
Speaker 3: me about that. And I told him also, if I
8:48
Speaker 3: was lived in Eastern Europe in the World War two,
8:55
Speaker 3: during the whole coast and during the Nazi finals viusion
9:00
Speaker 3: for Jews and communists and homo sexuals, at that time,
9:09
Speaker 3: I will hide the Jew inside my house, and I
9:12
Speaker 3: will give all my soldierity and all my protection to
9:17
Speaker 3: and I will support the Jews by hiding them inside
9:21
Speaker 3: my house. But when the is Roeli soldier kill that
9:26
Speaker 3: gear in Gaza and put in her chest more than
9:28
Speaker 3: twenty bullets, he must at that time just remember that
9:33
Speaker 3: Jews gear at the gate of Osvitz in Poland, and
9:37
Speaker 3: he will throw out his rifle and cry. So the
9:43
Speaker 3: judge look at me, and he thought to himself, he
9:48
Speaker 3: is he really a human who speaks like that? Are
9:52
Speaker 3: the Palestinians can say something like that? Yes, we can
9:55
Speaker 3: say something like that because our struggle, it's a struggle
9:58
Speaker 3: to restore our humanity, reclaim that's right, yes, yes, yeah, yeah,
10:03
Speaker 3: to reclaim over humanity. And I remember at that time
10:08
Speaker 3: my mother was in the court and uh, she's shouting
10:14
Speaker 3: on me. Be a man, be a man. Don't give up. Sorry, prison,
10:18
Speaker 3: it's okay. They give you a three life sentence. You
10:20
Speaker 3: will be free soon. Don't give up.
10:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you God for that.
10:25
Speaker 3: Uh.
10:26
Speaker 1: And and doing during your imprisonment, you go and published
10:29
Speaker 1: the War Winning Now were mask the color of the Sky?
10:32
Speaker 3: Yeah?
10:33
Speaker 2: Can you share the one?
10:34
Speaker 1: Can you share the process of writing this book and
10:38
Speaker 1: give our orders a brief summary of the story and
10:41
Speaker 1: tell us what inspired Also, how did the publication become
10:46
Speaker 1: a collective, how was it how many hands was involved
10:50
Speaker 1: in like making sure that this work got out? So
10:52
Speaker 1: talk about that book, uh, talk about how it came
10:57
Speaker 1: about and talk about the network came out of their
11:01
Speaker 1: space to make sure that it got published so that
11:04
Speaker 1: we would be able to talk about the day. And
11:07
Speaker 1: once again going back to your last point about your humanity.
11:11
Speaker 1: This this right here, this right he shows your humanity.
11:15
Speaker 1: Or despite what they did and try to do to you,
11:18
Speaker 1: you were still able to arise, raise your level of
11:21
Speaker 1: thinking and your CANCI is to document your human Yeah.
11:27
Speaker 3: First of all, let me tell you about about my
11:31
Speaker 3: motivations for writing inside the prison. Since day one, inside
11:35
Speaker 3: the prison, I decide to write, and I saw the
11:43
Speaker 3: writing the aspects of writing inside the prison. It's an
11:46
Speaker 3: act of resistance, it's an act of it's an act
11:50
Speaker 3: of freedom, an act of salvation. Through writing, I can
11:55
Speaker 3: just through writing inside the prison, I can reclaim all
12:00
Speaker 3: my values and my principles and try to searching for
12:05
Speaker 3: my humanity and to my identity as a human being,
12:11
Speaker 3: as a Palestinian. So I start writing. Since the beginning,
12:19
Speaker 3: I start with poetry first, but after that I believe
12:23
Speaker 3: that the poetry can't represent my ideas and minorities, so
12:30
Speaker 3: I moved to I turned to a novel. I start
12:34
Speaker 3: to write fictions and about circumstances of the writings. It's complicated,
12:45
Speaker 3: it's not easy process. It's not it's a resistance really
12:51
Speaker 3: because writing inside the brisin, it's writing in secret all
12:56
Speaker 3: the time, because because the jailers all the time searching
13:05
Speaker 3: us and try to forbidden pens and papers and books,
13:11
Speaker 3: especially especially especially during the genocide after twenty twenty three.
