Where is Home

Where is Home?¹

Fragmented Lives, Borders Crossings, and the Politics of Exile

Rabab Abdulhadi

For the politically exiled, “going home” means more than taking a journey to the place where one was born. The ability to go, the decision to embark on such a trip, and the experience of crossing borders to one’s “native” land involves an “interrogation”² of the make-up of the individual and the collective self; a definition and a re-definition of the meaning and the location of home; and a re-examination of one’s current and former political commitments. In the Palestinian case, going home assumes further complications, especially in view of the Israeli Law of Return which bestows automatic citizenship on Jews arriving in Israel while denying the indigenous Palestinian population the right to return to the homes from which they were uprooted in 1948. For the Palestinian exiled, going home brings back memories of one’s worst nightmares at international borders: interrogation and harassment, suspicion of mal-intent, and rejection of one’s chosen self-identification. For exiled Palestinian women, the case is further complicated by gender relations at home and abroad--two concepts that shift depending on where one is situated at any particular moment. Add to the pot the problamatic meaning of such notions, going home ceases to be just about traveling to where one was born to collect accessible data--if that ever were the case; instead, going home is transformed into a politically-charged project in which the struggle for self-identification, self-determination, freedom and dignity becomes as salient as the physical and mental safety of one’s “informants,” and the power differential in the production and reproduction of knowledge. “Where is home” is a question that lies at the center of Palestinian precarious experience.

I. DO WE BELONG? HOME IS A SAFE SPACE:

When life under Israeli occupation became worse in Palestine, my siblings and I began a campaign to convince our parents to leave. We felt that they should relocate either to the United States, where I lived, or to England, where my sister, Reem, is based. My parents would refuse again and again. Whenever pressed, they would invariably say:“illi waqe’ ‘ala nass waqe’ aleina,” (our fate is not different from others), or “who ihna ahsan min ennas?” (Do you think we are better than others?) When we persisted, they would respond by invoking Palestinian dispossession, “ma hada be-3eid illi sar fil 48"--no one will ever think of repeating what happened in 1948!

My brother and sister-in-law shared my parents’ sentiments. They were nonetheless contemplating a relocation to give their daughters a better education, a safe environment and an innocent childhood. Nasser and Lana felt that they had to make the sacrifice and risk their residence in Jerusalem. The “situation on the ground,” as Palestinians refer to their reality, was becoming unbearable: Israeli tanks were holding Palestinian towns under siege. Violence was on the rise. And Palestinians were criminalized for being Palestinians or just for being.

Nasser, Lana, and the girls never left Israeli-annexed Jerusalem. With the closure of U.S. borders to immigrants from Middle East origins, it did not look like they would make it to New York any time soon. But I did. On August 27^th, I came back from a year in Egypt where I taught at the American University in Cairo. I returned “home” to this anonymous city to take in its cultures. To thrive in its rhythms. To disappear and reappear in a sea of accents, tongues, cultures, and lifestyles. Two weeks later, my life came to a standstill and so did the lives of hundreds of thousands of Arabs, Arab Americans, Muslim Americans, and Central and South Asians.

Besides the fear for our loved ones whom we could not locate for several hours on that infamous day, we no longer feel safe: No longer can we draw on New York City’s rich, vibrant, and diverse cultural scene and no longer can we enjoy the anonymity of this city in the manner in which we enjoyed before.

We rationalize things to make ourselves feel better. We think to ourselves: we are alive, our loved ones are alive, this is more than what many other New Yorkers could say. We should be grateful. My mother’s words ring in my ear, “illi waqe’ 3ala nass waqe’ aleina,” whatever happens to other people will happen to us–we are not alone in this!

True, we are not alone. Along with thousands of New Yorkers, we feel miserable, sad, hurt and wounded. But in more profound ways than one, it is not so: What affects us and how it affects us is very different. My mother’s assurances do not apply here--we are alone, very much so!

The experience of diasporic and fragmented lives in which our souls and concerns are split between here and there is a major difference that sets us apart: us who have a particular skin shade, a particular accent, a certain last or first name, or markings on the body that betray some affiliation with the enemy.

Be thankful that winter is upon us for it allows you to wear a heavy long coat and a big hat. It allows you to hide your beliefs from the public space that is supposed to accommodate all beliefs: If you are a Sikh man or a devout Muslim woman, do not parade your convictions in public–the public has no space for you!

Do not speak up a lot. Save your words. Try not to use words with a “P” if you are an Arab. You may mix it up with a “B” causing someone to ask, “and where are you from?” You do not want to answer this question–avoid it as much as you can!

