Bal'a - بلعا: Family Photo Album from Balaa

My Family Album - By: Rana Abdulla

I browsed through our family's photo album this weekend. Melancholy creeps in and I am struck by many images which lead me to painful memories and a lot of optimistic thoughts. A picture taken in my maternal grandparent?s garden reminds me of the sweetness of the figs, pomegranates and apricots that grow on the trees of my homeland.

These pictures are a depiction of my grandparents gentle and determined spirits and even now I can still smell their jasmine arched doorway. This precious heritage has been their jasmine arched doorway. This precious heritage has been preserved and we still nurture and grow useful herbs, tasty vegetables, succulent fruits, pretty flowers and shady trees for a hot summer?s day in our Canadian homes.

I am looking at the picture of my grandfather, Salim Abdallah. Born during the Ottoman rule in Palestine and orphaned at age of nine during the Ottoman rule, he scraped by with little help from his extended family. Working as a soldier with the Ottoman?s he managed to raise five children. Being a religious man with a most altruistic spirit, he was also a gifted storyteller.

His powerful presence easily held the entire village audience enthralled and his repertoire included a mix of timeless myth and local folklore. My grandfather did not have a lot of education, he had little education, he was able to read and write and memorized all the Quran, he memorized Thousand Night and Night and Calila & Dumna.

Mastering Arabic and Turkish, while he was an ordinary recruit for the Ottoman military; he dearly loved to read. As a vivid reader who educated himself, it is necessary to mention his innate intelligence and open-mindedness. He loved knowledge and discovery and was ever eager to learn from life?s experiences in addition to reading and listening to others. He had memorized all the history of the Omayyads. He had named my aunt?s after characters of those stories.

My grandfather lived for one decade in a childless marriage until his first wife prevailed on him to marry his second wife Hadieh Al-Omar who gave birth to Ibrahim, but she died while giving birth. It was then that he married his third wife, my grandmother, Fatima Al-Shaikh ? descended from Sheikh Saleh Abdulla, a prominent landowner and merchant.

Fatima bore him seven children from which only four survived to adulthood. My grandmother raised her husband?s first son as one of her own. My father?s official name was recorded as Hilmi, a Turkish name as my grandfather was influenced by the culture. My grandmother wished to call him Jamil, means ?handsome?, she was called Im-Jamil. He and my uncles studied Quranic schools. Unfortunately girls did not go to school.

My grandmother, Im-Jamil, lived on for twenty eight years after her husband?s death. I last saw her in 1978 and she explained to me how Zionist forces slowly took over Palestine during her lifetime. She also reminisced about Christians, Jews and Muslims had all lived peacefully in our homeland at one time. Israel then came about with a racist ideology and practice that caused tremendous suffering to the natives of all religions.

My grandmother shared with me the vivid recollections of the horror of Turkish rule over Palestine, at a time when Arab nationalists were executed. When excessive taxation drained the region?s economy and brought famine. She recalled with villagers could only pay their debts in figs, milk, eggs and olives.

In Jordan, the most important thing the Jordanian authorities cared about was loyalty for the king and his family. Shouting: Yahya Al-Malik (Long Live the King), would give you an automatic certificate of good conduct. Grandmother never usually had any kind words for Britain or the Arab countries.

Being a writer, I absorb images and nothing is like those old photographs to revive the past, but they still cannot turn back time to return violated rights or make us happy as we used to be.

My aunt Khadra spent most of her time doing crochet, canvas and embroidery. I see her wedding picture, on her wedding day, she changed seven dresses of seven different colors. In Kuwait she lost her embroidery work. She continues to spend her days doing embroidery work, and now gives them as special gifts to her nieces and nephews in hopes of reminding them of their lost Paradise.

My aunt?s canvases reflect Palestinian Nakbas which have marked the lives of generations. My aunt taught me and my sisters how to embroider like my ancestors and of my heritage, something which I am very proud to do.

Then I see a picture of my father, when he first arrived in Kuwait as a very young man and the Diaspora was still fresh in the minds of all Palestinians. There was no work in Tulkarem, so he choose to head to Kuwait, joining an influx of well-educated Palestinian youth from Balaa who sought better lives in the Gulf States. The young man never intended to stay in Kuwait for eternity. His plan was simple as were all the others ? to make enough money to support his family and return home. But it did not happen that way - he lived in Kuwait for 42 years.

