‘Wake me up when humanity is back. I guess I will never wake up,’ suffixed with, ‘#GazaUnderAttack,’ one of the most ominous hashtags to flood the social networking website Twitter. This was a tweet by Farah Baker, a 16-year-old girl living in the besieged strip of land called Gaza in Palestine, a place that the rest of the world recognises as a permanent warzone.
This was followed by another tweet, ‘Massive shell now, 1.35 a.m.,’ and another, ‘I could hear the rocket falling then.’ This running commentary of a battle is what comprises a teenager’s Twitter feed. She identifies herself as Gaza’s Anne Frank. Instead of hand-written notes, Farah’s diary is a virtual compilation of tweets, each a compelling message articulated through 140 characters that has now garnered nearly 2,00,000 followers.
Farah’s story is the foundation of a new book brought out by Green Pepper Publica, a publication house started by a group of youngsters in the capital city. The book, Innu Ente Peru Palestine Ennakunnu, is essentially an anthology of Farah’s tweets translated to Malayalam. There are pictures of the bombed city illustrating this text, accompanied by a timeline of Israeli attacks on this strip, during this year alone.
The book, released by CPI(M) State unit secretary Pinarayi Vijayan here on Friday, includes a translated version of her interview with a foreign news agency. There are commentaries by Noam Chomsky, American philosopher and political commentator; writer K. Satchidanandan; activist Ninan Koshy and former Ministers M.A. Baby and Binoy Viswam.
The book release event also saw the launch of the Farah Book Challenge that involves spreading word about the book by gifting a copy to someone with an inscription declaring solidarity with the Palestinian cause. The profit collected through the sale of this book will be donated to the project for rebuilding this region.
Mr. Vijayan was critical of the Union government’s stand on the Gaza issue and condemned India’s purchase of Israeli weapons and its hesitance to openly criticise the attack through a Lok Sabha resolution.
The book was prepared by K.C. Shaijal. Social Welfare Minister M.K. Muneer presided over the book release function