Sunday, August 15, 2010

The African Palestinians..

 The hurt within is about the double siege these folk are living within: One by Israelis, the 2nd by their skin..!! Can you "Taste" such a feeling..?


http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/video/video.php?v=418097797876
North vs. South, Black vs. White, Upper vs. Lower, etc.. it is part of the humane legacy; which bitterly can't live without..!! Yes, a fact we should not deny, but to accept and have to live with.. It is one of the few documentaries addressing the issue in simplicity and straightforwardness..



http://www.redhillfilms.com/africanpalestinian.htm
In the Moslem quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City very near one of the great doors to the Dome of the Rock compound is the African Palestinian community. Viewers journey through the Damascus Gate, passing the Via Dolorosa and an Israeli ID checkpoint to find the African Palestinian quarter. The filmed meeting is with one of the community’s leaders, Ali Jiddah. Ali is an expressive analyst of the conditions Palestinians live under and speaks of the psychological, economic and political damage being caused by the continued Israeli occupation. He refers to the separation wall from a perspective of having lived his entire life behind occupation and prison walls. Ali also gives a brief history of the African Palestinians living in Jerusalem, and the film includes still photographs of members of this community.


http://www.endtheoccupation.org/article.php?id=1378
Currently some forty African Palestinian families live inside the old city, many of whom reside within 50 feet of the center. Upon talking with Adam, the center’s young director, one gets a sense of how proud the community is of its identity. “Many of our ancestors were pious Muslims who came from across Africa to defend Al-Aqsa from military conquest,” I was told by Adam and others in the center. “They stayed and married and their children grew up here. “We are as Palestinian as anyone else but we also remember and our proud of where are great grandfathers came from and sometimes visit or stay in touch with our other family members in Africa.” Aside from the various wars which brought Muslims from Africa to safeguard the sanctity of its Muslim Holy Sites, other Africans settled in Palestine after spiritual pilgrimages to the land’s various holy sites, including of course the Al Aqsa Mosque.



http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?at_code=416911
The African Palestinians that I have been most acquainted with are located in the old city of Jerusalem, with an estimated 80 to 95 families, not people but families living in the old Mamluk-era prison, on both sides of an alley way in the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem, abutting up against one of the major doorways of The Noble Sanctuary. So this old Mamluk-era prison was given to the African Palestinians by an earlier Sheik. And the families were given the title, somewhat official, of guardians of the mosque because of their proximity to the major doorway. OK, those folks have pretty much remained there in the Muslim quarter. But their relatives are founded largely in Jericho, but also in Jenin, Rafah and in other places and also the refugee camps in Syria and Lebanon. Especially young African Palestinians who were refugees from the 1967 war. So we see, and we bump into, and we meet African Palestinians not just in the old city, but also in Jericho.


5 comments:

  1. The Nassrah clip was done by students.. This is the beauty of it, that it came pure from politics and interests.. A clear exposure of facts, feelings, dreams and illusions as well..! It is not only skin, but ...the conceptual accumulations beneath.. Mixin...g the contradicts can't be a strategy, but tactics to resolve timely issues and enable moving forward.. The price to dissolve racial taboos is huge and unaffordable in many cultures, particularly the Arabic.. Only French had managed to deep-root the concept within their triple civic codes.. As a fact, who had attempted to revolutionize the matter, were trapped by bitter behavioral facts that were resulted from the long history of divide.. Simply, Obama will not win 2nd term, nor Diana marries Alfayed, if both stayed alive.. nor Fair & Lovely would change color of skin..!!

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  2. it's really touching!. I didn't know that there exists black ethnicities among original Arabs. But to tell the truth, we wont step towards our prosperity unless these minor issues being resolved and each single citizen feels that he is being treated equally.
    Ibrahim Musa

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  3. There are racial and colored minorities in every community.. I went to Turkey searching for the Black Turkish, who mostly were of Sudanese origins.. The top Turkish fashion model is a pretty dark Darfurean-looking; which probably her ances...tors were..!! This is why text books considered Arabs are the initiators and main factor in slavery.. Anyway, racial conflicts is part of our humane mind-set, which unbreakable..!! Therefore, all religions had fought the concept, telling how evil it is, yet existing as part of the ethical and moral challenges..!! Therefore, it is not curable by education or welfare, but with gradual acceptance enabling people to cross the borders and report back on how the other is a normal human-being.. This is how social and cultural changes happened in history.. Current communication breakthrough is equally enabling, yet the only decisive fact is the practical and actual experience among people, or couples.. That is why celebrities’ interracial marriages were greatly influential during the last 20 years.. My advice for whomever want to challenge: Accept the divide, and live with it, Never deny the facts of differences, yet you may explore, and get further excited or amazed..!!!

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  4. عادل انا متفهم كتابتك باللغه الانجليزيه وجدا ممتن لعطائك بالمعلومه لاني مؤيد لها... الفقره التي يجب علي المراجعه اكثر هي تتعلق بالتاريخ الفرنسي بالنسبه لمحاوله دمج الاعراق... انا للان لست من مؤيدين الدمج العنواني والنسبي كما يحصل الان في فر...نسا... انا طرحت هذا السؤال/ الموضوع بالسابق والفرنسين العرب باللسته عندي كان نهج تفكيرهم يآيد كلامك...
    Adam Aba-Husain

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  5. I don't know too much about these brave people but I think they better start forming links with black civil rights organisations in the US and Europe and to inform the world of their oppression by the zionists.

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