Saiyare: Hello, Thaer. You first reached out to Justseeds to collaborate last November after self-publishing “Beside the Sickle Moon” and simultaneously as you and one of your sisters were forming The Posterity Alliance. Fast forward to nearly a year of this blatant and brutal U.S. backed genocide by Israel in Gaza and increasingly the West Bank, and we can add neighboring countries being target with U.S. made weapons, you have just rereleased “Beside the Sickle Moon” under Daraja Press. Would you please speak a little to what this story has meant to you over the last year?
Thaer: Well, first, thank you so much for having me. And right now, I don’t know. The re-release has been a gift. I first self-published “Beside the Sickle Moon” days after October 7th and that’s because I had gotten to a certain point in my editing where I felt like now might as well be the time. I felt like it was at least a little bit ready to be viewed by the public. But more than that in my absolute helplessness to do anything about what’s happening to our indigenous families in Palestine, I thought, I mean, you know, I had to tell myself one day, you’re a writer, and you wrote a book, and that is the only weapon – the only thing – available for you to wield right now. You know, beyond protests and boycotts and things like that. So, I self-published and it was an interesting road, but it did lead me to Justseeds, and it led me to people like you, and it was healing.
I self-published after October 7th, and that wasn’t the route that I thought I was gonna go, because being in this field, you constantly hear criticisms and comments against self-publishing, but I did it, and it ended up being a great learning experience. But the way that it changed over the past 11 months is that as time went on, and as we started becoming witnesses to not only the genocide, but every single nuance and layer of a cleansing, the book started degrading from a delicate-something that I cherished as a literary device, and it started becoming a blunt tool. Here I wrote this thing, and it can allow me to have something that’s beyond a computer? The basement? Outside? Really? And that holds through today, you know. I finally got picked up by Daraja Press. Now, it’s a sharper tool with the help of Firoze Manji and the team. Maybe a door will open so that I can continue my advocacy and activism, and continue to talk about Palestine, and perhaps do it in a way that isn’t really spoken about outside of intimate or casual conversation. Many artists ask the question: what gives me the right to kind of put myself out there? There has to be someone better. There has to be someone more appropriate for this, and that couldn’t be more true, but not to escalate, not to try, will always be a greater shame. There are so many layers of it too – I think of Maus. It’s changed because the book became less about the book, and it became more about how I use it as a sword and shield against what is happening to them. Somehow.
S: Without giving away any spoilers “Beside the Sickle Moon” describes different paths two Palestinian cousins take in resistance to a new Israeli mall being erected on their traditional lands. What kind of research or lived experience was involved to prepare for crafting this story? Are their writers tied to the resistance of Zionist settlers that you lean on or return to?
T: I started writing this book back in 2016. And it wasn’t too long afterwards where I realized that, despite being Palestinian myself, and having the privilege to have gone back several times in my life, I knew I needed to go back and see it with new eyes. Because I realized that there was a lot of nuances missing from either the characters or the environment. It was going to take a firsthand experience in order to do that. So, I actually started off with interviewing my teta [grandmother], who is a Nakba survivor. She was there in ‘48. She was there in ’67, and I did dozens of interviews with her until she was sick of it. Which is fair, because people and their suffering aren’t meant to only be objects of study. And that was a foundational learning experience for this book and for myself. And I started to do that off and on with people that I met that had interesting stories, or just wanted to be heard. And then, of course, reading people like Mohammed El Kurd, Basil al Araj, Noor Hindi, Leila Khaled all the way through space and time into anarchist zines and really just setting that groundwork for my understanding and learning from people who inspire me to this day. In 2019, I ended up going and living in Amman, Jordan. And during my time there I would work collecting Palestinian stories in refugee camps, teaching creative writing workshops, and above all else, really just talking to people and that was an accelerated learning experience. I would make my way into Palestine and visit my grandmother and family, experience what little of El Bireh and Ramallah’s day and night the way I could. And in the background was always the book.
S: If it’s ok, I’m going to read a small excerpt from your book that I keep going back to where your protagonist Laeth describes an encounter with who we presume to be an Israeli soldier, (on page 53,) “Part of me wants to struggle against his grip; maybe dig a finger into the hole of his simply made Stim, but there’s also a gun against my head. Any Palestinian would feel at home in this disposition, I’m sure of it. It’s a feeling closer to home than the land we’ve retained. I’d wager every shekel that any of them would use these last moments to spit in his porcelain face, but instead, I laugh.” I come back to this line because I think of such shining examples like the dearly revered poet and scholar Refaat Alareer, who would have turned 45 today, used humor in the face of such stark moments of despair. And I’m wondering what kind of tools such as humor, writing, art means to you in this struggle and fight for liberation?
