Sara M. Saleh on Palestine, liberation and poetry

Sara M. Saleh is a human rights lawyer, community organiser, writer and the daughter of migrants from Palestine, Egypt and Lebanon. She has many very impressive achievements to her name including being the first poet to win both the Australian Book Review’s Peter Porter Poetry Prize and the Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize, which she did back to back in 2020 and 2021. Sara’s debut novel Songs for the Dead and the Living is out now (link below where you can buy).  

Sara is one of the voices that has been a helpful guide for me in recent weeks as we’ve seen the Israeli government cause enormous levels of destruction and loss of human life in Gaza. 

This conversation is really helpful for decoupling anti-zionism and anti-semitism and understanding why it’s so dangerous when these are conflated. 

It’s so obvious, as you’ll hear throughout this conversation that Sara holds a fierce commitment to any group of oppressed and suffering people, while striving for solutions that do not simply flip who is oppressing who. The way she speaks about liberation is so generous and beautiful and just. 

We talk about the limits of identity politics and the deep solidarity that can be found in shared values — and there’s just so much wisdom here. 

Listen deeply, share widely, and take whatever actions you can — great or small — in the direction of justice. 

Sara’s website:
https://www.saramsaleh.com/

Buy ‘Songs for the Dead and the Living’:
https://www.booktopia.com.au/songs-for-the-dead-and-the-living-sara-m-saleh/book/9781922848536.html

Follow Sara on Instagram: @instasaranade

‘A guide to Palestine for beginners’ (this is a fantastic doc):
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lgiFGdUKiPfzC-xo6LZQXvGNIXGHyMYsGCA035kKc80/mobilebasic

Donate to the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network: https://apan.org.au/donate/

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Transcript

Will: Sara M. Saleh is a human rights lawyer, community organizer, writer, and the daughter of migrants from Palestine, Egypt and Lebanon. She has many very impressive achievements to her name, including being the first poet to win both the Australian Book Review's Peter Porter Poetry Prize and the Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize, which she did back to back in 2020 and 2021.

Sara's debut novel, Songs for the Dead and the Living, is out now and I'll put a link in the show notes where you can order that and support her work. Sara is one of the voices that has been a helpful guide for me in recent weeks as we've witnessed the Israeli government cause enormous levels of destruction and loss of human life in Gaza, in a true human rights atrocity.

This conversation is really helpful in decoupling anti-zionism and anti-semitism and understanding why it's so dangerous when these are conflated. It's so obvious, as you'll hear throughout this conversation, that Sara holds a fierce commitment to any group of oppressed and suffering people, while striving for ways forward that do not simply flip who is oppressing who.

The way she speaks about liberation is so generous and beautiful and just. We also talk about the limits of identity politics. And the deep solidarity that can be found in shared values. There's just so much wisdom here. So listen deeply, share widely, and take whatever actions you can, great or small, in the direction of justice. Here's my conversation with Sara.

Sara Saleh, welcome to the Spiritual Misfits Podcast. I so appreciate your time with me today. 

Sara: Thank you, Will. I'm really, um, glad and honored to be here speaking to you. 

Will: And right up front, I just want to acknowledge just the tremendous levels of, of grief and anger and, uh, the energy that you are giving out at this time in advocacy and education, as well as just processing, I'm sure, your own connection to the situation that has been unfolding in Gaza. Um, so I just want to, again, just thank you so much for your willingness to sit with me in that space. It means a lot. We're going to talk about, I guess, the current situation in Gaza, as well as kind of some of the historical stuff and, um, maybe some, some things around poetry and activism and spirituality, we'll see what we get to.

But to begin with, could you share a bit of the backstory that led to this version of Sara? Um, and I always ask people if, if it makes sense with your story, are there times where the phrase spiritual misfit kind of resonates with your experience? 

Sara: I love that question so much. And as soon as you invited me on to speak, uh, on, you know, on the podcast, spiritual misfits, I was like, I have found my people because I definitely can relate to that in so many ways.

Um, but I think, you know, with regards to my origin story, so to speak,  there are so many things that have shaped me and gotten me to this point, I think, but perhaps what is most relevant to today's to today's discussion is sort of what got me active in this, um, In this space, and I suppose one of the things for me really, um, broadly speaking, you know, I always joke that Palestinians is very common for Palestinians and Arabs more broadly to sort of, we, we learn to march before we even walk.

And, uh, or learn to walk and we, you know, chant for freedom before we even learn to talk. And so I grew up in a very politically active family and I was very lucky to be able to have that upbringing grounded in my faith. You know, a thing that sort of gave me purpose and coordinates for how I, you know, an ethics and ethical framework for how I navigate and negotiate my life.

And I, I grew up in that. environment whilst at the same time contending with these sort of binds or double binds as we call them of being a racialized product in a, you know, in a society that constantly racializes Arab and or Muslim people. And then obviously as a woman as well, being subject to sort of the patriarchy that again, impacts everyone in these societies broadly, but then traditions within my own sort of heritage that I have to contend with so that that double bind of patriarchy that we see every day in wider Australia and then in my own communities.

And so, with all of that said, I think one of the the things or the kind of watershed moments for me was, uh, when, um, Muhammad al Durra, who was, um, I'm not sure if you're familiar with Muhammad al Durra and and his death in Gaza. Actually in the year 2000. And so while maybe perhaps people of the younger generations might not know his name, I think the image of him an 11 year old, um, who really could easily pass as like my family member, you know, him being shot, being murdered and dying in his father's arms. That image actually went viral before this, our kind of modern conception of what viral is, you know, he was shot by Israeli occupying forces in Gaza and the image of him literally, dying in his dad's arms to this day, um, is something that, uh, really resonated with me because I was the same age as Mohammed at the time.

So, wow. I think, yeah, and like thinking about this. I was spending my weekends going to the library, picking up books. I'm trying to, you know, pick out an outfit to my, I don't know, friend's birthday party. Just things that kids get to do. I was a kid being a kid, enjoying a childhood to an extent so far removed from these things, but looking at this as a, you know, how someone again so easily could have been my own family member, how their reality was so different.

And that was the kind of thing that I realized, though I may not have had the words for it at the time, I knew that firstly, there, there was something seriously wrong with the world and that conscious, you know, consciousness, I suppose that, um, that is cultivated from seeing these gross injustices, you know, how do you reconcile that?

How am I okay living this way while someone else You know, could have been me or other way around would have been alive had he been in a certain set of, you know, different circumstances. And so I think that for me is sort of one of the things I would attribute to, you know, is my origin story per se, but also.

you know, to go back to your original question, and I guess I'll end on this. The reason I do relate to what you term spiritual misfit, um, is partly because I think we, you know, I don't want to adjust. I don't want to be, um, well adjusted in what is very clearly an unhealthy society that, that is just not spiritually aligned.

There is so much gross, uh, extraction and exploitation and, and. You know, cap, um, corruption, all these these big isms that we talk about these systems, capitalism and patriarchy, you know, I don't want to adjust to a world that is, that is, you know, where injustice is so normalized, where power asymmetry is so normalized and people are harmed every day.

I don't, I want to be a misfit in that kind of world and I want to make it, I guess, better. And so I, I will only reiterate and end on this, that these things are also, you know, human made. They're, they're the products of people and therefore we can create better. People can create better and we have a responsibility to do that.

Will: I love that sense that actually to fit in that system is not at all desirable and in many ways to, to, to sort of self elect to be a misfit if it means that I remain awake. to the injustice and I remain imaginative about alternatives. Uh, I think that's such a beautiful way of putting it. So obviously what is, what is happening right now in Gaza goes back well beyond and before October 7th and your answer just then, uh, started to touch on that.

People, myself included, can continue to do, uh, so much self education. In this, you know, in this area, and there's lots of good resources out there, and we'll put some links in the show notes. Um, I know there's so much, so much history there, but in terms of people like myself, maybe kind of well meaning, but kind of coming to the situation without a whole lot of that background knowledge, because I've had the privilege, I guess, of not having been connected to it, um, what, what are some of the things that you think people need to keep in mind right now, as they're, as they're kind of listening, reading, trying to pay attention?

