*Olives, O lives, our lives, we live*

by Hassen Lorgat

Last night in Anabta, a dozen kilometres east of Tulkarm,
Uniformed and heavily armed zealots,
Joined at the hip with Jeeps and Caterpillar bulldozers,
Scattered neighbours bore witness,
Through half-drawn, shivering curtains.

One of theirs,
In this unattractive machine,
With his fear-filled eyes and jaundiced heart,
Accelerates—two, three, four times more—
To bulldoze the DEFIANT ONE.

This is not new.
It is repeated everywhere,
In many towns, in many villages,
Every day.

O live, Olives

When they first came,
Eighty years ago,
Without shame, without dignity,
I was but a humble tree.
Like the seed, I was green—
Unschooled in the ways of fascists.

But as a blessed species,
Life can be found in many holy books,
And not far away, the wise mother of all olive trees,
The over 5,000-year-old keeper of stories,
Today protected by the Abu Ali family
From the Wadi Jwaiza,
A neighbourhood of Al-Walaja.

We come from a long line of warriors,
Which mother olive keeps reminding us—
This, she did again,
At our last encounter of roots.

O live, olives, blessed olives.

As a seed, my teenage years were rough.
I turned purple—
With the sweat, the sun, the rain,
Not forgetting the wind,
The periodic doses of teargas,
Live bullets,
And the monotonous, torturous eyes
Of spy drones.

Deep purple with a tinge of red,
We radicalised.

O lives, Olives, we live.

It is only now, with full maturity,
That my Blackness emerged.
It’s time to harvest the fruits of our labours,
But they would not let us.

Is it the bed we lay in,
Or the colour of our fruit they so despise?
We are their conscience.
We are their daily reminder
That we are much older than the occupied state!

We are going nowhere.
Remember, we are always ready
To give a branch for justice and peace.

For every fallen olive tree,
Another will live,
Nurtured by the drops that flow
From every senseless culling.

We live, Olives.

2 JANUARY 2025, incident https://www.instagram.com/lovinpalestine/reel/DEUj-1hMGsB/?hl=en

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Hassen Lorgat

Has worked in trade union movement, civic associations, and anti apartheid sports movement led by the South African Council on Sports (SACOS) as well as NGOs for the past while. He has worked with civil society groups opposing harmful and exploitative mining and extractivism. Hassen is active with the SA BDS Coalition.