I focus on my aunt Raya in a picture at a festive occasion. She still lives in Balaa. Raya was an outstanding humorous storyteller, never serious never quiet. Raya loved to enter into joking tales competitions?none in Balaa could beat her. The new tales come to her in the village pipeline and she spreads them around, she would come straight over to relate stories so full of oddities, fun, and comedy that we sobbed with laughter.

Raya never married, instead, she dedicated her life to fight against Absentee Property Seizure Law. My aunt Raya had a good memory and a very spirited personality, which helped me to obtain many accurate details about Balaa and socially sensitive information. Tragically, after a life filled with so much destruction and despair, aunt Raya has slipped into dementia.

Aunt Raya came one day claiming victory in how she managed exceptionally to cross through an Israeli checkpoint. I remember feeling so depressed to hear the pride in such little triumphs when all around them, Palestinians were seeing their lands confiscated, their homes demolished, and their livelihood slowly suffocated - all while supposedly in a peace "process."

Then I see a picture of my husband?s uncle Ahmad Dawoud Abdulla and his uncle Ibrahim Hanhan who were killed five years before my husband Rafe was born. They were simply selling oil in the village of Sabbareen close to the so-called armistice line beside Haifa. The Israelis killed the men who went to sell oil in Sabbareen. The men were returned to Balaa in 1948. The Israelis did not only kill the men, but they killed their horses upon which the family?s living depended to a large extent. Ibrahim left five orphaned children. Masoudeh, the mother of Ahmad and the sister of Ibrahim, lived in sadness for life, she colored her thoub blue ?nileh?, in mourning until she died thirty years later.

In the next picture is my father-in-law's picture (God Bless his Soul) who seemed pale and weak with age and hard work. The camera caught a determined and yet compassionate look on his face.

I have a lengthy pause at a picture of my cousin?s wedding. We all seemed so happy. Everybody dressed beautifully, full of burgundy, forest green and of course, the bouffant wedding dress of the bride. Her beautiful dark hair is piled up on top of her head, flowers stuck into the coils, a veil covering her down to her fingertips and everybody waiting for the Bagpipe players (Yargoul) to come serenade the bride from Haret dar Mahmoud. Little did we know at the time that the groom would be arrested and jailed several times under administrative detention, without trial or charge and certainly no intervention by a lawyer. Depriving his family and young children of their father was hard enough but the torture he endured caused him permanent disability. Israeli forces called the tactics they used "moderate physical pressure". Amnesty International called it torture.

As I flip through the pictures, I then come to the pictures of Amneh, a guest in our own house in Montreal. This is the little Palestinian girl who visited us to get a prosthetic eye surgery. She was shot in the eye by an Israeli sniper while walking with her mother to visit a friend during the Intifada. She captured our hearts. I then realize that my family was very lucky. Most Palestinian families have it much worse. It is true that many of my relatives are exiled. But these families in the Refugee camps are suffering so much.

The one thing Israel can't do is stop the babies, and the Palestinians know, that given another few years, they will be the majority. They are a patient group these Palestinians. Despite beatings, humiliations, ethnic cleansing, economic genocide, the Apartheid Wall and killings they know they will still, in the long run, win this battle.

Millions of Palestinian refugees refuse to submit to an unjust fate that has separated them from Palestine for so long. They remain steadfast in their trenches, in Lebanon, in Jordan, in Syria, in Egypt, in Iraq and all over the world, waiting the moment that international law will, for once, prevail.

The Israeli occupation causes perpetual misery, torment, persecution, enslavement, and dehumanization. I feel frustrated because I can't communicate to you the full extent of this enduring evil. It transcends reality.

You might ask, what is there to be optimistic about? David Ben Gurion, stated to the Sunday Times said: the old will die and the young will forget. My father who lived forty two (42) years in Kuwait has seven children and several grandchildren; ask any one of them who they are and where they come from. They do not forget.

Ask my Canadian-born daughters what she will tell her new child about Palestine and its history. Ask 11-year-old Sarah who, plays cello and sings songs about Palestine..

They may confiscate our land and they may impoverish an entire people but they cannot take this land out of our hearts and minds. Yes, the old will die BUT the young will NEVER forget.

My 11 year old daughter is sitting beside me looking at the album and asking: Mom, is this irrevocable? Do we all have to fight forever? Or is it just that we fight the way families fight? We will all die soon enough. Why not take the short time we have on earth and do some really interesting things that would make God happier. My child is right.

Rana Abdulla - Canada