Moving Towards Home 2

Today I spent hours with a woman who is about to be deported from the UK back to her home country. She desperately wants to stay here. She's HIV positive, a mother and a widow and will not be able to guarantee a safe future for her child after her death. Nor can she guarantee her and her small family's safety from the persecution from which she fled. She doesn't even talk about medication or health care. Her money cut off, she's relying on help given un-officially, accommodation donated by a friend. The organisations helping her carry on even though they worry about helping an "illegal immigrant".

Like we always do, we carried out our now "un-official" meeting whilst making lunch, sitting in front of the oven which was the only source of heat in the non-specific accommodation. We were talking about her husband, presumed murdered in her homeland. He was a romantic, he chased her relentlessly, she loves to talk about him and finishes her story with a head-thrown-back laugh and a firm slap of her thigh. Then we talk about my lack of marriage and children which I pass over quickly. That only leaves us with the future to talk about. At this point she does something that i've only ever seen done by women in the West Bank of Palestine. It's a gentle shrug of the shoulders, a rapid roll of the eyes and a resounding sigh....Immediately her jesture took me back to another displaced person, Um Hussain, Balata Refugee Camp Palestine 2003. I saw it first on the night that yet another child was murdered by the Israeli army. This time in front of 6 western eyes- a soft bodied child throwing stones at the nightly terrors visiting the camp in armoured jeeps. Um Hussain's almost imperceptable jesture spoke of despair and impatience and relief (this time it wasn't her son) and a million other emotions that only a mother could experience in the space of 5 seconds.

And today, there it was again, another mother, another world. One mother forced from, another back to her home. And here I am again, utterly useless in the face of politics and cold injustice, resorting to making food and cleaning plates, entertaining a child and complaining about the lack of good men in this town- anything to avoid discussing her future.

Moving Towards Home by June Jordan

Found on Um Kahlil's blog:

"Where is Abu Fadi," she wailed."" Who will bring me my loved one?"
New York Times, 9/20/82 (after the 1982 Phalangist/Israeli Massacre of Palestinian Refugees in Sabra and Shatila)

I do not wish to speak about the bulldozer and the
red dirt
not quite covering all of the arms and legs
Nor do I wish to speak about the nightlong screams
that reached the observation posts where soldiers lounged about
Nor do I wish to speak about the woman who shoved her baby
into the stranger's hands before she was led away
Nor do I wish to speak about the father whose sons
were shot through the head while they slit his own throat before
the eyes of his wife
Nor do I wish to speak about the army that lit continuous
flares into the darkness so that others could see
the backs of their victims lined against the wall
Nor do I wish to speak about the piled up bodies and
the stench that will not float
Nor do I wish to speak about the nurse again and
again raped before they murdered her on the hospital floor
Nor do I wish to speak about the rattling bullets that
did not halt on that keening trajectory
Nor do I wish to speak about the pounding on the
doors and the breaking of windows and the hauling of families into
the world of the dead
I do not wish to speak about the bulldozer and the
red dirt
not quite covering all of the arms and legs
because I do not wish to speak about unspeakable events
that must follow from those who dare"to purify" a people
those who dare"to exterminate" a people
those who dare to describe human beings as "beasts with two legs"
those who dare"to mop up"
"to tighten the noose"
"to step up the military pressure"
"to ring around" civilian streets with tanks
those who dare
to close the universities
to abolish the press
to kill the elected representatives
of the people who refuse to be purified
those are the ones from whom we must redeem
the words of our beginning
because I need to speak about home
I need to speak about living room
where the land is not bullied and beaten into
a tombstone
I need to speak about living room
where the talk will take place in my language
I need to speak about living room
where my children will grow without horror
I need to speak about living room where the men
of my family between the ages of six and sixty-five
are not
marched into a roundup that leads to the grave
I need to talk about living room
where I can sit without grief without wailing aloud
for my loved ones
where I must not ask where is Abu Fadi
because he will be there beside me
I need to talk about living room
because I need to talk about home
I was born a Black woman
and now
I am become a Palestinian
against the relentless laughter of evil
there is less and less living room
and where are my loved ones?
It is time to make our way home.