The day of my birth, my parents randomly heard my name in the hospital, and they liked it. So I was called B. Yet, I would only discover this as I grew older, I acquired another name the moment I was born, which will accompany me my entire life as a twin: refugee. There is of course the legal definition of a “refugee”, but what does it mean to be a refugee? It’s basically to live in a place that doesn’t want you to be there. You see, I come from a family of Palestinian refugees. My family, from my mother’s side, comes from a small village, Nilin, in the countryside called Ramallah. My mother’s side comes from northern Galilee, from Safed, which is now in Israel. But that is a discussion for another time. Each Palestinian has his/her own story. Mine began in the war of 1967 when my family, like hundreds of thousands of others, was expelled to Jordan. And so refugees in Jordan they became and their descendants, like myself, even before conception, their fate was sealed. We are to be called refugees, not “true” Jordanians. Time passed and different generations came and went. Different stories were morphed by time and the harsh reality of a refugee’s life. So it happened that my family before my birth ended up with a life in a harsh place, Riyadh, in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. To talk about life in Saudi Arabia is a long tale of its own, but let us say for now that whatever exile we had, it now became a double exile. My predestined life as a Palestinian refugee was doubled by being born to in Saudi Arabia.
– “Where are you from?”
– “I am from there.”
It is that “there” that will become almost like a burden growing up. How can you be from a place that you don’t physically know, and you don’t have a right to visit? Maybe that is a grand philosophical question in itself. Yet I am from there. When I speak Arabic, I have a pure Palestinian dialect from northern Galilee, which my mother passed on to me. The culture in which I grew is a Palestinian one, not Saudi, not Jordanian per se (The majority of Jordanians are of Palestinian origins such as myself. Yet politically, and socially, there’s a huge discrepancy between people of Palestinian origins and “true” Jordanians, even though we’re citizens. Many Palestinians though are still officially stateless in Jordan. Yet again, that is another story.). Thyme, olives, and olive oil are very important to me. Hummus and falafel are as cliché to a Palestinian as myself as are pizzas and pasta to an Italian, or cheese and bread to a French. I know which music is folk music to me. I know the map of the land and its history. Nevertheless, I have never stepped foot on that land. The closest where I have been was on descending down on the verge of the Jordan River and the baptism site. It was only a few meters to the other side. Easily doable. Physically simple. Yet sometimes, the simplest of things are the most difficult. Trying to suddenly walk to the other side, which looked identical to where I was, would bluntly mean a bullet to the head. So why would I say, always, “I am from there?” Because it is the most powerful act of defiance I, and millions of other Palestinian refugees can do. When a Palestinian refugee is born, you have an ensemble of forces all around the globe, working on different spectra, and trying everything they can to make you forget about the “Palestinian” part, to annihilate it and its memory, and to let only the refugee remain. Thus the “I am from there, I am from Palestine” becomes one of the strongest acts of defiance someone such as myself can accomplish.
Even though it’s not the most ideal place to be, to say at least, I do not regret my childhood in Riyadh. Then I moved to France at the age of 18 for my studies. The double exile became now a triple exile. I am foreigner, living in a country foreign to me, coming from a country where I was/am a foreigner, and holding a passport of a country where people such myself are considered foreigners. Heck, even my family name literally means “the foreigner” in Arabic. So you can imagine the irony of ironies. I’ve been living in France since 10 years now, and that also is another story of its own. I always say “I am from there. I am from Palestine.” Generally speaking, we can divide the reactions of people into these categories:
– Those who have no clue / ignore everything and anything about Palestine. Many of them are very surprised when I ask them about the origin of Jesus Christ.
– Those who wish to start political discussions on the spot as if they’re expert on Middle East politics.
– Those who view Palestine as a completely “Leftist” cause, with all the spectra of what we can consider “Left”, from democratic liberalism to anarchism. They see more the “Cause” before they see the people.
– Those who vehemently oppose anything related to Palestine, even accusing Palestinian such as myself of being anti-Semites. It’s a bit ironic, though, as I, a Palestinian, am also a Semite.
I am not a nationalist. I do not identify with a random assemblage of colors on a tissue that many now call “The Palestinian flag”. Do you want to see my Palestine? Look to the olive trees. Look to the thyme. Look to the people. Look to the refugees. Look to Handala. Who is Handala? He is a character created by the famous Palestinian artist, Naji Al-Ali. Handala represents all the Palestinian children born as refugees outside, and who lived their entire lives with this war fought against them. This is why the first tattoo I personally got is of Handala, reminding me always that wherever I may roam, I am a refugee. Yet I have Handala dancing. There is always life. Sadly though, Naji Al-Ali was shot in the face. He was murdered and assassinated. Yet Handala will always live on. The years continue and I live my life in France. Paris, Lyon, finally moving to Marseille. I do my best for my beliefs, and face any hardships that I can face. Yet my life would completely change in the late summer of 2016. The pieces fell in the exact right spot, and all of a sudden, I returned to a place from which my family was exiled. I returned even though I have never been. In September of 2016, I managed to go to Palestine for the first time of my life. From that moment on, “I am from there. I am from Palestine.”, had a completely different meaning.
