– “The Pressing Name of Palestine,” Lalita Panjabi
Zeinab Shaath performing within the mountains of Lebanon for the Ismail Shammout movie The Pressing Name of Palestine, 1972.
Although she was born and raised in Alexandria, Egypt, songwriter Zeinab Shaath proudly describes herself as a Gazzawiyya, mentioning the Gaza origins of her household. Her father’s pre-1948 exile from Palestine formed her upbringing and, by the re-emergence of the Palestinian Revolution within the late Nineteen Sixties, a teenage Zeinab had begun writing songs devoted to the trigger. Within the decade to comply with, she would characteristic within the first quick movie of Palestinian artist Ismail Shammout and launch her personal file, earlier than performing her distinctive model of musical poetry on three continents.
This picture and music essay paperwork a few of Zeinab’s experiences as a musician-activist and types a part of a broader analysis undertaking by Louis Brehony into contributions to Palestinian resistance music.[1]
Pictures have been generously offered by Zeinab Shaath and Bashar Shammout.
Zeinab started songwriting after her older siblings introduced a guitar again from research within the US, the place protests in opposition to the struggle on Vietnam have been raging. Remembering their familial dedication to talking Palestinian Arabic at house, Zeinab reveals the optimism of the occasions: “We at all times thought that we’d return and that we’d return to Palestine… I needed to contribute to the Palestinian revolution by way of tune.”
Whereas in Lebanon, Zeinab met Ismail Shammout and her tune “The Pressing Name,” featured in his first movie, which premiered in 1973. She had written the tune in 1970, at 16 years outdated. An skilled painter and himself a Palestinian exile from Lydd, Shammout had turn into a number one determine in PLO cultural organizing. Zeinab would file a four-track vinyl file, launched by the PLO Cultural Arts Part in 1972. Movie reels of The Pressing Name have been amongst objects looted by the Zionist navy throughout its invasion of Lebanon. (Pictures: Ismail Shammout and Zeinab Shaath throughout filming, and Zeinab’s file cowl.)
Amongst her first songs, and people showing on her file, was Zeinab’s 1972 composition to the Mo’in Bseiso poem “Resist”:
They slapped down a paper
and a pen earlier than my nostril
In my hand they thrust
the important thing to my home
The paper they needed me to blemish
mentioned Resist… Resist
The pen they needed me to shame
mentioned Resist… Resist
After initially acting on Egyptian radio, Zeinab sang at Palestinian festivals in Lebanon. Amongst these impressed by her music was Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, who “gave me a giant hug” after listening to her sing “Write Down, I’m an Arab,” translating his well-known poem “I.D. Card” into English. Zeinab aimed to take the narrative of Palestinian resistance to worldwide audiences and located recognition amongst others struggling in opposition to imperialism. (Picture: Zeinab interviewed in Beirut for Alif Baa journal, 1974.)
In summer time 1973, Zeinab was certainly one of round 750,000 individuals from around the globe to participate within the enormous tenth World Youth Competition in East Berlin, then a part of the socialist German Democratic Republic. Throughout this “superb trade of concepts and ideas,” Zeinab carried out at enormous revolutionary concert events and was a part of a preferred, 150-strong Palestinian delegation. Struggles to liberate Palestine and Vietnam got central significance. Zeinab “beloved the chance to be in that tenth World Youth Competition… I sang on phases there singing Write Down, I’m an Arab, and another songs.” She’d additionally go on to carry out within the Soviet Union.Shifting to review within the US in 1976, Zeinab would later have kids and “flip into an activist, quite than a singer.” Within the meantime, she would sing in Boston, Chicago, Detroit, San Francisco and different cities, at protests, charity occasions and Arab neighborhood gatherings. “There have been many scholar organizations, many protests throughout Sabra and Shatila, commemorations, I’d be singing there. I received married in 1982 and needed to name it quits however [my husband] inspired me to hold on.”
She’d proceed writing songs too, with supporters discovering her new translations of Palestinian poetry. Although a few of the recordings can be misplaced, the spirit of Zeinab’s contribution can be encapsulated within the liberating spirit of the poetry she beloved:
Right here we will keep
A wall upon your breast
Dealing with hunger
Scuffling with rags
Defying
Singing our songs
Swarming the streets with our wrath
Filling your dungeons with pleasure
– “Right here We Shall Keep,” Tawfiq Zayyad
[1] Quotes are from interviews and correspondence with Zeinab Shaath in spring 2022. Thanks are attributable to Issa Boulos for serving to make preliminary contact.
– Louis Brehony is a Manchester-based musician, activist, researcher and educator. He’s the director of the movie Kofia: A Revolution By means of Music (2021) and the writer of an upcoming ebook on Palestinian music in exile. He writes usually on Palestine and political tradition and performs internationally as a guitarist and buzuq participant. He contributed this text to The Palestine Chronicle.