T: Ironically, I think that humor in particular is essential in order to keep us keeping on and remember our humanity. I say it’s a little ironic because I’m not really the funniest person anymore. I struggle often almost on a daily basis with remembering that things like humor and love are essential aspects to anything that would call itself the process of revolution, and it’s not just about rage and sorrow. That those are the tools to our humanity when we forget them. And I tried to apply that in the novel itself.
S: Thank you. So many liberation movements around the world have not been successful in driving out colonizers or imperialist forces without armed resistance. In conversation with more radical Iranians in the diaspora there has been discourse and internal struggles to support the resistance for liberation of Palestinians and their land but also opposition to resistance groups funded by the totalitarian regime that is the Islamic Republic of Iran. (With the given that the Iranian diaspora is very politically divided. There are certainly monarchists and Zionists within the Iranian diaspora.) I’m curious what your thoughts are on this topic and if our enemy’s enemy can still be our friends and allies?
T: Yeah, I think this is a great question, it’s complicated, as I’m sure you know, it’s very complicated. In the past 11 months I found myself in several spaces, whether they call themselves Communist or Anarchist, and throughout those experiences, I’ve noticed campism same as it always is. It’s more complicated than even my intelligence can actually explain which means I definitely need to research it a little bit more. Campism is essentially “us versus them” tactics.
It’s difficult we have many holocaust survivors and descendants turned Zionists that use the logic that if I can’t overcome my monsters as I am now then I will arm myself with my master’s armament, ally myself with my monsters, and therefore become the monster so that something like this doesn’t happen again, although that logic isn’t necessarily why Zionism was created. But it’s a logic that many follow. And that’s something that I fear with Palestine itself sometimes, is that you see a lot of people defending regimes like Iran’s and China, and we can go down the list of terrible regimes that have horrible crimes against humanity themselves and spare them from any sort of criticism, because they are pro-Palestinian and therefore absolved. Which is a terrible thing. People love to say the devil you know, and I understand that sentiment. But it’s a dangerous one, because whether it’s decades or centuries from now, we could find ourselves on the top of Fortuna’s wheel, committing the same heinous acts against humanity in the name of defending ourselves just like we’re seeing now with the Zionists. Paulo Freire would say that the violence of the oppressed cannot be measured the same as the violence of the oppressor, and I think that’s very important too.
S: I definitely agree. And they are needing more support, right? More than ever. And the majority who are aiding the resistance have those complicated nuances. So, back to writing, I have come across some but not many Palestinian stories that can fit within the SciFi genre. What do you think this genre allows for in your writing of the Palestinian lived experience?
T: When I was thinking about writing a novel about Palestine, and considering what it was gonna look like, my favorite genre, speculative fiction, came to mind. And it just kind of had this natural want to do that and it just so happened that a collection of short stories called “Palestine +100” had come out, and it was the first of its kind that I’d ever seen, and essentially the prompt was asking what would Palestine look like a hundred years in the future. And it created this beautiful collection of stories that I’ve never seen before coming out of the blad [term in Arabic to describe Palestine], and so their voices really encouraged me to keep going. Now, as a member of the diaspora I have a lot of my own insecurities being Palestinian. I don’t hesitate to advocate, but I do have voices in my head. A lot of insecurities telling me, “You know, there’s someone better. Someone can say it better. Someone can do it better. You’re representing like shit,” concern that I’m speaking over a Palestinian experiencing the occupation right now and then. And so, in some way, sci-fi speculative fiction gave me a loophole out of that. It allowed me to circumnavigate those insecurities and say what I want.
“…concern that I’m speaking over a Palestinian experiencing the occupation right now and then. And so, in some way, sci-fi speculative fiction gave me a loophole out of that. It allowed me to circumnavigate those insecurities and say what I want.” -Thaer Husien
S: Thank you. You’d mentioned being 13 years old and wanting to become a writer. Would you be able to speak a little bit more about what solidified your desire to be a writer? And what advice would you have for writers seeking to publish now that you have self-published and gone through a press?
T: At the age of 18 in the so-called United States, we’re faced with the decision of “What are you going to do for the rest of your life?”