I was an intern at an association in Marseille that works on intercultural and European projects, mostly financed by the Erasmus + and French-German Youth Office programs. One exchange it organized was a tri-national one, French, German, and Palestinian. The first phase took place in Marseille and I was part of the French team, working in logistics and as an interpreter (Participants of such exchanges should be able to express themselves in their mother languages through the help of an interpreter.) It was very lovely indeed to meet some fellow Palestinians who actually come from there. The exchange went very well and great moments were spent. It was over and preparation for the following phase, which took place in Palestine, in Ramallah and Hebron to be exact, had already begun. It is very easy for any European to go there. When we speak of Palestine/Israel, people imagine two separate entities. But it’s actually one entity literally over the other, and controlling all the borders. Europeans can easily obtain a three months VISA upon arrival at the airport, so there is no fuss. However, there was the question of my participation. My boss said he’d support me in every way he can. He even managed to obtain me a signed attestation from the French-German Youth Office’s represent in Marseille that I personally was part of the exchange as part of the French team’s delegation. Yet two major issues were present. One the one hand, I had to demand a special VISA from the Israeli embassy, and there was little chance that they’d grand me a VISA. On the other hand, if the Israelis stamp my passport, then it would be completely illegal for me (in 2016 at least) to return back to Saudi Arabia and visit my family there, thus officially ending my life there. Nevertheless, I could not waste such a chance and I had to give it my all. I’ll see my family in Jordan. So I went through with the application at the embassy.
The application process was hard. I was interrogated outside the embassy under the rain by the Israeli security officers. They had all my application, but still:
– “Where are you going?”
– “What are you planning on doing there?”
– “Do you have family there?”
– “Do you have friends there?”
– “What are the names of your university friends in Marseille?”
– “What are their nationalities?”
– “What do they want to do later on life?”
– “Why Marseille?”
– “Where are you staying in Paris?”
– “What’s your friend’s name? Her nationality?”
– “Show us your train tickets from Marseille to Paris.”
– “What are the names of your colleagues? Their nationalities? Hold on. (They went to call the Marseille office and to verify.”
– “What did you do in the first phase?”
– “Which places in Marseille did you visit with the Palestinian group?
The questions continued and continued. It’s very hard to agitate me, so I answered them very calmly, which seemed to annoy them. That said, one thing I had to. If Voldemort was “he who shall not be named,” then Palestine was “the place that shall not be named.” I had to speak of the West bank and Palestinians, not of “Palestine.”. Eventually, I entered the embassy. They started offering me some stuff to drink, but I passed. With the person inside the embassy, I had to again go through the same questions, sign a lot of papers indicating everything about my life, and even had to sign that eventually I might enter “Judea and Samaria”… Of course I did, I had to, but I started laughing about it as soon as I went outside the embassy. I don’t know why, though. They kept my passport. A month passed and I received a call: My VISA was granted, and I was able to go reclaim my passport. All of my colleagues had already bought their plane tickets and I was the last one. But now everyone breathed a sigh of relief. I was granted a VISA for 7 days, only 7 days the duration of the exchange while my European colleagues would get 90 days at the airport of Tel Aviv. Nevertheless, what was once a dream became a reality about two weeks later.
A bus driver working with our Palestinian colleagues came to pick us up, my French colleagues, the French participants, and myself, from the Tel Aviv airport. He was driving answering the questions of the participants while I was translating. We drove awhile then passed the checkpoint around midnight, I started seeing the names of the shops in Arabic, and the driver spoke “Welcome to the West Bank.” At this very moment, I just couldn’t continue. At this very moments, 26 years of my life as a refugee passed in a mere instance as if they were nothing. I leaned towards the seat in front of me and just started weeping. I could not control the flow of emotions. It was a moment that I had imagined all my entire life, and now it came. Everyone in the bus noticed, gave me my time, then I returned back to work with a huge smile on my face.
The theme of the exchange was “agriculture”. The main two areas were we stayed were Ramallah and Hebron. We visited local famers, organic farms, agricultural students’ collectives, refugee camps, the main areas of Ramallah and Hebron, and refugee camps so that the foreign participants would get an idea of what it is to live under occupation. We tasted the local produce and many local specialties. For the others, it was just a “very interesting place” to visit. For me, it was everything. Just walking around the streets at night, tasting my traditional food, visiting some of the important monuments to my history, everything was becoming more concrete. The “I am from there” was becoming real. Everything was as I imagined. It was like visiting a place from your dreams. Since it was a dream, you had a hazy vision of it. But now the more you walk around in that place, you understand it and actually see it. You sense it. It was a very emotional experience. I saw the beauty of the land and the brutality of the occupation. Though that requires a tale of its own. As for now, I will highlight two very important moments: Visiting Bethlehem and Jerusalem, and visiting my home village, Nilin.