I wondered if you'd share a little bit about the Nakba, for example, and some of this kind of history around, um, you know, what, what lies beneath and behind what we're currently seeing unfold.

Sara: I mean, obviously there's a lot in there, but, um. I guess before we kind of go into a little bit about what's happening in the history as well, or maybe some highlights of the history, I want to say that I don't think that people should shy away or feel like they can't have an opinion on something because they might not fully understand or grasp the history of what is happening right now.

I mean, when I was nine years old and everything was happening in Bosnia, Kosovo, I was quite young and again, didn't fully understand the history, but I knew seeing images on TV and hearing about the stories of refugees and people getting murdered, that that was wrong. As I you know, got older and learned about South Africa.

I, to this day, don't know the entire, you know, full history by detail. I'm off by heart rather in detail, but I know that apartheid and systems of segregation and racial exclusion and any system that, you know, Is basically built on one community or one group being held, uh, you know, being, um, sort of, uh, given, you know, more rights than any other.

So, you know, a supremacist system is wrong. I don't need to have the entire history. And I say this because I think people often Use that, you know, as a, as a shield or to shy away or they're afraid of making mistakes. Uh, but more importantly, I think it's sometimes used to obfuscate. So people, um, particularly, uh, Israel, you know, there's a very common tactic.

by those in power, by those who are benefiting from the status quo to say, well, you don't know the history and we're the only ones who are equipped to speak to this. And we're the only ones who know this history. And so that's a very deliberate obfuscation tool or tactic to silence any sort of dissent and any sort of, um, opinion that is different to theirs.

So I really want to drill that down. I think people can see what is going on and you're, if you were listening to your gut without even knowing that, you know, 70 plus years of history, you can see that what is happening, that the genocide that is happening is wrong.  

Will: Oh yeah. You do not need to be an expert to be absolutely horrified and to be absolutely moved, you know, towards whatever action you can do to advocate for the, for the suffering.

Sara: And I think, um, so, you know, to respond to your question, I think if people have just started to sort of tune in, um, you know, from October 7, I would say that. I would ask why, because, you know, for me, this, as we already touched upon, you know, 20, 30 years ago, um, sorry, near 2000 when Maduro was killed, I just gave you an example, and I hadn't even really intended on kind of demonstrating that it is, you know, ongoing, but I guess.

You know, so this, the violence and, uh, what has been happening did not, you know, occur, um, hasn't occurred in vacuum. There is obviously a history, as we've said, and I think, um, to go back to, or to put it in the most Simplest terms. What is happening at this point in Palestine at the moment is really what I would say is an indigenous struggle for justice against a system of settler colonialism and apartheid that has been imposed on us for 75 You know, years plus.

And you mentioned the Nakba, which is often the starting point for a lot of people, historically speaking. And the Nakba is what, uh, the Palestinian, uh, what Palestinians refer to as our dispossession. So when Israel was established, the settler colonial state of Israel was established in 1948. Um, it did so, uh, whilst simultaneously dispossessing 750, 000 plus, and that's a conservative figure, Palestinians from their homes, from their lands, from their families, from their communities, uh, in addition to killing thousands and thousands as well, in order to establish this state on, on Palestinian land.

And so the dispossession, the Nakba as we call it, which occurred in 1948. was a sort of a big watershed moment. But what many Palestinians will also tell you is that the Nakba is ongoing because from that point, 1948 and to this day, Palestinians have been subjected in so many different ways and manifestations.

And we can, you know, talk about that in detail, but have been what, what I will sort of kind of. Put in a nutshell, really, as as an occupying power, Israel being the state that occupies Palestine being built on, as I said, stolen land has the power to inflict violence and has been inflicting violence on Palestinians every single day through the dispossession, ongoing dispossession through land theft, through bulldozing of Palestinian homes and farmlands and villages.

It does so through the checkpoints that you might have seen through the news where Every single day, Palestinians have to pass through, especially in the West Bank, have to pass through these checkpoints in order to go to their jobs, visit their families, um, seek out livelihood, any sort of movement is controlled by, um, the Israeli occupying forces, resources, electricity, water, and we can talk a little bit as well about that in the context of Gaza, which we saw.

