We Are Not Numbers

I was not expecting this anthology to be tough in the way that it was. Previous anthologies, especially nonfiction, I have struggled with; something about the format does not mesh with me. This book did not present me with that problem, but emotionally, it was a hard ride. I borrowed it from my library to try and hear more Palestinian voices; it succeeded. Every single author in this anthology reaches out to touch the reader. You can hear their hopes and dreams through their voice on the page; you can hear Aya's division between pursuing her dream education and remaining with her family as war breaks out; Enas' isolation as the only one in her circles who had never seen the other side of the Israeli blockade; the grief of Ahmed Alnaouq and Mahmoud Alyazji as they talk of their dead brothers; Orjwan's desperation to protect her children as they flee genocide. You can hear the pride of Nada, Allam Zedan, Lubna and Ahmed Alsammak as they talk of their home and their people. It is so easy to reduce Gazans down to casualty counts, to reduce the fight against israel (spelt as Maram Faraj does, affording it all the respect of an illegal country) as a political endeavour; this anthology tells us exactly why that is wrong. Each Gazan killed by the israeli army is a human being who leaves behind a web of grief. When we protest and fight for Gaza, we are not picking an arbitrary side in a debate of bureaucracy. We are fighting for the two million human beings who lived and still live, who are still being killed, on their own soil. History is the eternal watcher and this book fights to show it and us that Gazans are first and foremost our own siblings, who die day by day as governments and people around the world treat them like a policy to debate. This book is more than worth the read.