13:17
Speaker 3: And if the writing, it's a resistance or let's say
13:24
Speaker 3: a resistance operation. Also to smuggle the words and the
13:30
Speaker 3: papers outside the prison. Yeah, yeah, that's the whole issue,
13:35
Speaker 3: that's the matter. At that time, I find that my
13:42
Speaker 3: words it's not just words, it's a part of my soul.
13:45
Speaker 3: It's a part of my heart. It's like a children,
13:48
Speaker 3: my children. So I have to smuggle it outside the
13:54
Speaker 3: prison by many ways. One of that ways it's to
14:02
Speaker 3: swallow the papers. Yeah. And when when there was prisoners
14:09
Speaker 3: get their free freedom, we give them these papers and
14:13
Speaker 3: they swallow these papers. And after that, for me, my family,
14:22
Speaker 3: it's it's my let's secure need for me. They protect
14:30
Speaker 3: my word and they support me every time, especially my
14:34
Speaker 3: father rest in peace.
14:37
Speaker 2: Yeah.
14:39
Speaker 3: And and now my brother Yusef, he is the one
14:43
Speaker 3: who has all the credit for my to publish my
14:49
Speaker 3: words and to especially this novel The Mask The Color
14:53
Speaker 3: of the Sky. This novel, it's a new project of
14:59
Speaker 3: me talked about. I just want to say that the
15:07
Speaker 3: discourse and the context of that novel, it's about the
15:11
Speaker 3: literary of engagement. How we can write anti colonial narrative
15:17
Speaker 3: inside the colonial context, how we can decolonial this context,
15:23
Speaker 3: and to write about the other, the Zionist and try
15:27
Speaker 3: to find his main ideas and his main concepts about
15:32
Speaker 3: us as Palestinians. So I drove that character. His name
15:37
Speaker 3: is Nourri Shady and he is a Palestinian, young Palestinian man.
15:41
Speaker 3: He is an archaeologist, and he tried to find the
15:46
Speaker 3: tomb of the Mary Magdalena, the ignorance character inside the
15:54
Speaker 3: New Testimony, and he by accident he finds that I
16:00
Speaker 3: d the Skinnazi idea for some Jews in the bucket
16:05
Speaker 3: of a jacket, and he takes this idea. He put
16:09
Speaker 3: his picture of that idea because he looks likes him
16:15
Speaker 3: and he had the blue eyes and white face. But
16:19
Speaker 3: inside himself he is just uh, he's just not a
16:27
Speaker 3: human for the Israelis. So I used Franz Venom vision
16:32
Speaker 3: about that Franz Venon vision and the Richard of the
16:35
Speaker 3: Earth and in his article about the white masks black skins. Yeah, yeah,
16:42
Speaker 3: I use it. But I used the mask at the
16:46
Speaker 3: novel as a technique. It's not an answer for Norwichhety,
16:52
Speaker 3: the Palestinian man or the Palestinian human, the mask, the Skinnazi,
16:58
Speaker 3: the really mask, this one, it's just a technique for
17:01
Speaker 3: me to enter throw it inside the Zionism concept, this
17:09
Speaker 3: utilitarian concept about us to discover the racism, the discrimination,
17:15
Speaker 3: the oppression, to discover the injustice of this movement, to
17:20
Speaker 3: try every time to represent itself as a nationalism movement.
17:25
Speaker 3: And it's an emancipation movement for the Jewish Jewish people
17:29
Speaker 3: and all the world. And this novel it's a three,
17:34
Speaker 3: but it's a trilogy. And the Party three recently published
17:39
Speaker 3: in Beirut, and I just concentrate in my narrative, in
17:46
Speaker 3: my discourse about how we can engage the Israeli literally
17:52
Speaker 3: and the Israeli discourse, and how we can launch this
17:56
Speaker 3: cultural front against just to reclaim our human ulogy, and
18:06
Speaker 3: how we can shape our identity again and our faces
18:13
Speaker 3: until today for me as a Palestinian, okay, I'm a
18:16
Speaker 3: former political president. Inside the really presence. But today I
18:21
Speaker 3: am in exile. They exiled me, and why is that?
18:25
Speaker 3: It's not just a silly thing to do to exile someone.
18:28
Speaker 3: It's about small it's about small details. The whole concept
18:33
Speaker 3: of colonialism. It's about small details. How we can punish
18:36
Speaker 3: me all the time through these small details. You know what.
