When I Return: What will you do when you return to a liberated Palestine?

photo credit United Nations Relief & Works Agency

Kassem Ahmad, Lebanon, Oak Lawn

Reem, Egypt, Nablus

When Palestine is liberated I will go straight to the old city of Nablus with my mum and sister, as we haven’t been able to do for years now, and we will buy sweets and fruit and of course tanajir and she will show us around without the fear she once felt. But then we will go on a trip to see all of Palestine, which I have never been able to do. I will get to know every town and village, every cafe and bookshop and market and every neighbourhood’s customs and reputation and resistance. Also my cousins and I will drive along the coast and I will stick my head out of the car window, just like I do in Cairo after I’ve just landed, and breathe in free air with loud music and Palestinian jokes in the background. And after the fun, I will help with something, I can’t say what yet, but maybe teach a course, establish a cinema or help found a museum. Maybe I’ll even work for the Free State..! And I will invite my family and friends from other Arab countries to Palestine to see the liberation and celebrate it, because they will have played a part in realising it for sure.

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When I Return

When I Return is a participatory campaign that features simple notes by Palestinians, Arabs and allies describing what they hope to do when Palestine is free and/or they return to Palestine. When I Return evidences the daily resonance of the Nakba, as not only a vanishing memory to be commemorated, but as a persistent moment binding us to our past, our present and to each other.

When I Return What will you do when you return to a liberated Palestine?