Sumud: Each Gen Has Its Gem

 

Sumud: Each Gen Has Its Gem

(This essay was published on December 13th, 2024, in the Arrow: A Journal of wakeful Society, Culture & Politics.)

“We have another wisdom: it comes from those who have seen the nightmare of racism and oppression in the banal daylight of the everyday. They represent an idea of action and agency more complex than either the nihilism of despair or the Utopia of progress. They speak of the reality of survival and negotiation that constitutes the moment of resistance, its sorrow and salvation, but is rarely spoken in the heroisms or the horrors of history.”[1]

As a Palestinian growing up in the West Bank during various phases of the struggle, I was introduced to the concept of Sumud, which embodies many forms and shapes of collective and individual resilience. The resilience of the Palestinian people in the face of adversity is a hidden asset that can be unearthed, molded, and utilized to sustain values a person or community holds dear. Sumud has taken on numerous forms and expressions across generations for Palestinians facing an existential challenge both physically and culturally, as I explore in this personal essay. Regardless of its form, Sumud signifies our refusal to succumb to oppression and serves as a lifeline for our survival in the face of the significant threat we continue to endure.

I first heard the word Sumud from my grandfather, who survived the Nakba.  He often spoke about how vital Al-Sumud Al-Filastini (Palestinian steadfastness) is. For him, it was associated with his own lived experience of being forced from his land. My grandfather had to leave the country twice. The first time was when Palestine, under British mandate, suffered from poverty and neglect following a long period under Ottoman rule. “Hunger and general hardship were only one cause of the dire state of the population.”[2] Like many young Palestinians, my grandfather found that the best way to earn money was to try his luck elsewhere. Many Palestinians who immigrated did not return, but for my grandfather, it was a source of pride that he did return and saved enough to buy a piece of land and build a home. It was a precious opportunity in the 1940s.  He built his first home in Lifta, a district near Jerusalem; the remains of this village can still be seen near Jerusalem. 

Ruins of Lifta Village

Sadly, in 1948, this village was attacked, and its residents had to flee.  My grandfather left again and, eight years later, returned to Palestine and built a new home in Ramallah in the West Bank. Sumud, for my grandfather, meant ‘not- immigrating’ or not ‘leaving,’ which would have entailed the loss of connection to the land and the history it holds. His resilience and determination to return and rebuild is a testament to the unwavering spirit of the Palestinian people.  

My grandfather was very emotional when he told his stories in the diaspora, "Your grandmother and I worked long hours and saved every penny to come back, buy this piece of land, and build this home. This is a struggle about the land. You lose the land; you lose everything: your loved ones, your family, your religion, and your dignity.” 

The concept of Sumud expanded over time, and Palestinians had to adopt more forms of steadfastness. It took on a different attire, facing the same source of conflict: land dispossession. The second generation of Palestinians who were born after the Nakba were the children of those who fled during the 1948 Nakba. These children were born under United Nations-distributed tents and raised as refugees in crowded neighborhoods in bordering countries of Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Gaza, and the West Bank. Palestinians turned these camps into brick-walled homes that seeped bone-simmering cold, with a leaky roof that dripped stories of sleepless nights as rain pounded the zinc roofs. They were the children of the traumatized, impoverished, and fragmented families that fled the Nakba and were dispossessed of everything. This generation, born after the Nakba, is the second generation. 

My father grew up in an Al-Amari refugee camp outside Ramallah.

AL-Am3ari Camp

My father’s parents fled their home in Lod City in Israel to the West Bank. For the second generation of Nakba, Sumud was about enduring and surviving the poverty and harsh conditions of a refugee camp. The collective emotional shock and trauma following Al-Nakbah, along with the physical and cultural loss, needed to be endured and overcome. Like many in Palestine, my father's family molded the pain into a success story. The refugee camps became communities where cultural heritage remained strong. Many were and still are proud to retain stories of their ancestors, food, lineage, folklore, and traditions.  My father taught me about the cuisine, traditions, and stories of the city his parents fled in 1948, Al-Lod, and how that city was a flourishing hub for culture and trade.

