Refugee Number xxxxxx Million
Written by Haitham Sabbah on 31. March 2006, 2126hrs // Part of Haitham Sabbah's adventure in Bleeding Edge, Human Rights, Jordan, Palestine // Other posts by Haitham Sabbah
This is an update email from Samia (pseudonym) Nadia Hasan. After she was denied entry her homeland, Palestine, she came back to Jordan, spent couple of days at Aqaba, and now she is in Amman.
On her first day there, she wrote:
March 30, 2006
Today is my first day in Amman, well, today its the first of many days that I will have to live in this city. I am a little paralyzed, i dont know from where I should begin, i dont know to where I should go neither what I have to do.I am clear, in the relative clarity that we can have about an uncertain future that I will stay here the time that is necessary, I will build myself a new life until being able to recover my life, the life that I want, the one that they forced me to leave. Today I add myself to the millions of Palestinian who lives outside of Palestine, who have been displaced, who have been expelled of their homes, to those who have been denied the basic right of belonging, of being linked with a physical space, denied to founding roots and to see them to grow and to settle. The life is about that, right?, of looking for a place where you feel that you belong?, where your feet recognize the streets, and do the streets recognize your footfalls? We can be born in a certain country, to live half life in it, but your dreams and looks point to another place, to a distant space where your face feels part, where it is recognized, where it melts with the other ones, where you belong.
Jordan is the country of those displaced, of the refugees, of the Palestinian outside of Palestine. Where fictitious borders prohibit them the step, where apartheid limits castrate their return dreams, dreams of belong.
It paralyzes me the fear, the fear to melt in this mass of indifference. It paralyzes me the single possibility to assume a reality that I don’t like, that disgusts me, a reality that I refuse to accept. The Palestinian outside of Palestine don’t live in a place, since no place is for they own. They live in the time, their life is determined by political, economic circumstances or of any nature, that show them the path that they must to follow. They build houses, they find works, they form families, with the intention of continuing, of continuing walking, but in each one of them the word waits have a deeper sense, a wait that they dream can transform the time in place, they hope to stop to live in the time and to live in Palestine, live in their place.
Today I will begin to look for a house, to look for a work, to build a new life, but i am clear that the feeling that levies me is that of the wait, waiting that my footfalls will recognize the land that they touch, waiting that my face will melts with familiar faces again. But in this wait the strugle is bigger, the challenge imposed by the Occupation is even bigger, because we should challenge the memory, we cannot forget, we cannot allow to conquer ourselves for the indifference, we cannot forget. To conserve the scents, flavors, colors of our place will always be the best fight that we can give, to challenge to the forgetfulness and to win to the weapons, to stop to be the children of an idea of Palestine to become the children of Palestine, because while there are memories Palestine Exists and Palestine Resists!
All what I can say; welcome to Amman, you are refugee number xxxxxx million!
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March 31st, 2006 at 10:57 pm
Samia,
We are all Palestine.
The vine, the root, the rubble,
the stones turned and unturned
the mountain and the valley
the walnut and the fig
in Jordan
Syria
Lebanon
Egypt
Gaza and Nablus
Jerusalem and Jaffa
Amman and Ramallah
when we are sent away
to any of the seven continents
a piece of Palestine
a pebble in the hand
April 1st, 2006 at 12:32 pm
Haitham is this a true person and a true story?you are confusing me,Samia,all of a sudden upon enetering amman,started talking fluent eloquent and literary english,when she was apologizing for her poor language in the first letter?
April 1st, 2006 at 2:44 pm
Salam,
This is a true story and she will contact you by email (if she didn’t yet) soon. I just got an email from her today apologizing for late reply after I forwarded your email to her.
I’m not revealing a secret now, but she decided not to be called with pseudonym anymore. Her name is Nadia Hasan and she is from Chile. She has a blog called ‘Palestina Resiste’, which you can follow up (if you know Spanish), here: http://palestinaresiste2.blogspot.com/
Don’t be surprised about her language, she surprise me too from time to time, especially that I know that her blog is translation of news and good-to-read articles, from English to Spanish.
April 2nd, 2006 at 9:52 am
she actually did send me an email,I read it just now,and I am still shocked..the difference in the linguistic skills between the first letter and second letter I felt was shocking!I will get back to her now,and maybe wonder about that!
April 3rd, 2006 at 7:54 am
I have visited several blogs that were “occupied by Zionist people” and I was treated like crap. Lie and insult. Repeat and repeat again. Keep repeating until it becomes the truth.
Why is this the only way that they can purvey their truth.
Did they learn from Bush or did they teach Bush?
Living in Canada I get the news that is “censored” and I am now learning that news from Germany and England is more truthful than ours.
Better yet. Your site has been proven to be more truthful than any North American site.
April 3rd, 2006 at 4:02 pm
Kimmy,
They probably learned it from A. Hitler and J. Göbbels:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Lie
April 4th, 2006 at 9:40 am
Haitham..you know that I did not mean to question your or nadia’s honesty..don’t you?it’s just that I would never have expected her to write in her mastered language then have it professionally translated once ,and write in her not-so-perfect language the other time ,and still sound to me like the same person..it’s just a legitimate curisoity..don’t you think?respect to both of you!
April 4th, 2006 at 9:46 am
Salam,
Definitely I had no doubt, you are not questioning the honesty of this story, Nadia or me. Relax!
It’s good that we heard the answer from Nadia herself, and I still wish she does the same her to clear any doubts of other readers here.
July 27th, 2006 at 5:35 pm
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