Earlier, a friend who was planning to sell their family home but did not want the buyer to demolish it had written: ‘Another call for help. I’m concerned, more petrified, that our house will be relegated to a pile of rubble once it gets sold sometime in the future. It was one of the first contemporary villas, if not the first, in the area. My father put his blood, sweat, tears and hard work (literally), in building this gem of a house. Do we have any legal recourse in preventing the greediness of any buyer from destroying it? It’s a nightmare that keeps playing in my mind and definitely heartbreaking. It means the physical eradication of my childhood and life in Ramallah. Please advise.’
I felt for her, though I could respond only by pointing out that it is not possible to do anything because we have no law preventing the destruction of historic buildings. Even if we did, a house such as her family’s would not qualify as historical. It is only meaningful to those who have a history in it. I would not be able to do anything to stop the demolition. If she really cared about this house why did she want to sell it in the first place?
On Friends Street I encounter a long queue of traffic going up to Main Street, where my office is. I edge carefully along the street, which is lined with cars parked illegally, some doubleparked. Pedestrians walk by not paying any attention to the cars, deeply involved in speaking or texting on their phones. It is getting hot now, the air warmed by the midday sun and the car fumes. On school days this street gets even more crowded. At the end of the school day parents drive to private schools to pick up their children. Every weekday this creates traffic jams on Ramallah streets. In the 1950s and 1960s we all walked to school and had a greater chance to observe and take in so much on our way there and back home again than present-day kids have.
To my left I can see the old familiar school gateposts, built in 1930. In the early 1950s, on a plot that has now been built up, there used to be a large and attractive tent where the aunt of my schoolmate Wedad Marouf lived. I never went inside, but my mother always said it was the most beautiful tent she had ever seen and that she liked visiting the family. They had lost their home in Ramle in the Nakba and refused to live in squalor, so they strove to make their tent as attractive as possible. Of the six children, only one daughter, Wedad’s mother, now in her eighties, is still living in Ramallah, with two of her sons and their families.
In Ramle the father had owned a grocery shop. After the massacre by Jewish forces at Deir Yassin on 9 April 1948, he brought his wife, their three daughters and three sons to Ramallah because he was afraid for their safety. He remained in Ramle until it became too dangerous, then he also left. The family lived at the Anglican church house for a while until they found a place to rent. But after a few months they were unable to afford that. They asked the priest, who owned land across from the Friends School, whether they could squat on the plot and live in a tent there.
The mother planted the ground outside with stocks, snapdragons and dahlias, which I could see from the street as I walked to and from school. The father roasted peanuts and every day would drag a cart heaped with nuts up that steep hill, then stand at the corner of Friends Street to sell them. He had been roasting nuts at his grocery in Ramle and continued to do so in Ramallah. One night when it snowed they had a kanoon (metal grill for heating that uses coal) lit in the tent. The mother woke up and found everyone drowsy and sluggish because of carbon monoxide. She got them outside and they revived. After their narrow escape from gas poisoning, they asked permission to build a room with bricks. They divided it into different quarters and lived there. The toilet remained outside.
One brother now lives in Brazil and another in the US; one sister lived and died in Wales, and another went to Australia, where the parents also immigrated, dying there. Wedad’s mother is the only one to have stayed in Ramallah. Her husband had the town’s sole flower shop and her son owns the Snowbar garden restaurant.
Mass emigration to the US was made easier once it was possible to get a visa if one had a brother settled there. Knowledge of English, which the Friends School provided, was another inducement. In the 1950s it became like an unstoppable stream, with Ramallah losing most of its original inhabitants. According to the 1997 census, refugees accounted for some 60 per cent of the city’s population.
From the top of the hill at the end of Friends Street I can see how busy Ramallah is now, how chaotic and noisy. Over fifty years the sounds of the town have completely changed, becoming so much louder and more unpleasant. When I heard the artist Emily Jacir’s sound installation at the opening of the Palestinian Museum in Birzeit, I was reminded of how, before the Israeli occupation imprisoned us in the West Bank, we would hear taxi drivers in the centre of town calling for passengers ‘to Jerusalem, to Amman, to Beirut’.
Shop owners had a habit of keeping caged songbirds just outside their shops. The birds would chirrup most of the day, making the owner proud. With the felling of the pine trees lining the city streets by Israeli soldiers – on security grounds, they said – one can no longer hear birds in the trees. Their song has been replaced by the noise of traffic. There were also a number of men-only coffee shops where young men played pool, which we called billyardoo. Ramallah was a poor town with few places of entertainment. Bored with nothing to do, young men would stroll in the streets, swaying their arms with their little fingers linked. They were usually from the surrounding villages, where the practice was thought to indicate the strong bond of male friendship. Shop owners sat outside their shops on low stools in the sun, twirling cigarettes between their yellowed fingers. They would use hand gestures to communicate with each other from opposite sides of the street, along which only a few cars passed. Occasionally a driver would stop to chat, keeping one hand on the gear stick and the other, usually tanned, out of the open window. The shop owner would lean down, poke his head in the car and start a conversation with the driver. They had the time to tell each other stories and greet passers-by. Rather than use the indicator, taxi drivers would extend their hand out of the window to signal that they were making a turn.
