Solidarity with Palestine from Kashmir: Kashmiri translations of Refaat Alareer’s ‘If I Must Die’

Introduction by Ather Zia
Translations by Idrisa Pandit & Ather Zia 

Glued to the small phone screen watching the genocide unfold in Gaza, Refaat Alareer’s interview crossed my feed. It was a heart-wrenching interview. A tearful Refaat was trying to reason with the world, defending his people’s struggles, and predicting his killing most accurately. His words were punctuated by bombs falling around him, and he would pause ever so slightly.

Refaat’s haunting interview was followed by his poem If I Must Die^[1]It is written on the lines of “If we must die” by Jamaican-born poet and novelist Claude Mckay. going viral. You could feel the throbbing heart of the poem portending the poet’s killing so clearly like it was being telecast on a huge screen. Refaat’s poem captured the death sentence that genocide had handed Palestinians, but importantly he was making sure that hope was not killed. The poem carries a father’s burden. Himself a father of six children, Refaat creates a vision to console the bereaved children of Gaza. He entrusts the task to “you” (the reader) who will make “his” (Refaat’s) kite, big and white, ensuring that the angel of love does not fail to descend upon Palestine and its children’s searching eyes.

I have never paid attention to kites, except in childhood when I would miserably fail in flying them. In If I Must Die Refaat’s invocation of building a huge white kite, that flies close to heaven and descends upon the wounded and weary Palestinians, children, and adults is a vision beyond the genocide. It is a reminder that the angel of love will arrive and all of us must do our part, however little. As Cornel West has so aptly said, “Never forget that justice is what love looks like in public,” Refaat’s poem manifests his love that makes arrangements beyond his physical departure. Ever the teacher, he instructs how love can arrive in the best way he knows—through his words. In the interview, Refaat said and I paraphrase: ‘If a soldier enters my house, the only toughest thing I have is an Expo marker; and if I need to, I will throw it at them.’ He is a writer and he will fight like one. From Refaat’s arsenal, If I Must Die is a written version of that expo marker. The poem’s translation into so many languages overnight is a testament to how well he threw his marker and how well his message is traveling!

A conundrum one cannot escape is how one can mourn a poet without celebrating their words. And it is a predicament that comes with the deliberate blessings of the poet who knows you cannot remember them without revisiting their words. Kashmiris share a deep love for the Palestinian people and their struggle. Kashmir and Palestine are two struggles that started after classic colonialism ended and neocolonialism took root. As I say elsewhere, Kashmiris have an affective solidarity with Palestine, and ‘their wounds are our wounds’. It was almost reflexive to render Refaat’s poem in Kashmiri. It is not a coincidence that two Kashmiris have offered two translations of the same on these pages of AGITATE! I am sure there are many others, hidden and unshared. 

Unfortunately, Kashmiris at this moment are silenced. In previous years Kashmir was most likely the only place where despite the military occupation people demonstrated passionately on the streets in favor of Palestine. They were often met with disproportionate violence by the Indian forces. A recent headline aptly summed up the situation: “Kashmir’s anger over Gaza simmers as India keeps lid on protests.” The Indian regime even suspended prayers in Kashmir’s oldest masjid fearing that protests for Palestine might become a vehicle of demonstrations against Indian rule. The surveillance on Palestinian solidarity is so intense that Friday sermons are barred from mentioning Palestine. People are allowed to pray for Palestine but only in Arabic and not in the local Kashmiri language. What might be the dangerous implications of praying in a people’s language? Understanding. Deeper connection. Prayers more fervent and more passionate for justice and freedom for the occupied people. Prayers that might become reflections. 

We hope these Kashmiri translations will nurture Refaat’s message in the bosom of the Kashmiri language. They are a contribution to the accouterments that solidarities are gathering to ensure Refaat’s kite is in the making. That the angel of love will return soon.