You know, in the last few weeks, there are so many ways that, um, you know, the green light that Israel has given, um, to expand illegal settlements on Palestinian lands. And again, the list is ongoing and you need only read a report by Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International, or the countless reports, you know, that Palestinians have put out in Israeli human rights organizations that will speak to the ongoing occupation.

And apartheid regime and colonialism. Um, and we can unpack those terms as well. But that must be our starting point. If we are to approach this from a really sort of intellectually honest place, we have to understand that this is a select settler colonial, um  project. That is, ultimately, it's, it's only goal is to get rid of the Palestinians on that land.

We are frustrating them by being there, by existing, by living, by holding on to the land. And they do that through tools like occupation and like apartheid and so on. 

Will: When you hear about it like that, when you, when you read about it, when you look at it in what seems like just the plain terms, it just seems so clear.

Um, that it is so clearly, um, uh, an ongoing, continual system of injustice, um, and it doesn't really seem like it's that complex in a lot of ways. And yet, like you said, you know, there are a lot of ways that people do try and obfuscate the conversation. There are a lot of ways people try and, I guess, you know, add murkiness that maybe actually isn't there.

And, and one of the ways that that has been highlighted in recent weeks is this kind of conflation, um, between being anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist. And um, I think that kind of highlights one of the things that this podcast is constantly unpacking, which is some of those messy conflations between religious identities and then ideologies that hide behind.

the guise of a religious identity that actually have nothing to do with the spirituality beneath that or with what that religious identity is actually intended to be. Um, do you want to help to disentangle, you know, some of those things? Cause I think that's immediately what often comes up for people is, Oh, but if you criticize the modern state of Israel.

You're participating in the ongoing oppression of, uh, of Jewish people, which is, which is absolutely not true. But do you want to kind of unpack, you know, why being pro Palestinian is certainly not being anti Semitic? 

Sara: Yeah, I think that there are a couple of things there that we need to sort of, um, Unpack and understand.

And, you know, I also want to draw on some work by an anti Zionist Jewish historian and writer, Basia Cohen, um, who sort of explains some of these points. But before I do, I think, you know, for me, being, um Someone who is advocating for a Palestinian liberation and freedom for Palestinians necessitates being someone who is part of an anti racist movement that is ultimately advocating for the rights, the equality, the freedom for everyone, for all people to live.

You know, I, when I say that I want To live free. I want to be able or, you know, Palestinians to live free in their lands. Um, you know, able to travel, able to move, able to have access to resources, uh, without, um, Israel controlling every single inch of their lives. I would want that for every single person so I don't believe in any sort of exceptionalism and there are many anti colonial and decolonial movements and struggles in history and present that we can draw inspiration from as we kind of build our broader anti racist and anti-colonial movement because ultimately we all Rely on each other to fight racism and we're all relying on each other to build this world that allows for our many worlds that allows room for all of us to bring in, you know, all of all of our parts.

And so I think while antisemitism, for example, like Islamophobia, like homophobia, like many other forms of discrimination is extremely serious and wrong and should be, um, You know, we should fight it and speak out against it. I also think that, uh, conflating it with what we know to be anti Zionism is a very dangerous thing because it not only dilutes genuine and real anti Semitism, Um, by just, you know, uh, uh, conflating it and therefore, um, undermining it, but it also is used.

It's a weaponized. And when it's weaponized, it's used specifically for the purpose of shutting down any valid critique, uh, any commentary one might have on the state of, um, the Israeli state's policies. So. I'm free to critique the Australian government, and therefore, in that same way, I should be free to critique the Israeli government's policies, their ongoing violence, without being accused of any sort of, um, you know, uh, without being accused of anti Semitism in an insincere, disingenuous way to shut down my critiques and to pretend that I'm suddenly, um, you know, anti Jewish or sort of speaking out in a way that's hateful to Jews, whereas actually that couldn't be further from the truth.