On the evenings when the band at the Grand Hotel wasn’t playing we sat in the pine garden of our old house. Apart from the occasional honk, there would be utter silence. On warm summer days we heard crickets and the occasional braying of a mule drawing a cart or the clunky old bus making its rounds. We didn’t have television until the late 1950s and we rarely turned on the radio in our house. Children played outside the house – one could often hear their shouts as they played marbles or the popular game of seven stones. The streets were dominated by men. Every once in a while a woman would pass by, either the barber’s attractive wife, walking so straight, her hair tied in a chignon, or our neighbours’ young daughter with her flowing auburn hair. A hush would descend on the street, everything coming to a halt as all eyes turned to look.
Until the late 1980s, except for older women none wore the headscarf. It is different now. These days a large number of women cover their hair and some also wear the full-length traditional Islamic dress. It often makes me feel as though I no longer recognise where I am. It’s not that I mind the headscarf; it’s just that it makes me yearn for the time when nationalism provided the public with a sense of identity. Now that the nationalist project has failed, it has been replaced by religion.
As I pass through the crowded Main Street someone inadvertently pushes me then immediately apologises, calling me Haj, a term of respect that, when I was growing up, was reserved for someone who had gone on the pilgrimage to Mecca. In the past people used other, non-religious terms, such as Khawaja, Mr or Ustaz, but not Haj. The first time I was called this, a few years ago, I was surprised. Now it is used to address all men my age, whether Christian or Muslim.
Just before reaching the office I pass Abu Iskandar’s famous shawarma place, where I used to go with my grandmother. In the renovated stopfront I can see Iskandar the son, now as portly as his father used to be, sitting by the window, his hefty arms folded in a similar pose. I greet
him, though I haven’t bought a sandwich from him since I stopped eating meat in 1991. The all too familiar and still-enticing smell wafts by my nose as I make my way up to the office.
Nine
As I walk up the stairs to my office I see by the door the old sign: ‘Aziz and Fuad Shehadeh Law Office’. It has been hanging on the wall, at the top of the stairs, from before I joined, thirtyseven years ago.
I was number 176 on the list of registered lawyers when I began practising law. There was no Palestinian Bar Association then. Almost as many lawyers had joined the longest-lasting, disastrous lawyers’ strike, which began right after the occupation in protest at the illegal annexation by Israel of East Jerusalem and lasted for some quarter of a century, achieving nothing. As long as they remained on strike, the lawyers received a monthly stipend from the Jordanian Bar Association. Those who refused to join were disbarred by the association, to which all Palestinian lawyers then belonged. A new lawyer had the option of registering either with the Jordanian Bar and joining the strike or with the Israeli military and becoming qualified to appear before the local courts administered by them. I was confronted with the choice whether or not to join the strike. I had no doubt as to what I should do. I wanted to be a practising lawyer who used the law to serve the cause of human rights. Now there are over 3,500 lawyers registered with the Palestinian Bar Association, which was established in the wake of the Oslo Accords.
After completing my studies and before leaving London, I had two suits made, one in striped grey and another in black. I also bought a barrister’s gown. The suits have since worn out, but the gown still hangs in the office although I rarely use it now. I was determined to play the part and do my best for the practice. Until the agreement was signed between the PLO and Israel in Oslo, I continued to see the usefulness of law in serving the struggle for liberation from the occupation. That event put an end to my aspirations. Then my public work seemed futile and my writing came into the ascendance.
I have never regretted studying law, but when I turned fifty I became curious about another possible direction my life could have taken had I stayed at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry, which I visited in 1974, and joined Auroville. I was twenty-three then and enjoyed many aspects of life in the ashram, especially the communal kitchen and the ritual of eating together simple food, which seemed to agree with me. I had never felt better. During my stay at the ashram I heard a lot about Auroville, a universal city being built by idealists from around the world who wanted to explore new ways of communal living. I longed to be part of that ambitious project, but I had to leave India without ever visiting Auroville. News arrived that my mother was ill. My departure was so swift that I left behind all the clothes I had acquired there, bar one salmoncoloured cotton shirt which I held on to until it became so worn it could not be mended. That city in India remained in my mind as the unreachable nirvana. Now, at fifty, I was determined to visit the place and see what I had missed.
On arriving at Auroville, I saw that the new city resembled an Israeli settlement, with the difference that it was built around the Matrimandir, a meditation dome for the practitioners of integral yoga based on the philosophy and practice of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Mirra Alfassa. It is situated in what is called the Peace temple, which is dedicated to the Mother, who was the inspiration behind Auroville. When I got there, I saw long queues of tourists all wanting to visit the golden dome. I stood with them in silence and observed the area around me. It was inhabited mainly by foreigners and survived in the midst of abject poverty. Many of the inhabitants were totally self-involved, convinced that they were serving higher ideals while being totally detached from those among whom they lived, and who they sometimes employed as cheap labour. Some people had left their own highly developed societies and moved to Auroville simply because they could afford it. They made themselves believe they were leading moral lives, carrying out a new experiment in socialist living.
