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May
10, 2003
So Young. So Unfair. So Common.
The Last Time
I Saw Mus'ab
by ANNIE C. HIGGINS
Last time I saw Mus`ab, he was holding a tire
in a tub of dirty water checking it for leaks. The auto repair
shop is on the Burqin Road between the two main entrances to
Jenin Refugee Camp. Mus`ab left high school at age sixteen to
provide for the family, because Israel has imprisoned his father
without cause in so-called administrative detention since their
invasion of the Camp in April 2002.
Mus`ab had been inviting me repeatedly
to visit his family in Burqin village, to which they had relocated
after their house was destroyed, like hundreds of homes in the
Hawashin and Damaj areas of the Camp. I had rescheduled a couple
of times, and this time told him I was going away for a bit,
but would be back. He insisted I must come for dinner as soon
as I returned. I promised.
Mus`ab was one of the first people I
met on my first trip to Jenin Camp in June 2002. He had stopped
by the home of friends a little way up the hill, where I was
enjoying a starry evening on the upper-story verandah. A few
days later I saw him outside/inside a home at the lower edge
of the destroyed area. He was in what should be the inner front
room of the house, but with the wall shaved off, the entire room
was exposed to the outside. The steps were missing also, so I
climbed up the broken concrete foundation to enter the home.
His mother greeted me so warmly, and introduced me to his aunt
and cousins, including one stocky young boy who could be my own
cousin with his red hair and freckles. I sat on a chair facing
the rubble of the bulldozed homes, that cataclysmic panorama
that the eye grasps long before the intellect does, while the
poor heart straggles behind, never quite catching up to how something
like this could happen, never fully believing the e! vidence
of the eyes and the mind.
His mother brought me coffee and joined
me, intermittently answering calls on her mobile phone as the
lawyer communicated his futile attempts to talk with her husband
in prison. Mus`ab's little sister, about four years old, audibly
expressed her desire to go with him as he jumped off the inside
floor to the outside ground. His mother asked him to take her
along on his errand. I was so touched by what happened next,
though not surprised. With a typical Arab man's tenderness toward
children, he turned around and lifted her from the floor to the
security of his embrace, kissed her, and she went proudly off,
shoulder to shoulder with her big brother.
I was surprised when his mother told
me he was only fifteen. He seemed older, but she said the boys
grow up fast here, and she wished he would be more of a child
in listening to her. It seemed a fairly typical complaint from
the mother of a teenager. She joked about the view from the open
wall. This gave me courage to ask if she would take a photo of
me with the rubble in the background. It was a documentary shot,
but I did not want to pour salt on the wound by focusing on the
destruction. However, it's not something you can hide easily,
and people don't seem sensitive about it. This was the only photo
of me in the Camp, and it was among the many pictures that did
not come out in the development process. Im Mus`ab/Mus`ab's mother
pointed out the direction where their house had been. When the
Israeli Army was bulldozing homes, the family took refuge with
relatives in the relative safety of this house across the street.
The marathon bulldozing operation crus! hed the box of toys Mus`ab's
little sister cherished, including her favorite plaything --
her toy bulldozer.
On another day I was so grateful that
Im Mus`ab appeared just as I was walking by the house. I only
had a little further to go to reach the home where I was staying,
but a walk to town under a very hot sun had affected me. It was
a great relief to enter the shade of the open front room, and
even moreso to enter the inner room where the overhead fan transported
me to another atmosphere. As I rested, and they brought me cool
water followed by hot coffee from freshly roasted beans, Im Mus`ab
told me about her trip to town. She wanted her little girl to
choose some new toys to replace those lost in the toy box in
their destroyed house, so she took her to a shop and showed her
all the dolls and fuzzy animals and cute child-appealing things.
Finally, the little girl chose a tank and some other military
toys. The mother was deflated to see this, and finally compromised
with some colorful little serving trays. I didn't understand
how those could count as toys, but! then saw they can be used
for playing house and serving guests. Like other mothers I have
spoken with, she felt that the worst effect of the Army's invasion
was not the material destruction, but the feeling of vulnerability
that leaves children seeking protection and strength in every
direction, even in their games. The trays were very appealing,
bright oranges and pinks reminiscent of sixties styles in a kind
of abstract garden.
Im Mus`ab showed me how they had been
sequestered in the back room of the house, while the Army stationed
themselves in the house next door. Occasionally, one brave family
member would wend his way to a front window to report on what
was taking place, but the danger of being shot near a window
was very high. This gave answers to my questions as to why people
stayed in dangerous areas during the invasion. What else could
they do? When you hear shooting, shelling, and walls falling
all around you, you don't know where they are precisely, but
you do know that you will be a target of the munitions if you
go outside. It was difficult to imagine that right here where
we were having coffee and conversation, the family had been trapped
inside, captive to the constant sounds of bombardment, in the
darkness with neither electricity nor natural light from the
windows. How can you bear something like that? When the circumstances
are pressed down on you, you bear them ! because that is what
you can do. Afterwards, your little girl chooses GI-Yousef over
Winnie-the-Pooh.
