Essay by Yousef M. Aljamal - Gaza CPDS Non-Fiction

The Center for Political and Development Studies (CPDS) organised a contest a year ago on Prisoners and Nakba and recieved these submissions. [….] They are sent to Gaza.scoop.ps exclusively.

Yousef Aljamal, CPDS.
Gaza

Non-Fiction

Had Charles Dickens been asked to describe Nakba, he would have said “It was the worst of times, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Darkness, it was the winter of despair, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct the other way”.

It was the absence of conscience, it was the de-humanization of sincere feelings, it was a vengeful humiliation of innocent people who were in the wrong time and the wrong place, it was a murder on a great scale, it was a heinous crime and unforgivable act. In Short, it was Nineteen Eighty Four: 1948.

The sun was on the top of the pure sky, the kids were getting ready for having their summer vacation (there was not a real vacation at that time, though people used to say so), the women were weaving their textile, the sea was calm, the day was not a day, the night was a painful start of an endless series of horrors, pains, sobs and nightmares.

We all were there. We are no longer there. Here is the very wrong place we inhabit. We see Nakba everywhere. I wish if it was one Nakba, indeed, it was the first but not the last. It was their day of Independence and the Day of our misery.

Since that day, Palestinians were attached to words like: Homelessness, Massacre, Genocide, War, Refugee, Camp, Prisoner, and so on and so for (we already have our unique dictionary, no offense).

In 1948, we were injured. Today, we are still bleeding. We had been told to leave home to return back within “two weeks”. Today and after 63 years of their very Day of independence, we are still in Diaspora. “194” follows us as a footprint. We will return. We will bring back 63 years of age along with us too.

ENDS

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