Behind the Wall - 'Memory, and Strength'
 

For Palestinian Refugees there is one day every year, above all others, whose date is deeply etched into the mind. May 15th is commemorated as Nakba Day, the day that marks the forced expulsion of over 750,000 Palestinians from their homes and villages as the Zionist state was created in 1948. Around this date every year many activities and demonstrations are held across Palestine. The Nakba will never be forgotten, but these events are not just to remember the event, they also call for justice and enforcement of international law and the full ‘Right of Return’ for all Palestinian Refugees to their land. Every refugee will talk proudly about their original village from the elderly survivors of ‘Al Nakba’ right through to ten year old children. The history and the knowledge is passed on, keys to the original houses are still kept today by many families and handed down through generations. Most of the houses in whose doors these keys used to fit are no longer standing, they too are now just a distant memory, but the keys are kept and treasured as a symbol of ‘Awda’ – ‘Return’.

Last year’s national Nakba Day demonstration in Ramallah was marked by the IOF closing all checkpoints north of the city and preventing dozens and dozens of coaches from northern cities such as Nablus, Jenin and Tulkarem from reaching the event. Literally thousands of people were prevented from getting to Ramallah.

Lajee Center always runs coaches from Aida Camp to Ramallah for Nakba Day and this year was no different. The two coaches could have been filled several times over such was the demand for places. As the coaches pulled up to ‘Container’ Checkpoint the audible excitement, singing and laughter, petered out, everybody knows the routine well by now. The only time on our trips that the bus doesn’t echo to the beating of drums and singing is at, or near, a checkpoint, save giving the IOF soldiers manning the checkpoint any ‘excuse’ to dampen our party. When the young IOF soldiers got on the bus demanding everyone’s ID cards the silence, as always, dropped another level, except that is for one brown eyed little girl…

Gangoon is two and a half years old. She is the daughter of one of my closest friends and subsequently I am fortunate to be able to spend quite a lot of time with her. She is a lot of fun and many days she has brought a much needed smile to my face with her boundless energy and playfulness. She is also incredibly strong. Gangoon loves to talk and she has many stories to tell for one so young. Sometimes she will talk about make-up or tell me about the dove that nested on her bathroom window, other times she will talk about when her twelve year old cousin was shot, or when her teenage uncle was arrested. Like all children in the Camp one of the first noises she made was ‘toc, toc, toc’ (imitating shooting), and one of her first words was ‘jaysh’ (‘soldiers’).

As one soldier entered the bus at the checkpoint and began collecting IDs another stood in front of Gangoon and her parents just inside the bus door. Gangoon looked at the soldier, then up to her mother sitting alongside her:

“Mama, here is the one who shot Miras (Gangoon’s cousin)!”

Trying to prevent any problems with the soldiers and to relax her daughter, Gangoon’s mother attempted to change the subject:

“OK, we can talk about this later…”

But Gangoon was not satisfied with this answer, she knew she was right. She looked across to the other front seat of the bus where Nidal, Miras’ father, was sat. With her big brown eyes wide but strong she spoke to Nidal:

“Uncle Nidal, here is the one who shot Miras!”

Nidal also tried to relax Gangoon, suggesting that maybe it wasn’t this same soldier who had shot her cousin:

“…maybe it was his friend.”

The little girl’s eyes widened, as if thinking, before she looked up to her father, and then to Nidal again. She pointed at the heavy M-16 that the young soldier was carrying:

“Look, he has a gun!”

Her father explained that all the soldiers were carrying guns. Gangoon wanted to know why. She showed no fear as she looked up into the eyes of the soldier and strongly asked him a perfectly reasonable question:

“Why do you have a gun?”

She didn’t receive a reply although the soldier did seem to understand what was going on. Then a tiny smile seemed to break onto the soldier’s lips and he spoke to Gangoon, in Arabic, asking her what her name was. Gangoon looked up at her mother and father, then across at Nidal, then across to the other IOF soldier collecting the ID’s, before looking back into the soldiers’ eyes. She wasn’t smiling, but told the soldier:

“Give us your ID’s! Give us your ID’s!”

She was telling the soldier that she knew who he was, that whether he spoke to her or not she knew what he did and what he represented. She was also showing him that she was strong.

