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My Story Of Peace !!!

June 22nd, 2009Sami, the beduin.

My Story

Who the hell cares about your story, you little crazy Bedouin!!!

bedouin1

I am Just a little Bedouin boy that still so fresh like the vast burning desert, of a hollow feverish hot heart roaming the land in an everlasting search for the heavenly shade of God, and shade (for us bedouins) is like the warm sun for Scandinavians. Here we are burned by the hellish heat of sun pouring over our heads and so you (always) would find us lunatic hallucinating like fevered children. The sun did it work today and thanks god (YOUR GOD) that I am still alive!!

I still remember, one day when I stood beside the road leaving my sheep grazing behind the hill, just a little Bedouin boy bewildered by the vast open nature of God when suddenly the street (a modern black glistening one) appeared, as if from nowhere, to split the barren desert into two (endlessly) divided and probably quarreling parts.

The street, that splits the desert, is always amazing with every passing car, motorbike or even just a lingering bike of a lonely ghost.

There, I stood, beside the street, a little bedouin boy of seven distracted (or bewildered, as my grandmom used to rebuke me when I leave the sheep and stay the whole day there) by the bizarre snake that split the desert of our home, the Negev, when a hazy ghost appeared swaying in the distance. I suddenly remembered what my dad used to tell me: ” Don’t trust those Christians (and that was a long time before we knew the jews, “the worshipers of POWER and god”), they worship a wooden cross, they don’t believe in God, they are not clean at all, they eat pigs, frogs, dogs and even snakes,,, don’t take anything from them to eat… and even when they force you to take, just hide it and throw it later)…. why the hell I remember that????

At that time there were no jews on their “promised land” or at least it seemed to me so… So our tribe (that was tanned from the sun and the desert, that took the brownish color of the desert, and it’s dusty smell and even the dry taste of it) didn’t know nothing of strangers other than the “hateful crusaders.” Every tourist for us is a Christian (or a crusader if you like), every blond, everyone who doesn’t have the smell and the color of the desert is consider for us, and especially for me at that time an “alien” crusader!!!

Standing there, I saw the swaying haze of that crusader coming closer with a potential danger every finger (inch, the American way) and I felt frightened!!! The swaying haze ‘s got a long hair of a blond ghost (or a woman, it is the same) and horrored I picked a big stone this time, and stone is our only weapon in the desert, the desert that doesn’t bear but sand and stones. I anticipated the danger to hurl (at the most hurting point, as my granddad told me) the stone on the head. Arching to launch, the ghost was ten arms away (yards, the British “Christian” way) and I saw that face. A smiling face of a beautiful woman with long blond hair biking (swaying) along the street that split the desert and a soft sweet voice (of a bird) saying “shalom”!!!

SHALOM!!!! What’s that… but before she passed, I had nothing to say but to mumble the world SH-A-L-O-M!!!! and that was the first time I hear that word and also the first time to stutter it “sh a l o m”…. Such a lovely word that sounds of a bird’s singing in the bushes of Ein-Gedi!!!! I don’t know but she was heavenly smiling and probably she thought I was sitting there waiting for a bus or any moving ghost on the street that split the desert… But no… I cant move and leave my desert, I will stay with my sheep in “shalom”!!!

What strikes my already crazy mind and drives me insane is that ever since I heard that word “shalom” I never felt in peace any more… that word grasped me out of the peaceful desert to the gloomy hellish depth of war …. a war that started with that word “SHALOM”… what a misery I live in now!!

Sami, the bedouin.

4 Responses to “My Story Of Peace !!!”

  1. Hi Sami,

    Thanks for letting me know you stopped spending time on mepeace. I found it useful for
    making contact with a few people. But it’s generally a site for pretending to care about
    peace, but not actually doing much that’s good — or making arguments to make Israel
    seem like it’s doing something good.

    As you put it so poetically: Ever since you heard the word Shalom, you haven’t experienced
    any peace.

    One positive note regarding mepeace: Mazin Qumsiyeh is on a speaking tour of the US.
    I look forward to meeting him when he’s in the Boston area — His visit is something I
    wouldn’t have known about were it not for mepeace.

    Best Wishes,

    Jeff

  2. Shalom Jeff and Sami,

    I still find mepeace.org good place to connect and actually it is any of us who create the realtionship. If you come with the assumption that all arabs are bad, or all Israelis are bad, as Jeff suggested you will not be happy with the site since we have many people with different political wolrd view.

    The importance of mepeace.org is that it enable us to connect, and people crate events and projects and make real world activities. the people who come just to push their ideas and expect to educate the others, will fail to get what they want.

    Peace

    Neri
    Tel-Aviv

  3. Neri,

    I had more than enough in me”peace”. I know them one by one and who-is-who there. Some are really great, but all the great people there are “outsiders”. I was literally lynched there just because I think differently and dont smile hypocritically and nod stupidly “yes”. I cant be a “yes man” Neri, it’s not my type.

    There, they want me and others as a mirror for their narrative… but I left telling them to be happy looking in the mirror and admire their beauty.

    I like challenging ideas and cant stereotype myself within their mentality… me”peace” was too narrow for my mind!!

    Sami, the bedouin.

  4. you have a way with words sami. i enjoyed reading that! i especially love the end bit.

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