The Saudi Swan

Although I’m not into English poetry in general, there are some poems I can never get over. One of them

is Dylan Thomas’s Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night. This poem in particular has never ceased

to fascinate me. Maybe because the poet wrote it for his father who was dying then. Or it might be 

 because it conveys an immortal message of never giving up and going on fighting even if the end is just

 a few steps away. Whatever is the reason, Dylan Thomas is definitly at his best in this poem.  

Anyway, this very poem is the first thing that came up into my mind while reading some distinguished

blogs there in the net. These blogs are written by some courageous Palestinian women who opted

to take part in the fight for their country’s freedom by setting up their own blogs where they register

their daily thoughts and keep us abreast with what happens there in Palestine.

I have a palestinian friend. We’ve been friends for a long time. As long as I could remember, she’s been

obssesed with her country. She keeps talking about her country day and night sighing in between 

“oh my beloved country”. Strangely enough, she has been to Palestine only a few times, not more than

five times. Yet, I’ve never felt for the Palestinian people until I read those brave women’s blogs.

And although the media bombard us everyday with endless accounts of what happens over there in

 palestine and in spite of the fact that we are flooded day and night by countless stories of the desperate

plight of the Palestinain people it always seemed to me unreal. Only when I came across these blogs

that I experienced my “aha!” moment. 

There Palestinian people suddenly felt real to me (Don’t misunderstand me! They’ve been always real).

Their problems suddenly materialized to me. Now I can touch their problems, I can trace the wound in

that pretty kid’s face, I can smell the cooking oil that operate their cars now . And more than

any thing, I could see for myself how couragous and obstinate they are.  

I admire those women in particuar who still have the spirit to write in spite of the dire conditions they live

in.

One of these blogs is From Gaza with love authored by Dr.Mona El-Farra who is a physician and

an activist.

 

The other one is Contemplating from Gaza which is written by a twenty-something palestinian woman

whose name is Heba.

In her blog Heba wrote once about their weekend in palestine where they suffer from occasional

power cut and unavailability of gas.

In spite of the dire conditions they live in, these women managed to convey a message to the world.

A message of defiance and resistence . People everywhere are responding to their blogs. People

 from all over the world, including the United States, Israel’long life alley. They encourage them 

and tell them to keep on writing and resisting.

After reading these blogs I believe more of the ability of the blogs to send strong messages and to

bring about changes in evey aspect of life.

For these palestinian women I have nothing to say but DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT!