We are not super people. By Lama Hourani, Gaza City, Friday, June 22, 2007
I’m looking at Luai’s eyes and my own are full of tears. I can hardly keep from crying in front of him. I’ve been trying to take him out of the flat for two days and he refuses, saying “I don’t want to go anywhere, mummy, I love to stay at home”. It seems that he is afraid to go out now because of all the stories he has heard from his friends during the past week about the killings and shootings.
Yesterday I went to Al Deereh Hotel, one of the nice places by the seaside in Gaza, to meet a journalist. I found that many people are on the beach, swimming and enjoying the calm sea. I felt so relieved that the people of Gaza are back to their normal life.
Many people have asked me why I am not writing. I stopped writing in December when I visited my mother in Syria. It was the first time that my mother, my two sisters and our children and I have met in Damascus at the same time since 1983. The joy was interrupted by the events in Gaza at that time, the assassination of three children as a result of the armed dialogue between Hamas and Fateh. I returned in January only to find out that I was unemployed. And the series of a lot of fighting rounds between Fateh and Hamas has taken place from January until now.
I became so desperate, like most of the Palestinians, but this time, it was not because of the collective punishment imposed on us by the international community, not because of the Israeli siege imposed on Gaza Strip, the big prison. But because of the fighting between the Palestinians themselves. I thought to myself, “What should I write to the people outside, that we are killing each other, that we are destroying our dream by our own hands?” Thus, I was unable to write.
The last round of fighting was the attack against the Palestinian Authority security forces last week all over the Gaza Strip, by Hamas and its Al Qassam militant group, which resulted in the control of Hamas and Al Qassam over the entire Gaza Strip.
This time we had to stay at home from Monday till Friday night. I was so afraid - the bombing and the shooting I heard from my flat, which was in the middle of three fighting areas, was terrible. The result of the attacks was shocking to all Gaza residents. At first, we thought, “It is another round like those before it but it turned out to be a round that changed the lives of each one of us. Hamas controls Gaza. Politically, this has great implications for the Palestinian issue but I won’t deal with this now.
What has made me decide to write is the fact that I feel so down today, so desperate, that I’ve been crying the whole day. I’m not afraid about my life, or my husband’s or even my son’s. I feel bad because I have discovered that we are not the “Super People” I thought we are. I discovered that we are normal human beings. I know that most of the people all over the world, especially the freedom lovers and fighters look at us as idols, as a people who cannot be defeated, as freedom fighters who are trying to achieve their liberty and live in dignity.
Now I have discovered that we are like any other nation, savage, brutal and looters.
The looting scenes from inside the governmental buildings, the private houses and flats, reminded me of Baghdad after the American occupation and the collapse of Saddam’s regime. We thought that we could never be like that. I know we did it after the settlers went out of their colonial settlements in the Gaza Strip, but these people were our enemy, those who had stolen our land, not Palestinians.
The news about the different acts of violations of human rights against each other is shocking. It reminds me of the practices of the Israeli occupation forces in Gaza and the West Bank.
What are we doing to ourselves? Why are we trying to destroy our dream of a democratic, independent state for all Palestinians.
So, I think and I wonder, “Are we really like this? Are we really savages? Aren’t we supposed to overcome our differences by peaceful means? Who is to blame for this happening to us? Isn’t it the international community who denied us our legitimate right to have a state of our own? Isn’t it the international community who denied us our right for democratic choice in our election and decided to punish us for that? Isn’t it the international community, which has starved us and made us depend again, after 59 years. on humanitarian aid?”
Now I know we are not superhuman or super heroes or super people. We are normal people who will become savages when you put them in a cage with the minimum needed to survive.
I know everyone is waiting from me to tell personal stories about the events that took place. But I am sorry, I can’t. It’s too difficult to tell stories about what we’ve done to each other. I only ask the people to be objective when they look at the news and ask themselves why is it happening to the Palestinians?
As for me, now I’m planning to take my son to the Al Deereh Hotel and let him see the world again, whether he likes it or not.
I hope tomorrow I will be in a better mood. Maybe I can write some more details.