Najwa Sheikh Ahmed

Yesterday was the 61 anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba, a term that reflects the loss of the land, of the home, and of all that is affiliated to this event. Many writers have written about the Nakba, and about loosing the homeland, loosing a nation dignity, and security. But none of them wrote about the frequent disappointments that the Palestinian refugees have to hold since then, the disappointments that, as well as, the dreams and hopes are forwarded to us from one generation to another without any hope of becoming true.

With each memory of the Nakba we as Palestinian refugees all over the world bring back the old memories that we kept and inherited from our parents and grandparents, narrate the old stories of fleeing the land, leaving every thing behind, fleeing for our lives and expecting to return in few days later, but the reality that we are still waiting affected our sense of both the time and place, and the intimacy that should connect us with the original homelands.

With every year we hope that there will be a chance for peace, for justice or even for a small light to give hope if not for us, for our children, to live a decent life away from wars and violence, away from pain and bitterness. However, our dreams and humble expectations are met with great disappointments leaving us to mourn not only the reborn feelings of grieve but also to mourn the loss of humanity inside each of us.

With each memory we realize that as Palestinian refugees, we are sentenced to live the Nakba over and over again repeatedly, accompanied each year with different kinds of pain and greater disappointments. The stories we narrate, the stories of our grandparents, the keys of the houses we were forced to abandon, the smell of the orange trees, the smell of Za’ater, are all ghosts from the past, and are fading slowly with the death of an elderly Palestinian who was forced to live away from his homeland. Each one of those, of our grandparents who died away from their homeland took their dreams, their fresh memories about their home, and leave us only unclear lines of what was their own lives.

Unlike my generation, and the generation before, who were captured by the beauty and magic of the stories narrated by our grandparents and our parents about the homeland, the coming generation will lose this connection with his roots, his past, and will be overwhelmed with frequent disappointments, the old stories, the old keys, cloth, and even land papers will meant nothing to them, except of some rituals to follow the steps of their parents and grandparents.

When we heard these stories from those who really experience the fleeing journey, we feel the pain; we even taste the bitterness for not seeing it again, all the feeling attached to this story are forwarded to us, we become affected, and we hold some hope to keep this treasure with some feelings, but when the years are running, until they become 61 years of holding it, these feeling of being connected to the homeland are replaced with frustration, disappointments, and then the circle will be broken.

The Palestinian refuges particularly those who are living in Gaza are crushed under great frustration and great disappointments specially after the Cast lead operation. The size of destruction, the number of deaths, and the amount of stress that everyone in Gaza has to experience during this war left us so fragile, so easily, and so overwhelmed, to the extent that there is no room left for mind or soul peace. We are so tormented with the horrors of the war, and with the possibility of experiencing another war.

The amount of frustration, and disappointment was clear when both of my sons announced that they will not going to get marry on the future, because they don’t want to have children, and they both don’t want to experience pain of loosing their children, or even seeing them suffer unable to help them…. They were right but I was shocked.

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From Najwa Sheikh Ahmed, Nusierat Camp, Gaza Strip. Najwa Sheikh's blog: http://www.najwa.tk/