Abir Kopty's Blog مدوّنة عبير قبطي

You will never be free until you respect the freedom of others


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الكلمة الحرّة لا تموت

كم منا يعيش هذه الايام توليفة مخيفة من الاحباط والصراع مع الاحباط؟

كنت دائما من اولئك الذين يصرون على التفاؤل مهما حصل، أؤمن بان التفائل بحد ذاته شكلا من اشكال المقاومة.

ولا زلت اقاوم هذه الغصة الثقيلة، الثقيلة جدا، كلما شاهدت فيديو او قرأت مقالا او رأيت صورة يعبرون بقسوة عما يحدث في عالمنا العربي. Continue reading

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A message from Palestine to our Arab fellows

English follows

رفاقي ورفيقاتي
كلما شاهدت تضحياتكم الكبيرة لأجل الحرية والكرامة.. اشعر بالفخر. أشعر باني محظوظة لاني عشت لأرى اليوم الذي تنتفضون به وترفعون رؤوسكم\ن ضد القهر والظلم.
معركتكم\ن طويلة. رجاء، لا تفقدوا الأمل. ليس الآن. انهضوا، ارفعوا رؤوسكم، وابقوا اقوياء. أنتم أملنا.
من مصر إلى اليمن، من البحرين إلى ليبيا، من تونس إلى سوريا، نشاهد كيف تتم سرقة ثوراتكم، تعطيلها ومحاربتها. هي نفس القوى التي ابقتنا بعيدين عن حريتنا، هي التي تعمل اليوم ضدكم. هي قوى الرجعية وقوى الاستعمار، هي القوى التي تقدس السيطرة وتدوس على كرامة الشعوب. هي ايضاً القوى التي تخشى ان تصل ثوراتكم اليها.
لطالما كنا كفلسطينيين من نُشَاهَد، وربما نُلْهِم. أنتم اليوم من يلهمنا ويعطينا القوة. لقد ناضلنا لأجل حريتنا، حقوقنا وكرامتنا منذ 64 عاماً. نعم، معركتنا طالت كثيرا، لكننا لم نفقد الامل ابدا. وكلما اقتربتم انتم من النصر، اقتربنا نحن ايضاً.
لا نريد ان يطول الزمن بكم الى هذا الحد حتى تنالوا حريتكم. لكننا على مدى هذه العقود قاومنا وقدمنا التضحيات، ونحن نرى أراضينا تسرق، ونشاهد اطفالنا يفقدون طفولتهم وبسمتهم، وابدا لم نفقد الامل. رغم كل شيء، لم ولن نستسلم او نركع، ومع كل يوم يمضي يشتد ايماننا بأننا سنحقق العدالة، مهما طال الزمن. وانتم ايضاً ستنتصرون مهما طال الزمن. واصلوا النضال، ليس فقط لاجلكم، بل لاجل كل انسان مقهور في العالم، ومحروم من حقوقه وكرامته.
الحرية والكرامة لا تقدرا بثمن، وتستحقان التضحية والصمود، النفس الطويل والايمان بالحق. هذا ما تعلمناه على مدى 64 عاما. إن أفضل سلاح يملكه أعداؤنا هو التعب والإحباط. لن نستسلم ولن نُسَلِّم لليأس، وكذا انتم. إن أفضل سلاح لدينا ولديكم هو التصدي!
رجاء، لا تستسلموا الآن.

To my Arab fellows:

I watch you sacrificing for your dignity and freedoms and I feel pride. I feel privileged to live until the day I see you raising your heads against your oppressors.

Your journey is long. Please do not lose hope. Stand up, raise your heads and keep firm. You are our hope.

From Egypt to Yemen, from Bahrain to Libya, from Tunis to Syria, we watch your revolutions disrupted, stolen and countered. The same forces that helped keeping us away from our freedom, are the same working today against you. It’s the same concepts of power, regression or imperialism; it’s also those who do not want this wave to reach them.

For decades we Palestinians were watched, and maybe inspiring. Today you are the ones who inspire us and give us strength.

We have been fighting 64 years for our rights, freedom and dignity. Yes, too long, however, we never lost hope. we of course do not want to see your revolutions lasting that long. But for decades we resisted and sacrificed, our lands have been stolen, our children have been losing their childhood and smile, and we never lost hope. Despite everything we never gave up, we still believe we will achieve justice, no matter how long it takes.

You too will get there no matter how long it takes. Just keep fighting, keep fighting not only for you, but for all of us, for every person in the world who is oppressed, powerless, deprived his/her rights and dignity.

Freedom and dignity are priceless; they demand sacrifice, steadfastness, strong spirit and belief in your rightness. That’s what we have learned for 64 years. Our enemies’ best weapon is our fatigue and frustration. No we will not give up, you will not give up. Ours and yours best weapon is to fight back! Please fight back, please don’t give up now.


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Free Razan Ghazzawi and all Syrian political prisoners

نحن مجموعة من المدونين والناشطين الشباب الفلسطينيين نطلق صرختنا مرة أخرى تضامنًا مع كافة معتقلي الثورة السورية العظيمة جميعهم/ن من ناشطين/ات، فنانين/ات، مدونيين/ات وغيرهم الذين أطلقوا ولا زالوا يطلقون أصواتهم عاليًا في الشارع وعبر المنصات المختلفة مطالبين Continue reading


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Olive Revolt in Palestine

Palestinian activists, accompanied by Israeli and international supporters demonstrated today at military checkpoints under the slogan “knocking on Jerusalem’s gates’ in the campaign called ‘Olive Revolution’. This was an attempt to march to Jerusalem to attend the last Friday of Ramadan’s prayer. The peaceful march at Qalandia was blocked by Israeli army heavily armed and we couldn’t walk through. After a while we were attacked. Tear gas and sound bombs were shot at demonstrators, many injures and some arrests. Continue reading


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عندما يستهين النظام بدماء شعبه، لا عودة إلى الوراء

بعد مئة يوم على الثورة السورية، ومقتل حوالي ال 1400 إنسان سوري، ما زال البعض يقف إلى جانب النظام بشكل أعمى، مُصرين على أن كل ما يحدث في سوريا هو مؤامرة كبرى.

