Salman Masalha
Felicia Langer | I am an Arab
“Man, how proud the word rings!” Maxim Gorky, “The Lower Depths”
I have often
wondered about the mysteries of memory—about why it is so selective, and about
its other trait: its tendency to preserve what is inscribed on its tablet. At
times I try to erase from it something that troubles me, but to no avail. The
dungeons of Gaza and Hebron, the severed legs of Ibrahim Gharaybeh, the eyes
of Omar Salameh gripped by madness, the paralyzed limbs of Qatamish—they dwell
within me permanently, in all their horror.
But there are memories
that I truly love. They nourish my spirit in my darkest hours and satisfy my
hunger for the beauty in people.
Such is my memory of Salman.
I
met him under fairly ordinary circumstances. A well-educated, sensitive young
man who loved art—a poet. “He’s a Druze,” they told me.
Our second
and more significant meeting took place in prison, where he was being held for
refusing to serve in the army. He spoke to me in a hushed voice. Prison hadn’t
broken him, but I could sense how difficult it was for him. He hung on every
word about what was happening outside—the struggles and events—and regretted
that he couldn’t take part in them. Knowing military prisons as I did, I felt
how important it was to get him out of there as quickly as possible.
A
military trial awaited Salman. He was a deserter and a conscientious objector,
and I knew the outcome would not be in his favor.
We met in a
packed courtroom in Jaffa. His friends and his older brother were there.
Salman himself, looking grotesque in his baggy khaki pants—which were too big
for him because he was so skinny and he wore a hat that didn’t sit well on his
head. He smiled at his friends. I saw the yellowish tinge on his face and
thought to myself that prison had taken its toll on him.
Before us,
the trials of other soldiers were heard. Simple human tragedies unfolded one
after another. “Deserters” who periodically went AWOL to earn a few days’
wages for a needy family, desperate for every penny. Their explanations were
emotional, and their distress and fear of the verdict were evident. There you
have the other Israel. “The ‘not-so-nice ones,’” as Golda Meir put it—I
thought, and the harsh sentences imposed on them reflected the judges’
attitude toward their painful problems.
It was our turn. Salman,
the defendant, was summoned to stand at attention. The presiding judge read
out his name and address, struggling greatly to pronounce the name of his
village, Maghar, correctly, and noted: “Druze.” Then Salman said aloud—in a
voice I didn’t think he possessed—“I am an Arab.” Silence fell over the
courtroom. The judge looked at Salman in astonishment and said, “As far as I
know, the defendant is a Druze”… Salman smiled slightly, stood up straight to
his full height in his ridiculous uniform, and replied, “No, Your Honor, I am
a member of the Druze community. But by nationality, I am an Arab.” The judge
grumbled and muttered that Druze are not Arabs. But Salman stood his ground
and repeated the short, provocative statement: “I am an Arab.”
The
presiding judge showed impatience: Why doesn’t this eccentric understand the
rules of the game that everyone has known for years? We, the authorities, need
their blood, and in exchange for their blood we’re willing to grant them a
favor— like saying that they aren’t Arabs. They’re much better than the Arabs,
and that’s a significant statement considering what people think of Arabs and
how hard it is to be an Arab here… Of course, they’re far from members of “the
Chosen People.” They’re simply some kind of intermediate nationality, and no
one will call them “dirty Arabs.”
And he, this wretched defendant,
brazenly rejects the bribe. And not offhandedly but rather standing there
before us in such a vulnerable position, with his entire fate in our hands—for
punishment or for mercy—when his freedom means either liberty or a stinking
cell teeming with rats, when every day has endless hours and every hour has
endless minutes.
I am completely captivated by Salman’s face, by
his large, black eyes, wide open. It seems as if he had been waiting for this
moment and had cherished and caressed those words in his prison cell until he
hurled them into the courtroom, as a challenge to his judges.
Something
joyful and happy surges within me, in this crowded courtroom.
*
For
Hebrew,
press here
For Arabic, press here
الشاعر في نصوصه يعيش تحولات وتبدلات ذات ألوان إيحائية تدلنا وتؤشر على ثقافته باعتبارها الفضاء الرحب الذي يتيح السفر والحالة الشعرية، فلا شعر خارج الفضاء الثقافي...
