Zayn al-‘Ābdīn Fu’ād is one of the leading poets of the generation of 1968 and the protest movements of the 1970s. The poem invokes the memory of Muhammad ‘Abd al-Hakam al-Gerrahi (1915-35), and was composed in the immediate wake of the 1967 Arab defeat (al-Naksa) at the hands of Israel.
Gerrahi was a student at King Fuad University, a poet and translator of Baudelaire. Students like Gerrahi were leaders within during the 1935 mass protests against British rule. In a confrontation that took place on November 15, activists attempted to cross the Nile to reach Abdin Palace. They were met by armed police at Abbas Bridge. When one flag-bearing student was shot down, Gerrahi picked up the flag and continued, leading the procession toward the ranks of police. Gerrahi was shot 13 times, but continued onward. Doctors managed to remove eight bullets from his body. He remained in hospital for five days before succumbing to his injuries. He was given a state burial which was attended by government ministers and university deans. His name is prominent on two official monuments, one at Cairo University, and a second at the Opera House.
In the decades that followed, students at Cairo University formed groups to honor Gerrahi’s name. One such group went on to lead the student protests of the 1970s. At the outset of the student occupation of Cairo University in January 1972, the poet Zein al-Abdin Fuad recited his poem to a packed audience. His electric performance helped set the defiant tone of that student occupation.
Muhammad ‘Abd al-Hakam al-Gerrahi (1915-35)
“Song for ‘Abd al-Ḥakam al-Garrāḥī”
Zayn al-‘Ābidīn Fu’ād
(20 June 1967)
1)
I’m writing to you
To erase the trembling and shame of fear from my heart
To wash from my feet the indignity of standing motionless
I write to you
To escape the death inside me
With mine, your hands lift the banner
You wipe your hands off on my roots, make me bring forth green leaves
You clean your hands off on my heart and drown me in seas of blood.
I write to you
Come out, come out from death’s shell
Come out from the black tower of forgetfulness
Shout at the top of your lungs
Let the whips tear me to shreds
They have stomped on my face with their boots
But I didn’t call out.
They stood in your face
And you responded in kind
They raised their rifles at your chest
You crossed the bridge, you reached forward
They fired. Your wounds tore open, your wounds wrote.
While I sit here in this dark room, writing back to you
In order to flee from everything, even myself.
2.)
You weren’t the first
Nor the last
My dear—you’re a small bead on a long string of martyrs
I write to you, and I feel my wounds reopen
Here in this room
Rather than on the bridge, in the sunlight
(Rather than amid bullets of officers and soldiers)
I am in this room
Struggling to breathe, running, spilling out
Raise your flag
I can no longer hold this pen
Raise your flag
You were not the first
Nor the last
To raise my flag.