Before leaving, I visited the bakery and bought some bread, then went to the gift shop, where I bought a lampshade and a necktie produced by Aurovillians – two mementoes which I still keep of the place to which I once thought I would dedicate my life.
Knowing how much I dislike meetings, I would never have been happy living in that collective environment, where meetings were deemed necessary to take decisions on various aspects of communal living. Surely it was not a place for a writer who needs to be left alone in peace and quiet. It didn’t take much for me to recognise that I could never have tolerated life in Auroville. I came back confirmed that I had made the right decision.
I didn’t know it then, but in time it has become clear that my life was not going to be dedicated to participating in building the new ideal society but in exposing the ills inflicted upon my own society. Not in the distant yonder, but in the dirt, pain and suffering of the here and now. And so, between my work at the law office and Al Haq, I managed to keep myself busy with trying to discover and expose Israeli policies regarding the occupied territories and the changes in the law being made by the military authorities. I was working assiduously to see the total picture, keeping ahead of the occupier, figuring out what was happening and writing about it in the hope of putting a stop to these violations. With the vast increase in Jewish settlements and the intolerable stifling of Palestinian society, what good has it done? In the chaotic crowded streets filled with calls to prayer, it feels more like we are praying for our sins, acknowledging our defeat and pleading for forgiveness.
My busiest years as a lawyer at the office were after the Oslo deal was struck. Then I had plenty of legal work for larger projects than our office had ever handled. This was fortuitous, because I needed money to build our house so I could shelter from the chaos and at the end of the day return to a tranquil orderly place. Meanwhile the hard work and long hours at the office provided a perfect distraction from the gloomy outlook that the Oslo Accords projected for our future.
Our office was not far from where the District Court came to be located. When I was young I used to accompany my father to the District Court in Jerusalem. This was a new building erected by Jordan when it governed eastern Jerusalem. Father was proud of the impressive structure and would rush up the wide stairs to argue his cases there before the Arab judges. But when I began my practice that building had been taken over by Israel and was being used as the Israeli District Court. What had served as the Ramallah vegetable market was used to house our Palestinian courts for all levels of the judiciary from the magistrates’ courts to the High Court. I never thought about the blow to father, who then had to make do with arguing his cases before these shabby courts.
So much has happened at this office that I am now entering. Happy times, tense times, successes and failures. Despite everything, I have never regretted staying in Ramallah and working as a lawyer. It has not always been easy to live here or to work in the family firm. My uncle lost his sight. First he lost sight in one eye in a traffic accident while on his way to court in Jenin and then he lost the second eye due to diabetes. My father was murdered after leaving his office on a foggy December evening in 1985, by a thug who had squatted on church property whom my father was trying to evict. As a collaborator working for the military, the assassin was never pursued by the Israeli police. We endured the first, then the second Intifada and several wars, before and after, including the reinvasion of Ramallah in 2002. Fortunately, the office was spared and was never broken into by the army.
Over the years the office expanded, with two of my cousins joining my uncle and myself. Later, other partners were added to our team. Now it is considered among the largest and most prestigious law firms in Palestine. My father would be proud. The latest recruit is my nephew Aziz, the same boy of seven to whom I showed the tank near my home, now grown into a bright young man determined to make his life here, despite the difficulties of occupation.
When I arrive at the office, I find he has been here since nine this morning and will be staying until late in
the evening. Like his grandfather, he is diligent and hard-working. He will fill his grandfather’s place admirably; even his handwriting is neat like his.
I have done my best to guide him to become a good lawyer and avoid the mistakes I have made. Yet when I see him at the office I am overcome by conflicting emotions. I have managed to hand over to him the office I inherited from my father, which my colleagues and I have kept prosperous and well established, but I cannot spare him the suffering from an ever-more tenacious occupation and grim future, much as I feel confident that he will find his own way of coping and resisting. He has come back, hasn’t he?
After my father died I refused to use his office and stayed where I was in the small room next to his. It was months before I felt able to inherit his room. But it was not without pain. As I enter it today I think of him, as I invariably do every time I come to the office.
My one-thirty meeting did not take much time. After working as a lawyer for thirty-seven years, I have learned the skill of how to be expeditious. Afterwards I responded to a few emails, then sat with my colleagues to discuss the issues they were handling. They wanted my opinion on a number of legal matters and asked me to review some letters they had drafted concerning sensitive issues. There was nothing urgent that couldn’t wait for another day, but I thought I would spend the rest of the afternoon at the office, going through my pending work. However, at that point my secretary came to tell me that an old client of mine had just called, asking whether I was going to be at the office this afternoon because he wanted to pass by and see me. I have known this man for many years and have promised myself I will never handle another of his seemingly interminable cases. I told her to say I was leaving. I know him well enough to feel sure that he would soon be appearing at my office anyhow, to catch me before I left. So, to make sure that I avoided an unpleasant encounter with him, I sped out of the office.
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