18:40
Speaker 3: They refuse to give my mom a permission to visit
18:43
Speaker 3: me here in Egypt, and my mother and my mother
18:46
Speaker 3: suffering from a prist cancer. Every time she go to
18:50
Speaker 3: the checkpoint in the bridge between Palistine and Jordan, they
18:54
Speaker 3: send her back Pnabulus, my city. And you know what,
18:59
Speaker 3: this the strongest army in the Middle East, This Israeli army.
19:04
Speaker 3: They fighting me throw my mother. Yeah, they refused just
19:11
Speaker 3: to let me. But it's not okay. But I have
19:16
Speaker 3: to hold on. I had and I have to resist
19:19
Speaker 3: every time.
19:20
Speaker 1: You definitely resisted because this novel. The response, let you know,
19:25
Speaker 1: the response to the to the novel, the response to
19:28
Speaker 1: the writing. Response that like you know, one time in
19:31
Speaker 1: this country it was illegal for a black person who
19:35
Speaker 1: know how to read and write. It was punishable by
19:38
Speaker 1: death in certain parts of the South if they found
19:41
Speaker 1: out that a black person that was a slave could
19:44
Speaker 1: read or write, they killed him. And the reason why
19:46
Speaker 1: they killed him wasn't because he could read or write
19:50
Speaker 1: or she could read or right, was the prospect of
19:52
Speaker 1: her teaching or him teaching somebody else how to read
19:55
Speaker 1: and write. And the response that you got from this novel,
19:58
Speaker 1: it wasn't because you wrote the novel, and know it was.
20:02
Speaker 1: It was the fact that you had the audacity to
20:05
Speaker 1: hold on to your humanity to the extent where you
20:07
Speaker 1: felt as though that you was able to articulate it
20:09
Speaker 1: and put in a perspective, and and and to your point,
20:13
Speaker 1: you know that this the whole thing is that the
20:15
Speaker 1: whole design of this system is to humanize us.
20:19
Speaker 2: To the point where we give up.
20:22
Speaker 1: Like, but what your mother said, what your mother told
20:24
Speaker 1: you when you was in court, say, look, be a man,
20:26
Speaker 1: don't get with me. So that right there, you know,
20:30
Speaker 1: at the end of the at the end of the
20:31
Speaker 1: process and the end of the day, you know you
20:33
Speaker 1: can hold your head high knowing that that you heard,
20:36
Speaker 1: you heard what your mother said, and you stay and
20:39
Speaker 1: you staying in that space. But talk about let's talk
20:41
Speaker 1: about this now.
20:42
Speaker 2: I did. I did forty eight years in prison prior to.
20:44
Speaker 1: Being released and during that time, uh, we had a
20:48
Speaker 1: sense of camaraderie amongst some of the prison not all
20:52
Speaker 1: of the prisoners, but the majority of us had a
20:55
Speaker 1: sense of camaraderie. And we became politicized, and in our
20:58
Speaker 1: political thinking we feel compared to like look out for
21:03
Speaker 1: each other. How did y'all in under the circumstances? And
21:07
Speaker 1: you described in a couple of interviews, how did the
21:10
Speaker 1: humanity of the imprisonment, how y'all able to maintain a
21:15
Speaker 1: sense of camaraderie and how did they how did they
21:18
Speaker 1: look under the circumstance.
21:20
Speaker 3: We are just like you. We are politicized inside the prison,
21:25
Speaker 3: and we have this kind of organized frameworks inside the prison.
21:31
Speaker 3: We we built and we established this that this this
21:34
Speaker 3: frame frameworks, and inside these frameworks we get our sessions,
21:41
Speaker 3: our lessons, our every day, right yeah, every day, and
21:48
Speaker 3: we take history, philosophy about our Palestinian history, sociology, and
21:57
Speaker 3: we learn Hebrew. Also, I learned he Bro and I
22:00
Speaker 3: consider that as a war pride. I get that. I
22:04
Speaker 3: get that language from his mouth because he is a wolf.
22:10
Speaker 3: I get this language as a war prize from his mouth.
