Scottish-Palestinian poet Nada Shawa on importance of speaking out

The National

27-04-2025

'I was invited to participate in this panel last year. And I'm delighted to be invited.'
Shawa is a Scottish-Palestinian poet, with her most recent poetry ­collection reviewed in this paper in October by Alan Riach. This year, she's excited to be part of ­Edinburgh's Tradfest, presenting the Palestinian film Fertile Memory – but perhaps even more excited to share her own experiences.
'I have always loved poetry from childhood, really, that's really ­inspired by my family but in terms of writing, it just sort of comes out ­naturally. But also because there was an interest in the community of personal experience of being from the Occupied Palestinian Territories and being in Scotland, I've developed it initially from people's interest but also a way of telling our stories and experiences,' she says.
Shawa was born in Palestine, but at the age of eight, she travelled to ­Scotland to get treatment for her ­cerebral palsy, where she has lived ever since, though she often travelled back to visit family.
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'My book is a collection of prose and poetry but mainly out of the experience of trying to get back, the biggest story is from when I tried to go back and see my ill mother and the horrific treatment that I had to endure both as someone with a disability and in terms of the being Palestinian, but of course now it's absolutely … even that crossing that I described in that piece, of course, is a pile of rubble.'
Looking back now, those ­memories of home are bittersweet. 'Although leaving Gaza at the age of eight to come to Scotland, I still was able to go regularly and have that connection. I'm still connected to Gaza and the culture and heritage.
'In my lifetime there's always been an occupation, there's ­always been an oppression but, you know, ­Palestinians in general are very ­resilient and they always strive on, push on, and really make life the best that they could in all its ­circumstances. And so in spite of all the hardships, you know, my own family, we had a beautiful, really beautiful life, in beautiful places in spite of the occupation,' she says.
'But bringing it back to the ­genocide now, even throughout the 18 months of this horror, people have been really trying to make the best of the circumstances and trying to overcome it, but it's just … and each time that resilience is shown, the oppression gets harder, the reaction is harder, and that's where we are ­today.'
Shawa talks frankly about Israel's genocide and destruction of her homeland – because it's so much more than destroying lives, it's destroying a people's history.
'There were more than 44 Unesco heritage sites ­completely destroyed, and there's been no ­protection whatsoever, no regard for any kind of history or heritage.
'Even non-Palestinian, even Byzantine or Roman or Greek heritage that has been present for thousands of years in that place, there's been no regard and no voices, really, to say 'look, you can't do that'.
'My grandfather, our family, have had a lot of really rooted presence in Gaza in regards to Palestinian rights, justice, in politics, in art, in academia, in medicine. One of the things that my grandfather did was fund and build institutions to help society, such as medical, ­disability facilities, as well as cultural – he founded the Rashad Shawa Cultural Centre. It was classed as a Unesco heritage site.
'And that was destroyed by Israel. He built cinemas in the 30s and 40s and they're all gone. It's just quite a … it's just like a complete erasure of everything. Educational institutes, medical facilities … anything, anything.'
To Shawa, the writing is on the wall about the true goal of Israel – complete erasure of Palestinian culture.
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'The true colours are really now quite clear in terms of this project that has been going on for 77 years that they want to finish the job completely but they can't. They can't finish us off. They can't finish who we are or who we were. And that's something the world has got to come to terms with. There is a people called Palestine and there is heritage.
'And the amount of … all those ­murdered people were really highly professional ­people, highly educated people, ­innovative. You know, there's inventors. Inventors who could have solved so many ­solutions of our time that have been just finished off just because they were Palestinian.
'So yes, I have lots of lovely ­memories and lots of significant ­memories of family gatherings, ­picnics. There was a lot of nature, you know, a lot of Palestinian culture is very much connected to the land, as you know, and moving through life with the seasons.'
The natural imagery really shines through in her poetry, especially her particularly stunning poem The Wave, which she says comes from her childhood of cypress trees.
'Nature was really intertwined with our lives, connected completely. So it was just a natural thing. We lost a lot… many, many people lost a lot – their trees, just out of destruction, out of sheer, sheer destruction, and that's why in my Wave, I say, 'why do you hate me? Why do you hate my mother's cypress tree? What have they done?'
'What they're trying to do is divide people, pushing them to say and be a true antisemite, which has been totally used and abused, and I refuse that.
'I really refuse to be pushed to that because I have great respect for the religion of Judaism and culture but what the occupation is now using is an extreme fascist element and using, in a warped way, a religion.
'But I refuse. I am against the ­occupation and it's them that are abusing their religion. That's what the sentiment in The Wave is about.'
If there's anything that Shawa wants people to see, it's that Palestinians are not just folk on the news ­crying out over the bodies of their family members, but real people.
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'The Palestinians have a right, they only want justice, really, and to ­exist peacefully like any other, or most of this world. That's really… and I think if my voice or my experience and my sentiment comes across that we really only want our rights, really. Nothing more.
'It's as if the media is just grasping onto a really warped ideology to really finish and push and make the dream a reality, but I only really want people to know Palestinians just on an ordinary level and not as people who are wailing and crying with their wounds or wailing over their children or ­really angry or … yeah, to know who we are. That we're very similar people in many ways – intellectually, culturally. That's what I really want to come across. There is so much strength, I say that, and part of my book, I really thank the people of Gaza for
inspiring me. Gaza has always inspired me with how it's able to rise and innovate in the darkest of times.'
Indigenous Soul: Gaza And Me is available through MainPoint books