And so I think most people will understand anti Semitism in its like simplest form, which is, you know, to be, um, to be very clear on that. But we also need to understand what Zionism is so that we can separate the idea from Jewishness. Because I think A lot of people don't understand that Zionism or might not know that Zionism is actually rooted in sort of, uh, it's a product of European imperialism and colonialism.

So it came out of a political movement, sort of separate from the idea that Jewish Jew, like Jewishness and Jews have a connection to a piece of land. You, it's valid to have a, you know, connection to a piece of land. I might. For example, feel in a different way connected to Mecca in Saudi Arabia. But I have grave problems with, you know, the government of Saudi Arabia and how they run that as a state, as a country.

So having connection to the land isn't the same as. It's building and propagating a settler colonial nation state. And so Zionism in this instance comes out of this historical movement where at a time where you know they were facing antisemitism, real antisemitism in Europe, and they were, you know, Jews were coming together and answering questions around where they fit into the world into the European world.

And I think, so this is where I say there's a link between being a product of. imperialism and colonialism. Um, but also taking that system and then perpetrating it against another population and other people. I don't think that people particularly source, sorry, I don't think that groups specifically need to have a state just for them to feel safe.

I think if everyone did that. You know, I don't think people, um, like rather than focus on having states that are supremacist in any way, Jewish supremacist, Muslim supremacist, we should have movements and places and communities that are open for all as I sort of started this conversation, right? So why is it that Jews are the exception?

Why should Jews have a state that is only for them again at the expense of a population, their freedom, their rights, and why should it be so when there are so many other groups who are persecuted so many other, um, you know, at this point in time, Gaza and Palestinians aren't the only ones facing a genocide.

There are many other groups, including in Sudan and Congo at the moment facing similar levels of violence. And so the question this becomes a question of. One, why is it that we are exceptionalizing some over others? And two, why is it that we can't actually advocate for liberation and freedom for everyone, as opposed to for some over others?

And three, are we genuine and sincere about building these movements? And if so, we need to think about what that means around like our own behavior, anti Semitism, and so on and create the A movement that doesn't allow for any of those things, um, and is very careful around how we distinguish anti Semitism and anti Zionism.

Will: That was so helpful. There was, there was so much in that that was just so clarifying and also just so appealing in terms of, you know, I, I want to be with you. In that struggle for all people to have, um, freedom and liberation and, and dignity and, you know, the basics, really, I mean, it's just the basic stuff.

Then we can, we can figure out what comes after that, but it kind of reminded me of a friend who's been on the podcast, Becca De Souza. She shared this kind of idea. I can't remember who she attributed it to and I need to go and find out, but it was this idea that, you know, there are two religions in the world.

There's the religion of peace, and there's the religion of empire. And in a sense, those transcend and find their way into, you know, expressions under all of the labels that we might, we might identify with religiously. And certainly for me. And that's part of the tension is going, I'm trying to find a Christianity that is grounded in the ethic of Jesus, which is absolutely about enemy love and liberation and turning every unjust system upside down.

And that is so different from the kind of white colonial, um, you know, Christianity that is always in bed with the empire and the oppressor. And I find myself at a, at a point in time where I just feel like I have so much more in common with friends across religious divides, who actually, in many ways, we share exactly the same heart for justice and peace and goodness and beauty.

Just wondering if those are tensions you find yourself navigating and how, how you kind of think about some of those, you know, tricky kind of, uh, you know. The terrain of some of that, 

Sara: I think certainly, um, I'm really glad that you bring that up because I think ultimately what that says to me is there's, uh, ultimately identity politics has its limitations.

So it's, you know, at the end of the day, we need to be looking to build systems that are inclusive of everyone and not built on any sort of exclusion, whether it's race or ability or any, any sort of traits that, you know, we're almost born with, um, And so for me, I want to be able to be part of that and therefore will always.

have connections and, uh, feel, you know, held and seen by people who are on that same page and share the same values. Even if, for example, their background is entirely different or their upbringing, their lived experience, no matter how different that might be, they don't necessarily need to be Palestinian or, you know, Muslim or whatever, you know, we don't need to have intersections in our identities for me to just feel solely.

