Seeking Palestine

New Palestinian Writing on Exile and Home

Penny (ed.) Johnson, Raja (ed.) Shehadeh

• Publisher: Olive Branch Press
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781566569064
• eBook ISBN: 9781623710415
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern History
• Index: History

How do Palestinians live, imagine and reflect on home and exile in this period of a stateless and transitory Palestine and a sharp escalation in Israeli state violence and accompanying Palestinian oppression? How can exile and home be written? In this volume of new writing, fifteen innovative and outstanding Palestinian writers—essayists, poets, novelists, critics, artists and memoirists—respond with their reflections, experiences, memories and polemics. Their contributions—poignant, humorous, intimate, reflective, intensely political—make for an offering that is remarkable for the candor and grace with which it explores the many individual and collective experiences of waiting, living for, and seeking Palestine. Contributors include: Lila Abu-Lughod, Susan Abulhawa, Suad Amiry, Rana Barakat, Mourid Barghouti, Beshara Doumani, Sharif S. Elmusa, Rema Hammami, Mischa Hiller, Emily Jacir, Penny Johnson, Fady Joudah, Jean Said Makdisi, Karma Nabulsi, Raeda Sa'adeh, Raja Shehadeh, Adania Shibli.

HOME / EXILE

My Country:
Close to Me as My Prison

SUAD AMIRY

An Obsession

I. Would You Ever Let Go of Me?

My country: close to me as my prison—Mahmoud Darwish

Would you ever let go of me
For a lifetime
For a year
A month
An hour
A minute
Even a second?

No

If ever
If ever we get an apology
If ever we get compensation for our losses
It would not be about a lost country
It would not be about a lost field
Or an orange grove
Or a lost home

No

It would not be about the hundreds of bulldozed villages
Or the shattering of a whole society
It would not be about losing a livelihood
A stolen piano, a Persian carpet or a first baby photo album
And it would not be about someone’s personal library
A left-behind Arab horse or a Cypriot donkey

Nor a Persian cat nor even Shasa, the monkey that my mother gave me a few days before the war

No

And it would not be about the blooming almond trees and the red flowering pomegranates that were not tenderly picked in the spring of 1948 nor in the summer after

And it would not be about firing on the farmers who returned to harvest the fields they left behind

Nor would it be about the many deserted budding roses

Or a bride’s wardrobe and her many cherished presents

Or a child or an old woman who was forgotten, left behind in the midst of havoc

No

It would not be about concealing a crime or falsifying history
It would not be about blaming the victim
It would not be about dehumanizing and stereotyping
It would not be about making new “wandering Jews” out of us
It would not be about reversing roles and images

No

If at all
It will only be about an obsession

Yes, an Obsession

My dreams are all about you
And my nightmares are all because of you
My happiness is related to you
And my sadness comes from you
My expectations are all concerning you
And my disappointments pile up beside you

Yes

And if I run away, I run away from you
And if I come back, I come back to you
If I love someone, it is because of what they think of you
And if I hate someone, it is because of what they say about you

Yes

And it is because of you:
Nothing in my life is normal
Nothing in my life is neutral
Nothing is mundane
Or even insignificant

And how very exhausting it is

O how I desire one ordinary day when you do not haunt me
How I long for a pleasant evening where you are not invited
Yearn for amnesia from you
How I wish for a stroke that
will neatly delete everything related to you:
Thoughts, memories, emotions
Gone forever

I heard them moan for you before I was born

And I heard them moan for you after I was born and ever since I was born

Their bedtime stories are about you
And their daydreaming is also about you
I’ve seen them cry, laugh, praise and curse

You, You, and only YOU
I had to learn everything about you
I had to imagine you from across a border
Miss you
Love you
Defend you
Cry for you
Write about you
Talk about you
And, in command form, love you

And how very exhausting it is

Above all I have to keep my sanity with all the brutality around you
Every hour, every minute and every second
If ever I do come to terms with what has happened to you
I must banish that part of my brain
That cherishes reason, logic, justice

Palestine

Will you ever set me free?

