A brutal mask

Here is part of a family portrait wall: it shows Sama, her brother Mohamad and her nephew Khalil. They live in Jaffa, and Sama is a poet. She speaks Arabic first, but her poetry is in Hebrew, the language she learned to write at school - her Jewish school.

When Sama read her work one night at Yafa cafe, a Palestinian poet came up to her and said: 'Why don't you write in Arabic? It's a disgrace.'

I am at Sama's house. I show her photographs that Jamileh took on a walk round Jaffa last week. Jamileh saw prisons everywhere: 'The people only live inside; they can not come out.'   She photographed through bars. Sama pauses at an image of a stopped-up window, of which Jamileh said: 'This is home but there are no windows - here they wake up and see only darkness.'

Sama looks at the picture for some time and then she says: 'I am trapped between two languages: I don't know Arabic well - I can read and write a little - but if you speak Hebrew the Jews will judge you. What are we to do?'

'There was a time when I was afraid to speak Arabic in the street. I tried to hide my culture so that the Jews would not be angry.'

Sama shows me some of her poems. In one of them I read this:

History speaks her words ...
you hush your thoughts.
In your solitude is love,
there stands justice,
hiding, seeking under a brutal mask ...
to breathe the quiet air.

Comments

[Uri ZACKHEM]

Hi Leila!
Beautiful post. She should not be ashamed of herself. It's OK to write in any language.

[Leila]

Hi Uri - it means a lot to hear that from you. Thanks, and hope everything is well. L

[Jacob Sam-la Rose]

Hey - I'm keeping an eye on the site...

Kudos and props for the work you do/create.

Jacob.//

[Leila]

Thanks, Jacob.