Emulating the first generation of Nakba, who fled their homeland and transformed refugee camps into livable and supportive communities, my father, like many in his generation, worked hard to build a home outside the refugee camps to provide better living conditions for the third generation after the Nakba, my generation. Their sacrifices and hard work were not in vain, as they offered the essentials so that the third generation could live in less harsh conditions, and thus, we –the third generation have time to dream, fight for freedom, and ask for a future. They were the stepping stones between what was and what could be.

In 1987, because the third generation could hope for independence and aspire for freedom, the first Intifada erupted and was described by Edward Said as a “clear civil alternative to the Israeli occupation regime” and a “relatively nonviolent movement”[3] that called for freedom, independence, and the right to self-determination. And just as my father endured growing up impoverished in a refugee camp, I had to live through the violent crackdown of this massive movement. It was as if the baton of Sumud was being handed from one generation to the next, each generation gaining wisdom and privilege to prepare them for the next phase. This passing of the baton underscores the continuity and evolution of Sumud, as each generation carries on the legacy and adapts it to their struggle.  

My father’s only income then was from a small shop near the main square in Ramallah, where mass demonstrations occurred. The struggle began with Palestinians calling for shops and businesses to close their doors as a sign of protest against the Israeli soldiers policing our streets. The Israeli soldiers, as a result, brought giant levers to break the locks and open the shops forcefully. When the Israeli Jeeps left the street, the protestors came back and ordered the shop owners to close their doors again. I remember my father running back and forth from home to his shop while carrying an extra lock, trying to avoid any damage to his shop and sole income. After a month and a half passed of lock breaking and bickering about Iftah (open) and Sakker (close), the soldiers eventually stopped breaking the locks. Then, shops closed all day and opened on certain days as assigned in weekly flyers. As it became clear to everyone that this uprising was long, the shops started to open on more days and close only on specific strike days.

Ramallah

My father continued providing for our family despite his financial woes during these long years. Adding to my father’s ailment, daily demonstrations involved stone throwing, tire burning, bullet shooting, and tear gas, harboring the possibility of damage to my father’s shop or even his life.

Calls for civil disobedience were raised, and national parties reached out to neighborhoods and formed committees to help our Sumud, which now meant trying to liberate ourselves politically and wean ourselves from economic dependency. Home education and self-improvement became our tools as we turned to homegrown plants and self-education. This shift also marked my education about Sumud through real life as a third-generation Palestinian born after the 1948 Nakba. I watched as gardens were planted with vegetables, homes became classrooms, local products became a requirement and a symbol for our existence, and walls became our banners for scribbling our rights.  

When the Israeli administrative body decided to close down all schools, I found myself feeling bitter and angry because I had lost a routine that all other children around the world had. It angered me that someone dressed in a military suit could have such power over our lives. However, I didn’t let this deter me. I joined some of the classes in homes around the neighborhood. The streets weren’t all that safe. At any moment, a demonstration could happen involving stone throwing, gunshots, tear gas, protestors running, and soldiers chasing after them and jumping over people’s fences. Sumud, for me, was to experience the injustices that feed the resilience and allow a deep understanding of the power dynamics that can be challenged at every corner. I understood that at every intersection under occupation or military rule, one also has the power to say NO.

By the time I was in my twenties, shortly after the peace accords, the second Intifada broke out. My generation, the third generation, now adults, had to unleash our inner strength to be resilient and extend the definition of Sumud even further.

For us, resilience became more daunting and demanding. A very tragic period in the struggle began. It was the horror of suicide bombings inside the Israeli cities. These attacks spurred an array of restrictive measures that touched many parts of our daily lives: the erections of hundreds of checkpoints, tracking Palestinians active in the second Intifada using their mobile phones and then performing sudden and targeted assassinations by Apache helicopter guided missiles, the demolishment of buildings by F16 planes, and ultimately, the 2002 invasion of the Israeli army into all of the West Bank cities.

Another restrictive measure imposed involved cutting off the streets connecting cities and villages by digging large trenches in the roads. This interrupted traffic and forced thousands of Palestinians to step out of their cars and walk through these large trenches to be able to go to work, school, or a hospital. For my generation, then, Sumud has meant facing oppression with its sharpest teeth, negotiating death at any moment, and surviving.

