WallTalk

15
Liberate the Walls, Liberate Yourselves
Rasha Azab
We are told that walls are deaf and pitiless. We are told
that walls block out the light. These walls kill dreams
with cold precision and stop even time in its tracks. We
are told what we are told, but we've seen other walls.
Our walls… Our newspapers, which aren't sleazy
tabloids… Our screens, which don't lie… Our voice,
which is not defeated. Sitting on our walls, we drink
our wine, which is without sin. At their foot, we make
love from dusk till dawn.
We aren't afraid of walls. Within them, we share our
secrets, and upon them we emblazon what is
permitted and what is prohibited. We don't fear the
walls behind which we hide our treasures and our
thoughts, the walls upon which we raise our banners
aloft.
We do not fear walls. Perhaps it is the walls who are
afraid – afraid of colours and brushes after so many
years of loneliness, nothing gracing their surfaces but
idiotic notices and military orders: PHOTOGRAPHY
PROHIBITED. But the walls have become noble friends.
Now they bear the image of 'The Mother' and her
silent wail, the face of 'The Living Martyr', the gun of
'The People's Hero', and the body of the one 'Killed in
The Cell'. Maxims of the determined – beyond words,
beyond momentary crises. The ones who only came for
the battles, and the ones who, in death, long for
another life.
We never asked: were you injured? How many bullets
did your steadfast body last? What did the tear gas do
to your arteries and your veins? You don't leave your
place, you don't run away, you don't hide when the
fighting breaks out. But what if we all leave you alone
in the battle… How alone you are.
They're like you and more. Steady. Standing on the
front lines of the fighting, never running away.
Bursting out of the prisons of their own bodies. That's
the difference between you and them: they liberated
themselves from their bodies, but you remain a witness
to the massacre and the map. A witness to the killer
and the martyr. A witness to consciousness and