Related in that way, because I think values are ultimately what define us and define our world and religion, you know, can be an ethical framework for that, but it's ultimately. Our values that are going to bring us forward and if it's not grounded in, in love, as you say, in joy and in moments where we are allowing for growth and accountability, um, then, yeah, then I don't, I don't really want to be part of that, that any, that any other world or any kind of articulation of a world that relies on harming and excluding others, ultimately. If I can just add a point, uh, I was thinking about, um, in the, in the sort of the previous question around, again, anti Semitism, because I think it might be, um, worth mentioning. Um, we're talking about power and power relationships, and I think, as I've already said, you know, there's a grave power asymmetry between people who are facing oppression and oppressed and colonized or colonized.

And there's, Multiple things on that front that I want to say, that while there is no equivocation between those groups, I also really want to be coming from a place where I'm not turning into, you know, the monster that I'm... Fighting,  you know, I, I don't want to become a monster in fighting the monster.

I'm trying to create a world and a liberation and a vision that has room for both of us. Ultimately, um, what, you know, how we get there is, is another question altogether. Um, but that is one thing that I want to sort of reiterate. But then the other thing that I want to reiterate is in saying that there is no equivocation.

I think what I would love people to take away from this is that, as I mentioned earlier, Israel weaponizes. And very deliberately and falsely invokes anti Semitism structurally and systematically, so it can shut down critique, you know, of its actions, as I said, as a colonial state, to shut down dissent, you know, on the brutal violence that we are facing every day.

It wants us to be scared and anxious to speak out. But in the same breath that it does that, Israel, again, its, its affiliates and its lobbies and its members, um, will accept neo Nazis, you know, when it suits them at rallies like we saw in the U. S. two weeks ago. I'm here and they had literal leaders, speakers, um, who were, who are known anti Semites.

But because, you know, they are in support of what's happening right now, they, they platform them. So they will accept neo Nazis when it suits them. They will make arms trade deals with anti Semites and leaders, you know, on a global scale who are, who have been known to be anti Semitic again, when it suits them to keep that global political leverage, because having, you know, um, these, uh, arms trade relationships allows Israel to have leverage.

And then In addition to that, it'll weaponize Islamophobia structurally and systematically so that every time, you know, we're having a conversation, all they need to do to shut it down is to throw in the word terrorist right and to throw in sort of the scarecrow, scaremongering terminologies, because they have spent decades constructing this image of us and benefiting off of this image of us as hyper criminalized, hyper violent people, people who are less than human.

And they've done this, um, in their own kind of, um, As part of their own efforts, but also throughout the war on terror, part of that, I think, and this is why at this point in time, there are many people who think it's okay to murder us wholesale, right, without, without batting an eyelid. So, I'll end on this.

I think when Israel says it speaks for Jewish people, from my Jewish friends and communities and comrades themselves, I know and we know that Israel doesn't. It doesn't speak for them. It co opts it. And I am unequivocally and unconditionally committed to a world where we can live alongside each other, Jews, Arabs, Muslims, everything in between and allowing for the intersections of our identities, you know, in freedom, in dignity, in liberation and in care.

And that for me will never be compromised. 

Will: I think it's so helpful and it's exactly the same thing for people listening to, to this as you know, uh, Donald Trump claiming to represent any form of, of Christianity or, um, the Australian Christian lobby claiming to, to represent, you know, it's, if, if you are somebody who has had a problem with that in the past, it's exactly the same phenomenon, um, of people, again, that, that label can be used to try and have some sort of political influence or to shut down a conversation.

Yeah. But you pretty quickly see that I think, like you said, if you're viewing the world through values. Um, you can immediately see that all of those kind of surface level labels, they break down very quickly and, um, you know, yeah, it's not, it's not hard to look for all of the beautiful advocacy and activism happening right now from Jewish people critiquing that very system and saying, this is not us and it's so important to, to emphatically.

You know, get that across 

Sara: completely. And I think ultimately, you know, representation isn't revolution. And for me, I think, uh, I will always have more in common with my anti Zionist Jewish comrades than say someone who might be, you know, pro Zionist, whatever their background, whether they're a brown person or otherwise.