Try to avoid situations in which you have to present an ID: do not drive a car, do not use a credit card, pay in cash: Money laundering is not a priority for law and order now. No one will check if you present big bills.

Avoid as much as you can Being You!

Pass if you can!

Melt in this melting pot!

Do not cry multi-culturalism and diversity! This is not the time... better save your life!

Better yet: “Go home,” foreigner!

What if you have no home to go back to? What if this is your home?

Dual loyalty? Split personality? Divided? Not a real American? But Who is? How many “real” Americans are still left around?

II. CROSSING BORDERS: PASSING AND PASSING THROUGH:

September 11, 2001

I am stuck on 96^th Street and Lexington Avenue. I cannot get home. No trains are running. I desperately need to hear Jaime’s voice, to know that he is alive. I cannot reach him. A long line is getting longer at the phone booth. I begin walking aimlessly hoping to find an available phone to call my mother-in-law. Right in front of me, a woman pushing a baby carriage starts to cross the street. She is covering her head with a scarf. I am debating whether to say something. Finally, I decide to approach her: “Go home!” Immediately I realize how awful I must have sounded. She looks at me with a mix of fear and resentment, too polite to ask me to mind my own business and probably too afraid to fight back. I come closer and declare a part of me I thought I would never claim: “I am a Muslim like you! Go home now. You cannot run with a baby. When they realize what has happened they will attack.” I am already bracing myself for the battle between “us” and “them.”

My hand instinctively goes to my neck to hide the chain with the Koranic inscription my students, Ghalia and Hedayat, gave me before I left Cairo. Luckily, I had forgotten to put it on today. My split lives are on a collision course again: I feel like such a traitor for passing. But wouldn’t it be better to pass today? Do I want to identify with “them” though? Do I want to escape the collective guilt-by-association, the fate of my fellow Arabs, Palestinians, and Muslims? Should I renege on my roots? There is this nagging feeling that I need some sort of a symbol to shout to the world who I am. I want so much to defy this monolithic image.

Better tread lightly, I conclude! Today is not the time for bravado! “Don’t be foolish. It is not about courage,“ I tell myself. The thought of what will happen to women wearing a hijab sends shivers down my back. It won’t leave my mind. “But we all make choices,” one part of me says. “Not always as we please,” the radical in me shouts back.

I find a Caribbean taxi driver who agrees to take me home. Four white businessmen jump in on 125^th street. We are on our way home. As the only passenger who knows the back roads around blockaded bridges, I begin to give him directions. Then I begin to worry that someone may notice my accent and ask where I came from. I am not sure I want to deploy my activist identity and use this occasion to try to explain the plight of the Palestinian people. A passenger next to me says: “so this is how it feels to live with terrorist bombings.” I am certain that he is referring to Palestinian suicide bombings in Israel. There is no way he could be relating to how Palestinian town are being bombarded every day. I almost say something about the value of Palestinian life. I want to share what I have personally experienced this past year alone but I am not sure that this is such a good idea. So I keep my mouth shut and try to pass for a professional “American” woman. Another passenger, I realize from his accent, is Iranian. But we sort of make a silent pact not to tell on each other. We both pretend not to notice each other’s accents. At least this is what I think.

Police cars are stationed at the bridges and on different checkpoints along the highway. I should be calm. I have seen this before. But West Bank memories add to, rather than alleviate, my anxiety: What if they stop us now to check our ID’s? They will surely notice my last name. Would I be safe? What if a cop became trigger happy? Would it do me any good if they were to apologize to my family afterwards?

I shudder to remember Nasser and Lana telling me about a “road incident” they experienced. A few months before Yasmeen’s first birthday, they were driving from Israeli-annexed Jerusalem to our parents’ home in Nablus with the baby in the back seat. At an Israeli checkpoint, a large rock flew at them out of nowhere shuttering the windshield and almost killing them. Twice privileged for having a Jerusalem ID and for being employed for a UN agency, Lana got out of the car full of rage and lashed out at the Israeli soldiers who controlled the human traffic in and out of Palestinian controlled Areas. “It is not our fault!” yelled an 18-year-old soldier. “It was the settlers. What am I supposed to do?” was all he could say, shrugging away Lana’s fears and contributing to her sense of helplessness.

For Nasser and Lana and the 3 million Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza, “road incidents” are a daily routine. There is no ordinary travel. If you lived under Israeli control, you never know whether you will make it to your destination alive. “You were given a new life,” Palestinians say to each other whenever one succeeds in making it home safe across the never-ending checkpoints.