22:14
Speaker 3: And he and he was upset about that because when
22:17
Speaker 3: when you know, when you when you when you know
22:19
Speaker 3: your enemy language, that's a tool or that's a weapon
22:24
Speaker 3: with you, and you can you can understand him, and
22:29
Speaker 3: you can understand his mind, how he how he thinks,
22:33
Speaker 3: and how he can use this operation against you. So
22:37
Speaker 3: inside the prison, and I said that many times. Really
22:43
Speaker 3: I think the prison because the prison gives me that
22:46
Speaker 3: platform to to create myself as a writer, as an intellectual,
22:50
Speaker 3: and as a revealeo and as a freedom fighter also.
22:55
Speaker 3: But not that Israally Jailer's when I say, when I
22:57
Speaker 3: talk about the prison, I talk about this position, this
23:01
Speaker 3: cultural position, and this cultural location. I stand on it
23:06
Speaker 3: and I look at the world and I shout, I
23:11
Speaker 3: am a human and I deserve to be a human
23:13
Speaker 3: because we are. Yeah, and we are. And for me,
23:17
Speaker 3: as a Palestinian, I was not born to be a
23:20
Speaker 3: killer and I was not born to be killed. I'm
23:23
Speaker 3: just born to be equal and to be a free
23:26
Speaker 3: man like everyone in this world. And really, when we
23:31
Speaker 3: read about your struggle in the United States, about the
23:33
Speaker 3: black banters, and I saw many documentaries and many movies
23:38
Speaker 3: inside the prison, but before October twenty three, and we
23:46
Speaker 3: for me, I always feel that there is this common
23:49
Speaker 3: sense between me and this common things and this soldierity
23:56
Speaker 3: between me and this kind of struggle inside United States.
24:01
Speaker 3: And also after twenty twelve, there was a huge them
24:08
Speaker 3: in the Brazil when we bring in an academic programs
24:14
Speaker 3: and I finished my master degree inside the prison and
24:17
Speaker 3: that is already established, Yeah, And that helped me so
24:22
Speaker 3: much in how to understand this Zionism movement and how
24:28
Speaker 3: to understand the whole conceptions about the conflict between the
24:36
Speaker 3: Zionist and us inside the colonized the Palestine. And after
24:41
Speaker 3: that I discovered that I'm not under occupation. It's not
24:45
Speaker 3: an occupation. It's a it's a bad job to say
24:48
Speaker 3: that Palestine it is under occupation. It's a colonialism. And
24:53
Speaker 3: all the time we described that as a barthide colon
25:00
Speaker 3: abartheit regene. It's a hybrid colonialism. It's about high and colonialism.
25:07
Speaker 3: And there is so many levels of that colonial colonialism
25:11
Speaker 3: and many kind of biopolitics. For example, in Gaza, they
25:15
Speaker 3: use genocide policy in Gaza, in West Bank, they use
25:20
Speaker 3: uh ST elements when the when.
25:23
Speaker 4: The yeah, inside inside the colonized the Palestine since nineteen
25:31
Speaker 4: forty eight, they use discrimination, They use oppriation, they use
25:35
Speaker 4: injustice inside their courts against Palestinians when they legitimize some
25:41
Speaker 4: kinds of laws that can give the racism digitimacy.
25:47
Speaker 1: Going to your point, to your point about colonialization, one point,
25:51
Speaker 1: we call it the gym crow. In the gym crow,
25:54
Speaker 1: we call the gym crow south well, basically the attitude
25:58
Speaker 1: it goes. Where's two on your part to make make
26:01
Speaker 1: that observation on how like in different parts of the
26:05
Speaker 1: colony uh colonialized Palestine and different parts they use different
26:10
Speaker 1: techniques based on what their objectively use settlements in.
26:14
Speaker 2: Here we use direct force here. But we talk about
26:17
Speaker 2: this here.
26:18
Speaker 1: And before I get you talked about, I liked your
26:20
Speaker 1: points you made earlier and I want to emphasize I
26:22
Speaker 1: want to raise and elevate that point again that you
26:25
Speaker 1: that you said what you told them to say, like
26:27
Speaker 1: when you was in course, they.
26:28
Speaker 2: May you made me, you created me, You made this
26:31
Speaker 2: in me.
26:32
Speaker 1: Now you now you're gonna punish me for what you created.
26:35
Speaker 1: But talk about what's going on with you?
