I'm so scared. I guess it's normal, but I'm still ashamed.. I have reverted to my 6-year old state. As I walked home today, the single street lamp lighting my way burned out, leaving me in total and utter darkness. I didn't panic, but I was afraid. Very afraid. As I looked ahead, I saw the complete nothingness of the unlit streets in the black night. In the distance I saw both nothing and everything. I clearly played out each way in which I could be killed. Israelis thinking I'm Palestinian. Palestinians thinking I'm Israeli. Anything. Everything. The more I stared into that nothingness, the more I saw.
I remember feeling this way long ago, and I remember when I finally thought it was over.. That day I triumphed over my fears. They all came back so gradually, and now I am afraid of the dark. Not just the dark. Loud noises frighten me. So do bright lights. So does a person running..
When I leave, I just want to curl up and forget everything. When I leave... My dignity has been taken away. I am as much a child in front of the tanks as are the children. I put my hands up, and I pray that today I will not be the one. And sometimes, when the days get the best of me, I pray that today I will be the one.. There are two ways I can leave Jenin. That's a luxury my passport affords me. For the Palestinian men around me, there is only one way they can leave, and that's with toe tags. My healing will start when I leave here, but when will the healing of the Palestinians begin? When will they have the same basic dignities I had not two months ago? When will the men regain their manhood, the women their womanhood, and the children their childhood?
I'm so scared. But I don't know of what. I really don't. I'm not scared of death or harm or pain.. I don't know what I'm scared of.. Maybe I'm scared of hate. I think I'm starting to hate, and I guess that's the scariest thing of all. I hate the Israelis for doing this. I hate everybody else for letting it happen.. There's so much hate around, and sooner or later, it'll catch up to me too..
I guess we all have basic needs.. People need food.. they need drink.. As surely as they need these things, however, they need security. Of all the things, that is the one thing that I miss most.. I miss my security.. Not the we-need-more-guns kind.. the I'm-not-going-to-be-randomly-killed-today kind.. Until that day of security for all, millions of Palestinians will look into the darkness and see nothing and everything. Until that day, millions of Palestinians will be like me: so scared.
tarek