I remember thinking back and being like, “Well, what do I love?” And the answer was very clear for me. It was writing and I do remember asking myself why and it was all of these remembrances of every book that taught me the spectrum of human souls, emotions, imagination. You know, a deep emotion. That feeling when you finally finish a book, and it takes you a week to kind of get over the characters, is more than just fanfare and puppy love. That feeling is real. I just thought about all that power that words have whether it’s inside of a book or a speech and everything in between. I knew that I wanted my craft held within words, and also, you know, whether it’s true or not, I thought I had at least somewhat of a talent, and it just seems right. It just seemed to fit. So, yeah, that’s why I ended up pursuing writing and as far as the self-publishing route goes, I mean, it sucks; it super sucks. Representing yourself isn’t easy or fair, but I am eternally grateful for the independent bookstores who gave it a home throughout the world. But again, it was a learning experience that I don’t know if every writer needs, I mean it sucks. If I could have avoided it, I would have.
Daraja Press have been doing amazing work for years now and at the heart of it is Firoze Manji, who is a wonderful scholar, publisher and editor. There are still those struggles of you know the unfortunately, like the corporate or the admin side of things, there are still those struggles, but compared to many people’s reality; there’s that duality, too. A genocide going on every second, every day. Sometimes it’s hard not looking at the book as what it’s not: a gimmick. Maybe it is a bastardization, though.
S: Would you like to speak a bit more about The Posterity Alliance and if the vision of The Posterity Alliance shifted over this year? And in what ways can the community anticipate to engage with all of you?
T: That’s a great question. So, we started The Posterity Alliance, which is a community organization in so-called Cleveland, with my eldest sister, Suehad, and five of my friends. All of us with our own sort of fields, experiences, backgrounds. And we decided pretty early on in the genocide that advocacy can only really go so far as an individual, and we would have a lot more advantages and doors open as a collective. And so we decided, okay, well, we’re gonna do our own thing and start a nonprofit. We have a Wellness branch where we offer free art therapy to the diaspora and our allies and teach classes on writing, decolonization, host fundraisers and concerts and print zines, and how that’s changed over the past year is we no longer desire to be a nonprofit. Over the course of our learning we learned about the nonprofit industrial complex. And we realized the needlessness for our justifications. We also learned from organizations, such as Justseeds, such as the Chunka Luta Network of Pine Ridge Reservation, and so many others. There’s something true about a system not only run by the community, but empowered by it, and when the fuel runs out, that means that the need for us has run out. And something about that is, it’s not only a beautiful sentiment, but it’s praxis. I think the Posterity Alliance is sort of a sandbox for us to grow as activists inside of; no more or less.
S: Thank you. I know you’ve been writing a little bit. Maybe some poetry and some essays. Where can folks find more of your writing?
T: So, my writing is kind of intentionally obfuscated. It’s such a flattering honor to be published. But, on the other hand, I have a problem with self-promotion. You know, I’ve been told time and time again to have my own website, and I still don’t or at least some sort of sampled portfolio that people can find. And, it’s smart to have something like that. And yeah, I still don’t. Aside from one or two short stories that I have out there in the online ether is to actually go back and buy the literary journal or the magazine that published me.
“I used to always tell people the only thing that we have are our bonds and our dreams. And I think it couldn’t be more true than today and tomorrow. “ – Thaer Husien
S: (That’s why you have friends.) As we are nearing one year of this more blatantly televised genocide what is giving you hope and strength during this time?
T: Honestly, I think the answer is still other people. I think I’m running on fumes. I think I’m somewhat of a shell and a husk of my former self. If we’re being honest with each other, I think I don’t really have too much to give, and yet we do have to keep going. If we choose to be alive, then we choose so many things, but one of them is certainly resistance, and to fight, somehow, and I do choose those things. I used to always tell people the only thing that we have are our bonds and our dreams. And I think it couldn’t be more true than today and tomorrow. Because it’s people like you and my friends and my mother and my father and my sisters and teta who make me laugh and again we talked about how important humor is and how healing it can be. We are each other’s silver linings. To have those people to talk about and process these traumas that happen on a day-to-day basis. I think the answer is simply other people. Because, honestly, right now, there’s not too much else.
Noor Hindi, author of “Dear God, Dear Bones, Dear Yellow” described “Beside the Sickle Moon”: “This novel is one of defiance, speaking to Palestinian resistance, friendship, and community with searing honesty and penetrating depth. Husien has constructed a protagonist who reflects the importance of disobedience and refusal in the face of annihilation. What I love most about this book is its confrontation of loneliness and futility and the desire to charge towards a future anyway.”
You can order a copy of “Beside the Sickle Moon” or download a PDF version from Daraja Press. Thaer Husien can be followed on Instagram at @besidethesicklemoon. The Posterity Alliance also has a website, Instagram and Substack. This interview was conducted over Zoom on September 23rd. The transcription was reviewed and approved by Thaer. Any other errors belong to Saiyare. The article photo of the book cover on a red and black keffiyeh was taken by Saiyare.