“The palm will be bloodied, well and good—are we seeking independence and liberation while expecting a path strewn with roses? This stage is difficult, very difficult, and there is no alternative to endurance. Our day will come, I don’t know when, but it will come, and our efforts will not be wasted.”

Wisam Rafeedie’s ‘The Trinity of Fundamentals’ is a novel which follows Palestinian Kan’an’s nine years of hiding from the Israeli occupation in the 80s and early 90s before he is sent to a detention center. The Palestinian Youth Movement states that it is a fictionalized account of Rafeedie’s time spent hiding from the occupation. And the story of how this novel came to be published is insane—being smuggled out of prison in pills type of insane. Kan’an at the start of the novel is 22 years old and has love from his homeland and the Palestinian cause for independence, which leads him to let go of everything, his family, his friends, his girlfriend, his education, everything, and go headfirst into necessary isolation ordered by the revolutionary party. And it’s a look at a revolution which to me is something I’ve never really seen before. When I think of revolution, I usually think of soldiers fighting with guns, or swords, or stones. But in this novel, the revolution is letting things go, learning to be without your mother, without friends, and without a lover. The revolution is learning to be alone in complete isolation with only your thoughts to keep you company. 

I think what this novel does great, besides educating us about real life events like the First Intifada, or the Madrid Conference, is it showcases the multiple sides of being a revolutionary and how it affects relationships with others. For example, one of the relationships that stood out to me the most, was Kan’an and his mother. It was interesting to see a revolutionary get disciplined or talked to like a child by their mother. It was interesting to see her still see him as her child, and not just a freedom fighter who is willing to do anything for his country, and to mother him and yell at him for not eating enough or to clean his hideout more often. I highly recommend this book to anyone with a heart that would like to learn more about the Palestinian multi decade struggle for independence, or to those who refuse to see freedom fighters as human beings.