Night of erasing, day of memory

Just as there is personal dignity for individuals, there is a civilizational dignity for peoples and nations, and ironically, that personal dignity of the individual cannot be complete except with a collective identity that has civilizational dignity for his people, his state, and his national entity, otherwise that dignity remains wounded, if not at the general level, then at the human, private level. Some nations established their civilizational dignity since ancient times, through a long, bright history, usually called the cradle of civilization, and its singular is cradle; including our country. Some preserved that dignity, and others saw their dignity eroded just as the stones of their temples, statues, palaces, and astonishing monuments eroded, even if their knowledge remained, because winds and other natural factors can scatter the palaces, but they cannot scatter the cultural achievement, in its various branches. These (selected) articles were written and published over five years, in Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper, while the testimonies were published in other newspapers and magazines, and some were presented at conferences. The contents of the book are arranged into three sections, taking into account the chronological order of their publication in the second section, because this order resembles the dramatic development that swept Palestine and the positions of Arab regimes towards it in years when every grayness left its place to merge into the great darkness. What the book contains is an attempt to reflect on a quarter-century that has passed, during which conditions changed and still do, and an attempt to reflect on a long history that has expanded over a century, witnessing the rise of empires and the fall of others, and the changing of masks that soon became a change in faces. It is also a story of a people, despite all that, who realize that Palestine is his face, his heart, and his Qibla. An attempt to reflect on Arab and Palestinian culture, its role, and its radiance despite attempts to suffocate and erase it. An attempt to reflect on the crisis of an enemy, despite all the victories he achieved, who could not put a period at the end of the line of our existence struggle with him. And an attempt to reflect on the illusion of those who believe, willingly or forcibly, that there can be joys in their dance parties with the lions. This book is an attempt to say something, in all this, so that one day it is not said: why did poets, writers, and artists remain silent.