26:36
Speaker 3: Now?
26:37
Speaker 1: How tell our audience about since they put you in
26:40
Speaker 1: exile And I made reference to how they was using
26:44
Speaker 1: exile as a ways when they when they was releasing
26:48
Speaker 1: uh Palestinians.
26:50
Speaker 2: They was using.
26:51
Speaker 1: They were saying as opposed to put them back to
26:53
Speaker 1: where that you took me from.
26:55
Speaker 2: You take and send me somewhere.
26:57
Speaker 1: You exiled me into a country that I've got a
27:00
Speaker 1: friend relationship with them. But more importantly, I don't have
27:03
Speaker 1: no I can't have no sense, no relationship, physical relationship.
27:07
Speaker 2: Talk about your currncy.
27:11
Speaker 3: There. I am an exile, but and I stay in Egypt.
27:16
Speaker 3: And you know, Egypt is the the biggest Arabic country,
27:24
Speaker 3: and but it's an exile for me. It's not my streets,
27:31
Speaker 3: it's not my areas, it's not my time, it's not
27:35
Speaker 3: my city, it's not my first tip inside my home.
27:40
Speaker 3: So until now I can't undermine the space is the
27:47
Speaker 3: distance between spaces. You know, Egypt, it's a huge country.
27:52
Speaker 3: And I try to find every time something can let
27:58
Speaker 3: me feel that I am in my homeland, that I
28:02
Speaker 3: am in Palestine. But there's no such a thing. And
28:08
Speaker 3: every time they keep asking me how does it feeling
28:11
Speaker 3: in the in the freedom life? And I say, until today,
28:16
Speaker 3: I can't say that I find the meaning of my freedom.
28:21
Speaker 3: Maybe by small details, I can't find something. But until
28:25
Speaker 3: today I keep saying that I'm still in the bus.
28:29
Speaker 3: The boss who took us from the rougha hatcheck point
28:32
Speaker 3: to Kayu, I'm still in that puss because why why
28:36
Speaker 3: is that? Because the meaning of the freedom, it's a trip,
28:40
Speaker 3: it's a journey, it's the If I can achieve my
28:48
Speaker 3: whole freedom, that's mean I'm a dead man. There is
28:53
Speaker 3: no such a thing like a total freedom or a comprehensive,
28:57
Speaker 3: comprehensive freedom. So every time I try through these small
29:04
Speaker 3: details to find the meaning of a freedom. But at
29:08
Speaker 3: the same time, I have to live my life because
29:12
Speaker 3: my people give a precious price for my freedom. They
29:18
Speaker 3: give their bloods in Gaza. There was a flood of
29:21
Speaker 3: a blood in Gaza. So after seventy thousand Palestinians was
29:25
Speaker 3: being killed in the genocide, the Zionist genocide in Gaza.
29:30
Speaker 3: For my freedom and for my comrades freedom. But if
29:37
Speaker 3: you ask me as a writer, I only find my
29:40
Speaker 3: freedom through my writing. I write. I feel that I'm
29:43
Speaker 3: a free man after all, because I live in the
29:49
Speaker 3: we call it metaphora. We live. I live in the metaphora.
29:53
Speaker 3: I don't live in the real world. And when they
29:58
Speaker 3: exiled me, when the security officers say at the neagive
30:03
Speaker 3: the prison, he told me you will never come back
30:06
Speaker 3: to Palestine, you will never gonna see your family, you
30:10
Speaker 3: will never drink the water of Naples, my city inables.
30:15
Speaker 3: And I say, it's okay, I believe that. After twenty
30:18
Speaker 3: one years in the prison I spent. After all, I
30:21
Speaker 3: am free man, so I will. I'm gonna come back
30:25
Speaker 3: to my country, to Palestine. But if you like, I
30:29
Speaker 3: can't just brieving you about what's happening now inside this prison,
30:33
Speaker 3: inside colonial prison, because until now I live sometime at
30:40
Speaker 3: the time of a prison, my friends, my confrades who
30:43
Speaker 3: we live in there, and in the since twenty twenty three,
30:50
Speaker 3: when the Israelis launched the genocide against my people, they
30:55
Speaker 3: also launched genocide against the Palestinian prisoners in the Israeli prisons.
