Al-Qalam 
By Fuad Hendricks
In his poem, freedom fighter Don Umaruddin Mattera cherishes and relishes the natural and most beautiful joys of life like the veld, sunset, sunrise, sweet melodies of honeybees and the scent of the morning breeze and much more of Allah’s (God’s) gifts to humanity.
Marhoom Don Mattera passed away on July 18, 2022.
All this yearning to enjoy life’s simple gifts whilst he, the rest of the freedom fighters and the oppressed at large were struggling to liberate their country from the economic, political, social, and mental chains of colonialism and apartheid.
To the veld, I would like to wander
There where sunset, a golden splendour
Where honeybees hum sweet melodies
And the white veld flowers scent the morning breeze
Oh, how my heart there longs to roam
To that wide open world that is my home
To hear birds sing
Of dewdrops that shine
And to know that life can be sweet and divine.
This poem was an adaptation of Don Umaruddin Mattera’s early youthful and budding thoughts, which he so eloquently rendered and contextualised for a gathering of mostly young students, according to a video issued by SoukIslam.
It was Mattera at his eloquent best as a poet, thinker and human rights activist tweaking his words to move the hearts and minds of his young audience to give them hope of making a better future in a politically liberated South Africa.
Mattera stresses in his poetic words, “And to know that life can be sweet and divine” for everyone, every human being and inhabitant, not only for the predatory elite and those who falsely claim ‘chosen race status’ for themselves apart from the rest of humanity.
Our liberation movement leader and first President of the Republic of South Africa, Madiba, Nelson Mandela, will be very proud of South Africa as a country for its activist stand in support of the Palestinians – and for bringing a case of genocide before the International Court of Justice.The same cannot be said of the United States government and some European countries who unconditionally militarily armed, economically resourced, diplomatically protected, and condoned the Israeli killing and maiming of mostly women and children and the elimination of Palestinian civilization in Gaza.
The people of Gaza and Palestine should take inspiration from Don Umaruddin Mattera’s poem. It speaks of the beauty of life and Allah’s (God’s) wonders and splendour. These gifts remain distant and deprived to the Palestinians. They are being ravaged by the Israeli war machine.
The Israeli war machine killed over 33000 Palestinians and maimed more than 70,000, and so many others lay buried in unknown graves under the rubble of bombed homes, educational institutions and other civilisational infrastructure. And the bloodbath continues.
Many Americans and Europeans religiously advocate Israel’s right to self-defence as if the Palestinians do not have a similar right to liberate their land and country from which they were and are being ethnically cleansed.
Tragically, according to Israeli sources, Hamas resistance fighters brutally killed over 1100 Israelis on 7 October 2023. Hamas and the rest of the freedom fighters are not above the law. They must be held accountable according to international law.
But equally so must the Israelis and its government be held accountable for ethnically cleansing the Palestinians from their native land, killing and maiming them in their thousands since 1948, a time known to Palestinians as the Nakba, a catastrophe resulting in the ongoing mass displacement and dispossession of Palestinians.
The Israelis and its government have opted, as a matter of policy, to subjugate the Palestinians.
The Oslo Peace Agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians has resulted in prosperity and a country to call its own for the Israelis but not for the Palestinians. The Palestinians find themselves politically, economically, socially, and culturally stateless and ‘living’ under brutal Israeli Zionist occupation.
Unless the international community supports a viable and humanly dignified political solution for the Palestinians, militant resistance becomes inevitable to achieve Palestinian statehood.
Palestinians simply want to enjoy Allah’s (God’s) gifts of life deprived to them in Palestine, including Gaza, which Mattera calls in his poem: “To that wide open world that is my home,” which Israelis have enjoyed since the establishment of the Jewish State in 1948 at the cost of the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from occupied Palestine.
