Page 44 - Issue 72

V O L .1 E L I T E ISSUE 72

Where the Olive Tree Weeps, Art Speaks

th
Maryam Fathy - Political Science - 4 year

You often hear the word “Art”, and all that It does not merely decorate life, it defends it.
comes to mind is a thread of words that Solidifying cultures and heritages, stitching
boils down to leisure, luxuries, and a together the collective memory of a people
nagging non-necessity. You reduce it to a in ways no political decree can dismantle.
trivial afterthought, too hollow to carry It stands like an unyielding sentinel before
even the weight of addition, and in that the threat of abolishing the roots of a land
trance, you forget that entire civilizations and its people, it remembers when the world
stood the test of time and survived forgets, speaks when the tongue is tied and it
millennia through art and art alone. I’d does not whisper, it screams. It is a living
argue that without art, life is nothing but a archive of identity.
bland flavorless dish, sustenance perhaps,
And when it comes
but without savor. Art is what seasons our
to oppression, art
existence, it keeps us moving forward in
overpowers its
countless ways, it cradles our sorrows when
cruelest weapon:
they become too heavy to bear, and it offers
erasure. To erase a
refuge for our most fragile states of being.
nation, you must
But to stop at that would still fall short of stour it of its
truth, simply because there is so much more tongue, uproot its
to it than being a mere accessory. Mahmoud symbols, silence its
Darwish wrote “All beautiful poetry is an stories and yet art
act of resistance”. refuses this burial.
In many ways, art is one of the strongest
forces of resistance and resilience, because it
lives in a space where power’s reach falters. 44