Refaat did not die, he multiplied!
The posthumously published collection of Dr. Refaat Alareer’s poetry & prose - which I pre-ordered the moment it was announced and then desperately anticipated until I received it - arrived on election day of November 2024. Refaat never hesitated to pin all necessary blame for the genocide on the Democrats, and here they were a year later finally being held to account. One thing is for sure - the man always did have impeccable timing, even in death!
In the foreword to the collection, Palestinian writer Susan Abulhawa invokes a rallying cry for Refaat that was first used after the death of Honduran environmental activist Berta Cáceres -
“Refaat did not die, he multiplied!”
A few weeks after election night I was walking home in my neighborhood after an evening coffee with a friend who made me feel understood for the first time in too long. It was cathartic, but it also stirred things within me that had been otherwise buried deep below the surface for a while. This was a new tendency for me, one that feels entirely against my nature and also against Rafaat’s resonant wisdom on story-telling, something I’d been contemplating incessantly in those days. I walked home feeling upset and unsettled. It was dark out already and from a block away I saw what appeared to be a blank white rectangle on the wall of the building ahead. After passing it I kept walking a few paces, but something pulled strongly at my curiosity enough that I stopped to turn around and get a better look. I can’t remember my exact audible expression as I got close enough to see what the rectangle on the wall said, but I remember there definitely was one, once I could finally see that what the poster contained were the words of Refaat’s most famous poem, If I Must Die.
“Refaat did not die, he multiplied!”
This was not the first time since his passing that Refaat's name and words had been inscribed on a wall in Brooklyn, but it was the first time I'd seen it for myself in person. I took a photo to share it online alongside a related screenshot I knew I had saved on my phone: an instagram story from a friend sharing their own encounter with Refaat's poetry on the streets of New York. The tradition of communal redecorating in this town has never been anything but alive and well.
A search for Refaat's name in my camera roll yielded even more results than anticipated, reminding me (although I’ve never forgotten) how much of a guiding light this person has been for me and so many others over the years, in death just as much in life.
“Refaat did not die, he multiplied!”
Many of the screenshots served as potent reminders of how constant his virtual company had been during the last three months of 2023. Devastatingly, those were the last three months of his life as well. There were, of course, the daily harrowing updates and ahead-of-curve analysis. There were the crucial and illuminating checks on western ignorance and our often well-meaning but misguided attempts to offer solidarity. There were also genuinely hilarious moments of much-needed levity, displays of a wit unrivaled, his seemingly unshakeable irreverence. But for me, the most searing and vivid memory of all is the way Refaat’s words echoed on the day of his martyrdom, how they reverberated far and wide, across vast distances and through countless different tongues.
“Refaat did not die, he multiplied!”
Indeed.
The first draft of this text was originally posted here on November of 2024. If I Must Die went on to become a national bestseller and by the end of 2024 had sold nearly 3x as many copies of the book than were printed.