“But what he still wants to do, in whatever form, is tell stories: ones which are true even when they’re not exactly real.” (From an interview with Mike Skinner from the Street. See: guardian.co.uk/film.)
Telling stories is one function language has in our lives. Language is vital in preserving our histories and identities. Through the use of language we tell stories about who we are and what we are here for.
I am reminded of one song my family sang around the kitchen table my auntie was using to make Kubi Neyie (a Palestinian dish using raw mince as its main ingredient). The beginning of one of its verses roughly goes like this: “And we went to Al-Manshyie to eat Kubi Neyie… (for those of you with knowledge of the Palestinian accent of Arabic, there is a rhyme going on between Al- Manshyie and Kubi Neyie).
I recently discovered that Al –Manshyie is actually a name of two villages destroyed and abandoned during the Palestinian Nakbe in 1948. It is common, in Palestine to find two or more towns, often in different parts of the country, with the same name.
This discovery reminded me of the powerful role traditional songs play in peoples’ lives. Words, in songs, can revive the memories of those erased places and displaced people. The song represents the facts that decent people lived in this land. They worked hard to live decent lives, and there were times when they visited each other to celebrate and eat local delicacies.
The other day I was listening to Reem Banna, a Palestinian singer from Nazareth, who sings songs written by local poets including her own mother, Zuhaira Sabbagh. The words written in a poetic language, full of local imagery, smells of flowers and emotion.
These songs made me think of the power language has in this world, and what it means to me. What it means to a person like me who speaks three languages. My mother tongue, my oppressor’s tongue and a third language that belongs to previous oppressors.
I have a love - hate relationship with my oppressor’s language, and at the moment I am in the middle of one of my love phases. I have just finished one novel, and already started the next one. I like the sound of it and its richness, which are in many ways similar to my own language. They both come from the Semitic family.
Using Hebrew, for me, is meeting the oppressor and befriending her/ him. Through her/ his language I can tell her/ him my story and listen to hers/ his. I can learn my acquaintance’s past and present. I can learn about her/ his likes and dislikes and how we could coexist forever.
We can learn how similar we are to each other, but dissimilar in many other ways. A book I am reading at the moment tells a story of people who were made to feel like exiles in their homeland, just like my family who in the 1940’s survived a war that made them an oppressed minority in their own country.
The book was written in Hebrew by an Israeli writer with Iraqi origins, Sammy Michael. The Main Character is Nouri an Iraqi Jewish boy who lived in Baghdad in the 1940’s. Nouri was the name of the boy in my first Arabic schoolbook when I was 7. Nouri, the Arab, lived in Yaffa.
Palm Trees in the Storm tells us the story of a minority who, at the start of the novel, lived happily among the dominant culture. You can hardly tell, from the novel, the difference between the Jewish and the Arabic names.
The Jewish minority progressively began feeling intimated by the Arabic Muslim majority who, according to the book, supported the Nazi’s in Germany. I don’t know much about modern Iraqi history, as we were not taught modern Arabic history at school. Another sign of attempts to erase our history and identities.
It looked bad for the Jews in Iraq during that period. A period in which Iraq was used to settle conflicts between bigger powers (Germany and Britain), not very different from the situation in Iraq or Lebanon today.
Nouri’s family were defiant to survive, and they were one of the lucky ones to do so. However, they suffered losses of neighbours, jobs and properties. Let alone the emotional trauma the war left them with. The story ends when an aunt and uncle, together with their baby son, decided to travel to Eretz Yesrael (the Zionist phrase for historic Palestine), where they hoped to be safe and begin a new life in the land of their ancestors.
In Palestine, at that same period, my grandparents were struggling to live in Haifa, as the Jewish militias approached and started expelling the Palestinian residents. My granddad lost his job in the railways, and my grandmother lost her 13-year-old brother in an attack on a bus.
They decided to move to Nazareth were they started a new life after many losses and after becoming an oppressed minority. They did not have Eretz Yesrael to go to, where they were given all the benefits from the newly formed Israeli government. A government that gives housing benefits, citizenship and many other incentives for all those Jews who wish to ‘ascend’ - The word used to signify a higher better place for the Jews – to Israel.
While Palestinian refugees are banned from their right of return (that a UN resolution gave them). In their own homeland, my family is banned from many jobs. They are banned from acquiring land that belongs to the state (most of it is destroyed villages). My family also bares the emotional and social burdens of isolation, oppression and identifying with the oppressor.
My grandparents, at that time, and until the 60’s were banned from travelling to visit relatives in nearby towns unless they have a special permit. Of course, I am not blaming Nouri’s family or any Jew who suffered in his or her own country and looked for a better place to live in. I believe that all people have the right to live safely anywhere they wish to live. Even Palestine, if all of those who were displaced return, should be a refuge for all: Jews, Arabs and others.
What I am doing here, is pointing out to the importance of language to me. Through the words of this novel, I was able to know some of my oppressors’ stories. The words made me empathise and identify with them. The novel made me realise how similar we are to each other, but also it made me realise that our destinies were different.
This is my personal experience of language, or more accurately, languages. But it comes from a long world tradition of using language to tell about everyday realities, and create reality to help us bear this world, which at times can get too much.
I note the works of Kafka, to Darwish, to Elias Khoury, and musicians such the likes of L. Cohen and M. Khalifie. Yes and Mike Skinner, together with all the decent musicians and writers in the West. Those who use language and tell stories that are true, but not necessary real.
Perhaps, I am trying to tell you that I will be attempting to do just this in by blog. I want to use language to relieve my pain and, in my own way, create my own reality and make the world a better place to live in.
This sounds like an idealistic, and perhaps, unrealistic fantasy, but it makes me hope for a better future. I will let this fantasy stay in my thoughts and help it evolve on it’s own pace.
Language is not only an evidence of the past. It makes me live in the here and now. Through language I can name my present emotions and thoughts. In words I can describe my inner and outer experiences. In words I can live the moment and become more aware of my own truth, that is not always possible or real.
Language is also a way to look at our future. If we wish, it could be a future of justice, equality and peace for all.
