19.1.08

A Few Words About Nagi Al-Ali, Palestinian Cartoonist
They shoot horses don't they?

"I am from Ayn el-Helwa." (I am from the Sweet Well, a Palestinian Refugee Camp near the ancient city of Sidon that I used to drive by on my way to South Lebanon before Israel decided to demolish another of our dreams)

http://www.palestineremembered.com/Tiberias/al-Shajara/Story188.html

Where do I begin? Perhaps from the day we left Palestine on our way to the Ain Al-Helwa camp in southern Lebanon. And from those looks in the eyes of our mothers and fathers that did not speak of facts, but expressed a sorrow which was the language in which we learned about the world, a language of anger that finds its outlet sometimes in speech, sometimes in deeds. Most of the boys and girls of the fifties generation, to which I belonged, suffered a profound dejection. We would cast our eyes beyond our small prison in Ain Al-Helwa, searching for some force of good that might come to our rescue. When the July 1952 revolution broke out, we poured out into the streets of the camp shouting, "Long live the revolution!" and writing slogans on the walls. We were unable to do more than that, although we had dedicated ourselves and our lives to the revolution.

Nescafe for Refugees

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