Poetry, music and stories of Arab resistance

Yousef shares a collection of stories, poetry and music of resistance, including the story of Palestinian prisoner Abdul Karim and poems by Najib Al-Rayyes, Mahmoud Darwish and Tawfiq Ziad, many of which are connected to the television drama show, With My Own Eyes. Abdul Karim is a Palestinian who was imprisoned for 25 years by the Israeli Occupation Forces and engaged in biopolitical resistance during his imprisonment. He was recently released and able to rejoin his family. Najib Al-Rayyes was a Syrian lawyer who peacefully resisted the French colonisation of Syria and was imprisoned for it. There, he wrote the poem, The Darkness of Prison, which later became a freedom chant across Arab countries resisting colonialism in the first half of the 20th century. After the Nakba, it became the anthem of the Palestinian prisoner movement and was later turned into a song, which was remade for With My Own Eyes. Yousef also presents the poems Earth Poem by Mahmoud Darwish and Here We Shall Stay by Tawfiq Ziad, as well as music from Palestinian band Al-Shiqin, and Tarab Ensemble, in collaboration with the Victorian Trade Union Choir.Thank you again to everyone who donated during Radiothon 2026! Image: Mahmoud Darwish, Palestinian National Poet (2023) by Amitabh Mitra/Shubhoshreemitra, CC BY-SA 4.0