31:01
Speaker 3: They use a new kind of politics against us, a
31:05
Speaker 3: new kind of killing politics against They're starving us. Now
31:09
Speaker 3: while we're talking, there is a prisoner suffering from starving,
31:14
Speaker 3: and they're suffering from scabias, and they are suffering from diseases.
31:21
Speaker 3: You know, we live in the twenty one century, the
31:23
Speaker 3: century of the Ai, and today they torture the Pristinian
31:28
Speaker 3: prisoners inside the prisons, and they refuse to let them
31:34
Speaker 3: know anything about their families. They put them in total isolation.
31:38
Speaker 3: And I was there, and sometimes I feel like I'm
31:42
Speaker 3: still there with my friends as an act of solidarity
31:45
Speaker 3: with them.
31:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, the entire conversation, you emphasize this point and now
31:51
Speaker 1: when I always understand this, and I can't drum this
31:54
Speaker 1: home hard. Now, it's about people. They want to be
31:58
Speaker 1: treated as human being. It's about you humanity, and you
32:01
Speaker 1: have a right under the law to be treated him
32:06
Speaker 1: be I want to say this. I think it was
32:08
Speaker 1: a sore in the Koran Elklan the pin. So yeah,
32:13
Speaker 1: you definitely represent that part of the narrative that your
32:16
Speaker 1: pin say the pen is mighty than this war. In
32:19
Speaker 1: this case it is. But tell what you want. You
32:22
Speaker 1: got the last word. You you raise the voices about
32:25
Speaker 1: congrays in the dungeons, so you know, if you want
32:29
Speaker 1: whatever else you want to say, you got the final
32:31
Speaker 1: for sale.
32:33
Speaker 3: Yeah. I just can't say that. I can't be like
32:37
Speaker 3: my enemy. I can't be like him when they touched
32:43
Speaker 3: us inside the prison, when they use this necropolitics against
32:47
Speaker 3: us inside the prison. Every time I said to myself.
32:51
Speaker 3: Can I be like him if I become in his position? No,
32:57
Speaker 3: I will never be like him, because my struggle today
33:01
Speaker 3: is and my whole conflict today is how to reclaim
33:05
Speaker 3: my humanity and how to write a new narrative for
33:10
Speaker 3: my people and to represent our Palestinian people in the
33:16
Speaker 3: cosmopolitan dimension. Let's see, and my message today through you,
33:25
Speaker 3: my brother Mansa, is there is a human beings inside
33:30
Speaker 3: the really presence and they are suffering all the time
33:33
Speaker 3: twenty four seven. They are suffering, they are dying, they
33:37
Speaker 3: are starving, and no one gives. I don't care about them.
33:44
Speaker 3: Even the international associations who care about human rights, they
33:51
Speaker 3: don't give. They don't do anything because the security service
33:56
Speaker 3: don't let them to visit the presence. And at the end,
34:02
Speaker 3: I really salute you and it was really a pleasure
34:05
Speaker 3: to talk with you. And when I told my friends
34:09
Speaker 3: I will make that interview with you, I told them
34:14
Speaker 3: brother Manassa spent forty eight years in the prison, and
34:17
Speaker 3: they said, oh my god, how old is he? Now?
34:21
Speaker 3: I see, but but but I see now a young
34:23
Speaker 3: man and I.
34:24
Speaker 1: Sue you, I appreciate that.
34:27
Speaker 2: And you know what, and I.
34:30
Speaker 1: Can't describe the honor anytime I get in this space
34:33
Speaker 1: to talk to anyone Palestinian origin is uh no.
34:38
Speaker 2: Yes, we the Black.
34:40
Speaker 1: Panther Party always the forefront in emphasise and exercise and
34:47
Speaker 1: the rights. You are right, but it was it was
34:49
Speaker 1: honor speaking to you best.
34:51
Speaker 3: And the honor is mine.
34:53
Speaker 1: We won't let I always know that you at Mass
34:58
Speaker 1: The Color of the Sky which one twenty four twenty
35:01
Speaker 1: twenty four International Prize for herb fiction.
35:04
Speaker 2: Thank you.
35:05
Speaker 1: We asked that you continue to support the real news
35:07
Speaker 1: and rather to the bar because guess what, we're actually
35:09
Speaker 1: the real news.