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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 23 - 29 November 2000 Issue No.509 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 23 - 29 November 2000 Issue No.509
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Focus Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Suffer the mothers
By Fayza Hassan
It is with great interest that I read all the articles appearing in the international press commenting on the Intifada of Al-Aqsa. I search in vain for a personal view, for a writer daring to disagree. Most of the pieces feature precious little substance, pointing to a sore lack of sensitivity on the part of their authors, who are content to play around with the half-dozen clichés they have picked up at Israeli press conferences and/or from each other. Only the order in which the "information" is presented may vary every now and again, reflecting not the personal thoughts of the journalists but the editorial policy of their employers. Little else is new; and such an attitude is not inherently wrong, since making a living is fraught with compromises, as we all have discovered. Covering wars and massacres can be just another job, especially when done from the comfort of one's office. While some admirable reporters and photographers are ready to put their lives on the line to get at the truth, others don't even bother to obtain correct information on the topic they attempt to present as hard facts. Asking them to do their homework, I realise, may be above and beyond the call of duty as they see it.
A couple of articles nevertheless have recently displayed commendable creativity, to say the least, on the part of their writers, who happened to pick up on the story of Palestinian mothers accused of training their toddlers in the art (or is it a science?) of throwing stones at poor, defenceless Israeli soldiers. At first, one is led to believe that such items are written tongue in cheek, to make fun of highly trained soldiers armed to the teeth doing battle against a bunch of pre-teens equipped with home-made slingshots. One can almost picture the poor, harassed Palestinian women crowded together in their Bantustans, pounding away at rocks with the pestle and mortar they might have used in better times to prepare the proverbial kubeba. Having organised the day's supply of carefully sized stones, they embark on their next task, which features measuring and cutting lengths of elastic bands to construct the deadly bows.
It could be almost funny, really, had this kind of writing not carried with it a few sinister suggestions, like their authors' total ignorance of Middle Eastern customs. While Arab boys love and respect their mothers, by the time they have reached the age of reason, unlike their sisters, they are no longer under the women's jurisdiction but join the men of the family. If, courtesy of the Israeli army, there are no men left, they will endeavour to fill the role of head of the household. They are supposed to become decision-makers automatically, not little boys hanging on to the women's skirts. This is their God-given role, the sacred duty they will fulfil blindly, simply because they believe it is the destiny of men, a destiny few will dare to question.
Claiming that mothers encourage their sons to fight is giving them credit, however atrocious, where they have none. Of course, it could be argued that the mothers should take their sons' place, throwing the stones themselves at the unfeeling brutes, and I have no doubt that a few have attempted to, but it has not yet become the rule in a society whose conservative culture keeps women in the background with little choice but to endure the hand dealt to them by fate.
Still, let us for a moment imagine that what my esteemed colleagues of the international press are saying is true. Who could blame these women?
We once picked up a cat that had been struck by a car. Abandoned, she would certainly have died, but we managed to save her. A few days later, still quite weak, she gave birth to several kittens. She looked sadly at the little creatures as we placed them one by one in her box. At no point did she attempt to lick or nurse them, clearly intending to let them expire. Still hurt, unable to care for them, her instinct told her that they did not stand a chance. She only began the process of mothering them when she regained her strength and was able to look after them more or less properly.
This comparison should not shock too much the self-righteous ladies and gentlemen of the international press. To my knowledge, a number of their colleagues have been currently describing Palestinians in terms they would normally use when referring to wild animals. Palestinian mothers, many of them born in refugee camps akin to prisons, deprived of basic needs, have no hope for the future of their offspring. They know that their children will be either beaten, maimed or killed, if not today then in the near future; or, if lucky, they will end up toiling for the occupiers of their land.
Back in the 1980s, when hopes of peace were timidly looming ahead, Israelis descended on Maadi in droves, making themselves prematurely at home. They usually spoke their minds loudly and without restraint. I once overheard one of their women in the local supermarket confiding to an American friend that she was returning "home" at a time when the borders would be closed, confining the Arabs to their territories. She would have to do housework, which she hated, she sighed; then she quickly enlightened her American friend, who seemed not to have grasped the connection: "The Arabs are our servants, don't you know?"
Maybe Palestinian mothers, who can rely on no superpower to guarantee the well-being of their families, contemplate the grim future of their young sons and think in despair that a hero's death defending one's country is a hundred times preferable to a life of servitude and mistreatment at the hands of their tormentors. And maybe they do indeed gather the stones and hand them to their little ones. But why should the Israelis and their supporters complain? This is their golden opportunity to create the myth of a second Holocaust.
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