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Commemorating the 58th
Anniversary of Nakba
"We Will Be Back"
20-04-2006
 On
the occasion of the 58th Anniversary of the Nakba,
the Palestine Media Unit (Zajel) of the Public Relations
Department organized a one-week series of events to commemorate
the Palestinian Catastrophe (Nakba) of 1948. The program
includes an exhibition of photos and posters of Palestinian
citizens and villagers on their daily life, as well as a portray
of newspapers issued in Jafa city before the Diaspora. It
depicts the cultural, social, human and political atmosphere in
Palestine before the Diaspora. The goal behind this exhibition
is to raise public awareness among university students and the
general public. Many eyewitnesses of the Nakba attended the
opening of the exhibition; The Vice President for Academic
Affairs thanked Zajel Media Unit for its efforts in organizing
such activities. The visitors of the exhibition, among them
several elders residents in Askar camp who have directly
suffered 1948’s deportation, enjoyed seeing the pictures,
posters and newspaper extracts. Amjad Rfaie, Director of the
Social Development Center in Askar Refugee Camp praised the
quality of the exhibition to such an extent that he is planning
to transfer it to Askar in order to facilitate the access to the
photographs to the resident’s of the camp.
The photographs reflect on scenes of daily life in Palestine
before the Nakba, as well as pictures of the exodus and their
situation in the refugee camps. 19-year-old engineering student
Ali Ibrahim has just come out of an exam and takes the
opportunity of his free time to get to know more about that
important period of Palestinian history. “I feel lonely and sad
when I see pictures like this”, he says, pointing at a portrait
of several resistance fighters proudly showing their guns. “Look
at their expression, it’s amazing. We have a picture at home
from my grandfather looking like those men, seeing these
pictures reminds me of him and how he must have suffered”. “My
grandfather”, he explains, “often talked with us about that
difficult time, but he died six months ago”.
But not everybody has a relative who can tell them about the
Nakba. Some people come from families that are originally from
the West Bank, and so have not experienced the deportation. Some
others originally come from cities like Jafa but have seen their
grandparents pass away due to the many years having transcurred
since that time. And again some other young people are
experiencing the pain their parents and grand-parents feel
whenever they remember the Nakba, what makes it extremely
difficult for some of these elders to talk about those times.
For these persons, exhibitions like these are very helpful, for
they give a valuable information that up to now they have not
had access to. As Fawaz, a teacher of Science explains, for some
people these images are new, as they know the general terms of
what the Nakba was about, but they don’t realize what a tragedy
it was. One of the reasons, he says, is the lack of information
about this period children get during their education, as the
Nakba is often not mentioned at all in school history books and
is treated only in a very general way by university books. As a
result many students are very surprised when they see pictures
as those shown in the exhibition, because they have never been
confronted to them. “That’s why it is so important to mention
the Nakba also at school”, Fawaz says. “We need to talk about it
more often to remind new generations about their right to return
to the towns and villages they are now banned from”. “Organizing
an exhibition is efficient and easy, but we also need to take it
as a subject for cinema productions, documentaries and, above
all”, he emphasizes, “to teach the Nakba from the beginning, at
school”.
Ihab, 19 years old and Pharmacy student is one of those cases.
His family comes from the West Bank but in his village, Kafr al-Dik,
there are quite many people originally from Yafa city who prefer
to live on and be silent about a time too difficult for them to
talk about. The newspaper extracts amazed him, for example, the
weekly cinema program or advertise a spectacle by famous singer
Oum Kalthoum in Yafa, as for him they represent “the proof that
we were in that land and that we had education and culture”. The
digitalized features are part of different newspapers released
in Yafa between 1925 and 1939 such as Aldefa, Falastein, Aljamea
Alislameyeh, Aljehad and Alyarmuk. For Aseel Khayat, 21-year-old
IT student, all Palestinians intrinsecally know about the Nakba
and what their parents and grand-parents must have suffered
because it is very similar to what young generations are
experiencing since the beginning of the Intifada. “Most of us
know about the Nakba because our parents tell us, but even if
they didn’t, we would know what it must have been like because
we experience it every day”, she affirms.
Part of this series of events is the projection of several
documentaries, such as Route 181 and Frontiers
of Dreams and Fears.
Capturing the fragments of a land shattered by politics,
history, and colonialism, Route 181: Fragments of a Journey
in Israel-Palestine, clocks in at about four and a half
hours. The film's length is epic-worthy, but it allows the
filmmakers to present oral history from a wide variety of people
who live along the 1947 partition line. By portraying both the
divide of the physical landscape and that of the humans that
inhabit it, viewers receive a fuller understanding of this
conflicted part of the world. Route 181 is a collaborative
effort between Israeli filmmaker Eyal Sivan and his Palestinian
peer Michel Khleifi. It introduces to its audience, through
extended interviews with various Israelis and Palestinians, the
nuanced complexity of those people who live along the green
line.
Offering a rare glimpse into one side of the Middle East
conflict, Frontiers Of Dreams And Fears explores the
lives of a group of Palestinian children growing up in refugee
camps. The film focuses on two teenage girls, Mona and Manar.
Although living in refugee camps miles apart, the girls manage
to communicate and become friends with each other despite the
overwhelming barriers separating them. The film reveals their
lives and dreams and their growing relationship, at first
through email, then culminating in their dramatic meeting at the
fence that separates them at the Lebanese/Israeli border.
For 23-year-old Safa, a stroll through the exhibition sumes her
in a melancholical mood. “People know about it”, she affirms
about the Nakba, “but they need to know more and more in order
not to forget”. As she suggests, it is important to go to all
testimonies, write down every single word they say and create
special archives for the Nakba. “Else”, she says shaking her
head, “we will lose our identity”.
What exactly makes up the identity of a people who for decades
has been banned from their liberty, their rights, their
families, their land? Occupation has also affected their
cultural heritage, their traditions and whole legacy -usual
indicators of the “identity” of a people-. The concept of
identity could be subject to long discussions, but what seems
clear is the importance of taking a deep look into their history
in order to preserve the collective memory. Only by being aware
of their past will the Palestinian people get the strength to
re-built its identity.
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