Memories of a Palestinian

A friend of mine is about to have a book published and for some reason he asked me to write an introduction or forward or something. So I did. The book's title will be the same as the title of this little piece because I asked him if I could put it on my blog as a "teaser". He seemed really pleased and said "yes, go ahead" so here it is.....

"When I was growing up in post-World War II England, the schools I went to had a daily assembly for all their pupils. A good proportion of that assembly would be an Anglican service, albeit a rather cut down one. Hymns were sung, prayers were said, mainly for the good of the school and its teachers, pupils and future successes, sometimes academic but occasionally to ask the Lord for help to beat rival schools at rugby. The headmaster would say something and there would be a reading or two from the bible. The Palestinians, or Philistines, did not get a good press in those readings. Indeed the word philistine has come to mean someone not interested in culture. But did it mean much to us schoolboys? England was recovering from the ravages of war, rock ’n’ roll started up and for us just entering onto its stage, life was fun, easy, and generally safe.

"Palestine, as mentioned in those daily assemblies seemed remote, and ancient. I don’t think any one of us gave a thought to what being a modern Palestinian might have been like. But Marwan Dajani did and with good cause. He was and remains to this day a Palestinian, born and living his early life in Jerusalem, part of a family with ties to the past, a heritage, and well off – well off enough to have, amongst other things, a holiday home in neighbouring Lebanon. Marwan and his family fled to that home in Lebanon, never to return to their native Jerusalem, when he was just a boy, but a boy old enough to have memories of life in the old country.

"When I, but for very different reasons, also came to live in Lebanon, Marwan chose to make the effort to befriend me and my life is richer for that. He has a fund of stories from his double or even triple life. Now, a warm-hearted and fun-loving family man spending much time playing with and encouraging his growing collection of grand-children, he was at one time a successful executive with international companies and later business man in his own right. He never forgot his roots though, at one time being a friend and confidant of the charismatic PLO leader Yassar Arafat.

"Having cut his publishing teeth, so to speak, with a series of poems about various aspects of his life, an even larger project was envisaged, to take those stories and experiences mentioned earlier and to weave them into a book that not only relates the events and actions of a full and varied life, but adds the dimension of being seen through the eyes of a Palestinian born and bred.

"Some of them are amusing, some are hair-raising but all ring true. It’s time someone gave the Philistines a better press."