published on
Take action:
https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/take-action/
We Have More Life by Adam Gottlieb
Lyrics:
They have much more death than we do
But we have much more life than them
They make sacred symbols into
Weapons of war we condemn
They say bombs protect our homeland
We say that home could not be mine
They say Zion can be owned and
We cry out Free Palestine!
Here is a new song for the movement for a Ceasefire Now and a Free Palestine tomorrow. With a bow to Aurora Levins Morales who writes in her poem "V'ahavta":
"Thus spoke the prophet Roque Dalton:
All together they have more death than we,
but all together, we have more life than they."
We need songs that offer clarity, that keep us focused in the present while bolstering our stamina for the future. The movement to free Palestine is a movement for the freedom of all peoples and all lands. We need songs that invite all people to identify with the side of history that defends life in opposition to the current system by which a global ruling class profits off of oppression and war maintained through militarized ethno-nationalism, apartheid, and genocide.
This is a moment in history that challenges all of us who care about humanity to imagine organizing ourselves into societies beyond the need for armies, border walls, and prisons, beyond the form of national states. We must realize that decolonization is not only possible but a necessary condition for our collective survival, and that revolution is indeed evolution into a new stage of human existence beyond scarcity-based competition, colonization, war, and exploitation of land and people in all forms.
#FreePalestine is a movement for life over death, liberation over oppression, human beings over states, for a world based on principles of humanity, cooperation, and respect for life. It is an indigenous-led decolonizing movement, an abolitionist movement, a revolutionary movement at the tip of global resistance to fascism.
There is a Jewish tradition about 2,000 years older than what has become known as Zionism, which uplifts the idea of the holy land not simply as the specific land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, but also as all of the places that we can make holy through our living ethically and sustainably on the land and in peace and justice with the people we live on it with. Today, our continuation of that tradition links the idea of Jerusalem or Zion metaphorically to the idea of Olam Haba, the World to Come, which is not an abstract idea but a real future we dedicate ourselves to building: a world beyond all forms of oppression, exploitation, war, and enslavement. A world where no one can own the land, because no one can own life. A world in which we are able to live as we are, inherently free.
This sense of the word “Zion” is not only Jewish but also resonates across cultures to a great extent through diverse liberation theologies and cultural movements. The term "Zion" has evolved to mean something similarly visionary in Rastafari tradition, for example, and its anti-colonial meaning has even achieved a kind of global cultural influence via the musical diasporas of Reggae and Hip Hop.
And, as I have recently come to understand, the idea of land being inherently free is contained within the Arabic meaning of "فلسطين حرة" Filastin hurra,” “Free Palestine,” in which the word for “Free” is an adjective, describing the land and the people in their natural state.
I offer this song as a small contribution to this remarkable community, and to the movement. It's called “We Have More Life.” May it serve as a soundtrack to your work as we rise to meet our historic tasks in this moment.
To support my work you can become a Patron or donate to my GoFundMe. Thank you.
https://www.patreon.com/adamgottliebandonelove
https://gofund.me/aa0dc8a0
Find the video on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/vI6H5MlMQ4M?si=1fetZdGzLrtlELt9
- Genre
- Folk & Singer-Songwriter