Foreword By Abd El Majid Hamdan
This book: This book is not a novel, or story. It is not a diary, not even the writer's childhood memories. It is tales from the reality of a childhood of a Palestinian child from the city of Christ's Nativity, Bethlehem. A female child whose luck, or fate decided that she would arrive to this world a few days after the rest of her homeland fell in the grip of a cruel ruthless occupation. It was Israel's occupation of the rest of Palestine, or what was known as the Gaza Strip and the West Bank of the River Jordan. It was natural, as she was raised under this occupation, that it would leave its fingerprints all over the details of her life, in the forefront of her soul. But this child, like the majority of the Palestinians, has resisted attempts to disfigure her soul, and succeeded.
Hence perhaps it might seem to the reader, for the first glance, that the writer will stuff her book with fabricated stories about the brutality of occupation. But she, who has succeeded in saving her soul from disfiguration, did not do that. She, when subjected to the occupation, stands only at those stories, or events, which touched her life directly. On the basis of absolute confidence in human goodness, whatever their religion or ideology, she keeps looking hard, and tells tales which confirm that in the society of the occupation there are good people, which denies that society the status of 'the wicked'.
On each page of the pages of this book, I found amazing beauty. I admit that I was confused by that beauty. The copy that I read, once, two and three times, was just a draft of the book. And my literary English doesnt help me to discover the esthetics of the sentences and their structures. I asked myself a lot: So from where did the secret of this aesthetic come? I remembered a Palestinian proverb that gifted me the key to the secret of this beauty. The Palestinian quote says: "Honesty gives birth to beauty, but lying breeds only ugliness."
Throughout telling her childhood tales, the writer was committed to the truth, and stayed away from any attempt to embellish her stories. That is what brought her writing to this wonderful aesthetic, and gave her stories this power of persuasion. The best evidence of the sincerity of her stories is her recognition that her childhood is not the typical Palestinian childhood. She was, to an extent, a lucky child. She did not live the harsh life of Palestinian children in refugee camps, villages or poor city neighborhoods. She did not suffer the hardships they endure. She was a lucky girl because she grew up in an educated, middle-class family which left her the freedom to research and the pursuit of knowledge, without restricting her with society's restrictions and did not impose any ideas or beliefs that are not consistent with the movement of her mind.
In addition to the honesty which gave this beauty to the book, the writer decorated it with a number of beautiful drawings, most are a product of her creativity, that increased the beauty of beauty. But despite that, dear reader, and when you see the cover of the book, perhaps you would say: 'I never heard of this writer, what does she have to give to me? A story of a childhood in Bethlehem!? What would that mean?! Will she tell me anything I didn't know?'. I have to admit, dear reader, that I said that as I started reading the draft copy of the book. I know the writer since the day she was born! I know details of her childhood and adolescence and maturity. I am Uncle Abed that she talks about in her stories. She is the twin of my daughters, and the daughter of my life long friends. Despite the fact that I dont prefer to read in English, because my English is limited, The writer's tales had a different plan.
Once I started reading, I felt as if the writer held my hand gently, to bring me back, and I have resigned, to forty years behind. to the playgrounds of her childhood. The fields she discovered, the trees she climbed and their branches she hung on. Plants, insects and animals, which she explored at the start of her journey. I started hearing her singing again, as she played and jumped rope. I followed them, her and Salam, my daughter, in their childhood adventures that are innocent and wild at the same time. They took me with them as they climbed trees, and swung on their branches like a couple of small monkeys. I enjoyed their exploration journeys of the world and its secrets.
