"Daddy!" Cried out the little boy
in ecstasy at seeing his father for the first time in 4 years. The
little boy, Salaam, remembered vividly the day when his father had
been taken away by Israeli soldiers to a camp for political
prisoners. He had wept bitterly that day, seeing his father dragged
off like a dog by a group of soldiers who punched and kicked him
repeatedly before throwing him into the back of an army truck with a
bunch of other men. Salaam had always carried a picture of his
father with him everywhere he went, and not a day went by in which
he didn’t pray for his father’s safety as well as for the day when
he would be freed and they would all be a family again. His father,
Issa, looked just as he had the day he was taken. Salaam nearly
tackled Issa with the force that a tiny boy’s body produces when he
first lays eyes on a father whom he has not seen in four years. Issa
looked into his son’s eyes, eyes he had longed to see again for what
seemed to have been an eternity, and said to him "Hello, little
son."
It was the first family reunion in
ages. The war was over now, and had been for some time. It had been a
bloodbath, and had involved nearly the entire world. In the end, Israel
had worn out whatever willingness or possibility for negotiations that had
existed on the part of her neighbors, and the rest of the world was just
plain sick of the fighting. There were simply too many agreements she did
not honor over the years, and as such, everyone involved knew that there
was no more room for talk. And when her friends in the West stopped being
so friendly with military and economic aid, the Prime Minister, reading
the writing on the wall, was reported to have said right before ordering
the release of nuclear weapons on her neighbors, as well as on several
nations which at one time had been her allies, that "If we can’t have her,
no one will." The Israelis had played it as an all or nothing game for too
long, and in the end, because they insisted on having it all, wound up
with nothing.
The place was packed with people who
seemed to be arriving incessantly minute by minute. As each new group of
family members arrived, there was a shout from someone in the crowd,
calling out for a friend or a relative that had not been seen in eons. The
place was one big festival of embraces and back slapping, of kisses and
closed eyes, and if someone had told these people that one day, the
fighting would be over, and that they would all see each other again in
such an atmosphere of peace, laughter and happiness, no one would have
believed that it could be true.
But it was true. They had won. They had
endured all the anguish and humiliation and torture and misery that had
begun in the early years of the 20th century and which had continued
unabated for decades. After being run off their land, out of their homes,
poisoned, bombed, shot, starved and humiliated before the eyes of the
world, they had triumphed, against all the odds, and in the face of an
enemy that had seemed unconquerable.
And here they were, together again, at
a family reunion. Who would have thought?
Despite the changes, some things had
stayed just the same. The women wandered off to prepare the meals, yapping
and squawking like crows on a split-rail fence as women have done since
time immemorial. They talked of the important things-not politics, but
family. Children. Security. The future. Peace. As they worked their magic,
preparing the meals whose description in Arabic had said it all, Shishi
Maal’foof, The food of Kings, they thought and spoke little of the
pain and memories of the past, because now, it was just the past, and had
little to do with the present, and little to do with the future.
The men gathered in small groups,
smoked their cigars and spoke of weightier things such as business. Again,
things didn’t change much. The spirit that had existed in history’s first
international traders, the Phoenicians, echoed vibrantly within the souls
of each of these men, and as such, imaginations were always on duty in
conjuring up something to do. After all, a whole new world awaited them
now, and a man’s role never changed. They spoke of the opportunities that
lie before them, now that they had their own land. And with such a
beautiful and fertile land, opportunities surely did abound.
The children were children. They
climbed the trees that grew perfectly in this land that could have easily
been mistaken for the Garden of Eden. They chased each other, played
hide-and-seek, and all the other games that children play, with the
exception of any war games, since they had seen enough of the real thing
in their lifetimes to last an eternity.
The children were perfect. They bore
none of the scars that one would have expected to find in a group of
people that had endured decades of war and ghettoization. Their faces were
fresh, their eyes were bright and clear, their skin was smooth and
undamaged. It was as if the whole process of war and violence had been
nothing but a bad dream from which they had awakened unscathed, despite
the campaign that had been waged against them by a government working hand
in hand with several of the world’s superpowers. Children such as these
had often been deliberately shot in the head on a daily basis, sometimes
while engaging in activity that was no more subversive than playing in
their schoolyards. But in the end, all the bullets, bombs, and misery that
were thrown into their lives were worthless, because they had kept their
spirits, and here they were, playing again as children.
Time heals all wounds, as the saying
goes, and so it was with this blessed land. The olive trees were thriving,
and the lemon and orange groves gave off the wonderful perfumes that
announced the richness and beauty of such green fields and pastures, in
contrast to the smell of death and destitution that had hung in the air
for decades. The waters were clear and cool, waters which for generations
before had flowed red with the spilled blood of innocent women and
children. And on this day, a perfect day for a family reunion, the sun
brilliantly shouted out loud its light from a sky so blue that it almost
looked purple.