During a free day, my boss, three colleagues, and I took a car and went to Bethlehem first. I am no Christian, but I had always wanted to see Bethlehem, and here I was, in front of the Nativity Church. To enter it was marvelous. To walk through the streets of Old Bethlehem was amazing. But then, Jerusalem was waiting. The cities are next to each. But a small wall of 20 meters high was barbed wires separate them. One can only imagine the scene with the three wise men coming to witness the wall of the Messiah, but only to be forbidden by one of humanity’s cruelest monuments, the wall of separation. With my VISA and my colleagues’ European passports, we pass. (Many of my Palestinian friends from exchange never visited Jerusalem as it requires very special permits.). Jerusalem… I can use all the adjectives I have in all the five languages I know to describe that city and what it means, and I will still fall short. To walk through the Via Dolorosa, to enter the Al Aqsa Mosque, to enter the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, to visit the Wailing Wall… I am not a religious person. I don’t believe in the existence of a higher power. But to be there in the heart of Jerusalem, especially as a Palestinian, trying to imagine how many civilizations raged wars throughout human history for this piece of land… that experience was terrifying and wonderful. It’s like every piece of rock in that city has a tale to tell. Even the bakery where we had dinner, the building and oven exists since about a 1000 years, and we had pie with a recipe of at least 400 years. It was only a day, and that was not enough. But I can now say, I saw Jerusalem. In the evening, my colleagues returned to Hebron were the other delegations were staying, and I alone returned to Ramallah. My boss gladly and insisted I take the following day off. Why? The following day, which was the final day of the exchange, a distant cousin of mine was to come and pick me so that we go to our home village, Nilin, to see the place where my father was born and where my story originates.
S. comes and picks me up the following morning, and we drive about an hour to reach Nilin, passing by the multitude of Israeli settlements. My family has a special place in this village as it was my great great grandfather who had founded it, and we even have a small “castle” protected by the UNESCO that he constructed, and which is preserved now by the family for special occasions. We had a great feast with my great aunt. Many sentiments and emotions were going through my mind and heart. I saw the very bedroom where my father grew up. Once I called him from there, I easily noticed how emotional he got. We are both refugees. Though he lived the expulsion process and knows the feeling, the process, the pain to lose everything behind and everything you knew. Though at that very moment, my parents felt that they themselves have returned with me returning. My cousin showed me around my village. Now I know Nilin. You can only imagine how many photos I took, but regardless, Nilin is engraved in my heart. I never had a child home. My family always moved around. I never lived in a country that I can truly consider home. But at that very day I did not feel like a refugee. I saw Nilin. I know Nilin. I even met family members who were unknown to me. In the evening, I got back to Hebron for the departure party as it was the last week of the exchange. Talking to my friends and colleagues, explaining how this whole trip was important to me, I realized that for the first time in my life and until I die, “I am from there. I am from Palestine. I am from Nilin” will have a completely different meaning. I was always jealous of all the people, even foreigners, I know who had traveled to Palestine, even to my own home region. I even have friends who lived there. What separated them from myself? A passport. I loved visiting my friends all over throughout my travels in their hometowns and childhood homes. That was something I never had and never knew. But now, things were never the same. I AM from there. I AM from Palestine. I AM from Nilin.
A hectic week ended the following day. We said our goodbyes, and each group returned home. It was a very strange feeling for me returning to France again… It was not enough. One week was not enough. I know I will return one day. I have to return. I will return. But now, even though I am still a refugee, and even though the same forces acting against refugees such as still myself still exist, I am more hardened in affirming the “I am”. No one can take that away from me. No one will. I do not speak for all Palestinians, but I speak for myself. A being a refugee is a wound carried since birth, but I will carry it with pride. As much as such situation might seem political, it really isn’t for me. I don’t care about passports, nationalism, or borders. The colors of my passport aren’t important. But give me the right to have that passport and that right to return to my home village, then I can talk about throwing it away. Papers don’t matter, people do. People matter. Right now millions of Palestinian refugees and their progeny live in exile. They matter.
So for now, I would like to end with a poem by Mahmoud Darwish, the most important Palestinian poet, which basically sums up the life of a Palestinian refugee (It is part of a much longer poem):
The long dying process
It returned to a street in the neighborhoods of childhood.
It made me enter homes, hearts,
Buds.
It gave me an identity.
It made me a cause.
The long dying process.
It appeared to them
That I was dead, and the crime is conditioned to songs.
So they passed by and did not pronounce my name.
They buried my body in the files and revolts,
And parted.
(The homeland that I used to dream of will
remain the homeland that I used to dream of.)
It was a short age,
A long death,
I awoke a little,
And I wrote the name of my land on my corpse
And on a rifle.
I said: ‘This is my path,
This is my proof
To the coastal cities.’
I moved,
But they killed me.
(The homeland that I used to dream of will
remain the homeland that I used to dream of)
I am in the long dying process.
The master of sadness
And tears with every Arab lover.
The singers and the preachers all multiplied around me.
On my chest poetry, leaders
And all the brokers of national language grow.
Clap
Clap
Clap
And long live
The long dying process!
The long dying process.
It returned me back to a street in the neighborhoods of childhood.
It made me enter homes, hearts, and buds.
It gave me an identity
And the heritage of chains.