Stories from Palestine: Narratives of resilience, by Marda Dunsky

Author: Marda Dunsky. Review by Andrew Rigby

I have been visiting Israel and Palestine since the early 1980s. It has been an emotional journey. There was the buoyancy I felt when the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993, when there seemed to be grounds for hope. Since then it has been a challenge to express any optimism.

In 2008 I was in Ramallah and took the opportunity to attend Meeting for Worship at Ramallah Friends Meeting House. Afterwards I talked with Jean Zaru, the long-time stalwart of the Quaker community in the West Bank. Later that day I wrote up my notes of the conversation: ‘Talked with clerk of the Meeting. 41 years of occupation tests your values. Everything is a struggle. The humiliations at the checkpoints… The daily grind that erodes hope and challenges one’s capacity to recognise the humanity in the other.’ That was thirteen years ago, but little has changed. The sustaining of hope, and maintaining one’s humanity, has only become more challenging.

Hence it was with some trepidation that I opened a book by Marda Dunsky, a US author and journalist. But Stories from Palestine foregoes the usual framing of Palestinians as either victims or perpetrators of violence. Instead Marda profiles a number of quite remarkable people who have resisted the pull of despair, said no to the appeal of hatred and violence, and summoned the will and perseverance to act as creative agents of change.

There is Abdelfattah Abusroar, who founded a children’s theatre in Aida refugee camp, under the shadow of the separation wall in Bethlehem. He seeks to inspire people with his vision of ‘beautiful resistance’ and his determination to represent Palestinians as human beings who seek to reclaim and defend their humanity. There are the organic farmers clinging to their vocation as cultivators of the land, rather than victims of oppression.There is Hanan Al Hroub, winner of the 2016 ‘Global Teacher Prize’: ‘A teacher must remain strong enough in order to stand before her students as a brave person … to convince them that they have the capabilities to change tomorrow and the future.’ There is Shyrine Ziadeh, who created the Ramallah Ballet Centre, despite the claims of those who insisted young people should be defending Palestine instead of dancing. For her dance is not only a vital means for young people to express themselves, but also is a way of showing the world that something beautiful can come from Palestine.

Then there are the writers like Nadia Harhash, who struggle to provide hope, especially to the young. ‘Life feels so miserable and worthless that death seems merely to be a change, not a loss. Young men are eager to go and fight, knowing they will likely be killed, because this would not be a loss to them.’

Stories from Palestine succeeds in reminding us of the humanity of those who bear the burden of occupation. It leaves me with the realisation that it is those who persist in expressing their human creativity and resilience who are most sensitive to the humanity of the other – even when the other is their oppressor.

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