II. Where Do You Come From? Multiple Choice

Answers to Questions about My Life

I can hardly think of a day or a week that passes without someone, somewhere, enquiring: are you married? Do you have children? Where do you come from?

This happens much more frequently when one is on the road and, since I have been traveling for most of my life, I have become quite skilful in my responses. I use various ones depending on the occasion, my mood, and how long I want the conversation to last.

Are you married?

If I am lucky and happen to encounter a handsome man (at my age I am embarrassed to say a young and handsome man), just to keep my options open my response(s) include:

“Yes, sort of,” with a soft yes and an accentuated sort of.

“Yes, but,” with an ambiguous yes and a clear but.

“I have a part-time husband,” with an English mumble, eating the husband (I mean the word, not my husband), but with full enunciation of part-time.

In all three responses, the story, for good or bad, starts or finishes right there.

Do you have children?

This wins as the most frequently asked question and it takes a more exact formulation in the Arab world: “How many children do you have?”

Unlike the marriage question, the children question is rather innocent and is often asked simply to start a friendly but rather mundane conversation. I have often thought how much more exciting the conversation would be if it were slightly altered:

“Are you married?”
“No.”
“Do you have children?”

But unfortunately this rarely happens. The most you can wish for nowadays is for people to be politically correct (sexually correct) and ask if you have a partner, which leaves a margin for speculation and a bit of imagination.

Back to children. If I am not exactly in the mood for, “What a pity” (haram) or “Poor thing” (miskeeneh) or “Really! Why? Is it you or your husband?” with an emphasis on the husband, I simply lie:

Lie Number 1: “Yes, I have one daughter.”

If in Italy, this is enough to end the conversation by saying in my bad Italian: “Si, ho una figlia.” However, rest assured that the response in the Arab world would be: “Only one girl? May God give you a taste of boys” (Allah yet‘amek awlad), with an emphasis on the wrong sex (girl) and the wrong number (one).

It will also entail a long conversation, full of sympathy, but most importantly, with a long list of fail-safe fertility doctors and hospitals. And, if the conversation takes place with a taxi driver in Amman or Cairo, the probability of being driven to the fertility doctor or infertility clinic right away is extremely high. If I had listened to taxi drivers’ advice, I would probably have had four or five kids by now.

Lie Number 2: “Alhamdulellah, thank God, I have two boys,” I lie with a straight face. But this time, since the sex is right, the emphasis will be on the number: “Only two?”

Lie Number 3: If I strike the right balance of sex and number by answering, “I have a boy and a girl,” then the response is bound to be: “Don’t you want a brother for your only son?” Never mind a sister for my daughter.

Indeed, going full tilt and claiming two daughters and four sons may be the very best response for ending a conversation in the Arab world: “May God keep them for you, marry them well, and give you the taste of grandchildren.” End of story. Although, such a large number of children would probably extend, rather than end, the conversation in China (population anxiety) or Europe (immigration anxiety).

I was around thirty-eight, with a ticking biological clock, when I went to visit Abu Ahmad, the owner of a stone factory in the industrial zone of Al-Bireh, Ramallah’s twin city. I wanted to conclude an agreement with him about the type, quality and quantity of stone I needed for a housing project I was building.

My visit to his factory started with Arabic coffee with lots of cardamom and hardly any coffee, and a glass of cold water that quenched my August thirst. Abu Ahmad always had many medium-sized jars of honey in his office. Like his stones, the different types and colors of his honey were of superb quality. Somehow, Abu Ahmad seemed more keen on selling his honey than the huge stone blocks. Certainly, he spent far more time explaining the great benefits of honey to me and others. I don’t really understand the connection between honey and Islam, but I have noticed that many pious Muslims or “preachers” sell honey.

