Taha's Song: A Curfew in Deheisheh Refugee Camp

By Brother Patrick White

Sing the best song in a man's life,
Sing the best word you can have
In order to make people happy
In order to release the meaning of life.

That was the first stanza of the poem given to me by Taha, a Palestinian student in the Arabic department of Bethlehem University. I first met him in October 1985, as he struggled to master the rudiments of English in one of the university's intensive English classes. He was among a group of students in the class who lived in Deheisheh refugee camp south of Bethlehem on the Hebron road.

He stopped me in the long stone corridor near the university chapel. Could I see him? It would only take a few minutes: all said in a quiet intensity. We sat down in my office, open again like the whole of Bethlehem University after three years' closure by the occupying Israeli military government in October 1987. He pulled out from his pocket a small grey notebook and nervously fumbled the used lined pages until he proudly found the place. Could I read it? It's a poem. Written in the middle of a 19-day curfew, written in anger and frustration. What did I think of it?

Let them feel that their life is safe
Let them try!
Let them never cry!
Give them freedom,
Give them the chance.
Can you try?

He listened, head in hands; I read it aloud, struggled with his uncertain, unpracticed hand. The last time he had written in English must have been four years ago. I half watched him as I read the simple lines from the exercise book.

Rightly raise your voice
And pray,
Can you try?

Even in English the words were expressing for him deep emotions. It was a lesson for me. I realized, too, that these few lines were not much in themselves, but as I read them a reality welled up within him that inspired me to read on with conviction.

When man looks for man
When man calls for humanity
He expects many things.
Can you try?

Had I not seen his home in the dusty concrete turmoil of Deheisheh surrounded by high walls of steel netting and barbed wire? Animals fared better in zoos, I thought. Deheisheh cluttered in a chaotic, shanty jungle on the slopes that ran down to the grim Hebron road. His home, two rooms, one five meters square, the other measured four, a toilet clung to an outer wall, and buried in the ground a cramped tiny basement kitchen. The steel front door opened onto the narrow uneven passage between the packed dwellings; 10,000 Palestinian refugees compacted into one square kilometer.

Can you understand?
Can you reply?

Nineteen days of curfew, forced and enclosed in two rooms. His clenched fists flung into the air- pent-up frustration, how could I understand? His dignified father and mother; his 2 1 -year-old brother Ali, just released from prison after four years; his next brother, 19-year-old Mahmoud; then Mustafa, 14; Mohammed, 10; and his sister, Jamila, 17, all lived and struggled for nearly three weeks, confined, imprisoned.

When a man looks for conscience
and doesn't find it
inside the heart,
man will die

No one was let out except for three hours one afternoon. To be caught meant a beating, arrest or even being shot. Food ran out and patience, too. How casually I read or heard the news, day after day: "Camps under curfew. " "One million under curfew in Gaza and the West Bank.

and the earth
will attack the sky. Can you try?
Try?

That was the poem Taha wrote while he looked forward to seeing the university opened. He missed the opportunity, however. Deheisheh was put under curfew on the last Friday in September. Bethlehem University opened its doors on Tuesday, Oct. 2. Some Deheisheh students did escape over the hills at the back of the camp. One, Khaled, unshaven and tired, told me he lived outside the camp for 17 days. He moved from house to house in Bethlehem. Taha, located in the middle of the camp, which was constantly patrolled by large groups of soldiers, did not get out.

Taha missed seeing the students stride into the university courtyard within the high steel gates. But so they came: intent, serious, with determined faces, hardened and matured with suffering, trying to catch up knowing that education denied was their key to nationhood.

"Give them freedom, give them the chance, can you try?"

In they came, a veritable flood of Palestinian youth. These were the freshmen who should have entered the university over the last three years. These were the students who sat for the recent entrance examinations. They had graduated from their high schools in 1987, 1988 and 1989. Another 200 freshmen from the 1990 classes would be added to the total after Christmas. In most cases their last three years of education were at best severely disrupted or in many cases virtually non-existent.

Weather-beaten faces, hands hardened by labor on building sites in Israel or from cultivating terraces near Hebron and the fields around Jenin, they came. Grown wise before their time, suffering the full impact of 1,000 days of intifada, fully aware of the injustices of 23 years of crushing military occupation: so they strode into the campus. "Let them try! Let them never cry!"

We have been back at the work of the university for three weeks. Our university is one of the first to open. We can only hope that the other main universities will be open soon. Our first week was both peaceful and uneventful. But on the Monday of the second week, the massacre at the mosque took place at the Haram Al-Sharif/Temple Mount. Students left the campus quietly that Monday afternoon. They behaved with restraint and classes were cancelled during a week of mourning.

Further Tragedy

Further tragedy occurred yesterday. Three Israelis were murdered by a young Palestinian from a village near Bethlehem. Today, Monday, only a few students reached the campus, so severe were the travel restrictions and road blocks. And by 10 am this morning, news came of the death of a young Palestinian from Deheisheh camp. He had been seriously wounded some time ago. What classes we had were postponed and a day of mourning commenced in Bethlehem.

"Rightly raise your voice and pray?"

Such is the unpredictability of life here in the Holy Land where the reign of God was proclaimed. Not only does the immediate ravine of hatred ever widen between Jew and Arab, but the whole of the Middle East could explode into violence. Students asked me what I thought of the Gulf situation. I feel torn. Before returning to Bethlehem, I was trying to explain to my American and British friends what I thought was in the minds of my Palestinian friends. And now faced with the students I feel I am in some way a "go-between, " delicately attempting to be objective. It is only part of the answer to defend the stance of the Palestinians supporting Saddam Hussain by saying they have nothing to lose for they have lost everything anyway. What is so clear is the reality of their feelings, and if they have extreme views, they are held partly because of the weakness of their position. It was, I felt, a pity that the British foreign secretary did not meet our students at the university during his visit to the West Bank. The Israelis insisted on escorting Mr. Hurd with six armed men when he was on campus. This was unacceptable to the students. For them it implied that Israel was the responsible, legal power on what they, the Palestinians, regard as their land.

God's reign is a kingdom of love, not of domination over others, but of empowerment for all: not of rank, hierarchy and military might, but equality and universal dignity. Was the sincere cry of Muslim student Taha not the same as the Gospel message?

"Sing the best song in a man's life, Sing the best word you have, in order to be happy, in order to release the meaning of life."

What will tomorrow bring? Perhaps it has already happened and certainly, judging by past experience, it will take place tomorrow and for several days. When there is a death as a result of Israeli military action in a refugee camp a curfew is imposed. Taha tonight will suffer again the confinement of the bare concrete of his poor home. Think on him. "Can you try? Try?"

Father Patrick White, a member of the Catholic international teaching institute called the De La Salle Brothers, teaches at the Vatican-sponsored Bethlehem University in the West Bank.