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| Speech Anna Lindh Forum March 2010, Barcelona |
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I am really happy to be here on many levels. This is my first time in Spain, and being here among all of you, seeing my Palestinians colleagues here coming from Gaza who after being deprived from circulating freely, and seeing Omar who has been allowed to leave the country for the first time after 33 years of interdiction by Israelis. So, thank you dear friends of Anna Lindh for working hard to make this happen and bringing them here.
My name is Abdelfattah Abdelkarim Hasan Ibrahim Mohammad Ahmad Mustafa Ibrahim Srour Abusrour. And I am telling these names to say that I am the only one who was born in a refugee camp, and still after 61 years of illegal and unjust occupation living in a refugee camp.
I hear a lot of beautiful things and beautiful expressions said here, but do we believe in them really and are they the basis upon which we build our relations and partnerships. Talking about the values that make of us human beings like freedom, justice, democracy, human rights, equality, fraternity, peace, love… these are values that we share as human beings, whether we are Muslims or Christians or Jews or Buddhists or Hindus or Atheist or whatever we are. We are all human beings and equal partners in making a change in this world, but a change that we can be proud of, a change where these values are the same for everybody and not that some people are more equal than others. These values are the same and are not elastic to change based upon new realities on the ground that are forced by this or that where we find those who pretend defending these values are the same ones who are violating them. We are fed up with empty speeches and talks that are devoid of truth and humanity and passion, but full of politics, complicity, hypocrisy and diplomacy. We are change makers and nobody has the right to say I can’t do anything, or it‘s hopeless or complicated. We do not have the luxury of despair but the steadfast hope that we can make a change that every single one of us can be proud of in front of our children and the generations to come, where these values and rights are respected equally.
Who am I? Who are you? What is our role in this world?
You know, my worst nightmare is if one day, my children or your children, or whoever children come and look us in the eyes and ask: What did you do to make a change and I have nothing to answer, or present excuses that it is too complicated or hopeless. We want to leave them a heritage that they can be proud of and we can be proud of.
And here where the vocabulary and terminology are important and the values remain the same and don’t change depending on who dictates what. Here we talk about human rights and values that make of us human beings… Yet, I come here and on one side it is easier for me to reach Spain than to reach Gaza or Jerusalem. I come here, to this place, and enter in an exhibition presented here and entitled “Neighbours”, where it is put the Holy Sepulture in Jerusalem- Israel, while this Holy place is in the occupied old city, in occupied East Jerusalem, in Occupied Palestine and not in Israel. And here again we talk about peace, love, co-existence? This is not right, this is not just, this is illegal, and this is not a heritage that me or anyone of you want to leave to his children or the generations to come.
We are all equal human beings and equal partners in creating a change in this world that we can be proud of, and not a heritage of hypocrisy and complicity with injustice and new realities on the ground. We are not obliged to accept these new realities too simply because they are there, even if they are illegal or unjust.
And this is why we continue to do our Beautiful Resistance against the ugliness of occupation and its violence, because we reclaim our humanity and we defend it, and we do not want our children to be just numbers on lists of martyrs or handicapped for the rest of their lives or perish in Israeli prisons. We want them to grow up and build for the future and create partnerships that bring happier days for themselves and the generations to come based upon the values that make of us equal human beings.
It is difficult also to hear people and the international community talk about Palestine and transform the political cause into a humanitarian case. We are not a humanitarian case, and we do not need charity or pity which is, sometimes, more humiliating than the occupation itself. We need a support and solidarity that help us keep our dignity and our humanity where we create jobs and create infrastructures and help our people to be able to produce and not to be transformed into beggars and assisted people completely dependent on humanitarian aid. So, if you want help Palestinians, help in a respectful and dignified way.
We are human beings, we reclaim and we defend this humanity in us. And we are equal partners in making a change based on the values that we share as human beings. We want a world where we see our children grow up, fall in love, and make children, to create a world full of joy, openness, fraternity and partnerships. We want a world where we build and find the peace within us to start with, before talking about the peace with the others. In Palestine, we are more afraid when people talk about peace than when they talk about war. We want a world where we grow up, and our children bury us when we die and not to bury our children.
Again I want to say that I am really happy to see my colleagues from Gaza, and see Omar here among us, and deepest thanks for this wonderful work Anna Lindh.
Second part of speech after the tour of speeches
Annal Lindh is an amazing treasure of data bases that can help create partnerships in the Euro-Mediterranean region. Since last year, a new blood have been circulating in the network after a deep sleeping, that made us lose faith to a certain extent, but this new energy rebuild trust.
It is clear that what this network can bring is possibilities to meet and build bridges of exchange. These need to be supported in a way that we are not only networking for not-working, but networking to really work together.
Building programs with 4 partners from 4 countries is a really extremely difficult issues, and the complexity of grant proposal writing and reporting are not helping in building bridges but cutting them of. We need things to be facilitated somehow. I believe that organization who work in such a spirit of social entrepreneurship who are eager to make a change on the ground and do not have the luxury of time to run behind funding but need to invest in creativity are deprived from such support because of the complexity of this process. But regardless of this, such a network is a great treasure for those who know how to hunt treasures
I would like also to recommend the translation of the play of Edmond Rostand, Cyrano De Bergerac. It resumes a spirit that I adopt and I guess to a certain extent, animate many civil society organization who do work with this entrepreneurship spirit, specially this passage:
Et que faudrait-il faire ?
Chercher un protecteur puissant, prendre un patron,
Et comme un lierre obscur qui circonvient un tronc
Et s‘en fait un tuteur en lui léchant l‘écorce,
Grimper par ruse au lieu de s‘élever par force ?
Non, merci. Dédier, comme tous ils le font,
Des vers aux financiers ? se changer en bouffon
Dans l‘espoir vil de voir, aux lèvres d‘un ministre,
Naître un sourire, enfin, qui ne soit pas sinistre ?
Non, merci. Déjeuner, chaque jour, d‘un crapaud ?
Avoir un ventre usé par la marche ? une peau
Qui plus vite, à l‘endroit des genoux, devient sale ?
Exécuter des tours de souplesse dorsale ?...
Non, merci. ……
…………… non, merci ! non, merci ! Mais... chanter,
Rêver, rire, passer, être seul, être libre,
Avoir l‘oeil qui regarde bien, la voix qui vibre,
Mettre, quand il vous plaît, son feutre de travers,
Pour un oui, pour un non, se battre, -ou faire un vers !
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Lors même qu‘on n‘est pas le chêne ou le tilleul,
Ne pas monter bien haut, peut-être, mais tout seul !
Mais avec vous, cela sera meiux
Thank you
Written by Dr.Abdelfattah Abusrour,
Founder and director
Alrowwad Cultural and Theatre Training center
Aida refugee camp-Bethlehem-Palestine
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