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wielded language in the form of allegory, metaphor, and poetry. This desire to speak despite the muted and fragmented horrors represents an ember within the Palestinian political prisoner. It is an ember which is nourished and tended to by integrating the accountability of the accomplices of the genocide. During her address at the People’s Conference for Palestine, Sana’ Daqqah, Walid’s wife of 23 years, stated: Walid and I wanted to do what most married couples desire, to have a child, to create a family. Because we are Palestinian, and because he is a political prisoner, our simple normal wish transforms into a revolutionary act. Sana’ Daqqah is a journalist who met Walid during interviews she was conducting with Palestinian political prisoners. The couple fell in love and chose to marry. Their love, passion, and longing were stoked and tended to through their letters and surveilled visitations. Milad, their child, is a materialization of Walid and Sana’s defiance of colonial captivity and isolation. Daqqa smuggled his sperm through the prison walls, conceiving possibility through fertile wombs of homeland. In Milad, whose name means “birth,” Walid
and Sana’s love bloomed against the brutality of the jailer. Here too, Daqqah represents the unforeclosed potentials of what it means to defy oppressive logics, and to embody the possibility of becoming anew. Once again we are back to Césaire who noted the colonial world always smells of scum. If there was justice in the Israeli military courts, Daqqa would have been released. However, Daqqa—currently one of over ten thousand Palestinian political prisoners – spent his final moments confined by a system that perceives the Palestinian as a non-being. Daqqa is the personification of love. In his writing, in his love story with Sana’, in his offspring Milad, he defied various forms of dehumanization, fragmentation and terror. It is a remarkable endeavor, to pursue love despite so much insistence on hate and ugliness. Walid’s writing is a luscious forest, abundant in astute observations, reflexive identifications, and demonstrates his capacity to reclaim desire, identifications, and humanity despite the most depraved circumstances. As of September 5th, 2024, the Israeli supreme court insists they will never return Walid Daqqa’s body. Posthumously, Walid remains a thorn in the throats of his occupiers. Even his funeral ceremony, a gathering in the home of his family, under a tent
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to coalesce the weeping, longing, and grieving masses, was attacked with tear gas. What is the role of the psychoanalyst, and what fortifies a psychoanalyst? In my opinion, Walid Daqqa’s impact on the collective, and his resounding insistence on the potentials of psychic transformation, imprints the night sky with a northern star, fostering paths towards homeland. ENDNOTES 1. Walid Daqqa quote translated by Abi-Ghannam, G. Naming Israel’s Psychological War on the Palestinians: Walid Daqqa’s Searing Consciousness (Or on Redefining Torture) (2004). P.8. 2. Walid Daqqa quote translated by Abi-Ghannam, G. Naming Israel’s Psychological War on the Palestinians: Walid Daqqa’s Searing Consciousness (Or on Redefining Torture) (2004). p.11 3. Walid Daqqa, “Consciousness Molded or the Re-identification of Torture” (2010), the preferred title of the study as it appears in text. 4. Lara Sheehi & Stephen Sheehi, Psychoanalysis Under Occupation: Practicing Resistance in Palestine, (Routledge, 2022) 5. Walid Daqqa, “Control in Time,” Awan (2021) (tr. Marwa Farag). 6. Referencing Walid Daqqa’s article, titled “Uncle, Give Me a Cigarette” presented in Dalia Taha’s 2023 “A Place Without a Door’ and ‘Uncle Give me a Cigarette’ – Two Essays by Palestinian Political Prisoner, Walid Daqqah. 7. Walid Daqqah, “A Place Without a Door,” Middle East Research and Information Project (2023) (tr. Dalia Taha). https://merip.org/2023/07/a-place-without-a-doorand-uncle-give-me-a-cigarette-two-essays-by-palestinian-political-prisoner-walid-daqqah/ 8. Alsheik, A. (2023). يزاوملا ناكملا: ديلو ركف يف نمزلا مسر ة ّقد. Palestine Studies, Vol. 135, (tr. By Razzan Quran).