With successive pages of the book, A smile floated on my lips a lot. I laughed at times, anger and sadness overwhelmed me at times. This happened exactly as the writer expected. In one of her stations, I began to pace above the sorrow, tears started gathering in my eyes, and then suddenly, I burst into tears. The sound of my sobbing called my wife from a nearby room, frightened, she asked me what happened. She tried to calm me down but to no avail. Having calmed down a bit she asked me what made me cry. I said, still choking and a rock in my throat suffocating me: Wadida! She said: Wadida died 35 years ago, what reminded you of her now? I remained silent. She said: 'It must be Lubna'. I said: Yes. it is Lubna's honesty in telling the event. Honesty that recalled that event as if it is just happened now. Honesty in how she displayed the disease of my daughter Wadida, and the pains she suffered, after the accurate presentation of the her distinguished character, is what made me live again those cruel moments, and then burst into tears.
In the Tales in the book, Lubna not only takes you on a journey to explore the playgrounds of her childhood, Palestine's trees and their delicious fruits, pets and animals and how children treat them, her school, her friends, and her teachers. She also takes you on a fun journey to the corners of Bethlehem and the Church of the Nativity, and to Jerusalem, and its old streets. I walked with her, I got overwhelmed with the sense of pleasure that filled a child. As my mouth filled with that sense of bitterness, and longing to return to Jerusalem, a longing that is being killed by the separation wall, torn by the brutality of the occupation soldiers on the prevention barriers.
And the joy of reading grows with the transition of the writer from tales of childhood, to the tales of the search for knowledge and truth. A research journey which began in the early days of infancy, and went forward at the age of adolescence until completed at the age of maturity. A trip that will you will not feel boredom, but a lot of great pleasure as you follow it.
So, it is a book, dear reader, that you will not regret reading, on the contrary, you might say after reading it: I would have lost a lot if my if I wasnt lucky enough to discover this book.
And to the writer, with all the love and gratitude, I say: Thank you, O beloved, for giving me all this pleasure with the lines of your book. Thank you for giving me this beautiful gift.
I thank you for proving your talent that i saw in you in your early childhood. Thank you for taking pride in the nickname I gave you in your early childhood: 'El fannana'. (the artist).
Abd El Majid Hamdan is the son of Arourah village, near Ramallah. He was born in 1938. He graduated from high school in 1957 and joined the Faculty of Science, Alexandria University. He graduated in 1962, then he became a teacher of mathematics and physics for grades 11 and 12 until the year 1974. He Was arrested and got fired from teaching after two days of his 'administrative' arrest in the prisons of the Israeli occupation, where he stayed for two years, at the end of which they released him and informed him on the same day that he was not allowed to teach anymore. He wasnt allowed to approach the field of education.
Mr Hamdan started working in the press with the release of the 'Taliaa' newspaper. He became a columnist, then an author of political articles in more than one newspaper and magazine such as : Al Kateb, Al Watan and Al Ittihad.
In prison in year 1975, Mr Hamdan was chosen as member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Jordan, then a member of the central Committee and the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of Palestine. Then a member of the Palestinian People's Party, until retirement. In 1997, Mr Hamdan was appointed assistant of the Secretary-General. In the third conference he was selected as a member of the Secretariat, then he became the Secretary General between 2000 and 2003. He then applied for retirement, while retaining the membership of the Central Committee, until the first government of national unity, where he completed his retirement fully.
Publications: Mr Hamdan's first book: 'The promise in the Torah' was published in 1993, , He since then wrote and published a total of 13 books.
1 - The promise in the Torah 1993
2 - Palestinian democracy in practice 1995
3 - 100 questions about democracy c {1} 1995
4 - The uprising 2002 , an assessment attempt.
5 - The rights of women between the robe of law and the law of the tribe 2005
6 - 2006 Testimonies
7 - political reading in the two eras -Mohammadi and Rashidi / The Mohammadi era 2006
8 - political reading in the two eras -Mohammadi and Rashidi / The Rashidi era 2007
9 - A look at the cause {part1} 2007
10 - 100 questions about democracy c {2} 2008
11 - A look at the cause {part2} 2009
12 - Entering the field of taboos 2010
13 - The Free Muslim (female) 2011