Shortly after his detailed lecture on honey, Abu Ahmad and I ventured out to his vast stone-yard to discuss my substantial order. I was in the midst of four or five stonemasons, totally absorbed in explaining the desired texture of stone to each of them—I wanted the half-dressed stone called mfagiar (literally meaning “the exploded”), not the roughly-dressed stones called tubzeh (“rough”), nor the too finely-dressed ones called misamsam (“from sesame”)— when I heard Abu Ahmad’s enquiry: “Doctora Suad, why didn’t you bear children?” I couldn’t believe my ears. Was I dreaming? Who was hallucinating, Abu Ahmad or I?

My face froze but my eyes moved nervously left, right and center among the five stonecutters and dressers. They had, meanwhile, also ceased their tick-tack-tick-tack stone, hammer and chisel symphony. I could see that it was not only Abu Ahmad who was interested in the reason why I had not borne any children so far. The key question—was it my fault or my husband’s—seemed to be answered in the eyes around me: I definitely needed a “strong” husband (fahel). To get myself off the hook I had to quickly come up with a convincing reply to end the conversation and get back to stones: “Ya Haj Abu Ahmad, it is God’s will!” (Allah ma a‘tana, God did not give us.) As Abu Ahmad was a religious pilgrim, a Haj, I opted to put it down to my God-given destiny.

“Come on, Doctora Suad, I did not expect such an answer from an educated person like yourself—neither medicine nor science has left any room for God now,” Abu Ahmad countered briskly. Wanting badly to end my embarrassment I said, “Okay, Abu Ahmad, I promise you I’ll give both science and medicine a chance.”

Leaving his stone factory, I thought, damn it, Abu Ahmad, you got me! But can you imagine my telling him the truth: that neither I nor my husband ever wanted children? They would all think we are crazy—and perhaps they are right.

And finally:

Where do you come from?

“Palestine.” Period. Or is it?

Hmm… believe me, there is nothing normal about that simple response. This question is definitely time-consuming, politically stimulating, emotionally engaging and, more often than not, t-r-o-u-b-l-e…

You cannot simply admit that you are from “Palestine” or “Palestinian”—like saying I am American or I am French or Indian—and expect to be left alone or to receive a standard reply: “Oh, really, India—that’s nice, I would love to go there one day.” Or, “Ah, India! Bollywood, ha ha ha.”

No, you cannot expect to utter the word Palestine and simply walk away. You are either drowned in a flood of sympathy or, even worse, find yourself in a seminar on the conflict.

Where do you come from when you are the daughter of a Palestinian father who, like the rest of the 850,000 Palestinians, was forced out of his homeland in 1948? The whole CV: born in Damascus of a Syrian mother, raised in Amman until I was seventeen, spent a total of another eleven years between Cairo, Beirut, Ann Arbor and Edinburgh. Until 1981, when I came to Palestine for a six-month visit that has lasted thirty years.

So—am I from Jaffa? From Amman? From Damascus or from Ramallah?

And am I from Palestine? A “stateless” place declared a “state” in 1947, 1988, 1993 and, once again, in September 2011—a stateless place lost on its own ground, that has been seeking “recognition” for the last sixty-some years.

And in our last attempt in September 2011, our “President” was reprimanded by Barack Obama, as well as by many European countries for seeking a UN resolution—exactly the same way Israel was created in 1947. Our stateless state is now under tremendous pressure (along with poor Bosnia) to face-save the powerful United States so that it is not “forced” to use its veto power in the Security Council. I can’t help but recall Golda Meir’s famous statement: “I resent the Palestinians for forcing us to kill them.”

To top it all, President Obama accused our “President,” Abu Mazen, of trying to take a “short cut.” If negotiating with the Israelis for the last twenty years (1991-2011), while enduring the building of Jewish settlements on 60 per cent of West Bank land, is called a “short cut,” I would hate to see what a long cut will look like. So much for the “Audacity of Hope.”