It was what happened on a recent drive to Nablus that finally convinced Lana and Nasser that it was time to make the move to the U.S. During my visit to Nablus last July (2001), Lana was bringing the girls over to see me. As they were about to get out of their Jerusalem apartment, 4-year-old Yasmeen asked her mother if she could bring along their kitten, Nadia, named for her youngest sister. It was not the request, rather the way Yasmeen, asked that broke Lana’s heart: “Do you think the army will let her pass through, mama?”

September 13, 2001:

I am working at home. No one is allowed below 14^th street in Manhattan unless s/he can prove a legitimate reason, the mayor of New York City declares. I am so grateful that I cannot get to work. I still do not have a valid ID. September 11 was the day on which my NYU paperwork was to be completed. I am spared the trouble of having to go through checkpoints or to reveal my identity.

A police car stops in front of the house. I begin to think that they came for me. Maybe someone had called and said that a Palestinian lives here. Maybe it is because our house has no flags. The neighborhood is full of flags. Flags are everywhere: Our next-door neighbor has two flags on the front of her house, two on the back porch, one on a planter, and two on her car; her husband has three flags on his van.

The only public symbol of Palestine we could speak of is a sticker my dad had given us with the phrase, “Palestine in my heart.” It was made in 1994 when Palestinians thought that they will soon have a state. Better remove it immediately. The next day, Jaime says, “I am glad we removed the sticker. There were so many road blocks. The car was searched twice. They even asked me to open the trunk.” My sense of security is wiped out. This home is becoming so similar to what happens back home.

I share this experience with friends but I sense the skepticism in their eyes. At least a flicker of disappointment. I should not jump to conclusions, they seem to be cautioning.

Another Road --“Back Home”– May 14, 1998

I am leaving Ramallah on the eve of the 50^th anniversary of Nakbah, or Palestinian dispossession. My cousin’s children ask if I want to hoist a Palestinian flag with the slogan of the occasion, “So we will not forget,” on the car. “Sure, why not?” I say, not really thinking things through. I exit Palestinian controlled “Area A” and drive through “Area B” with joint Israeli-Palestinian patrol (Palestinians control the population and Israel everything else, according to Oslo Accords) to catch the highway to Nablus. All is well. It is a beautiful summer day. I should make it home in 30 minutes or so. At the fork, one direction leads to Ofra, a Jewish settlement built on sparsely-olive-tree-covered hilltops. The other to which I am allowed passage leads to “Area C” (total Israeli control) and ‘aber samera. ‘Aber Samera, or Samaria (the name Israel assigned to the West Bank) bypass, is a modern highway carved out of the mountains by then Israeli Minister of Infrastructure, Ariel Sharon. The road links the network of West Bank Jewish settlements whose villas have red tile roofs, lush gardens, and children’s playgrounds. Winding through Palestinian towns and villages, the highway, a short commute to Tel Aviv and West Jerusalem, allows the 120 thousand settlers to bypass the constant reminder of the 1.8 million Palestinians whose land was seized to construct these privileged gated colonies.

Along the highway, electric poles are covered with Israeli flags. It is Israel’s 50^th birthday as a state and as a haven for diasporic refugees escaping discrimination, intolerance and the Holocaust. But there is no space in this celebration of Jewish diversity for Palestinians. My lonely flag is not welcomed here. Cars with Israeli license plates full of settlers honk in annoyance and make obscene gestures at me. Palestinian drivers veer away from this provocative car.

September 24, 2001

A day before traveling from New York to DC to speak at an anti-globalization teach-in, a scholar of a certain descent reserves the ticket over the phone wondering while being put on hold whether her name is being checked by the FBI.

She begins packing, going through her wallet – cleaning it up. She finds a Home Depot receipt which she sets aside lest an unexpected search raise questions as to why certain tools were bought! She takes out her US pass-port (a passport is for passing through). With a name like hers, a driver’s licence and a faculty ID from a major university may not be enough to prove her “Americanness”! After all, equality does not mean total equality; it only means that some of us are more equal than others!

She goes through her briefcase. Should she take her laptop along? Would it be searched causing a delay and a humiliation in front of other passengers? She does need it. It is a few-hour trip. She has a lot of work to do. Take it but better leave early to avoid embarrassment. Better ask someone to go with her to the station: what if she is held? Someone needs to notify the organizers of the teach-in, someone needs to call a lawyer!

