The roots of our grief coil so deeply into loss that death has cometo live with us like a family member who makes you happy by avoidingyou, but who is still one of the family. Our anger is a rage that Westerners cannot understand. Our sadness can make the stonesweep. And the way we love is no exception
Susan AbulhawaAmal,I believe that most Americans do not love as we do. It is not for any inherent deficiency or superiority in them. They live in the safe, shallow, parts that rarely push human emotions into the depths where we dwell.
Susan AbulhawaFor if life had taught her anything, it was that healing and peace can begin only with acknowledgment of wrongs committed.
Susan AbulhawaI feel sad for him. Sad for the boy bound to the killer. I am sad for the youth betrayed by their leaders for symbols and flags and war and power.
Susan AbulhawaDo you know, Mother, that Haj Salem was buried alive in his home? Does he tell you stories in heaven now? I wish I had had a chance to meet him. To see his toothless grin and touch his leathery skin. To beg him, as you did in your youth, for a story from our Palestine. He was over one hundred years old, Mother. To have lived so long, only to be crushed to death by a bulldozer. Is this what it means to be Palestinian?
Susan AbulhawaToughness found fertile soil in the hearts of Palestinians, and the grains of resistance embedded themselves in their skin. Endurance evolved as a hallmark of refugee society. But the price they paid was the subduing of tender vulnerability. They learned to celebrate martyrdom. Only martyrdom offered freedom. Only in death were they at last invulnerable to Israel. Martyrdom became the ultimate defiance of Israeli occupation.
Susan AbulhawaNima Shirazi is a rare voice of rational analysis and political insight that provides an eloquent counter to the pervasive absurdities that make up popular political discourse.
Susan AbulhawaI watch life trickle from the bullet wound of a sixteen-year-old "example" and marvel how things weak, even words, will turn vicious and merciless to gain power,despite reason or history
Susan AbulhawaWe're all born with the greatest treasures we'll ever have in life. One of those treasures is your mind, another is your heart.
Susan AbulhawaHow can one find the first moment of love? When, in what instant, does the night's dark sky become blue?
Susan AbulhawaIsraeli occupation exposes us very young to the extremes of our emotions, until we cannot feel except in the extreme.
Susan AbulhawaWe come from the land, give our love and labor to her, and she nurtures us in return. When we die, we return to the land. In a way, she owns us. Palestine owns us and we belong to her
Susan AbulhawaFor I'll keep my humanity, though I did not keep my promises. ... and Love shall not be wrested from my veins.
Susan Abulhawalove is what we are about, my darling," she says. "Not even in death has our love faded, for I live in your veins.
Susan AbulhawaThey had bombed and burned,killed and maimed,plundered and looted.Now they had come to claim the land.
Susan AbulhawaA persistent breeze lifted the thin curtains, fluttering a few moments of tranquility into the turbulent day.
Susan AbulhawaI know she is crying. Her tears fall on the wrong side, into the bottomless well inside her.
Susan Abulhawa