Democratic Palestine : 24 (ص 22)
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- عنوان
- Democratic Palestine : 24 (ص 22)
- المحتوى
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May Ist
Recollections of a Palestinian Worker
For May Ist, International Workers’ Day, we have translated a selec-
tion from the recollections of the veteran Palestinian communist,
Khalil Khouri, taken from a long interview made with him by the
Palestinian poet, Hannah Nasser. The recollections reveal the rela-
tions among workers in Palestine in the thirties and forties, the rela-
tions between the workers and British colonialism, and how the
discrimination practiced by the Zionist settlers thwarted efforts at
proletarian internationalism.
We were eleven persons living in one
house (in the village of Rama). Our
family was barely able to obtain enough
food for that number of people. One
day, in the early thirties, a guest from
Abu Sanan village arrived. He was
well-dressed and looked well-fed. He
said that he worked in a bakery in
Haifa, owned by a German, and that he
earned seven shillings a day... and a
loaf of bread. After a few years, he
continued, he had managed to buy a
piece of land and some olive trees,
which classified him as an owner. He
said that the bakery owner needed a
boy my age to work in the bakery. Two
days later I was working there, earning
five shillings a day... and a loaf of
bread.
After I had worked two years, the
owner terminated my services for one
year, as he said, so that a German boy,
also my age, could replace me. At that
time, I had accumulated an amount of
shillings and learned the German
language. I found a job at another
bakery owned by a German Jew in Al
Halisah. The owner liked my en-
thusiasm and knowledge of the German
language. He did not know Hebrew,
and he used to hide me when the
Histadrut representatives searched the
shops. The Histadrut had raised the
Ze
Khalil Khouri
slogan of «Hebrew labor» which meant
employing only Jews. It was impossible
to continue hiding me between the flour
sacks every time the. representatives
showed up. So before completing a year
in his bakery, I found my self jobless.
However, I found a job at a British
bakery called Sebni. There I met a
Jewish worker who from time to time
told me about life in Europe, par-
ticularly in Russia, and about the
Bolsheviks. I didn’t care at first. At
that time, we reacted negatively to the
word Bolshevik due to the abundance
of lies and fabrications that had been
spread about it.
In 1936, the Palestinian revolt
erupted, and relations between Arabs
and Jews worsened. But my friend
continued explaining to me that the evil
source behind all the troubles we were
facing was the British themselves; they
were the enemies of both sides. He also
explained that, if left alone, the Arabs
and Jews could live peacefully together,
as did scores of nationalities in socialist
Russia. Although I could not under-
stand everything he was talking about, I
was very eager to hear more.
One day he said, «Khouri, you must
learn... leave the bakery and learn!» |
told him it was impossible to leave the
bakery, given my family’s economic
situation and my_ responsibilities
towards them. He then advised me to
join the Palestinian Communist Party
where I could learn a lot, as he said. I
had a friend at the time, the late Assaf
Hananiya, who knew everything about
me and my Jewish friend. I used to tell
him everything my Jewish friend told
me. Thus, together we joined the party,
knowing how dangerous it was to do
such a thing.
Soon we were invited to attend our
first meeting. It was a thrill for us - go-
ing in secret, using secret passwords,
and the meeting itself. It was held in a
damaged house in the bushes of the
Carmel mountain, in Haifa. There were
fifty persons attending, who barely
knew one another. I remember asking
the man sitting next to me about his
name. He replied: «My name is a
spearhead in the chest of colonialism.»
I realized I had to stop being curious.
Five speakers took the podium. We
only saw their shadows because of the
darkness. I recall that the speeches
focused on the danger of fascism’s rise,
and British colonialism’s threats to Iraq
and the Arabian Peninsula. I remember
one speaker who quoted a poem which - هو جزء من
- Democratic Palestine : 24
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