Isn't it time for us to change our national anthem?

The call to change the Palestinian national anthem may be understood as a kind of vulgarity in the midst of the very harsh conditions imposed by the occupiers on Palestine, the homeland, the people, the cause, and on the Charter of Human Rights.

The call may be understood as aiming to divert attention from the horrors, pains and disasters that are crushing all generations of our people in besieged and destroyed Gaza, whose people’s blood is being shed with all arrogance, racism, haughtiness, violence, brutality and haughtiness.

The call to change our national anthem stems from our urgent need to strengthen and activate our resistance to become more serious, deeper and more fruitful, by ceasing to rely on the hero who has all the qualities and capabilities of heroes and which generations have expressed with the word (fedayeen). What is required is to expand the scope of the resistance that has always relied on (fedayeen), and to call this type of resistance by proxy another type that is more powerful, effective, serious and useful, which is collective, cooperative and participatory resistance.

Betting on the heroism, pride, courage and loftiness of a thousand or a few thousand fedayeen while the majority watches, prays and asks God to guide their aim, make their feet firm and grant them victory. Collective, participatory resistance stems from the fact that resisting local opponents or external enemies is the duty and responsibility of every citizen. Therefore, resistance must not become a profession in which a number of citizens specialize. Just as the occupation does not exempt a single citizen from its terrorism, there are no exceptions in the duty of resistance; because it is a collective, participatory, cooperative effort by everyone, by everyone and for everyone.

Based on our belief and Sharia, jihad in the way of God is not a privilege for anyone and is not limited to anyone, just like prayer, fasting, and zakat. Is it permissible for us to establish a party or group for those who pray, another for those who fast, a third for those who pay zakat, and a fourth for pilgrims and Umrah performers? Resisting all internal injustice and all external aggression is a basic component of religion and a requirement of fearing God Almighty, because injustice in all its forms, shapes and levels violates the Creator’s honoring of man: “And We have certainly honored the children of Adam and carried them on the land and sea and provided for them of the good things and preferred them over much of what We have created, with [definite] preference” (Al-Isra’ 17:70). And because God Almighty has commanded justice, and everything that the Creator commands becomes an obligation for every believer: “Indeed, God commands justice.” And doing good, and giving to relatives, and forbidding immorality, and wrongdoing, and oppression. He instructs you that perhaps you will be reminded. (An-Nahl 16:90)

Resisting collective and individual injustice becomes an individual duty for every believer, because religion is not an afterlife project, but rather for this world and the hereafter. God Almighty says: “And seek, through that which God has given you, the home of the Hereafter; and do not neglect your portion of this world. And do good as God has done good to you.” (Al-Qasas 28:77)

The purpose of religion is broader and deeper than building mosques, shrines and shrines, and performing rituals, rites and ceremonies. Rather, its purpose is to liberate man from everything that violates his dignity and basic rights, such as slavery, tyranny, sectarianism, racism, exploitation, corruption and occupation.

The purpose of religion is not limited to salvation from hell and winning paradise on the Day of Judgment only, but rather to build a life in which no human being controls another human being, does not steal the effort and sweat of a human being, and does not oppress a human being because of his religion, sect, race, gender, color, language, or social status.

How much we boasted about the “Islamic awakening” which had good, beneficial, blessed and positive fruits, but it was not serious and deep enough to contribute to “social peace”, to the liberation of the country and its people, and to the success of development plans.

Our Palestinian national anthem mentions the word “fedayeen” (26) times, and mentions the word “Palestine” twice, in addition to words such as: my land, ancestors, my people, eternity, my fire, volcano, my revenge, mountains, struggle, winds, weapons, struggle, oath, flag, pain.

Our national anthem expressed our reliance on the fighter who sacrifices his soul, blood and life for his country, people and just cause, and this was translated into actions and not just words. The martyr Abdul Rahim Mahmoud in his poem (The Fedayeen) which begins:

I will carry my soul in my palm and throw it into the abyss of destruction

Either a life that pleases a friend or a death that angers an enemy.

By your life, this is the death of men, and whoever seeks an honorable death is alone.

By your life, I see my death, but I hasten to it

Our poetess Fadwa Touqan said about Abdul Rahim Mahmoud, “His greatest poem was at the time of his martyrdom.” It is well known that the martyr Abdul Rahim Mahmoud left his teaching position at An-Najah National College in Nablus, bought a rifle with his own money, and fell as a martyr in the village of Al-Shajara in the Galilee in the year 1948.

As generations of martyrs have translated this for more than a hundred years, the fedayeen are the closest thing to a saint who is full of truthfulness, honesty, integrity, integrity, loyalty and devotion. Therefore, the fedayeen in all ages is a translation of his love for the message of the messengers and prophets that the Creator wanted to liberate man from everything that disgraces him, such as injustice, baseness, greed, selfishness, cruelty and corruption.

It is noteworthy that the anthem (Fedayeen) does not mention Jerusalem, the Isra’i Mosque, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the olive tree, or the theft of the homeland and displacement. Perhaps someone might ask: Is it required that the national anthem mention the capital of the homeland or any other of the landmarks and components of the homeland? The answer is that there is no homeland in contemporary history that has been and is being subjected to a series of ethnic cleansing crimes as Palestine and the generations of our people and our nation have been subjected to.

