Palestinian in Exile

The dawn hour, the hour of silence, when time seems to stand still. Dawn, the hour when we think our loneliest thoughts, when we beseech God, and search for understanding deep in our hearts, our whole being. What is the secret that keeps our humanity alive, what pain, what breath? Again and again, the question returns to haunt us.

Suddenly, pictures flood into my mind: war and conflict are raging, human beings are being driven from their homes, abused, dragged through the mud, tormented... concentrated in death camps. Humiliated for a name, an origin, an identity. Humiliated, and then forgotten. It was only yesterday, and in the mists of my memory their faces are simultaneously engraved and obliterated by the immensity of the evil that human History has wrought. Are we not responsible for our History? Can it be that we have not learned to confront life? The taste in my mouth is harsh, bitter

Today is so like yesterday. Where have we come, in fact? Are we innocents droning on for all to hear about their insignificant lapses? Madmen carried away by ignorance of what they have done? Monsters possessed, by their thirst for power and comfort? Who are we? Yesterday’s victims, today’s killers... suffering at dusk, dictators at dawn? And when the long night is over, what will we have become? Who, finally, are we? What memory can we call our own? The same images: of those driven from their homes, abused, dragged through the mud, tormented... concentrated in camps of the selfsame death. Today, like yesterday. They knew, of course. And they let it happen... Today, we know. We let it happen. The cowardice is identical.

The dawn hour, the hour of silence, when time seems to stand still. Suddenly, I feel I must speak with my daughter, my son. To whisper to them what lies in the heart. A secret. Down deep, I do not know what human beings are; I cannot know their hopes, their aspirations. I no longer know the value of their promises, so much have we betrayed each other. My daughter, my son, if our life’s blood has any meaning, it is time to awaken our shared memories. It is time for us to awaken; to resist.

We have been deceived. How beautiful were our dreams; how ugly the reality. They spoke to us of peace as one would speak of hope: something for us, beyond us, without us. Without effort. We stand as spectators of a destiny free of memory, of justice, of sacrifice. Without dignity. On the horizon of Palestine, I can hear the deadened melodies of wounded conscience, of long-nourished guilt, of choking infirmity; I would like to become the voice of the voiceless, of the lost, the exiled and the refugees, who have paid twice over the price of our spinelessness. I would like-surely you can understand-to energize those victims, the memory of dusk that brings forth the demanding justice of the dawn. To awaken us from the long night of our history. How I would like to do that!

The dawn hour, the hour of silence, when time seems to stand still. To live for peace! To stand up at last, in the name of those driven from their homes, abused, dragged, tormented, assembled in the death camps, today like yesterday. To become the conscience of the oppressed. For here love, dignity, and hope lie concealed. Here faith is born, the breath of life, the task that lies before us. This, finally, is the price of peace: among us, with us, for us all. Never give up. Simple, when you come down to it. But at the heart of this deafening silence, here among human beings, I know no other secret.