She arrives at the station one hour early. She approaches the window to pick up her ticket. She slips in the credit card and driver’s license under the glass ever so discretely, hoping that the clerk would not address her by her last name. It is taking a while to print the ticket. All the while, she is wondering whether a camera high up is taking her photo. She is convinced that it is there. She picks up the ticket–no incidents. She goes to the tracks. Five policemen are standing there on the platform looking directly at her–she is convinced. She begins rehearsing what to say when approached–not if but when approached: what she is doing here, why she is going to DC. “Did I bring the formal invitation on the official letterhead?” she wonders. Acting like a criminal, she treads ever so lightly, moving away from the eyes of the cops burning her back to the center of the station. She is getting more nervous and starts babbling away. Her companion warns, “you are attracting attention. Relax! Stop it!” to no avail.

The train pulls into the station. She gets on and finds a seat. Now the conductor will come to check the ticket. Is he going to give her looks once he saw her name? She opens the briefcase to take out a paper to read. Al-Hayat? You cannot read Al-Hayat here! She puts it away before anyone notices the Arabic script. She turns on the laptop. “Can the passenger behind me see what I am working on?” Like a little 3^rd grader who guards her work from cheaters, she wraps her arms around her laptop before she gives up and puts it away.

The train arrives. The DC station is full of security personnel. Will anyone pull her aside for questioning? Nothing happens! She is free to go where she wants. Why does she, then, feel this way? Is this paranoia? She has not done anything wrong! “I am not a criminal.”

Her mind travels to another time, another place, and another continent a few months earlier.

June 10, 2001:

The plane is approaching the airport. Butterflies in the stomach: excited to arrive, soon to be “home” – soon to see parents and the 15 nieces and nephews. She disembarks and gets on the bus. A short distance and they are at border control. Standing in line for “holders of foreign passports.”

Butterflies in the stomach: fear and anxiety: “did I clean up my wallet? Did I remove all business cards from the briefcase? Is my calendar clean? White-outed of suspect dates?” “What should I say if they ask about the letters from the kids in Shatila to their friends in Dheisheh?” She rehearses her story, reminds herself to only answer with a yes or no, no need to elaborate: This is where they try to trick you--It only prolongs the interrogation. Do I smile or keep a straight-face, rude or docile, which image to present to the world here today? What do I do when asked again and again the same question?

Here it comes, here we go again...

King Hussein Bridge, July 1994–Going in/Ben Gurion Airport, July 2001–Getting out:

“Rabab, what is the purpose of your visit to Israel?” A young Israeli woman behind the counter. I am a bit annoyed for being addressed by my first name, almost wanting to say, “do I know you?” but I bite my tongue and maintain my calm. I respond that I am visiting the Palestinian areas to see my family. She asks again: “You have family in Israel? Where?” I answer, “In Nablus.” She retorts, “Shekhem?” (The Hebrew name Israel assigned to my hometown). I calmly say, “Nablus, yes.” Now, I am directed to step aside so that my luggage will be searched. I remember–a bit too late-- that I should have said that I was staying in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv to prevent the hassle of luggage search. I am taken, along with my luggage, aside.

A young man in civilian clothing approaches me and states that he is from Israeli security. He wants to ask me a few questions--this is being done for my safety, he says. Having been through Israeli borders so many times before, I do not bother to question or correct his concern about my safety. I am too tired. I just want to get home. He, along with a young female soldier, search my bags. They take everything out and spread my stuff on a table. My underwear is there for everyone to see. An elderly Palestinian man is being searched at the next table. We pretend not to notice each other’s intimate belonging but my face is getting very, very hot with embarrassment. They go through all my stuff waving an electrical device over it to (I am guessing) detect explosives. Having found nothing, they attempt to put things back as they found them, but it is not possible to replicate the manner in which I packed my stuff or to restore my dignity.

We are sitting in the living room of Maher Srour as he remembers what happened to him and his family 19 years ago. He speaks with matter of fact tones, a ghost of a smile comes across and slowly disappears on his face as he tells us how 15-month-old Shadia, his youngest sister, was ordered to stand and put her hands up in surrender, like the rest of her family members. “‘But she cannot walk! She is still crawling!’ We told them. Their leader said, ‘Yes, she can.’ Sure enough, she walked. It was her first time walking... Shadia walked just like the rest of us. She stood in line with her hands up and walked. They shot her and she fell right there between the bodies of my mother and my father. You see? Right there on the floor. That is Shadia,” Maher points out to the TV and the home-made video he assembled from newspaper cuttings, and fading copies of family photos, exhibited to remember Palestinian refugees killed in the 1982 massacre at Sabra and Shatila camps in the outskirts of Beirut.

