My name is Hassan. I would like to know your name. I would like to know all your names. It’s good to know the name of the person you’re talking with. Lends them a human face, Mother says. She always says things like that, especially when she sends me on errands. I think it’s to cover her fear that I might not return, like brother Mohammed. Especially today when a lot of things are happening. The whole place has gone crazy - as usual. A few days ago the Israelis killed Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, our spiritual leader. Now they are promising to kill al Rantissi and even Arafat if and when they feel the need arises. It feels funny knowing that someone can stand up one day and tell you to your face that he will kill your father and if your mother doesn’t lie down and submit to rape he will kill her too.
Of course this is not the first time such assassinations have taken place. It’s been part of Israeli policy to target our leaders. And taking innocent civilians who happen to be around when the bombs fall as well. If that is what they call a surgical strike, I fear for the state of medicine in Israel. I remember last June, during lunch break in school we listened to the caretaker’s radio. It was about the assassination of Salah Shehadeh. Major-General Dan Halutz admitted that when a F16 fighter dropped a one-ton bomb in a crowded Gaza area they knew his wife with him. He forgot to mention the 19 other civilian victims who were going about their business, including Uncle Sharif and his entire family.
I’m wondering if school is necessary. I want to be a doctor so that I can treat all the casualties of the Intifada. Now I’m not sure what I want to do anymore. The only medical school was bombed during the last incursion into Gaza, and now there’s this wall that’s being erected on our land. To keep us out. Or maybe to keep us in. So many of our young have left Palestine. I’ve few friends, except those that go to the settlements to harass the occupants. As with everything else, I make do.
Father stopped working ever since the checkpoints multiplied along with the new walls built by the settlers. The regular body searches simply stripped him of his dignity. The fact he kept going to work until he was fired because he asked for a raise is a mystery to me. My friend Jamal says he’d have packed his shirt with explosives and taken soldiers and settlers to hell. Isn’t it just nice that we can talk to each other like this?
But words seem to be such a luxury when you’re up there and I’m down here. You make demands of me because you have the power to punish me if I don’t agree and still make yourself look conciliatory and me the irrational aggressor? What do you think?
Since I started missing school - not because I want to; I think I will go to medical school; the school was bombed again � my stone throwing technique has improved. Uncle Fahmy says that if I was English I’d be the one bowling out Brian Lara instead of Steve Harmison. He’s still having problems getting his stay regularised. Just his luck to have made it to Europe immediately after the Madrid bombings. But Uncle Fahmy has always been unlucky. He keeps me updated on Arsenal’s results. I hope they win all the cups this year. Yusuf who supports Man Utd is always going on about how they beat us to the Premiership last year. I swear he’s got Jewish blood in him. I used to check the scores on the net but the internet café was raided last month by the Israeli Defence Forces looking for Hamas members. Our neighbour, Mr Al-Sabah got his head broken for telling them to mind his pregnant wife. They were young and fearful, he says. As an elder he should have recognised that and kept his mouth shut. I don’t know about that.
Before the internet café was destroyed, I was able to read the transcripts of five young conscientious objectors. Noam Bahat’s testimony was particularly intriguing. He spoke of conscience. He said “A conscientious person will follow his conscience and not his personal interest”. I agree. But do nations have a conscience? One day I would like to meet Noam, Shimri, Haggai, Matan and Adam. I would love to talk to them. For now, though, I’m off to the barricades to practice my bowling against Israeli tanks. Who knows, one day I’ll bowl for Palestine against Michael Vaughan?
Written and performed by Dipo Agboluaje - 24th March 2004
Copywright © 2004 Dipo Agboluaje