Rifaat Al Areer Mural in Atlanta

• CrossFireArabia
• July 4, 2024

A mural has been painted in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, by the Refaat Library Group; its created in honor of the martyred Palestinian poet and professor Refaat Al Areer.

Alia Kassab, a student taught by Alareer  on 7 December, my literary father figure, my role model, Dr Refaat was martyred in the “safety” of his home.

On 7 December, the world lost a great educator, a free soul, a remarkable storyteller, a powerful man and a father, she added.

The Palestinian academic who taught English Literature at the Islamic University was deliberately targetted and killed through a surgical strike of the apartment he was living in. But he was killed with his brother sister and four of her children.

The peom “If I must Die” may have predicted the death of the writer because if was written just weeks before he and members of his family were targetted.

The poem became an instant hit by millions of people all around the world with multiple translations into more than 100 languages including Spanish, Italian, Tamil, Urdu Tagalog, Greek, Japenese, Yeddish and more.

The poem was deliberately written in English however because Al Areer loved the language he taught and because of its global impact:

If I must die,
you must live
to tell my story
to sell my things
to buy a piece of cloth
and some strings,
(make it white with a long tail)
so that a child, somewhere in Gaza
while looking heaven in the eye
awaiting his dad who left in a blaze—
and bid no one farewell
not even to his flesh
not even to himself—
sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up
above
and thinks for a moment an angel is there
bringing back love
If I must die
let it bring hope
let it be a tale.

The poem was recorded by well-known veteran actor Brian Cox and was viewed 11 million times in the first few days.

Al-Areer, born in Gaza City in 1979, received an MA from University College London in 2007 and a Ph.D. in English literature from the University of Putra Malaysia in 2017 with a dissertation on English poet John Donne (1572-1631). He was known for his editing of two books, Gaza Writes Back and Gaza Unsilenced, and his contributions to several others, including 2022’s Light in Gaza: Writing Born of Fire according to the World Socialist Website.