By Benay Blend
As a collective trait, sumoud has served the Palestinian resistance and contributes to their refusal to leave the homeland, even in the wake of increased collective punishment by the Israeli military since October 7th.
The title quote derives from a poem by Palestinian performance artist Rafeef Ziadah, now based in London where she is a member of the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) National Committee.
Written in the aftermath of the Zionist siege on Gaza in 2008-09, the poem, Ziadah notes, serves to capture “even a glimpse of the love and resilience of many who teach life with a steadfast smile every day.”
Her poem was written in response to a journalist’s question: “Don’t you think it would all be fine if you just stopped teaching your children to hate?” In reply, she turned to poetry to explain how the media chooses to ignore “Israel’s” ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians which has been ongoing since the Nakba (catastrophe) in ’48.
On the other hand, Ziadah’s words are an affirmation of the right to life for Palestinians; indeed, her people have experienced so much life that they “wake up every morning to teach [life] to the rest of the world” Her words are a riff on Mahmoud Darwish’s “What Makes Life Worth Living,” a poem that lists all of the simple things that Palestinians enjoy: the aroma of a loaf of bread, the sunlight that manages to filter through Israeli prison walls, and the honoring of those who have been martyred by the apartheid regime.
In their poetry, Ziadeh and Darwish, among many others, celebrate what Palestinians refer to as their legendary sumoud (steadfastness) that includes a strong attachment to the land, even in exile, but also a mental state that leads to determined action.
It is not the kind of attitude portrayed in the film Life is Beautiful (1998), the story of a Jewish-Italian waiter, Guido Orefice (Roberto Benigni) who, along with his son, Giosue (Giorgio Cantarini), are sent to a Nazi concentration camp during World War II.
Determined to protect his son from the horrors that surround d them, Guido tries to convince the child that life continues to be beautiful by pretending that their new surroundings are merely part of a game.
Not only is this story an insult to all those who suffered in the camps, it also an example of what researchers term “toxic positivity,” a condition brought on by encouraging statements that are aimed at minimizing or erasing painful emotions, leading others to be unrealistically optimistic without considering the context of the situation.
By not acknowledging how his son is feeling after being separated from his friends and family, Guido is attempting to squash those emotions in his child, thus creating unrealistic expectations that sometimes lead to anxiety and depression.
Defining sumoud as inherently optimistic, Laleh Khalili explains that it refers to the nation’s perseverance in dire times. Unlike the kind of hero worship peculiar to Western culture, the word signifies collective resistance by holding communities together (Heroes and Martyrs, 2007, p.101).
The term, then, refers to an action rather than a feeling. “A narrative of sumoud recognizes and valorizes the teller’s (and by extension the nation’s) agency, ability and capacity in dire circumstances,” Khalili writes, “but it differs from the heroic narrative in that it does not aspire to super-human audacity,” but instead values women’s work of “holding the family together and providing sustenance and protection for the family” (p. 101).
As a collective trait, sumoud has served the Palestinian resistance and contributes to their refusal to leave the homeland, even in the wake of increased collective punishment by the Israeli military since October 7th. In the diaspora, Palestinians are steadfast in maintaining their culture, community, and identity in the face of assimilation, discrimination, and displacement.
Indigenous peoples of the Americas also practice this form of steadfastness, an attribute that has contributed to their survival despite centuries of genocide by Western powers. In the novel Where They Last Saw Her (2024), Marcie R. Rendon (Ojibwe, White Earth Nation) writes about the issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women (MMIW) in Northern Minnesota, crimes that have been widespread throughout all First Nations communities.
Like Palestinians, Native tribes have experienced their own holocaust that continues to this day. In the novel, Rendon focuses on the Red Pine Ojibwe Reservation where there has been an increased number of murdered and missing women due to an influx of men who work on the pipeline being built across their land.
