Democratic Palestine : 45 (ص 35)
غرض
- عنوان
- Democratic Palestine : 45 (ص 35)
- المحتوى
-
Women’s moral force has proven itself during the intifada.
shocked by electricity or struck by lightning. She lowered her head in awful
calmness, and I felt my hand, which was then lying in hers, becoming wet with
big, hot tears.
«Tell me, Nadia, don’t you like the red trousers?» She raised her head
towards me, and looked as though she would speak; but, her voice failing, she
clenched her teeth. From the heart of the murderous silence that followed, her
faint voice reached my ears, as if coming from afar: «Uncle!» She stretched
her hand and removed the white blanket that covered her body. Then, she
pointed at her legs — her one leg, as the other was not there!
Having described this horrible discovery, the narrator now
depicts its dramatic effect on him:
I’ll never forget Nadia’s sisterless leg. Nor can I forget the sadness that
stamped her face and moulded her countenance. As I left the hospjtal and
walked through Gaza’s streets that day, my hand, tightly closed, pressed
scornfully against the two pounds I had intended to give to Nadia. The bright
sun filled the streets with the colour of blood. Gaza, dear Mustafa, was new,
quite new. You and I had never seen it like that. Even the heaps of stones in
front of Al Shaja’iyeh quarter, where we lived, were meaningful. Gaza itself
assumed a new appearance, and a new meaning; I felt it was a beginning. Even
the road to my house seemed to me nothing but a step to a long, long road
leading to Safad. Everything in Gaza was shuddering in grief for Nadia’s
severed leg, grief and something else: a challenge, a will to restore the severed
leg. I was told that Nadia lost her leg when she threw herself over her little
brothers and sisters to protect them from the bombs and flames that were
devouring their house. Nadia could have saved herself, could have spared her
leg. Why didn’t she?
Finally the narrator states his decision and points out his
reasons for making it:
No, my friend, I’ll not come to Sacramento. Nor am I sorry for that ... That
vague feeling you had when you left Gaza — that pigmy feeling must grow
into a giant in your heart...If it does not grow by itself, you have to look for it
in order to find yourself... here amongst the rubble of the ugly defeat.
I'll not join you. You ought to rejoin us, so that you may learn from
Nadia’s severed leg what life is, what the value of existence is. Come back, my
friend; we are all waiting for you.
Democratic Palestine, August 1991
III. «The Land of Sad Oranges»
This story depicts the forced departure from Palestine in
1948 of a large Jaffa family. As they approach the Lebanese
border, they see a farmer selling oranges at the side of the road.
(Oranges are to Jaffa what, say, coffee is to Brazil.) At that
moment, the women tell the driver of the truck carrying them to
stop, and they all get off the truck. The narrator, a young boy:
of that family, describes the scene as follows:
The women carried the oranges, and we could hear them crying. It was only
then that I realized that oranges were beloved things to us; that those big,
clean balls were so dear to us. They bought the oranges and brought them up
to the back of the truck, where they had been sitting amongst the luggage.
Then, your father, who was sitting in front beside the driver, came down and
raised his hand to the women for an orange. Having got one, he looked at it in
silence, and then burst into tears like a helpless, miserable child.
Source of positive values
It must have been noticed that each one of the stories
summarized above dramatized a crucial event in the life of the
hero. In each case, moreover, this event is of utmost positive
significance; it has everything to do with the hero’s status not
only as a husband, uncle, citizen, freedom fighter, etc., but also
as a human being. In «Till We Return» (henceforth referred to
as «Till...»), for example, the hero’s decision to defend his
orchard and, having lost it, to come back several years later and
attack its usurpers, is not only a crucial decision, not only an
all—important moral choice, but an unfailing positive index to
his nature, his mind and his dreams. No less significant is
Nadia’s uncle’s decision in «A Letter...» to remain in Gaza,
35
> - هو جزء من
- Democratic Palestine : 45
- تاريخ
- أغسطس ١٩٩١
- المنشئ
- الجبهة الشعبية لتحرير فلسطين
Contribute
Not viewed