من حق الشعب السوري أن يعيش بكرامة. والكرامة لا يمكن أن تداس باسم الممانعة. لقد خرج الشعب السوري في الأسبوع الأول ولم يرفع شعار إسقاط النظام. طالب بالإصلاح. لكن النظام أصر على قتل كل من يطالب بالإصلاح قبل أن ينفذه.

لقد أخطأ النظام في التعامل مع شعبه، وحين يخطئ النظام لا عودة إلى الوراء. كل من قتل له اخ أو اخت، اب أو أم، ابن او ابنة، لن تشفع عنده الوعود واللجان والحوار، وخاصة عندما تكون كلها وعود مستقبليه تبدأ وتنتهي بكلمة سوف. وسوف هذه لا تساوي شيئاً عندما تداس الكرامة. Continue reading


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أخشى أن لا تكتمل الثورات

 أخشى أن لا تكتمل الثورات..

أخشى أن تُستبدل الأنظمة العربية الاستبدادية، والتي بعضها كان عميلا لأمريكا وإسرائيل بأنظمة ربما تكون ديمقراطية في ظاهرها، ولكن في جوهرها تبقى عميلة لأمريكا ومُحافظة على مصالح ابنتها إسرائيل.

أخشى أن تتحول أنظمة استغلت وأشعلت الفتن الطائفية، أدى قمعها وتجهيلها لشعوبها إلى التطرف الديني والطائفي أن تتحول إلى أنظمة طائفية أو دينية.

أخشى أن تثمر الثورات عن أنظمة ديمقراطية في القشور ولكنها رأسمالية وطبقية.

أخشى أن تتحقق الحرية دون الاستقلال!

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The double siege facing Palestinians in Israel

First published on Ahramonline: http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/11995.aspx

I am from Nazareth. I’m Palestinian, one of the 1.3 million Palestinians known to many as “’48 Arabs”. I belong to the forgotten part of the Palestinian nation, who fought for decades to keep our “identity” (haweyyi) and our baqaa —call it our “right to remain”.

We did not immigrate or choose to live in Israel. It was Israel that emigrated to us. We remained on our lands and are still fighting against our transfer from our homeland.

And so we had Israeli citizenship imposed on us.

We hold the Israeli passport, which we did not choose as well. In fact, we had no other choice. It was either we give up and leave to join our brothers and sisters in refugee camps who were forced to leave during the Nakba, or we stay and stick to our lands and identity as the remaining part of the Arab Palestinian people.

We wrote back in the early 1980s in what we call the “document of the banned assembly” (referring to its ban by Israeli authorities): “We did not deny and we can’t deny, even if we are faced with death, our deep-rooted origin: we are alive, conscious and active part of the Palestinian Arab people.” This is who we are.

My generation, the third generation of the Nakba, maintained to hold this torch, we insist on our Palestinian identity, resist Israeli policies and refuse to be second-class citizens in Israel.

Yet since the establishment of the Israeli state we have been segregated by Israel in order to cut our relationship with our Arab world, and more importantly alienated by the Arab world, perceived as spies and traitors. For decades we did not have direct means to communicate with the Arab world. We were in a double-siege and our story did not come through for a long time. For decades we have not been allowed to visit Arab countries; today we have access to few of them. Even for those countries we are allowed to enter, we are automatic suspects due to the Israeli passport we hold. It is as if we are blamed for the Jewish militias who occupied Palestine, displaced our families and destroyed our villages, and built their country on our lands.

Today, we look with admiration at our Arab peers in Arab countries who are demanding freedom and dignity; we pay respect to thousands of freedom martyrs. We follow minute by minute the Arab revolutions, share videos and information and praise their courage. A group of young local singers dedicated a special song they wrote and filmed to the Tunisian revolution; it was circulated widely through social media. When Mubarak stepped down, we took to the streets to celebrate as if it was our own revolution. We demonstrate regularly in Nazareth and other places to support and show solidarity with Libyans, Syrians, Bahrainis and Yemenis. We communicate with friends from the Arab world through new media —we share the same values.

These revolutions have given us the hope we were about to lose. We have been also struggling for decades for our freedom, to end the Israeli occupation of Palestine, to end Israeli racism and discrimination. You probably do not know that we are the makers of the “Land Day” which Palestinians and many Arabs worldwide commemorate. You probably do not know that the song “Unadikom” that you all know by heart was written by our poet and political leader, the late Tawfik Zayyad, who is from Nazareth. You probably did not know that poets like Samih Kasem and Mahmoud Darwish are from “’48 Palestine”.

During the Egyptian revolution I happened to be in Cairo. I was privileged to witness Egyptian people writing history. I felt thrilled to be part of this. And I would also say, like many Egyptians underlined, this revolution has changed my life. At the same time, I understood how much my story was unknown to many Egyptians, and how much my passport was a burden. Since then, I applied for visa to visit Cairo again; it was rejected twice, without any explanation.

I believe it is about time to break the siege that Arab regimes and their media imposed on us. We call on our peers, the generation of Arab youth, to help us break down the walls that have been separating us. We are not traitors and not spies, “we are alive, conscious and active part of the Palestinian Arab people”. We are proud Arabs, exactly like you, and thanks to you!