So: where do you come from?

Not wanting to be guilty-until-proven-innocent in the unwelcome company of airport security officials, I have developed several half-lies to get around the question in ordinary conversation.

Half-lie Number 1: If absolutely not in the mood to talk, I normally opt for the city or country in which I grew up: “I am from Amman.” If the person seems to be at a total loss, I add: “Jordan!”

In most cases the conversation ends instantly. Then we move on to more exciting subjects. (Sorry, Jordan, much as I am indebted to you and love you, somehow you do not inspire interesting conversations.)

Half-lie Number 2: If in the mood for a historical discourse on the past (but certainly not today when President Bashar el Assad is massacring his people), I say: “I am from Damascus.” This often gets you two responses:

“Ah! From Damascus, that must be a beautiful city.”
“Yes, absolutely lovely,” is my concise response to close the subject.

The other response is more difficult to finesse:

“Wow, really! What an absolutely splendid city… it’s so authentic… also Aleppo and Palmyra. Wow! Syria is really beautiful.”

Once I realize that the person happens to know much more about Damascus and Syria than I do, I try to change the subject. And if you are really curious about the reasons why, I will take the time to bore you and explain:

Like most Arab countries, Syria loves Palestine but hates the Palestinians, especially those who have been contaminated by the Occupation, once or twice. “Once” refers to Palestinians residing in the West Bank or the Gaza Strip who hold a pseudo-Palestinian passport; “twice” to the 1948 Palestinians who hold a real, but non-kosher Israeli passport. If a Palestinian passport holder (my category) stands a next-to-zero chance of getting to my beloved Syria, the other category is at nil. (But I must add that this is true of most Arab countries with the exception of Jordan.)

And then, try using your Palestinian “passport” at the world’s gatekeeper, an international airline terminal.

Departures

“What prefix is Palestine?” asks the innocent airline company officer as he or she tries to puzzle out my passport.

“Try PNA, which stands for Palestinian National Authority,” I say calmly as he jiggles his keyboard. “No,” he shakes his head.

“Hmm, then try PA—Palestinian Authority—drop the National.” He punches his keyboard again. “Nothing.”

“Try POT (Palestinian Occupied Territories).” “No.”

“Get rid of the Occupation, try PT (Palestinian Territories),” I laugh, a bit desperately. He keeps at it.

“Try DPT (Disputed Palestinian Territories)… Okay, perhaps not Disputed, what about WBGS (West Bank and Gaza Strip)?” “No.”

“WBGSJ (West Bank, Gaza Strip and Jerusalem)?” “No.”

“Take out the J, the Eternal Capital for the Jewish People.” “Mmm.”

He is silent; I am still at it.

“Try PS (Palestinian Stupidity).”

He coaxes his computer. “No.” He tries for a long time and then says, “Ah, okay, I found it, it’s PSE.”

“Great, PSE,” I say with a big sigh, trying to figure out what is Eternal in Palestinian Stupidity.

As the airline officer smiles at his successful decoding of this weird document and hands me my boarding pass, I’m off like a bullet to catch my flight.

While I am painfully aware that we, as a nation, have been missing the train for the last sixty-three years, ever since they found a land with no people for a people with no land, now, as holders of this weird document, I feel we also run the risk of missing so many planes.

Arrivals

In anticipation, I often feel the vibrations of the airport “security alert” as soon as I hand in my Arabic right-to-left passport (or, as often described, writing in reverse). The minute the passport control official flips the passport left to right I know it’s trouble. And, to add insult to injury, I hand him a passport that has no country, but on which is written, first in Arabic, then in English:

THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY

Passport

Travel Document

It must have taken the Palestinians (I should say “Palestinians,”...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Seeking Palestine
• Copyright
• Acknowledgement
• Contents
• Penny Johnson
• Exile/Home
• Home/Exile
• At Home in What World?
• Contributors
• Backcover