Democratic Palestine : 24 (ص 23)
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- Democratic Palestine : 24 (ص 23)
- المحتوى
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said in the end that to repel the British
from our land, we had to ‘Bolshevize’.
He got a standing ovation. Another
speaker talked about fascism and
Italy’s occupation of Ethiopia and
Libya. He talked about the revolution
led by Omar Mukhtar, the oppression
of the Libyan people, and how five of
the revolution’s leaders were thrown
from an airplane into the sea. After
that, I participated in distributing secret
leaflets, using the wagon which
distributed bread from the bakery.
During that time, I rarely visited my
village. I went only once every two or
three months, due to the restrictions
imposed on traveling as a result of the
growth of the revolt. I remember one
time in the village, on a Sunday when
all attended mass at the church, with
the exception of the sick and a few
absentees. All of a sudden, British
soldiers led by an officer stormed the
church, showing no respect. Other
soldiers were surrounding the church.
The officer just started looking, or
rather surveying the congregation, and
then pointed at me with his finger, in-
dicating: «Follow me!» I was the only
one in the church wearing western-style
clothes; the others were traditionally
dressed. He must have hoped I knew
English. He asked,«What’s going on
here?» I answered: «This is a church,
and people are praying.» «When will
you finish?» he asked. «Il don’t know,
the priest knows,» I replied. He told me
to go in, ask the priest and return to tell
him.
I went into the chapel with the eyes of
the people following me in fear and
questioning. Before the priest could
answer me, the altar boy approached
and whispered in my ear: «Tell them
the services conclude after four hours.»
When I repeated that to the officer, he
just exploded in my face, shouting:
«Damn liar! Beat it!» 1 went back to
my place. We were very scared, know-
ing that a landmine had exploded under
an armored military vehicle near the
village. We were afraid that they would
punish the whole village as had hap-
pened in other villages like Kafr Yasif.
Ten minutes passed, and our fears
grew greater and greater.. Then the
soldiers came back, stormed the
church, waving their rifles and ordering
us out. They could not even wait for
people to move on their own. Rather
they applied their own method to speed
things up, forcing men, women and
children to evacuate the church,
pushing them with their rifle butts. A
woman was pushed to the floor and she
let out a loud scream. This made Alex-
ander Khouri, the oldest person in the
congregation, run towards the soldiers,
waving his cane and shouting, «You
bastards, Turkey never did what you
are doing... We thought you came to
rescue us from Turkey’s tyranny, with
two crosses on your flag, not one, but
you are worse than Turkey...» Then he
cursed the British cross, calling it a
fake, and attacked the officer with his
cane. The soldiers caught him, hit him
and dragged him around, without any
consideration for his age. The priest
protested angrily, only to face the same
treatment as Alexander.
There were many soldiers and it was
useless to resist. They took us to the
public square where all the villagers
were gathered. The soldiers chose forty
men and took them, as they claimed, to
clear the road blocks set up by the
revolutionaries on the main road. One
week later, they were released.
World War II erupted and the British
army confiscated all businesses includ-
ing the bakery I was working in. Thus, |
found myself jobless once again. A
friend of mine from Al Bogqeia’h kelped
me get work as a carpenter in one of the
British army camps, although I knew
nothing about carpentry. I remember
one time I was attempting to straighten
some bent nails. A British officer saw
me and asked in a mocking tone: «Are
you a carpenter?» «No,» I confessed.
He smiled and said, «Okay, you don’t
lie... I’I1 have someone teach you.» But
before learning carpentry, I was fired.
So I went back to my old job, baking,
at a British army bakery in the bay of
Haifa.
The war and war-related efforts
created work for everybody. Since there
were not enough workers in Palestine, a
large number came from neighboring
countries, looking for jobs. In the
bakery I worked in, there were 84
workers, of whom 72 were Egyptians.
There were Lebanese, Syrians and
Armenians as well. The work was
divided into two daily, 12-hour shifts.
There was no break for eating, so we
either had to eat while working, or
finish our job as fast as possible, which
was very tiring, to save a few minutes
for eating. [| remember a ‘break’ like
that, at night with the lights dimmed.
An Arab worker was going to the
bathroom; unknowingly, he stepped on
the foot of an Armenian worker who
was lying down, trying to relax during
these few minutes. The Armenian was
hurt and he cursed the worker in
Turkish. To his surprise, the Arab
worker replied with another Turkish
curse. The Armenian, still surprised,
asked, «Where did you learn Turkish?»
The Arab, who was a Syrian, replied,
«An Armenian came to our town, flee-
ing Turkey’s massacres against the
Armenian people. My father befriend-
ed him and learned from him how to
process cheese.» Then the Armenian
shouted, «How could you then curse
your father’s cheese-processing
teacher?» The two embraced... and
they were best friends from then on.
I did not like the job. It was not only
tiring, but devastating: 12 hours a day
non-stop, heat... and what was worse
were the insults the workers had to suf-
fer. Cursing was the lightest form of
insult. Our supervisor was a British
sergeant major in his fifties, red-faced,
with constantly trembling lips. This
trembling intensified when he was
drunk. He used to arrive late at the
bakery, not yet sober. He would call a
worker to his office, beat him for no
reason, and then fire him. Actually this
was his way of blackmail. There was
always a person who acted as
‘mediator’ between the ‘fired’ worker
and the sergeant in return for a bribe.
This mediator was usually one of the
three foremen whom we considered
even worse than the sergeant of the
trembling lips, for they were Egyptians
- Arab! They always carried leather
whips and beat the Egyptian workers
for the silliest of reasons.
The workers lived in constant fear of
the sergeant and foremen. No one
dared to protest, for the foreigners in
particular realized that they were il-
legally living in the country. One phone
call to the police could send them
beyond Palestine’s borders, where they
would find only unemployment and
misery. The Egyptians used to infiltrate
into Palestine, hiding in cargo trains.
The authorities overlooked this because
of the need for workers and bribes, but
the law did not protect these workers;
rather it deported them. The sergeant
knew all this; he knew that the workers,
especially the Egyptians, desperately
needed the work. He used this to his
advantage. He thus increased the op-
pression and blackmail of the workers.
Those who refused to accept his prac-
tices were reported to the police who in
turn deported the workers. @
23 - هو جزء من
- Democratic Palestine : 24
- تاريخ
- مايو ١٩٨٧
- المنشئ
- الجبهة الشعبية لتحرير فلسطين
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