In one particular incident, I found myself in a surreal setting. I had to leave the taxi and cross the enormous dug-out road on foot to reach my workplace. But slowly, a growing crowd of people got stuck at the edge of this vast man-made crater. As I approached to see what was happening, I realized that an Israeli soldier was checking people's ID numbers. It was too late to turn back, as many people had piled up behind me.

People were all around, so close I couldn’t nudge in any direction. Everyone had the same question bubbling in their minds: “Why wouldn’t he allow us to pass?”

“Just let us pass, man,” some mumbled in a low voice. Isn’t it enough that you’ve dug this trench as punishment?”

The Israeli soldier, green-eyed, dark-skinned, a hefty man, was shouting and pointing his gun at us to comply, but his language was incomprehensible to us. Some in the crowd knew Hebrew and could translate it for the rest of us. He wanted to check our identity cards before passing, but he refused to do so before we stood in line! If this soldier had known anything about Palestinian culture and Sumud, he would have known this was an impossible demand. For us, it was a moment to negotiate and undermine authority, or at least that was the crowd’s decision, unconsciously, perhaps.  

The crowd squeezed in on me, and I couldn’t jostle my way out. I remembered that my identity card was in my backpack. Despite the difficulty, I had to move to get my ID. I somehow managed to put my bag down, disturbing everyone around, and reached for my green-colored identity card.  

However, the situation grew darker by the minute. Every time the crowd slid closer to the soldier, he pointed his gun toward us, prepared his rifle to shoot, and shouted for order. The crowd then stopped advancing and waited for another appropriate moment to take a few steps forward. I glided with the crowd, feeling my gut grasp my heart and my throat squeeze my breath.

After a while, the other soldiers came down the hill and recognized the gravity of the situation. They decided to let us pass without checking our identity cards to avoid further escalation. Gladly and anxiously, the crowd sprinkled into the crater. 

Everything, eve-ry-thing in an unequal power play, even standing in line, becomes material for unspoken negotiations over whose will may eventually prevail.  

I trudged down the dugout road, staring at the other side, imagining what it would be like to get to the other side of this kind of conflict mentality. How much time and how many craters in our human minds need to be crossed to get to a place where the plane is equal for everyone? Is it possible to get to such a place?

Amid unprecedented violence, Palestinian Sumud is facing a monumental challenge to redefine itself yet again. The struggle for Palestinians has shifted to a battle for physical survival. This version of Sumud involves similar previous actions such as purchasing and cultivating land, transcending the harsh conditions of refugee camps, constructing new homes and communities, preserving culture, history, and pride, striving for freedom, and bypassing internal division between the two leading parties. For all Palestinians everywhere, but especially in Gaza and the West Bank, Sumud carries the imprint and wisdom of all previous generations, and we strive to give it a new meaning.  Despite the current challenges, Sumud is not necessarily regressing but rather is progressing. As current conflicts expose the true motivations of each side, an opportunity emerges to erode dehumanization and supremacy, paving the way for genuine discussions about resolutions.  

ِArtist: Suliman Mansour

Resolutions need to incorporate the element of justice. Justice needs to be defined by both Israelis and Palestinians based on the mutual and sincere acknowledgment of loss and suffering. Justice was and still is an absent component in the 1990s multiple Peace Accords, primarily since only the first phase of the Oslo Agreement was implemented, and hence it was never just. It can be said that after thirty years, these agreements were considered by both sides as a phase to defer discussion over core issues: the right of return for refugees, which hits at the core of the problem of superiority embedded in the belief of Jewish majority, and the second major issue is the continuous land dispossession which is related to the same principle of superiority but also speaks to economic and political benefits.  Sumud of the three generations has literally been the antidote to the two major injustices plaguing our conflict until, hopefully soon, the cracks in the wall of dehumanization and supremacy begin to crack.

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[1] Bhabha, Homi k. The Location of Culture. (New York: Routledge,1994), 254-55.

[2] Khalidi, Rashid. The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonial Conquest and Resistance, 1917-  2017. (New York: Metropolitan, 2020), 20.

[3] Said, Edward w. The Politics of Dispossession: The Struggle for Palestinian Self-Determination 1969-1994. (London: Vintage, 1994), 145.