Getting on with the Past
by Naseem Khuri, Culture/Photo Editor on April 30, 2008 in Features
There was a famous line delivered by a participant in the all-party talks that eventually led to the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, which largely brought peace to Northern Ireland: “To hell with the future, let’s get on with the past!” To some, the idea of dwelling upon past grievances was outrageous, representing a direct way to hold back progress that might have been made in the peace talks. To others, however, avoiding acknowledgment of past horrors and blindly moving forward could itself stymie progress. Looking back, they said, was indeed the only way the parties could start to look forward.
To some at the Kennedy School, acknowledging the events of 1948 that displaced thousands of Palestinians through lost lives and livelihoods represents a step backwards, yet another obstacle thrown onto the long seemingly endless road towards Israeli-Palestinian peace. To others, like me, addressing and even embracing the truth behind what happened is essential. If another generation of Israelis, Palestinians and world citizens grows up without the ability to productively look backward, I wonder whether they’ll ever be able to productively look forward.
My grandmother has a hard time looking forward. Staring into space as though she’s a million miles away, she often relays to me vivid details about the Nakba (the catastrophe), the name describing the events of 1948. Recalling the mood in the air in Jerusalem, she describes the bombing of the King David Hotel and other destructive incidents - what today would be called terrorist actions - that increased the tension between the resident Palestinians and the emigrating Jews fleeing the atrocities of the Holocaust. She remembers bullets hitting her house, and feeling she had no choice but to flee for the sake of her two young boys. “What should a mother do?” she often asks with a tinge of guilt. The family packed up a few belongings and fled.
Yet she also shares another angle to the story, one that may lose its voice amid the chorus of others that select merely bits and pieces of history. She describes the Jewish friends she maintained even when the bullets were flying, and the Jewish family that offered to shelter hers when staying was not an option. She describes how she didn’t believe the Arab armies would come to the defense of Palestine, and the disappointment she felt when, after three months of sharing one room in Damascus with seventeen other people, she realized she could not trust the radio telling her it would soon all be over, and she would be able to reunite with her homeland.
Speaking productively about the past unearths these truths. My grandmother misses her Jewish friends from Palestine, and limits her anger towards the Zionists who committed injustice. Yet she feels as if she cannot look forward without others looking backward with her. She cannot fathom how people expect to make peace without addressing the injustice that happened to her family, and the thousands of others that became refugees in a matter of hours.
As a Palestinian-American born and raised near Boston, I wonder if she feels her history will fade from consciousness. Perhaps the farther the worldwide reach of the Palestinian diaspora - from Boston suburbs to Lebanese refugee camps - the more diffuse a history becomes. Perhaps it will become easier with time for more declarations of principles, road maps and peace processes to ignore the history that so often plagues them. Perhaps the quieter history becomes, the more leverage it gains in preventing progress.
At HKS, the luxury of distance from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict affords us the opportunity to discuss history objectively. In anticipation of the sixtieth anniversary of the Nakba, a group of Harvard students wanted to look backwards productively. We sought not to attack Israel, rather to adopt a tone of commemoration and education. We are eager to expose the greater community to different narratives of what happened in 1948 - and to the histories they contain. To some, the mere mention of Nakba will generate accusations of anti-semitism and digression. To others, informative events will represent a way of understanding the past, and ways we might incorporate it into our future.
This week, while Israelis celebrate and Palestinians commiserate, the learning must take place on both sides. Israelis must understand the Palestinian lens of 60 years of occupation and oppression, and Palestinians must understand the Israeli lens of 2,000 years of Jewish oppression. With an atmosphere conducive to such learning, the Kennedy School can do more than just talk honestly about the past. We can also help people like my grandmother talk about the future.
(Editorial note: the logo above was produced for events at Harvard marking the 60th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba.)
Written by Naseem Khuri, Culture/Photo Editor · Filed Under Features
Naseem Khuri (MPP2) is Culture and Photo Editor of the Citizen. Prior to his time at the Kennedy School, Khuri worked as an Associate at CMPartners, a consulting firm specializing in negotiation and conflict management training and coaching. He graduated from Bowdoin College in 2001 with degrees in biochemistry and music, and actually still plays music (myspace.com/kingsleyflood). He enjoys late night Guitar Hero, Diet Coke with Lime, long walks on the beach and shamelessly advertising his myspace music page.
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Naseem, let me take this opportunity to wish you success upon your graduation.
May we have other chances (as last summer) to meet, speak and exchange views on both sides of the Atlantic. May the chemistry of such interaction produce the rich, complex and sweet music of the future.
I hope that your grandmother shares the reality of the past, the vibrancy of the present and the hope of the future for many years to come.