When I came back to Jenin Camp three
months later, Mus`ab was elated to see me. We exchanged mobile
phone numbers, and he would call occasionally to say hello. They
were spending more time in their relocated home in Burqin. Every
time I saw him, I felt like a celebrity. He would just light
up!
I admit that I experience some trepidation
when I read reports of the day's harvest of killings and injuries,
especially from a distance. I had been away from the internet
for a few days, so was catching up with a report from the prior
Tuesday, 29 April 2003. News of the Army invasion of Jenin Camp.
And a name I know. What happened? Shot dead? Mus`ab Jaber. That's
my Mus`ab! And another youngster injured. Maybe I read it wrong;
it's hard to tell with the skewed margins of the forward. Maybe
it's a different Mus`ab. Maybe he was the one injured. I follow
the lines carefully with my finger on the screen. "Mus`ab
Jaber was shot dead." Do you ever become accustomed to this,
as if it is normal? Why should you? It is not normal. It is excessive,
but it never makes it normal. I don't have the forbearance of
many of my Arab friends. When I cried out, my internet folk brought
me a glass of water. That wouldn't change the news, but I appreciated
the care.
I went for a walk in the early morning
sunshine, across the Nile with comforting ripples carried by
a light wind. Every green leaf on the banks brought comfort.
I stopped to take in the view of a beautiful bankside garden
with bright pink and purple flowers. As I was standing quietly
alone, a voice behind me said, "You cannot stop here. This
is a military area." How appropriate for the occasion! Where
have I heard that before! The Israeli Army charges into any and
every neighborhood, road, field, and orchard, and claims it is
a military area, trying to expel those who seek or who bring
comfort. At least this soldier was benign, not threatening to
shoot.
I continued walking and crossed back
on the next bridge south, enjoying the view of more Nile-side
flora as the sun climbed higher. I sat on a bench for a moment,
and a gardener from a private club's garden greeted me. When
I arose to go on, his fellow gardener invited me to the garden.
It was just the reverse of the episode on the other bank, where
I had been driven away from the lush beauty. A forbidden garden
view gave way to a permitted one. The universe compensates.
Still, I could not believe the news.
It seems odd, with the number of martyrs Jenin has witnessed
since I came back in September, but Mus`ab is the first person
I knew well. And so young. Like so many. So unfair. So common.
I could not bring myself to socialize,
though I had made plans to visit some new friends with a connection
to my family in Chicago. When the Cairo contingent called to
check on me, I apologized for my absence, and then told the news
of Mus`ab. The response was instant: "Oh, Tahani, don't
be sad! He's not dead. He's alive with God!" Heba didn't
have a trace of hesitation or grief, but she insisted that I
come and spend time with them so I would feel better. Once again,
I heard what I have become gradually less surprised to hear,
as she and her sister told me that to be a shahid/martyr is the
best way to leave the world, and that they hope for such an
end.
The last time I saw Mus`ab, I had been
walking in the road when a man called out to me. I thought maybe
I knew him, so I waited for him to catch up to me, and asked
if he were working, as his tall rubber boots indicated some kind
of local labor. The question started him out on a very long answer
about his lack of work, and a large family to support, and the
way the Israeli Army is attacking people at all age levels, and
making normal things like employment impossible in this society.
He pronounced these things very volubly with a great deal of
hand-waving, and people in the road looked at me rather pityingly,
that I should be accompanied by this madman. His manner was disconcerting,
but all of his words were correct. Everything he said was accurate.
I thought of deCerteau's wild man who says what everyone knows
is true, but remains silent about, leaving it to the man removed
from society in some way, to give voice to. Nonetheless, he was
becoming a little ! attached to my footsteps. When I stopped
to say hello to Mus`ab working on the leaky tire, he managed
to deter the man from following me further. Very gently. I was
reminded of his style with his little sister.
That morning I had awoken at the home
of friends at the top of the hill of Jenin Camp. Before the household
awoke, as I looked out across the Camp yielding to the fertile
plain, I saw a full rainbow arching from the farmers' fields
in the north across to the village of Burqin. The rainbow faded
out and then back in with its full splendor of stripes. Burqin
is said to be the village where Christ Jesus performed his first
marvel of turning the water into wedding wine, and where he later
healed the ten lepers, of whom only the stranger amongst them,
the Samaritan, turned and thanked him. Today the rainbow was
bringing its prism to Mus`ab's village.
I hope to fulfill my promise to Mus`ab,
to visit his home in Burqin and dine at his mother's table. I
have not yet seen his memorial poster. I see him as I saw him
that day. Last time I saw Mus`ab, he was earnestly fixing the
tire, kindly steering the wild man away, looking up at me and
smiling.
Annie C. Higgins
specializes in Arabic and Islamic studies, and is currently doing
research in Jenin, Occupied Palestine. She can be reached at:
higgins@counterpunch.org.
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