The Palestinians argue about almost everything. They argue in the coffee shop, at the funeral, at the demonstration, at the vegetable market, and in the media. Writes Ghassan Zaqtan
Listening in the Palestinian case seems to be a difficult task, while the voices roam the halls and squares of the celebrations, and the events roll in every direction like pots that collide with the walls non-stop, and from all angles the recipient can get the sounds with their various layers and degrees of intensity, without effort he can find the noise they make Chaos where endings advance to their destinies without glories, and beginnings climb the side stairs and deserted staircases and appear from behind windows hasty and impatient. whose bodies were not completed.
Something is being folded here and something is being published.
A generation that folds its history under its arm, driven by the expiration of time, while trying with the other hand to open a door that no longer exists, and a generation waving free hands in what looks like a late claim for rights that have been disposed of.
When every sound turns into an event, when a long archive of facts stumbles behind every statement, and the lines between diligence and improvisation disappear.
To listen to all these irrefutable certainties rushing around you all at once is a difficult task indeed.
The Palestinians argue about almost everything. They argue in the coffee shop, at the funeral, at the demonstration, at the vegetable market, and in the media.
The Palestinians lack a place for discussion, a place for listening exchange, a place where all these volatile certainties can be put into a schedule. The division has squandered everything. This is its greatest blow, the loss of listening.
There is no representative body agreed upon to present ideas in its space, and there are no elections on the horizon whose results can be relied upon. The Legislative Council has been faltering outside its legitimacy for a long time. It continues to be fed with new powers, and the National Assembly has turned into a printing machine for statements of denunciation, appeals, congratulations and telegrams of condolences.
That is why the Palestinians are arguing in the street, continuing to divide, argue, and generate disagreement. They put their convictions and judgments like barricades and stand behind them.
This happens when the people lose the road signs to the legislative hall that represents them, where everyone rules over the majority without excluding or ignoring the minority.
When all kinds of elites lose the virtue of listening.
This is what happens to us, this is what will continue to happen.
This article is republished from Al-Ayyam
