Cultivating Hope on O'Connell St.

dublin | anti-war / imperialism | news report Sunday May 14, 2006 18:28 by eoin - Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) supportpalestine at ireland dot com Rm 5, 64 Dame St., D2 01-6770253

The IPSC commemorates the 1948 Nakba

"Steal what you will from the blueness of the sea and the sand of memory
Take what pictures you will, so that you understand That which you never will:
How a stone from our land builds the ceiling of our sky."
-Mahomood Darwish
'Those who pass between fleeting words (Abiroon Abir)

Memories through the generations

In 1947/48, and since then, Zionism has been on a calculated course to steal the blueness of the sea from the Palestinian people – but yesterday – for a colourful commemoration of the Nakba activists for justice gathered on Dublin’s O’Connell St.

al Nakba (the Catastrophe), on the 15th of May, is the day which commemorates the destruction of over 400 Palestinian villages and the flight of over 750,000 Palestinian refugees from their homes.

Dressed primarily in black, to acknowledge the solemnity of the event, members and supporters of the IPSC worked to place the blueness back in the sea of the Palestinian people by engaging in a colourful act of resistance between the Spire to Jim Larkin.

Hunched backs of members of the Unmanageables, the Palestinian community in Ireland, Women in Black, and the IAWM were soon spread across O’Connell St. chalking the names of the 400+ destroyed villages. Names of the villages, and their populations, were then marked by placing bundles of wild flowers beside them.

The bright colours used by the activists belied the fact that these villages were wiped off the face of the map by Zionist forces – causing over 750,000 refugees to flee from their homes in what remains the world’s largest unsolved refugee crises.

Some older members of the Palestinian community in Ireland poignantly wrote the names of their own villages onto O’Connell St. Adam, one of the youngest participants in the day’s events, refused to accept any food until he was allowed to go back to Palestine – ‘bukra biddi araah ala Filistine’ (tomorrow I want to go to Palestine.)

Among the names of the villages on O’Connell St. yesterday was that of Lifta – a wealthy agrarian village near Jerusalem. The over 2000 year history of the village stretches beyond biblical times - it was originally a village of Canaanites. By late 1947, however, the future of Lifta looked bleak as a result of ongoing attacks against the civilian population by the notorious Sturn gang and Irgun organisations. These attacks escalated and by February 1948 Lifta was empty. The population had fled – to Europe or the USA for the wealthy, to the West Bank, the Gaza Strip or into neighbouring Arab states for the less fortunate.

Yesterday’s protest in O’Connell St. - no matter how bright - can never serve to restore Lifta or other Palestinian villages to those refugees who carry the key to their homes around their necks and hang the deeds of their lands on the walls of current homes – in Lebanon, Jordan, Ireland or Gaza.

That will require substantive action by EU governments to remove Israel’s trade privileges and by people – to refuse to buy Israeli products or products that support the occupation.

What yesterday's action did is to prove that creativity and imagination is alive and well on the side of justice- it helped, in the words of Darwish, to ‘cultivate hope.’

Yesterday’s protest was supported by a wide range of groups and individuals and thanks to all those who took part. Particular credit must go to Aoife, David, Jonathan and Mairidha for their collective and individual creative inspiration. These pictures by Cliona Rattigan.

Israeli Professor Ilan Pappe write on al Nakba:
http://www.bintjbeil.com/articles/en/021020_pappe.html

The full story of Lifta village:
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article3652.shtml

*Get involved in the local and international struggle for justice on behalf of the Palestinian people - join the IPSC.*

Activists Gather to Commemorate the Nakba

Colourful Acts of Resistance and Commemoration

Sharing the chalk

Al Bassah located near the Lebanese border and Mediterranean Sea. Population: 4,000. The whole viallage including its two churches was destroyed in 1948;Nahal Bezet was built on its 6,315 acres.