Will our Lean Years Extend beyond Two Years?

After he had stayed in the loneliness of the well, there came one to liberate him to bring out the light from within him; those who threw him to the pit are the ones who were supposed to raise him to the top.

It’s 10:44 PM, where I am sitting and emptying the ideas that haunt me before the power goes out and before the ideas fade away from my mind. But it’s strange that my city’s people and I went through what happened to this man— Prophet Yusuf—, peace be upon him, we were dropped to the well too, in its utter darkness, by their injustice, I don’t think they were ten as Yusuf’s siblings, rather, they were much more, the count doesn’t matter now as much as the crime that occurred, as for their silence and lies, God, how alike we are, but we were absolutely certain of their silence, as they were silent several times before, because this wasn't the first time, that they dropped us into the well, they dropped us several times, but this time the darkness is deeper, they are making excuses, claiming helplessness, and we fully realize that they are pretending that. We don’t care to become kings as Yusuf—peace be upon him—became later; all that matters is survival. As for forgiving them, this is a very heavy burden; I don't think any one of us would be so naive as to discard it and simply move on.

We see the homeland through the cracks of the well; through two lean years, we see the city lost its identity, as if Allah had just created it, but it left traces that point to the existence of injustice by its rapists, so this time the doom wasn’t for the nations that denied their messengers; rather, it’s for oppressed Muslim people, and the situation remains the same. This final full stop is a doubtful stop because a full stop in linguistics means the end of the actions, but here it didn’t and will never end.

I find myself wondering, my mind drifting away, about what is possible for the writer "Gharib Asqalani" to write in his book "The Taste of Sleep" about Gaza, after he wrote about what we were living, and for me, I consider what we were living to be a heaven, but there was a fire that was blazing up and subsiding, but now it is a fire that hasn’t subsided yet. I think he will not be capable of writing about what happened in these two years because he once said this before: "There is no description, for the description is shorter than the described." I could say he shaped it for us, prepared it for us, left it for us, and walked away.

Did you understand from the beginning of the diary that we are still waiting for those who would liberate us from the well? I reconsider what I said; I retract what I said because it’s too late, our hope has been dashed, and the rope of the well that once hung there has burned away. This time we will save ourselves. I know the path's features have yet to take shape, but maybe we will dig the tunnel of freedom with our empty hands, using the cunning and wisdom of our ancestors, the prayers of bereaved mothers, and the strength of our men, which resembles the burning power of the sun that is beyond the reach of anyone to extinguish the power of its flame.