And there are many of those as well who've been co opted or who have, you know, internalized. Um, Islamophobia or whatever that, whatever that reason may be. I think it's, it's important to note that we need to be critical about things, um, and what we consume and who we listen to, and just because someone might appear to be the right color of what it is, you know, you're looking for, it doesn't necessarily mean that they hold and share the same values, and that's also something to be mindful of.

In this, um, in, yeah, in when we are seeking knowledge. Yep. 

Will: Uh, Sara, you are so wise and articulate and I could just listen to you for, um, hours. Um, I am conscious of, of your limited time, but I did want to get to this question, um, as a, as a fellow poet, you know, it can be easy, uh, to feel like what use does something like poetry have to offer in a world where we see such atrocities. Like it can really feel like, um, so impractical or intangible. Um, and yet, uh, it's a big part. I think your poetry is actually very interwoven with your work as a human rights lawyer and, and as someone who is advocating, um, for, for justice that is, that is felt, that is tangible.

Do you want to talk a little bit about how you kind of see that relationship between the storytellers and, and I guess in my religious tradition, the, the prophets are poets often, and there, there is something about the poetic form that can speak such powerful truth. How, how does that play out for you? 

Sara: love that so much. 
Thank you for asking me that question, Will. Um, I think that poetry can be A hopeful art. And I also think it's, uh, about, uh, discipline as well. As a writer, as a poet, I show up every day to the page, or almost every day, to the page with a certain level of discipline, and I'm going to be writing Whether it's good, whether it happens to be good today, whether it happens to be an off day and it's terrible, you show up every single day to do the work and I think that for me is sort of a parallel or a lesson in my activism as well, that we need to be showing up and doing the work, whether we have hope or not, we need to have discipline to, to, to be able to show up and do what needs to be done.

Even when we don't think it's going to work. We still need to do it. I mean, I don't think that those who were fighting for this, you know, at the forefront of the civil rights movement, or even the abolition of slavery at the time, necessarily knew or had any guarantees that what they were doing was going to lead to abolition 2030 years later, I don't think that the Algerians who were resisting French colonization at the time knew for certain, nobody knows, but they still showed up every single day and did it.

you know, uh, resisted as part of that wider movement. And that is why we need to keep doing that. Um, with that discipline and with that, with that, um, level of rigor and sustenance and endurance, we need to keep doing that for each other. And so, you know, when I'm asked about our poetry and how that. Can help.

I'm not suggesting I'm not foolish enough to suggest that poetry is going to end colonization or that you know, I'm not foolish enough to believe that Palestine or Gaza, you know, needs poetry right now, of course not, but Poets and artists need Gaza. We need Palestine. We need communities. We need the world.

And I also think we have a role to play because having imagination and having vision is imperative for any politic that is, that can be transformative for any building, right? For any changing of the world, we need to be able to name what is nameless and give shape to what is shapeless, as poets, that's what we do.

We agonize over language and word. And by creating that, we set up the ability for people to take meaningful action, to understand that this is not an abstract over their problem, but has implications in so many ways for us here, for our humanity, for our tangible reality. You know, poetry has a function in that.

And if you want to move people to take action, you need to be able to move them and, and jolt them almost out of their stupor to understand that the status quo doesn't have to be the status quo. We don't have to accept it. We actually have power. Everything, the systems that I initially talked about, you know, I said that they were manmade.

They can be dismantled. We can make other worlds and provide alternatives. It's our job to articulate and imagine these alternative futurities, um, for communities. And so, you know, I think... In order to ask someone to believe something, you need to get them to sort of sometimes to enter your world, right, to enter a world that might be misunderstood or misrepresented.

It demands people, it demands of you to be courageous, to be vulnerable, to be trusting, to be open to change. And so ultimately, You need to be able to transform yourself as a poet, as a reader, as a writer. And once you do that, you're transforming people, you're transforming communities. You're working towards these alternative visions that we not only articulated, because I think it's so important not only to dismantle, not only to articulate what I'm against, but articulate what I'm for.

And you're transforming people to fight for this, this world for this world. And that to me is the, one of the fundamental roles of a poet.