"Christine!" called out Mr. And Mrs.
Saada to their daughter. They almost didn’t recognize her, since her
wounds had completely healed. "Momma! Papa!" responded Christine, as she
sprinted the distance from the gate to the picnic tables next to which her
parents stood. "I missed you so much!" said the little girl whose words
were muffled by the tightness of her parents’ embrace. "I didn’t know if
you’d be here," she said. "We’re here," responded her father. "Wild horses
couldn’t have prevented us from showing up."
The tables were set with all the foods
and drink that would be the cornerstone of the day’s celebration. There is
something about a celebration that requires food for its legitimacy, and
today would be no different. When food had been brought to gatherings in
the past, especially during the wars, whether at the wakes or at the
funerals, it was there more as a distraction from the pain than as a focal
point of rejoicing. Today was different. The food was here not to
distract, but to attract and augment the joy of the occasion.
Everyone talked of the guest who was
promised would be arriving at sometime during the reunion. He was an
important man who had been there from the beginning and had led them
through all of the terrible years of war and occupation. He had always
spoken out for them fearlessly, against the inhumanity and the degradation
inflicted against a people whom he loved, and accurately called the
outrage for what it was, namely an attempt at exterminating a race of
people who would not accept the injustices that had been wrought upon
them. In the early days, when these people had called upon him to be their
leader and he accepted, he had been laughed at and ridiculed by the world,
given his peasant upbringing and seeming lack of sophistication and
political power. Those around the world looked at his demeanor and his
clothes with disdain as they laughed at his accent and at his message of
peace and justice. Underestimating the inner strength of this man, the
Israelis, in an attempt to break his spirit and in so doing break the
spirits of the rest of their victims, had him arrested on false charges,
after which time he was jailed and tortured, all for the purpose of having
him renounce all for which he had stood and spoken.
Not limiting their cruelty to simple
physical torture, they performed all of this in the presense of his
mother, assuming that her cries of agony in watching her only son treated
in such a bestial manner would encourage him to give up the fight. But it
did not work. He survived the torture, and as a result, became more
powerful in the eyes of his followers than his enemies would have ever
imagined possible. And it was in this refusal to surrender to the lies and
brutalities of these evil men that he had gained his ascendancy as the
leader of these oppressed people, and since he had stuck by them, they
stuck by him, and in the end that was all that had mattered.
After the war had ended, he had sent
out the invitations to all the family members for the reunion, and
promised that it would be a heavenly event for everyone who attended.
Another group was arriving, and in this
one was a little boy named Ali Abbas, who had lost his arms in a rocket
attack during the war initiated against the Iraqi people in the recent
past. Ali had been made famous all over the world for his plight, for
having lost not only his arms, but as well all of his immediate family. As
he arrived, one of the older women who had lived in his neighborhood came
up to him and hugged him as if he were her own. He hugged back with his
new arms, arms that worked just as well as the originals. Someone had
truly worked a miracle in healing this boy, who at one time had not only
been without arms, but as well without the skin which had been burned off
of most of his body, and who now was at the reunion, as good as new.
"Have you seen my parents?" he asked
the elderly woman. She held his face in her hands and said to him "Momma
is in the kitchen with the rest of the women, and I think your dad is off
talking with the other men, although I’m not sure where, but I know he is
here." Ali smiled and ran off in whatever direction he thought he might
find them, since he had not seen them in so long. Along the way he ran
into one of his sisters, and when the two saw each other, screeched out
each other’s names, embraced, and began the chaotic and uncoordinated
dance of jumping up and down that children perform when they are excited,
a dance which seemed to go on all day, although without any of the tears
that would have been expected in a reunion like this, only laughter.
The women called out to say that dinner
was ready, "yallah" being the term they used. As always, the children
raced towards the table like a herd of buffalo, thinking little of their
manners or how they appeared. Cousins and friends who had not seen each
other in years rushed to find a spot next to someone with whom they wanted
to sit. And surprisingly, being children, there were no bruised feelings,
and no one fought. They just sat there, smelling the food that sat at the
middle of the table staring at them and daring them to reach out before
momma said it was okay. The air was filled with the smell of allspice,
zaatar, and cinnamon, all absolute necessities when cooking anything
Middle Eastern, spices that had established trade between Europe and the
Middle East following the Crusades.
The adults remained standing for a
moment, looking at the little members of their kingdoms, and said nothing
except what could be said with a slight smile. They were all together
again. Thank God. They had survived it all. Thank God in Heaven.
