Trying to move on

by Joharah Baker - JMCC

(EAST JERUSALEM, PALESTINE - 14/11/01) - THE BABY'S name is - of course - Osama. Although the tiny infant has never met his namesake, his family will be sure to overwhelm the growing child with fond memories of his uncle, pictures, little anecdotes about Osama's life and the painful details of his death.

A photo of Osama, the uncle, hangs on a wall in the large sitting room. It is adorned by a gold and black frame and two small Palestinian flags on either side. Osama's mother, Um Adam, sits on the opposite side of the room, her solemn eyes periodically riveting to the photo of her son where they fix- just for a moment- and then snap back again to the present.

"I see him before me," she says, "standing in the doorway, smiling." These apparitions have lessened since the family moved out of their old home in Shufat where Osama once lived, and into a new home in another East Jerusalem neighborhood. But they have not stopped altogether.

Osama Jeddah was killed by an Israeli sniper bullet to the chest on September 29, 2000. One day after the fateful visit of then Likud-leader Ariel Sharon to Al Aqsa Mosque, the visit that sparked the Aqsa Intifada, Osama and his brother made their way to Al Maqassed Hospital in Jerusalem to donate blood to the scores of Palestinians wounded by Israeli gunfire.

Osama never made it to the blood bank. Shot at close range with a high-velocity bullet, he was rushed to the operating room at this same hospital, only to die on the table an hour later.

That was over a year ago. At the time, hundreds of people mourned and cried over Osama, the 23-year-old African-Palestinian whose smiling and youthful face was plastered throughout Jerusalem's Old City alleys for months afterwards reminding passersby of the friendly young man gone from their midst.

Now, the Jeddah family find themselves alone with their grief. In public, they are strong and appear to have moved on. Um Adam is in her first year at Al Quds University and recently returned from Amman, Jordan where she spoke with other mothers of Palestinian martyrs at a symposium called "The Day of Jerusalem."

But it is the nights and endless days living with the knowledge that her son is gone that continue to gnaw silently at her heart.

"They say that death starts out big and gets smaller with time," she says, smiling wryly, the corners of her eyes tilting slightly upwards. "But that is not true. Every day it is harder for me, not easier."

The Jeddah family is like the many other Palestinian families that have lost children to the Israeli occupation. Mixed with the pride of their son's martyrdom is the overwhelming grief that accompanies loss. Um Adam explains how during the first few weeks after Osama's death, she did not feel the tragedy as acutely as now.

"I don't know if it was the shock or all the people around me," she contemplates. "But now, after everyone has moved on with their lives, nobody lives with this kind of agony other than me."

Um Adam's tone of voice does not seek pity. She is matter-of-fact, expressing the worst kind of loss any mother might experience.

She says she found a kind of solace in her pilgrimage to Mecca to perform the Hajj, one of the five pillars of Islam. The trip with her oldest son, Adam, was made possible by Saudi King Fahd, who offered to cover the cost of the holy journey for a number of the families of Palestinian martyrs.

"I did it for Osama," she explains, expressing the Islamic belief that one can make the pilgrimage for someone else as if they had performed it themselves. "It's funny," she says, "that without Osama we would never have been able to perform the Hajj at all."

Hazim Bitar, filmmaker and producer of "Jerusalem's High Cost of Living" says the loss of Osama has also changed his life forever. His film, a first-person narrative of the events of September 29, revolves primarily around Osama Jeddah.

In that sense, Osama is luckier than many, for Bitar's film captures for eternity the loss of his young life. "I feel that I am somehow bonded forever to the Jeddah family," he wrote in a written response.

Bitar says that all of Palestine's martyrs must be given a special place in Palestinian collective memory. "If every Palestinian adopts the memory of a fallen Palestinian to commemorate, there will be no forgotten martyr," Bitar wrote. "In remembering our martyrs, there is also an element of catharsis and moral salvation for the living."

Bitar thinks that this is an important part of the Palestinian fight. "In the end, the Palestinians' most potent weapon is our collective memory - it is a weapon of mass survival."

As Osama's memory continues to live on in his mother's heart and the hearts of those who knew him, the Palestinian community, too, must not forget his death. "A land is not worth much without its people," says Bitar. "A people cannot have a meaningful existence without their land. History glues both together and gives meaning and purpose to the future of this holy union. Those who lost their lives to bring about this union are almost sacred and must be treated as such."

-Published 14/11/01

(c) Palestine Report - JMCC