Don’t tell my mother that I have become blind
Mohammad Barash is a disabled political prisoner inside Nafha Prison; one of 85 prisoners who are either physically or mentally disabled. On the 17th of February, 2003, he was arrested after he was badly injured, and despite his disability, which resulted from his injuries, he was given three life sentences plus 35 years. He is still continuing his struggle with pride inside a cell paying a double price; his precious years of prime and the consequences of zionist entity’s crimes.
‘Don’t tell my mother that I can no longer see. She can see me but I can’t see. I fake my smiles when she shows me the photographs of my siblings, friends, and neighbors as she doesn’t know, that I have become blind after illness spread in my eyes till the darkness filled me.
Don’t tell her that I waited for several years to have a surgery to plant a cornea. But the Israeli Prison Service kept on procrastinating and procrastinating providing my eyes all reasons to leave me.
Don’t tell my mother that the shrapnel of bullets and the bombs which managed to hit me is still settling in my body, and that my left leg had been mutilated and replaced by a plastic one. Don’t tell her that the other leg rotted and dried of blood and life.
Don’t tell my mother that the prisoner’s emotions got stripped of the most basic elements of human life as he is sentenced to see only ashes and iron, lightless life and hopelessness.
Tell her that I am alive and safe. Tell her that I can see, walk, run, play, jump, write and read. Don’t tell her that I am shouldering my pains on my walking stick, and I can picture every martyr as a moon souring in the sky and calling me with the power of lightning, thunder and clouds.
Don’t tell her that I suffer from sleepless nights, and that I live under the mercy of the pain killers till it drugs my body. Don’t tell her that I keep twiddling my stuff till I barge into the iron beds or another prisoner sleeping close to me, to wake him up to help me reach the bathroom. Don’t tell her that wakefulness always hurts me and sleep never visits me.
Don’t tell her that a piece of lead entered my eye in that bloody day in the camp streets. They aggressively shot me until my leg was cut off, and my eye was gone. And before I fainted I saw a little kid running toward me waving the Palestinian flag while screaming: a martyr, a martyr.
Tell her that my dream is not enough. My nostalgia for her is too much and her soul never leaves me. I still have from her my language, my purity, my symbols stuck on the wall, all of which heal my pain every time the light disappears around me.
Tell her that I always embrace her holy prayers, to survive from the dark cloud that surrounds me after my body has tortured me. I might get back to her or I might not, but I left the answer to this question open, although I’ve chosen spiritually to be close to her heart, as if I chose my future, of which I have officially no control.
Don’t tell her that Israel, a country in the 21st century, has turned the prisons into places where diseases are planted and bodies are ruined slowly; and slowly, it turned to be fields of trial for living people whose death is inevitable sooner or later.
Don’t tell her that I have become knowledgeable of all names of horrible illnesses and strange medications, along with all types of pain killers, while I’m witnessing my friend Zakariyya diving into a coma, with an ending unknown to me.
Don’t tell my mother about the sick prisoners whose diseases launched an insane war against their bodies: Ahmad Abu Errab, Khaled Ashawish, Ahmad El-Najjar, Mansour Mowqeda, Akram Mansour, Ahmad Samara, Wafaa El-Bis, Reema Daraghma, Tareq Asi, Mo’tasim Radad, Riyad Al-Amour, Yasir Nazzal, Ashraf Abu-Thare’, Jihad Abu-Haniyy. The merciless Israeli prisons slaughter them; illness and carelessness of a country that enjoys slow death sentences and funerals for others.
Tell her that I am still 30 doors away from you and I get closer every time a bird flies and a fire flames up my eye, and barbed wires wound me, carrying me to your arms and to your prayers.’
This was Mohammad’s letter to his mother which unveils the inhumane nature of Israel which claims to be the only democracy in the Middle East while violating the most fundamental human values. I meant to share with you those powerful words he wrote in Arabic to help you picture the torturous conditions that the prisoners endure inside the Israeli cells, especially the disabled.
The core of their shameful crimes which offend any sense of propriety in any heart with any shred of conscience, were done under the banner of maintaining security. However, in this case where those disabled prisoners can hardly threaten their holy safety, how would they justify this?
PALESTINE FROM MY EYES 
WORDS ARE DISABLED …
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October 27, 2011 at 4:08 pm
I m feeling a pain inside my heart…..
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October 27, 2011 at 7:21 pm
Tell her that my dream is not enough,…
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October 27, 2011 at 8:14 pm
why did he get 3 life sentences plus 35 years? What did he do?
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October 27, 2011 at 9:48 pm
Dont tell my mother , Dont tell yourself , stay blind as me , keep your eyes closed from what is happening to me , to the other prisoners in plaestine , in this huge jail ! Dont open your eyes !! And dont ask me , why ! Another Palestinian prisoner, , but my friend let me say : life goes on ;)
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October 27, 2011 at 9:54 pm
you erased my smile , the smile i gained for the release of more than 1000 prisoner , thank you cause u made me remember .. the ones who are still there ..
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October 27, 2011 at 9:55 pm
sincerely appreciate sharing this…thank you
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October 28, 2011 at 3:26 am
This makes for depressing reading, but the saddest thing of all, is that none of it surprises me. I have become so used to the brutality and inhumanity of Israel's oppressive regime, that whilst Mohammed Barash's suffering horrifies me, I think I have become immune to “shock” when it comes to stories such as this.
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October 28, 2011 at 10:46 am
sad
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October 28, 2011 at 12:45 pm
Shared on If Only the World Knew && If Only the World Knew .thank you for reminding us of the 5,000 still in Israeli jails.
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October 28, 2011 at 5:50 pm
stand strong and hang tough good ppl of palestine, support the planetary patriot as he supports you. allahu akbar!
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October 28, 2011 at 6:52 pm
قلب صغير, وعينان تخجلان من الرؤية.
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October 28, 2011 at 7:35 pm
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=VL86YZXQThe Planetary Patriot and the Day he Went to Palestinefree ebook free download :Dall mass media zionist mass media read something that is not. read how one man can make a difference and just how one man who believes in the almighty one can do anything and can take on the might of the idf and win. allahu akbar!
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October 28, 2011 at 10:07 pm
I wish there was something we could do. :-( What could we do? There must be something….
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October 29, 2011 at 3:09 am
i hope people who did this to him should burn and rot in hell… May Allah take away all the pain from Mohammad Barash Ameen…
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October 29, 2011 at 1:07 pm
Wow… This really gut me… To me what appears more clearly than anything else is not Israel’s blatant disregard for human rights but rather the courage of Mohammed Barash, and other political prisoners. They are on a class of their own. In my prayers. Thank you for sharing.
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July 24, 2012 at 8:10 pm
Thanks Abu Horreya for your kind words. :) Please share and help make Mohammed’s Brash voice heard. Best xx
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July 26, 2012 at 12:40 am
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