After numerous women and children go missing, the elders of the tribe organize a run from the Rez to a neighboring town where one of the missing was recently found. As the women near the gas station where Lisa was dumped from a beat-up truck, they circle four times while yelling the Ojibwe women’s war cry.
Though still traumatized, the women regain their strength. This is not a story related to Toxic Positivity, but rather women doing what they have to do in order to survive.
The run attests not only to Indigenous steadfastness, but also to the sense of cooperation on the Rez. In that small community everyone knows everyone else’s business, but they also come together when one of their own is hurt.
The same sumoud can be found in Gaza to this day, despite the many thousands of murdered and missing Palestinians, nearly 70 percent of which are women and children.
December 6th marked a year since the assassination of Refaat Alareer, friend, colleague, poet, teacher, and academic who used his pen to fight the Zionist invaders.
As a professor of English at Islamic University of Gaza, Alareer taught literature and creative writing to countless students who honor his memory to this day. As the co-founder of We Are Not Numbers, he inspired young people to “own their narrative and tell the story of Palestine based on their experiences.”
In other words, he taught life.
On day 3 of the Israeli genocide, Alareer said in an interview on Electronic Intifada live: “I’m an academic. Probably the toughest thing I have at home is an Expo marker. But if the Israelis invade … I’m going to use that marker to throw it at the Israeli soldiers, even if that is the last thing that I would be able to do.”
On October 16, 2024, Hamas strategist Yahya Sinwar was murdered by Zionist troops. In honor of the slain leader, Jeremy Salt writes:
“Sinwar resisted to the end, fighting off the Israelis with grenades and even with his hand blown off by a tank shell, throwing a stick at the drone sent in to identify him ahead of the sniper’s shot that finally killed him. A second tank shell destroyed the building and buried him under the rubble so that he shared the fate suffered by tens of thousands of other Palestinians in the genocide.”
Salt concludes that Sinwar will go down in history as a “resistance hero,” a model of courage and defiance for future generations. In his last image, ironically immortalized by footage from an Israeli drone, Sinwar is sitting on a battered armchair in a damaged building, wearing a keffiyeh and fatigues.
As the drone advances, Sinwar uses his injured arm to throw a stick at the camera, as a “seemingly last act of defiance.”
“Sinwar’s last weapon being a stick reminds me of Refaat Alareer saying he’d throw markers if the IDF ever forced their way into his class,” said an X user, thus connecting two ostensibly different martyrs who nevertheless resisted Zionist aggression each in their own way.
On September 30, 2024, journalist Wafa Aludaini’s home was targeted by an “Israeli” bomb, killing her, her husband, and two of her young children.
Aludaini was a frequent contributor to Palestine Chronicle, her stories “direct and raw narrative emanating from the heart of the people, untainted by stereotypes or a lingering sense of victimization,” writes the Chronicle’s managing editor Romana Rubeo.
“Her approach to journalism was exactly what we were seeking,” Rubeo continues, “centering the voices of Palestinians, whose struggle and resilience reflected the collective resilience of the Palestinian people.”
Like Alareer, Aludaini mentored young people, eventually forming the 16th October media group consisting of writers and activists who would carry on their founder’s legacy.
She was a friend, colleague, and much-admired writer who once shrugged off my praise of her as one of the bravest women I had ever met. Her reply: “Its my duty,” and never once did she shirk that responsibility no matter how many journalists were targeted by “Israeli” bombs.
These examples are not meant to serve as a feel-good story. There is not much joy in genocide, despite Kamala Harris’s attempt to base her policies on a “politics of joy.”
Rather, Sinwar, Aludaini and Alareer, among many others, illustrate the ways that Palestinian sumoud has helped the people to survive the “Israeli” genocide on Gaza.
– Benay Blend earned her doctorate in American Studies from the University of New Mexico. Her scholarly works include Douglas Vakoch and Sam Mickey, Eds. (2017), “’Neither Homeland Nor Exile are Words’: ‘Situated Knowledge’ in the Works of Palestinian and Native American Writers”. She contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle.