I see in (The Flower of Cities) sung by Fairuz, and the lyrics and music of the Rahbani brothers, what expresses our homeland, our suffering, our sorrows, and our will with elegant, profound, creative, and influential artistic professionalism, and harmoniously combines the components of our identity that racists are working to make into a state of conflict and struggle instead of the natural state that has continued for centuries in a state of harmony and integration, such as:

Embracing ancient churches

And wipe away sadness from the mosques

O Night of Isra, O path of those who passed to heaven

The child in the cave and his mother Mary, two crying faces

After talking about sadness and anger, the poem opens doors to confidence, determination, will and hope:

The door of our city will not close, I am going to pray

I will knock on doors and I will open them

And the face of power will be defeated

With our own hands we will restore the splendor of Jerusalem

Peace is coming to Jerusalem

The pillar and axis of our Palestinian national anthem is (the Fedayeen), and it is time for us to learn that betting on the sanctity, majesty, courage and greatness of the Fedayeen was not sufficiently fruitful, as evidenced by the additional exploitation of the racist occupiers. We need a strong, serious, deep, influential and fruitful school of collective, participatory, cooperative resistance to protect, accumulate and develop the most precious and greatest achievement of the generations of our people, which has resulted in the survival and steadfastness of more than (7) million Arabs in Palestine despite the terrorism, violence and racist laws of the occupiers.

How beautiful and valuable it is to announce a competition for a new Palestinian national anthem that addresses a number of topics:

1- Our grandfathers and grandmothers are the ones who planted the plains and mountains of Palestine with the blessed olive tree hundreds of years before the birth of our Master Christ, peace be upon him.

2- Palestine was known as the homeland of coexistence, based on faith and respect for the principles of pluralism and diversity. Baghdad, Aleppo, Cordoba and Granada were also distinguished by the harmony between all components, religions, sects and races.

3- Behind the Isra’ of the Messenger Muhammad, may God bless him and grant him peace, from Mecca to Jerusalem, from where he ascended to heaven, are lessons from God Almighty regarding the doctrinal connection between the Sacred Sanctuary of Mecca and the Sacred Sanctuary of Jerusalem, and that Jerusalem is the path to heaven and the gate to heaven.

4- Palestine is the original and first homeland of Christianity. Our Lord Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem, grew up and was raised in Galilee, and called to God with insight in Jerusalem. The pioneers of believers, saints, monasteries, churches, and martyrs were and still are in Palestine.

5- The Palestinians were food producers and exported surplus food to Europe, such as the famous Jaffa oranges, Beersheba barley, and cotton, which was exported from the port of Acre in the eighteenth century. From the surplus olive oil, our ancestors made excellent soap and exported large quantities of it to many countries.

6- The Palestinians were displaced by excessive bloody violence based on written policies, plans and instructions, and the occupiers are still imposing racist laws and procedures, and are working with a policy of killing and destruction to implement new stages of displacement.

7- Generations of children, mothers, and others have suffered the horrors and pains of displacement in dozens of camps, and outside them, with patience, faith, awareness, and steadfastness. From the ashes and rubble of the complex suffering, the Palestinians in the homeland and diaspora have given a large number of doctors, teachers, researchers, engineers, judges, writers, artists, and other women and men of public service.

We all know that the national anthem of countries does not usually include many facts, but Palestine, the homeland, the people and the cause, is being subjected to more cruelty, violence and brutality by the racist occupiers, and to frantic attempts to impose the Zionist narrative brimming with lies, deception, fraud, myths and legends, and targeting our identity, heritage and memory under the pretext that the Palestinians are nothing but tribes of nomadic Bedouins who came to Palestine two or three decades before the (War of Independence) and settled in the desert, forests and swamps in a deliberate denial of our deep and distant cultural presence in Palestine.

Is there anything wrong with the lyrics of the new anthem being written by a citizen from Algeria, Kuwait or the Sultanate of Oman, and the lyrics being composed by a musician from Yemen, Djibouti or the Kingdom of Morocco? For our brothers in Iraq, their national anthem has been “My Homeland” for more than thirty years, a poem by Ibrahim Touqan and music by Mohammed Fleifel from Lebanon.

I have to admit that changing the Palestinian national anthem (is neither fattening nor satisfying), if it does not embody a change in our mentality and our awareness that the duty to defend the homeland and protect the generation of our children and grandchildren requires embodying the idea of collective, participatory, cooperative resistance with its Arab, Islamic, Christian, and human depth, and putting an end to the (privatization) of resistance; because resistance is jihad and jihad is the responsibility of every citizen, and all free people who refuse to submit and prostrate themselves, as they realize the danger of militarization and its countless consequences.

Our message and our path have never been to kill, destroy a home, usurp another’s right, or attack a synagogue or any holy place. Our message is to restore security, safety, and stability to our homeland, and to restore dignity, freedom, justice, and peace to our people and our nation, and to all the victims of injustice, racism, cruelty, violence, and brutality. Our message is a message of life, and we translated this truth into a collective anthem more than fifty years ago in the old Nablus prison:

Yes, we will not die, but we will eradicate death from our land.

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It is time to learn that betting on the holiness, majesty, courage and greatness of the freedom fighter was not sufficiently fruitful as evidenced by the additional exploitation of the racist occupiers. We need a strong, serious, deep, influential and fruitful school of collective, participatory, cooperative resistance to protect, accumulate and develop the most precious and greatest achievement of our people’s generations.