Why I Am So
Angry?
By;
Israel
Bonan
I am perplexed, to say
the least. So please help me out here.
It took me over 37
years before I cared to share my story with my own
family and my own children; the
Story of My
Exodus from Egypt after the '67 war with Israel. It was not a
pretty story, but then it was not the worst either, some
of my closest friends remained incarcerated under worst
conditions in Egyptian jails for over 3 years, I was
spared such fate, my jail experience was only for 6
days.
I asked myself, why I
kept quiet about it for so long? Was I ashamed of the
experience, well at some level I must have been. I am
sure a lot of us do not wish to share episodes of
physical abuse with others, or the experiencing of a
terrifying moment or two, where losing one's life may
have been at stake. But that was not it.
Was I so absorbed in
making a life for myself and my family, instead of
cogitating, and looking at my own belly button, so to
speak, and dwell on the negative and forget that to be
alive is to experience such life to its fullest? Well,
may be some of that too, we were refugees, we got help,
we moved on, we succeeded in our careers, so what's the
problem? Let’s forgive and forget. I say no again to
that, it was not enough of an excuse.
May be it is the irony
of it. Here is a terrorist of the worst kind, Chairman
Arafat who saw to it, to put the Palestinian problem
front and center in the world's eyes and attention, and
gave the Palestinians a "cause celebre", while in the
background kept them in tatters and in tents. He, made
sure that his own family and cronies lived high on the
hog and yet it is only the Palestinians and what they
lost that still is front and center in the Middle East
narrative. Theirs is the only story of suffering; theirs
is the only story worth being told. Are we being
punished because we succeeded, and the world cannot
empathize with people's success?
The irony does not stop
there. A lot of organizations now are cropping up
advocating reconciliation with Egypt, a noble and
necessary step to advance the cause of Peace in the
Middle East. I too, am a peace advocate and will cherish
the day when that event comes to be, so what's the
problem then?
It came as a surprise
to me, during the past year, that the aging Jewish
community from Egypt is not of one mind on the subject
of our history in Egypt. It is not that they were
totally unaware of it, I was mostly surprised that for
some they wished to deny it. Why bring it up? What
purpose will it serve? We need to mute it out? And I ask
myself why?
I do not wish for
anger, but anger is the only emotion I currently
experience. When I referred to our community as an
'aging' one, it was supposed to imply, the maturity and
experience, the enhanced ability to reflect and measure
our responses and finally our generation will gradually
fade from the scene. So what do we want, to disappear
without our stories being told? Do we have and need Six
million of us dead before we react to what happened to
us? Of course our miseries dwarfs by comparison to the
Holocaust experience, but it was a tragic one
nonetheless. How can we fathom reconciling without Egypt
and her Government apologize to us, at a minimum, for
what they did to us and our parents before us?
Are our sensibilities
so jarred, by the stories, that we chose to ignore them?
It's only Palestinians and the Chairman that do that
sort of thing, and not us? What will get you angry, with
me? More than 3 years in jail, losing more than our self
respect, more than abandoning our hard earned fortunes?
I ask you, what have we
learned from old age? Some of us I am sure are married,
may be with their second or third mate; what have we
learned from relationships; that we can slap each other,
go to bed and forget about it the next morning? NO, we
learned, to confront the problems, talk about them and
apologize when apology is called for, and here we are,
we were blissfully wedded to Egypt, only she slapped us
silly, stomped on our human rights and took all our
community property without even a judicial review; and
now we go to bed and wake up in the morning and let's
forgive and forget? What kind of logic is that? Please
get angry, with me.
True reconciliation,
that is so one sided is abhorring to me. I beg you to
get angry with me, it is our right to ask for an
apology, it is our right to ask for restitution
and it is our right to ask for our self respect back. It
is Egypt's turn to recognize what she did to a community
that participated fully in her well being, only to be
wronged in return.
It is a two way street,
reconciliation is. I crave it, but I also crave
my self respect, I also crave my dignity and I also
crave leaving a clean legacy to our children after us. I
need to be able to tell my sons, looking them up in the
eye; that we were wronged but did not accept it or
rolled over and played dead. I ask you to join me in
doing the right thing for our community, because I
sincerely believe it is the right thing.
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