Euolgy to Daud Turki

by Akiva Orr

from The Alternative Information Center (AIC)

This eulogy was presented by Akiva Orr on 11 March, at the gravesite of Daud Turki. 

Daud Turki was a fighter. He fought against oppression and injustice. He fought against the oppression of the Palestinian people by Zionism and against oppression of Blacks by white racists in South-Africa. He divided people into oppressors and oppressed not into Arabs and non-Arabs. He was always on the side of the oppressed, against oppression everywhere. He could not be bought or frightened. He represents the honour of the Palestinian people. 

In 1951 there was an Israeli Seamen’s strike in Haifa. Daud demonstrated outside the gates of the Haifa Port on behalf of the strikers. He did not mind that they were Jews. He felt they were victims of injustice and came to help them. He supported struggles of employees against employers all over the world. That is why he joined the Communist Party. 

In 1962 he became disillusioned by this party and left it. He continued struggle alone. 

After the 1967 war, when Zionism occupied all of Palestine he organized a joint Arab-Jewish armed struggle group to fight against the oppression of the Palestinians by Zionism. His model was the South-African anti-racist armed resistance which hit the S-A economy, but not civilians. Daud's group was arrested before it carried out any operation and he was sentenced to 18 years in prison.   

In prison Daud led hunger strikes of prisoners to win basic rights but when a policewoman greeted him normally with "Good Morning" he wrote her a poem. I don't think there is another prisoner anywhere who wrote a poem to a prison warden. 

Daud was freed after 12 years in prison by the prisoner-exchange deal with Ahmed Gibril in 1984.  He returned to his home in Wadi Nisnas in Haifa and continued to write revolutionary poetry which was broadcast by the "Voice of the People" Communist Radio station in Lebanon.  

In 1999 Haifa Radio interviewed older Haifa residents asking what was the most memorable event in their lives in the 20th Century.  Most people mentioned some personal event.  Some mentioned the 1948 war or the 1967 war.  One man said:  “The most memorable event he experienced in the 20th Century was the landing of people on the Moon.” The reporter was surprised and asked: “What made this event so memorable to you?” The man replied: “Until that landing everybody believed that people will always be chained to Earth by the force of Gravity. The Lunar landing demonstrates that people can break the chains imposed by the force of Gravity. If they can break the chains imposed by the force of Gravity they can beak chains imposed by any other force.” 

The man who said this was Daud  Turki.