Why we need to care about Palestine
WE ARE ALL HUMANS: A story or picture of Palestinians does not only show their sorrow and suffering; it is a narration and proof of human history and humanism
MEvery year, Palestinians produce diet. ANY people have asked me: “Why Palestine?” I am not Palestinian; I am from Taiwan, an Asian country that is 8,000km away from Palestine.
There is little news talking about it. I had heard about the Intifada. I had also read news about the war in Gaza and the numbers of people piled up killed during clashes in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. My life cannot possibly have crossovers with this land forever.
But here I am, in Palestine, as a visitor, as a friend to many, as a journalist.
There is much suffering in the world at the moment. Attention is given to the Syrian civil war with atrocities committed and the thousands of civilian casualties. The world media is also eyeing the United States president-elect Donald Trump and how he will fare in office. His victory over Hillary Clinton have become daily news headlines.
Against this backdrop, a story about Palestinian minors detained in Israeli prison, the act in violation of international laws does not get the news attention it deserves. No matter how many Palestinians are killed or arrested, how many houses are demolished, and how many settlements are built, there are few human faces or Palestinian names; they have become numbers that perish in hundreds more breaking news.
My answer to “Why Palestine?” surfaced during one of the October weekends, which is the best time for olive picking in Palestine.
I was invited by my friend, Wafa, to experience the olive harvest with her family in Aroura, a village northwest of Ramallah in the West Bank. We started at 7am. Following her father, and joined by her mother and three of her younger siblings fully equipped, we walked to the ground that belonged to her family.
At the top of the hill, Wafa told me, “Our grandfathers and great grandfathers have passed these trees down to us. They marked the trees and distinguished which lands and trees belonged to them without any means of technology.
“Usually, men do the (harvest) job. And we (the women) take care of the home and prepare food. It’s like a family tradition. Nowadays, my older brothers need to work, so we all help, ” said Wafa.
Olives and olive oil have a significant role in all major religions developed in this region, which have been mentioned in the Quran, Bible and Torah. Olive symbolises life, renewal, resilience and peace. The oil stands for purity, protection, health and light. Olive trees have been cultivated here for thousands of years.
“Look!” said Hiba, a 5-year-old, the youngest daughter in this family, as she put out her hands to me. There was a small pile of greenish black olives in her palms.
She then offered me an orange rake and eagerly showed me how to brush mature olives down from the tree branches. The sound of the olives falling is similar to the rhythm of the rain. We collected them on a big canvas, which covered the ground around the tree.
“Olives!” she innocently yelled with a stunning smile on her face. She kneeled down on the canvas and scooped some olives up in her hand.
It is the main food fat in their daily It is said to be a gesture Palestinian farmers do when they cultivate olives.
“If the olive trees knew the hands that planted them, their oil would become tears,” wrote Mahmoud Darwish, the Palestinian national poet.
In Palestine, it is estimated that there are more than 10 million olive trees. Every year in the West Bank, 10,000 more trees are planted. The olive industry stands as the key role in the Palestinian economy; it is also an essential aspect of Palestinian culture, heritage and identity.
The olive harvest has come down from many generations that bring Palestinian families together. The significance of it is socio-cultural. Olive production represents more than a means of livelihood, it is the spirit and unification of families. Every year, Palestinians produce more than 20,000 tonnes of olive oil. It is the main food fat in the daily diet. Almost no Palestinian food can be made without taking olive oil into account.
However, the destruction of Palestinian olive trees by Israeli soldiers and settlers has become a common tragedy in recent years. A shocking image captured by an AP journalist portraying a Palestinian woman hugging her olive tree to protect it from being rooted out by the Israeli soldiers in the West Bank village of Salim swept through the social and mainstream media in 2005.
“It takes so many years for an olive tree to grow and bear fruits. Some of the trees might be hundreds or even thousands years old,” said Wafa, indicating that Palestine has some of the world’s oldest olive trees, which could be dated back to 4,000 years ago .
Because of the historical, economic and cultural importance of these olive trees to Palestinians, the Israeli uprooting trees to make new room for settlements has less a territorial but more a spiritual significance .
While the children were yelling and jumping up and down in the trees to harvest olives, Wafa’s mother collected some tree branches and made fire to prepare the traditional Arabic coffee.
“We don’t waste anything from the trees, from the branches, the leaves, the olive itself and its seed. Every part of it is valuable and can be reproduced into something,” explained Wafa’s mother, offering me a cup of hot coffee. “It means life for us.”
“Palestinians are in love with life,” the sentence of Mahmoud Darwish suddenly aroused in my mind, echoing her comment.
She then called out to the harvest crew for Futur. It is time for a traditional Palestinian breakfast. We took refuge in the shade of an olive tree from the blazing sun and enjoyed a feast composed of bread, tuna, olive oil, hummus and some homemade pickles. The children fell on the food and ate it with satisfaction and joyfulness.
Staring at their smiles, I turned my head to the other side with endless olive trees in sight, the question came to me again, as so many times before: Why Palestine? The answer began to gel in my mind.
It does not matter where you are from. It does not matter if you have your own opinion about what is right or wrong in this long-standing complication between Israel and Palestine. But there is life. There is humanity.
Perhaps, I came to Palestine to look for myself.
I do not know how much I can help Palestinians as a foreign journalist. I even once doubted if I fell in the category — Palestinian journalists strongly condemned Western journalists, they view them as taking advantage of people’s sufferings, as stepping stones to fulfil their own career achievements.
My role in Palestine is not to free the Palestinians, but to stand with them to tell the truth and deliver their message to those farther away. There is something universal shared between everyone on this earth. That is to say, I am also writing for the people from Taiwan, from Asia, or any of those who wish to understand the essence of life and purity of humanity.
Of course, Palestine is not perfect. There are flaws and not everyone is as kind. But in the end, the imperfections will not become the obstacles that stopped us from telling the story and delivering the message.
And the message is simple: we all want to live a free, simple, carefree, happy and safe life, with our beloved families, lovers and friends in a place we call home. We share the same feeling of happiness, sadness, anger, jealousy, greed and grief. We all crave the same ideas — freedom, self-identity and love.
Many Palestinians are still in exile. The comment by a Palestinian living abroad, “Home is home, but it is somewhere I cannot return”, is way too familiar to Palestinians.
A story, or picture of Palestinians does not simply show their sorrow and suffering; it is a narration and proof of human history and humanism. This is why, I feel obliged to share and write stories about Palestine with everyone around the world, regardless of nationality or religion.
Cultural critic Edward Said noted: “Just as none of us is outside or beyond geography, none of us is completely free from the struggle over geography.”
The next time someone asks me again why a Taiwanese girl is here writing for Palestine, my answer — there is something essential that everyone on this earth should give solidarity to: we all have the rights to go home, to enjoy freedom and life.
The writer is