‘What Existence is Worth’

Nooresahar Ahmad, Hampshire

In Ghassan Kanafani’s short story ‘Letter from Gaza’, written in 1956, the unnamed narrator writes a letter to his childhood friend Mustafa, who has left Gaza and is living in Sacramento. The narrator and Mustafa have had a joint plan since they were young, to leave ‘this Gaza’ and ‘the ugly debris of defeat’ there, and make their fortune somewhere else in the world, in a ‘land where there is greenery, water and lovely faces.’  

In the letter, the narrator writes about his young niece who has been in the hospital. When he goes to visit her, he tries to cheer her up by saying that he has bought her a pair of red trousers, which she had previously asked him to get for her. She becomes silent and begins to cry. It is only then that he realises: in an effort to shield her younger siblings from the blast of a bomb, Nadia has received injuries to her body. As a result of the injuries, her leg has been amputated.  

‘Nadia could have saved herself, she could have run away, rescued her leg. But she didn’t.’ He goes on to write, ‘No, my friend, I won’t come to Sacramento, and I’ve no regrets. […] But you, return to us! Come back, to learn from Nadia’s leg, amputated from the top of the thigh, what life is and what existence is worth. Come back, my friend! We are all waiting for you.’ 

I have been thinking of those words ever since I read them. What life is and what existence is worth. The narrator, who previously hated Gaza because he associates it with pain and suffering, learns from his niece’s actions about the preciousness of existence, the responsibility we have to care for it, tend to it, and protect it. Especially when it is under threat. 

It is a lesson that we are also being taught by the people of Gaza. I have seen videos of Gazans, in the face of carnage and destruction, frantically shifting rubble to rescue cats, tending to the wounds of horses, offering their limited supply of water to thirsty dogs. The Palestinians are acutely aware of the significance of life, and how vital it is to protect it; in 2005, a photograph was taken of a Palestinian woman in anguish, hugging the trunk of an olive tree which had just been attacked by Israeli settlers. Such astonishing examples of care, the fervent attempt to save any possible life, reminds us what existence is worth, and what we must be willing to sacrifice in order to protect it.  

In Chapter 2, verse 206 of the Holy Quran it states: ‘And when he is in authority, he runs about in the land to create disorder in it and destroy the crops and the progeny of man; and Allah loves not disorder.’ A tyrant is one who works hard to destroy life, whether it be an animal, plant, or person. We see this clearly in Palestine; as well as the galling loss of human life, Gazan water, soil and air have been devastated, leading some to call Israel’s assault not only a genocide but a war on the climate.  

In 1972, sixteen years after writing ‘Letters from Gaza’, Ghassan Kanafani was targeted by the Israeli intelligence service, who installed a bomb in his car. When it was detonated, he and his niece were in the vehicle. Both were killed in the blast. What life is and what existence is worth. We forget what existence is worth. So it’s worth reminding ourselves: if life wasn’t so important, why would the most powerful armies and governments in the world be working so hard to extinguish it? With every weapon and all the world’s wealth at their disposal, why would they be trying so desperately to extinguish the lives of children, the elderly, innocents, storytellers and their nieces? What threat could these people possibly be to their empires? Yet those who are so motivated to eradicate it are unquestionably aware of the power of life, the power of people and their kinship, hopes, prayers, work, stories, memories. May we be just as aware of the worth of existence — whether it be a tree, a cat, or a child — and even more willing to defend it than others are to destroy it.