Tuesday, March 1, 2011

The Weak Shadow of the Mountain


In the break of dawn we marched to the vivid light beside the dark mountain. The pace was quick. The cold winds coming from the east were retreating. We hadn’t much time. The peak was far away, but the steady pace was revealing the path to the top. It began on the 23rd of December our journey; we were few then, others just began to follow but now nothing is stopping us. The dark forces controlling the mountain were waiting eagerly to hold back the flow. A blood bath was in the make.
Only the steady quick steps of the fellow revolutionaries were heard in the mass march to the peak. It has been 65 years since we have seen the fields behind this smoky mountain. One day a friend told me that there are miles of green fields with the white blooms of Almond; evergreen bright with roses red black and white.
A myth we have dreamed of since the beginning of time. Are we on the right track? That is up to us to decide, but after all dying with dignity is better than living in insolence.
This ghastly shadow of the mountain began to retreat as we approached. It will be sometime but definitely The Peak is where we party.
This rhetoric introduction is what I have been feeling for the last 12 days as I see the authoritarian Gaddafi regime falling in the speed of light. 42 years have ended in 12 days or a little bit more. We are witnessing today tin men; the monstrous figures came out to be stuffed with fear within.
We are on the way, and Palestine is where we party. Patience…patience…patience

Photo: Faris Odeh;  Palestinian boy shot dead by the Israel Defense Forces near the Karni crossing in the Gaza Strip while throwing stones in the second month of the Al-Aqsa Intifada.

A picture of Odeh standing alone in front of a tank, with a stone in his hand and arm bent back to throw it, was taken by a photojournalist from the Associated Press on October 29, 2000. Ten days later, on November 9, Odeh was again throwing stones at Karni when he was shot in the neck by Israeli troops. The boy and the image subsequently assumed iconic status within the Palestinian territories as symbols of resistance to the area's occupation by Israel.