Dear Egypt,
This is not a desperate cry from Gaza. I am not writing to beg for your sympathy nor for your help. I am not here to remind you of your duty towards your little sister since you are hardly keeping up with your duty towards your own sons and daughters. I am not writing to tell you that your little sister is dying because I know my tragedy is not something you will care for. I will not ask you to stop pointing your guns towards me nor will I entreat you to loosen up your grip on my neck so that I breathe. I will not sing our Arab unity anthem to solicit you to remember our blood bond because we both know this is nothing but a joke. We both know that the only bond we have is fate. We both agree that being neighbors is no more than a mere divine miscalculation
My beloved Egypt
I won’t lie to you. I won’t pretend that I ever felt home on your soil. I won’t claim I wasn’t horrified just breathing your air. I drank from your Nile, but never wanted to come back again and I only did so because I had to. You treated me like an infectious disease. You see me as a threat to your national security while all I ever wanted is to protect my life, my dignity, and my very being. Forgive me for being so selfish and so blind for I simply cannot understand how come my call for freedom collide with your mighty security. Only few years ago, I thought we fought a shared enemy but looks like that I AM the enemy. I will not argue with that either. If you say, I am the enemy, then I am the enemy
Dearest Egypt
We might be speaking the same language, we might be of the same color. Many might mistake my eyes with Cleopatra’s. I might feel perplexed as your soldier who looks exactly like my own brother opens up my suitcase and searches through my personal luggage in the middle of your airport as if I am a suspect by nature. I cannot forget when I went back to get my lost bag and you left me sitting aside for hours watching you holding my Palestinian passport as if it is some sort of a conviction document. I won’t forget the look on your officials’ faces as they say, “She’s Palestinian” as if it is an accusation
I still don’t know what crime did the 1.8 million people of Gaza do to be treated like this. I wish I knew. I wish I could do something about it. But how can you fix a problem you do not even know what it is
Finally
Whether you like it or not, I will keep fighting. Whether you open the boarders or not, I will keep ascending. Whether you accept me or not, I will not hail dictatorship, nor will I give it legitimacy by succumbing to its orders
Beware my anger. Beware my grief. Beware my despair
Love
Gaza