We are all sitting around. Tears are flowing down our cheeks; none of us can stop. Each one is trying very hard to stop but it is impossible as Maher re-members, or tries to re-assemble, to put together, memories of family members who are gone forever–the only remaining memories are faded photos and a broken heart. As Maher remembers, my mind drifts to another setting. Ciraj Rassoul, a co-founder of the District 6 Museum in Cape Town, recounts how this community was completely razed to the ground by Apartheid’s Group Area Act, save for a mosque and a church. “Remembering,” Ciraj says, “is re-membering, putting together. District 6 Museum is all about re-membering our community, putting it together.”

“478 people are confirmed dead at the World Trade Center.”

New York griefs for people with a mix of last names, cultures, professions, lifestyles, religious beliefs and family arrangements.

Grief New York, Grief!

Grief for the Pakistani man who died in INS detention center of a heart attack while awaiting deportation: Prisoners are not entitled to adequate healthcare!

Grief for the Egyptian who moved to New York in search of a safer life...

Grief for the West African who used to pray in the Bronx...

Grief for all those anonymous beings whose labor no one credits, names no one remembers, and bodies no one dares to claim...

Grief for the mothers and fathers, the daughters and the sons, the lovers and the beloved, the friends and the co-workers...

Grief for shuttered dreams, for lives lost, for closed possibilities ...

Grief for a loss of human life and Remember!

Remember, New York!

Remember:

Remember Iman Hajou, a 15 month old baby girl whose brains were splattered on the back seat of her father’s car as he went looking for help. No hospital for Iman. No passing through: The “road situation” is bad today!

Grief for Mohamed el-Dura, whose father could not protect him from death, bullet after bullet after bullet – a Palestinian Amadou Diallo?

Grief, New York!

Search your heart!

Is there a space to grief?

IV. WHERE IS HOME?

I once believed that the restoration of my dignity was possible in New York. In theory at least, people are supposed to be equal before the law. I am not naive: I am fully aware of subtle and not so subtle systems of domination and discrimination. But no one is pretending any more that equality before the law applies to us.

As we continue to be ethnically and racially profiled, thousands of Arabs, Arab Americans, Muslim Americans, and Muslim Americans are made to feel foreign at home: No longer do we feel welcomed nor do we feel safe. Call it what you want but the melting pot theory fails as “America” refuses to grind the course kernels of our foods, name them what they are and accept them on their own terms: garlicky, spicy, strong, and fulfilling. Beneath the facade of liberal advocacy of multiculturalism lies an ethnocentric New York that continues to deny our existence except as bloodthirsty or suspect male villains, helpless female victims and exoticized alien others. Our cultures are erased, our lives flattened to fit neatly in the folds of “Americanness.” No longer can we draw on New York City’s rich, vibrant, and diverse cultural scene: Red, white and blue may be a safety blanket to some but they symbolize exclusion to the rest of us. Safety in this anonymous city is a precious commodity achieved only by those who pass for something other that the multiplicities and complexities in which we are embedded.

Rationalizing things to feel better may help; a band-aid solution to dull away the pain. But when 1,000 are detained and 5000 are not-so-voluntarily interviewed, New York and indeed the U.S.A. feels suspiciously like the occupied West Bank. But this is not the West Bank, though, where most Palestinians are subject to the same misery and terror as my mother would say: “illi waqe’ ‘ala nass waqe’ aleina.”,We are very alone here: our diasporic lives are fragmented. Our souls are split open. It is perhaps time to go home, but back home exits no more.

Submitted to:

Radical History Review

Special Volume on “National Myths in the Middle East”

March 23, 2002

Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality

New York University

285 Mercer Street, # 307

New York, NY 10003-6653

Phone: (212) 992-9543/Fax: (212) 995-4433

E-mail: rabab.abdulhadi@nyu.edu

¹ Different versions of these notes were presented at “All I have is a Voice: A Teach-in on War and Peace” at Hunter College-CUNY; “Globalization and Resistance” Conference” at CUNY Graduate Center; “Guadino Lecture” at Williams College; and the Symposium on “Women, War, & Displacement: The Gender Dimension of Conflict” at Hofstra University.

²I use this term with reluctance for the negative connotations it has in the Palestinian context. Please see page 11.