3 - 9 January 2002
Issue No.567
|
Al-Ahram Weekly Online 3 - 9 January 2002 Issue No.567 |
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Current issue | Previous issue | Site map | ||
Out of the ashes
Abdel-Jawad Saleh seeks out the phoenix of hope in a blasted landscape
Nour (light), eight years old, a beautiful girl, fragile, thin, with blonde hair, was one of the victims of the last Israeli raid on the twin cities of Al-Bireh and Ramallah. Nour is as kind, as innocent, as any other child. In fact she lights the political dark tunnel in which we are drowning.
As soon as breakfast, marking the finish of the Ramadan fast of 13 December began, the silence was broken by the sound of five missiles. The raid targeted an annex built near a police station first constructed by the Ottomans. The police station itself had been destroyed last year in another raid. The annex that was pounded by an Israeli Apache helicopter housed the department of traffic patrols. Fortunately no one was hurt. But the raid terrified everyone living in the two towns, particularly the children.
Few people are capable of hearing the sound of missiles, and the destruction they bring, with equanimity. This time, though, such is the twisted logic of such matters, we could count ourselves lucky. The Baladna Cultural Centre, housed in an old building 20 metres west of the police station, only had some of its windows blown out. In the last raid they were all destroyed, together with the roof.
The American Quakers Boys School, situated on one of the most beautiful hills of Al-Bireh, was hit by one of the missiles, structurally damaging the walls and classroom interiors.
On 13 December Nour was only one of the members of our family to have gathered to break the fast together. But under Sharon's occupation, Palestinians are not allowed to do such things in peace. Nour was scared. Tears streamed over her cheeks She was crying hysterically. I held her in my arms, and tried to calm her, whispering that these were sound bombs, no more, and that no one was hurt. But she did not believe me.
I'll take you out and you can see for yourself that no one is hurt, I told her, in a desperate attempt to restore her calm. Then I put her on the ground. She cried louder. Her legs hurt, she said, and she could not walk. Her voice was almost inaudible.
I took her immediately to the emergency department of the Red Crescent hospital. Her mother accompanied me. Nour was upset, angry, sad. I carried her down to the car. When we reached the hospital I took her out of the car and put her down to walk to the entrance of the hospital. She couldn't.
All the time, we had suspected that the problem was more psychological than physiological. I carried her to the doctor and placed her on a chair in the emergency department. Kneeling on the ground facing her, I tried to massage her legs. But she could not bear the touch of my fingers.
The doctor exercised his expertise gently. He let her use his stethoscope to listen to my heart. He told Nour how pretty she was, and asked her the things children like to be asked. In English, he confirmed what we had thought, that the problem was psychological. And the moment we left his clinic she was walking again.
How many children face similar psychological traumas after Israeli attacks on Palestinian cities, villages and refugee camps, attacks that have been continuing for 35 years? What kind of harvest will be reaped from such trauma? What are the results of awakening children at midnight, so they can watch their fathers and brothers being taken away? What kind of men and women will emerge from such a tortured generation, raised under such a murderous occupation? What will the young generations of the last three decades learn from the closures, from closing schools and universities but besieging cities, villages and refugee camps? What will they learn from depriving three million people of the freedom to move or earn their living, or pray in Jerusalem or reach a hospital? What will they learn from seeing the pregnant mother of a friend left bleeding to death near an Israeli military checkpoint? Children, taught drawing and painting as a means to combat trauma, all produce images of Mohamed El-Durra lying on the ground as his father attempts to shield him from the hail of Israeli bullets. What are the impressions accumulated by thousands of children, descendants of refugees driven out by the Israeli army from their villages in 1948?
It is irrelevant to compare between bad and worse when it comes to human suffering. Such nice distinctions can never be more than subjective. What about children who have witnessed the extra judicial assassination of members of their families, who have seen their father's blood splattered over the walls of their homes?
The victim of yet another crime was history itself. The target of the Israeli bombs this time was the Voice of Palestine transmission pole, 250 metres high. It allowed the voice of Palestine to be heard by listeners all over the world. Sharon ordered it destroyed, in an attempt to silence Palestinians, and the Israeli army still occupies its site. It has the emblematic power of the Eiffel tower of Paris, a land mark instantly recognised by the inhabitants of Ramallah and Al-Bireh.
Will these victimised children, from whom Palestine's future leadership will be drawn, fall in love with the US, which pressures the victims while empowering the victimiser, Sharon? Will the victims grasp the rules of Israeli and American democracy, which condones war crimes, and crimes against humanity, as long as the victims are Palestinian?
How long does President Bush junior expect us to remain as the serfs of Israel's apartheid regime, to stay as wood cutters, water drawers, a source of cheap labour unable to protect our land and water from confiscation?
Why doesn't Mr Bush, de facto lord of the new world order, come clean, and abrogate the Geneva Conventions, the Charter of the United Nations, and all those vehicles of international legitimacy? After all, the sadness, grief, agony, hunger, dispossession, confiscation, and sanctions faced by the Palestinians and that have engulfed the season of Christmas have failed to move Mr Bush. He is, apparently, not satisfied with the destruction heaped on the innocent people of Afghanistan.
It is not only the horrendous crime committed against civilians in the US, but also the spirit of revenge that has ensued that has poisoned the international environment. But there have to be alternatives, and options other than war. There have to be for the sake of Nour, and the millions like her. And one possible starting point might be to convene a conference, in Jerusalem, with invitees from across the world, intellectuals, Nobel laureates, fellow travellers on the road to peace, who are committed to breaking the monstrous cycle of violence that leaves eight year old children unable to walk out of fear of what they might see.
© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved
 |
|
|||||||||||||||||
| ARCHIVES Letter from the Editor Editorial Board Subscription Advertise! |
WEEKLY ONLINE: www.ahram.org.eg/weekly Updated every Saturday at 11.00 GMT, 2pm local time weeklyweb@ahram.org.eg |
 Al-Ahram Organisation |
Recommend this page