Everyone sat silently as the prayers
went up in gratitude for the feast that lie before them. As the prayers
were said no one even breathed for fear that in doing so a word might be
missed, words that only scratched the surface in expressing the gratitude
that each of them felt within the entirety of their beings. And when the
prayers were ended with a barely audible "amen" from the mouths of
everyone seated, and all opened their eyes and saw all those whom they had
loved and missed for so long, they knew for sure that a new day had begun.
The meal had all the essentials of a
King’s feast. Kibbeh, tabouli, lubban, lentils, lahem mishwi, fatoyehs,
baklava, grape leaves, zatta, houmos, dishes that had been around since
the time of Jesus and his Apostles. There was plenty for everyone, and no
one went hungry, quite a departure from the days of want and hunger that
they had endured for decades. The women stood with satisfaction and
watched as their magic did its work, and didn’t seem to mind much when one
of their children would wipe a hand that was shiny with olive oil on a
shirt or pant leg. There was a time to complain, and there was a time to
just let things be. The adults talked and laughed, as children eyed each
other and giggled, swinging their legs under the table, tiny legs that
were too short to reach the ground.
In the end, all of the power that had
been arrayed against these people went for nothing. The nations that had
waged their wars against them for the furtherance of their own greedy
gains had been brought low. Not long after it was revealed that America
had lied about the dangerous weapons that she said were possessed by these
peoples, and that all along she had been fighting for the acquisition of
oil and the destruction of a culture that stood in her way of world
hegemony, (as well as the act of bringing Israel’s enemies to heel) the
rest of the world turned on her. In the process, her economy fell, and her
once great nation descended into chaos, followed by many of the other
economies that were tied to her. The false prophets who had spewed forth
lies and invective on a daily basis against these people for years were
gone too, no one missed them, and nothing they ever said or did was
remembered. Now the unclean woman who was America was looked upon with
contempt, and with good reason. She was a nation who had spent most of her
existence bragging about her love of justice and human rights, despite the
fact that hers was a history noted for such eloquencies as "the only good
Indian is a dead Indian," in addition to all the crimes against humanity
and decency that had been committed by her in the enslavement of first the
Africans and then later much of the third world. And like Rome, her gold
and her luck eventually ran out, and when she could no longer buy the
goodwill of the rest of mankind, down she went, like the Titanic, to the
surprise of many. Indeed, justice has its own schedule.
After dinner, in customary fashion, one
of the older men retrieved a musical instrument and began to play. Ibrahim,
a 70 year old patriarch who had seen everything from the beginning of the
troubles, sat with his Oud, an ancient stringed instrument whose every
sound spoke volumes about what was the history of the world’s oldest
civilization. As his ancient and wrinkled hands strummed out the music of
the ages, brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles, fathers and mothers
took one another by the hand, dancing in celebration of their freedom and
of their victory, while others clapped to the rhythm of the music. Ibrahim,
doing his best for a 70 year old man, finally ended the piece with a final
slap on the belly of his stringed instrument, as his family turned and
clapped wildly in appreciation of his performance.
Suddenly, everyone stopped talking, and
all heads seemed to turn simultaneously towards a couple who had just
walked through the gate. "He’s here!" called out someone in the crowd from
way back. At last, the guest of honor had arrived, holding hands with the
most beautiful woman anyone had ever seen, his mother Miriam, whose
appearance so resembled his as to be strikingly uncanny. He was tall and
graceful, his hair was dark brown, as well as his beard and his kind eyes.
As he approached the group of people who had grown silent in their gaze
upon him, he smiled widely at them, held up his hand, a hand which still
bore the scars that were the result of the torture inflicted upon him by
the Israelis many years ago, and greeted them all saying "Peace be upon
you, my friends, and welcome."
The silence was so profound as to be
almost overwhelming. At last, their leader had arrived, and as the words
of his benediction rang wistfully in the air and were carried throughout
by a slight breeze in this the oldest of lands, little 18 month old Alyan
Bashete ran up to him with outstretched arms, begging to be picked up and
held. The kind man scooped up little Alyan in his arms, and looking into
his dark eyes said, "Well, you have got to be about the cutest little
thing that I have seen in a long time!" And after staring into the boy’s
perfect eyes for a moment whispered to him closely and quietly "I’m glad
you could make it to the reunion."
The boy rubbed his tiny hand across the
beard of the kind man and said "Me too."
And just as he had promised them many
years ago, there would be no more scars, no more wounds, and every tear
would be wiped dry.
There was justice, after many years.
And all was peace at the family
reunion.
Mark Glenn is an American and former high school teacher turned writer / commentator.
"Our Enemies They Are Not" is
an excerpt of the recently completed work by the author entitled "Not
My Words, But Theirs : An American Christian’s Defense of Middle Eastern
Culture and its people"
(www.notmywords.com).
For information regarding the purchase of
this book, please contact the author at:
MGlenn@mediamonitors.org. He contributed above article to Media Monitors Network (MMN).
Source:
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