On Monday, an aid flotilla set sail from Barcelona, Spain, on its way to Gaza. Swedish activist Greta Thunberg was joined by hundreds of other activists on a mission to “break the illegal siege of Gaza” and deliver vital humanitarian aid to the people of Palestine.
Irish actor and Game of Thrones star Liam Cunningham was also at the launch where he spoke and shared a video of a young Palestinian girl singing a song in Arabic that she wanted to be played at her funeral. The girl, Fatima, died last week, Cunningham said.
The flotilla is the third of its kind this year and has been given the name Global Sumud Flotilla. Sumud, our Arabic word of the week, is most commonly translated as resilience or steadfastness, but its meaning reaches far deeper than these English equivalents suggest.
Rooted in the verb samada (to stand firm, to endure), sumud describes the act of remaining unshaken in the face of adversity. It is not simply the ability to endure hardship but the conscious choice to persist, to remain rooted, and to refuse to yield when circumstances appear overwhelming.
Historically, the term has carried profound cultural and political significance across the Arab world, particularly when it comes to the Palestinian cause. Palestinians use sumud to describe their determination to remain on their land despite occupation, displacement and economic hardship.
In this context, sumud became more than an abstract concept. It is a philosophy of resistance. It meant building homes despite the risk of demolition, planting olive trees where others were uprooted, raising families in refugee camps and refusing to allow one's internal spirit to be broken by external pressures.
In his 1983 book, Fateful Triangle, American linguist Noam Chomsky cites Palestinian lawyer and writer Raja Shehadeh, who identifies three responses to occupation: blind hatred (the terrorist), mute submission (the moderate) and the path of the Samid.
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Shehadeh describes the Samid as one who chooses to remain in a prison because it is home, fearing that leaving would mean never being allowed to return. This choice requires constant resistance against two temptations: surrendering in despair to the jailer’s plans or being consumed by hatred for both jailer and self.
Introspectively, it refers to the inner strength that individuals summon to endure trials, whether in the form of loss, illness or emotional struggle. In Arabic poetry and proverbs, the idea of standing tall like a mountain against the winds of fate captures the essence of sumud.
Unlike perseverance, which can suggest a passive waiting, sumud implies active engagement with circumstances. For a student striving despite limited opportunities, for a parent protecting and nurturing their children under difficult conditions or for a community rebuilding after disaster, sumud represents the quiet but powerful resolve that allows life to continue.
The root word, samad, could also mean pain, while Al samad is one of Allah’s 99 names, which in this context refer to God as being the eternal or the absolute.