Will: beautiful. It really ties in with a thought I've had quite a bit since, you know, the referendum. I felt like with the referendum, uh, so much of the conversation, uh, became reduced down to trying to solve a problem. 

And in trying to solve a problem, we missed the absolute gift of living, um, you know, where the oldest surviving, beautifully rich, strong culture, you know, um, on earth. And I feel like the same thing can happen in any situation like this that absolutely genocide needs to end people need to be, um, you know, rescued from every form of oppression, but we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that, um, this is not just about stopping something bad.

It's about preserving something beautiful and good. And if you've got like any time left, very, you know. conscious that you need to wrap up, but would you, would you finish with a, I guess what you consider to be words of the, the hope that, that this fight is not just about ending oppression, but yeah, that kind of sense of preserving what, what is the beauty and the riches that you see?

In Palestine, in the Palestinian people, um, and, and I guess across some of those other larger, you know, you, you painted a beautiful picture, but yeah, 

Sara: I mean, I don't, I don't want to romanticize our people in the sense that like, you know, I talked a lot about how, um, in a lot of my activism, you know, I've been talking about our will and our spirit and that it's unbreakable.

And I really take solace in the people fighting on the front lines who are teaching us, you know, who are insisting on staying alive and teaching us life as well as to quote, you know, poet Refi Ziyadeh and her really famous poem. And so, but I also say that knowing that it shouldn't have to be this way.

Like I wish that they didn't have to every day. I wish that they could lead mediocre life or have the luxury if they wanted to lead. Mediocre, mundane lives where they weren't responsible somehow for teaching the rest of the world, you know, for airing their worst moments just to convince people to care, to see, right, to take notice, to do something.

I can't imagine having to turn myself into a spectacle just to get people's attention. Um. Compassion and also what Hala poet Hala Alyan calls auditioning for our for empathy. You know, we are auditioning for humanity to for people to see us as fully human. And what fully human means is the ability to be a messy, complex, not perfect, not model victim whatsoever.

But people's solidarity with us and with each other should be unconditional. So Whether you're a great person, Will, or maybe a not so great person, I will always still believe that you have the right to be respected, to live in dignity, to live in freedom. So, you know, my solidarity with you and with all people, particularly marginalized and oppressed people, is never going to be conditional.

It's unconditional. And that, to me, is, I guess, Ultimately, you know, our biggest, our biggest strength and our biggest power. The thing that I will end on, um, if I may, uh, in addition to these, you know, what I'm sure were very helpful words, um, hopeful and, and wisdom is, um, is actually also just a very practical call to action, which could, you know, it’s good and well to to have a vision, as I've already said, and I really want to reiterate that. But I also think that right now, it's the little things taking consistent action every single day with whatever tools and capacity you have. So if people can artists in particular and poets, um, think about where they're creating art and who they're creating art with.

I think that would be really useful. So, um, very quickly to give you an example. There is a big disconnect between artists who are the most visionary and the most luminary and the most radical and the institutions that we are connected to that house and fund us. And a lot of the times these fund sources of funding come with strict conditions and also, as we have seen, come with Um, the pressure to stay silent in the face of what is happening.

People are losing their jobs. Artists are resigning. Um, they're being punished. They're being attacked, persecuted, silenced for speaking out against Palestine. And so all of this to me is a really big sign that we need to be demand better of these institutions and avoid donors and institutions that are complicit in genocide in Palestine at the moment and other things like the extraction of land.

On the land that we're on. So fossil fuel companies that are trying to launder their reputations by supporting artists and art festivals. So that those, that would be like a, you know, a really big, um, important critical call to action, asking people, artists to take notice of. 

Will: Thank you so much, Sara. I will put links in the show notes to some places where people can continue to follow up, to follow people like you, to continue to get educated, to take those steps.

I love those little, it's just whatever you can do to keep showing up, like the practice of a poet, the practice of justice and advocacy and activism. Just keep showing up regardless of how much hope is in the tank. There's kind of a faith in, in doing that, but, um, you are a beautiful human and, I'm so grateful that we were able to have this conversation.

Thank you so much.

Sara: Thank you so much and right back at you. Thank you for having me.