The soldier didn’t respond, his smile had gone. She repeated her request several times before her father managed to divert her mind with talk of a future trip to the swimming pool.

The two IOF soldiers left the bus carrying everyone’s ID cards. When they returned they refused permission for seventeen of the passengers from the two buses to pass the checkpoint, the Occupiers as always deciding who can move and who can’t. When they were asked why these people couldn’t pass they simply replied:

“Because the computers are broken so we can’t check the ID’s!”

This was clearly untrue as the other ID’s had been checked, and other passengers were allowed to pass through, but there is little use in remonstrating with the IOF once they have made a decision.

Those refused permission trudged frustrated and angrily back onto the second bus which it was decided would be forced to return back to Aida Camp. There is simply no other possible route to get from Bethlehem to Ramallah for Palestinians with West Bank ID, such is the Israeli control of Palestinian movement, so if the IOF at ‘Container’ Checkpoint say ‘No’, then ‘No’ it is! One of those turned back, Rami, asked the children still on the bus to make a big sign carrying the name of his home village, Al Malha, and to hold it up in front of the international media cameras. If he could not travel to Ramallah, Rami wanted to make sure that his message was still heard, and Al Malha was not forgotten. He then added:

“I will go back to Bethlehem and I will demonstrate next to Rachel’s Tomb!”

Rami was not to be silenced on Nakba Day.

The remaining bus traveled on to Ramallah, passengers dejected and angry at leaving others behind but determined now more than ever to mark the day and join the call for ‘Awda’ (‘Return’).

The event in Ramallah went well. A march was held from Minara Square through to the grave of the late Abu Amar (Yasser Arafat) in the Mukarta. Lajee children held banners high as they walked including one, as they had promised Rami, which simply read ‘Al Malha’. Participants sent their message to Palestinian leaders, Israel, Arab states, and the international community, that there can be no peace without the implementation of U.N. Resolution 194 (which calls for the ‘Right of Return’ for Palestinian Refugees to their land). Nakba survivors stood alongside second, third, even fourth generation refugees, united in their message.

The significance of Al Nakba is just as apparent in the minds of young Refugees as it is in the painful memories of the survivors of the event itself. The children and youth also had a message they wanted to send out loud and clear by demonstrating in Ramallah. One of the girls from Lajee’s Dabka group, Ayah, at just thirteen years old, was clear how she felt about Nakba:

“They wanted the Nakba to be our death, but every year we say we are alive...and we will return!”

Basil, one of our ‘New Generation’ (teenage) group, was also in Ramallah joining the call for ‘Awda’:

“I want to tell everybody that it’s the time! We must be allowed to return.”

Whilst all young Palestinian Refugees have heard many stories about life pre-1948 for Nakba survivors it is real memories of their villages and land that are ingrained in their minds. One Nakba survivor from the village of Beit Jibreen once explained to me how he would feel if he was offered compensation for his land instead of ‘Return’:

“They could build me a house made out of solid gold and I would not accept it! I will never give up on return!”

Gangoon’s Great-Grandmother, who was forced from the village of Ajur when it was invaded by Zionist Militias in 1948, has told me of her memories of her family’s land in the village. When she talks about the fresh fruit they grew, their animals, and sitting to watch the sunset, there is a glint in her eye that I have seen in all Nakba survivors. These memories are sacred, as is the ‘Right of Return’. The Nakba itself is a very dark and painful memory.

Fifty-nine years after the Nakba, a two and a half year old girl, a fourth generation Palestinian Refugee called Gangoon, already has memories deeply etched into her mind. Memories of her cousins and friends being shot, of her uncle being arrested, of her parents shutting the windows in their house to keep out tear-gas, of violent early morning house raids. She is a beautiful, funny, and strong bright-eyed two and a half year old child, but she already knows what it means to be Palestinian.

Somebody once said ‘Memories are Golden’. The memories of the villages, land, and life before ‘Al Nakba’ are certainly ‘golden’ to the dwindling numbers of Refugees who can still remember life pre-1948, but for fifty-nine years since then most memories for Palestinian Refugees would never be discussed in such terms. In the hearts and minds of even the youngest children we continue to see dark memories of Occupation proliferate as they are forced to grow up in exile and under Occupation much as their parents did. We also continue to see another familiar Palestinian trait in new generations, strength…