Yasser Arafat: A Smile from beneath the Rubble
“When the camp smiles,
Large cities frown” (Mahmoud Darwish)
A smile never departed him. It is always drawn on his face: it is broad, beautiful and warm. You might think it is a feature of his face, which he bestows generously. As time changed the face, gray hair crawled on and wrinkles appeared to carve trenches on the forehead, the old age did not take away the young and lively smile. As ever, the smile always marked him and testified for him. If it faded away in a moment of anger or pensiveness, it would come back more glorious and spreads out warmth. It casts its shadow over people in councils and enliven their dialogues and conversations.
When it is gloomy, the horizon is shut and despair is imminent, Yasser Arafat’s smile served like the mountain of rescue that stretched out embrace to all those whose arm were worn of rowing against the current. Thus he was in the siege of Beirut: he surprised his fighters in trenches, laughing as if he had come from a mighty victory. Jesting with them, he enhanced the morale of his fighters up to the routes of championship. It would have sufficed that his fighters see him standing in the midst of them, smiling and lifting the sign of victory, so that they put off their fatigue and be invigorated with the spirit of perseverance. As such did foreign journalists see him in the siege when he visited a site that had been shelled and devastated. He walked proudly across a street that was destitute of people, distributing his smile and raising the sign of victory to those who thought he would be a precious prey for the front pages of their newspapers. A pedantic would ask him: “Why, in your opinion, did the Israelis not raid the besieged Beirut?”. That pedantic would wait to hear from Arafat a political analysis about a Soviet or American “veto” against the invasion of an Arab capital. Yasser Arafat answers simply, but with a smile that stretches across his face: “Because they are cowards.” The journalist might have recalled – later on – how accurate the answer was when the Israeli army raided Beirut after the Palestinian resistance had departed it.
Twenty years after the Beirut blockade, Sharon would besiege Yasser Arafat inside his headquarters in Ramallah after the Israeli army reinvaded the West Bank. The calamity was severe: mass destruction of all infrastructure networks, hundreds of martyrs and injured citizens, tens of thousands of homeless civilians, a total closure of cities, villages and refugee camps, fragmented natural and human geography, and communities turned into pockets and cages. Yasser Arafat was subject to a house arrest that was most humiliating of the mind and body: bullets were fired day and night on the headquarters and buildings were destroyed to reduce the area of his residence to the minimum (two rooms). Water and electricity supplies were cut off and telephone landlines and all means of communication with the outside world were disconnected. Visits of foreign delegations and members of the Leadership were denied. Worse, the man was addressed via megaphones and called on to surrender! Suddenly, from beneath the wreck of such Israeli humiliation, the voice of Abu Ammar echoes, breaking silence and stating in a sense of glory and honour: “They want me dead, captive or fugitive... I tell them: No, I will be a martyr, a martyr, a martyr.” With these words, it seems that he set a wildfire. Crowds of protestors marched and broke the curfew on Ramallah; they rushed outrageously towards Al Muqata’ah in order to lift the siege imposed on their national symbol. In the meantime, cameras were transmitting to TV satellite channels throughout the world the picture of Yasser Arafat in light of candles – inside the headquarters which was dark but of the light of his perseverance – while he was spreading his smile to his people.
That was his smile. Its story tells more about Yasser Arafat’s path of outstanding national struggle. It can be read. It was the title of a cause, which rhetorically talks about itself. With sublime rhetoric, the smile says that it is heading towards victory even if the path is wound and progress is slowed down by betrayal of fellow brethren of the nation. Yasser Arafat did not need to feign the features of an optimist. Indeed, the man enjoyed the revolutionary optimism. It was the optimism of the believer and struggler. He had faith in God. He believed in his people and nation and in his just cause. He read history and paid particular attention to its lessons and themes. You tell him that Palestine had devolved to people other than its own, but he replies that God’s promise is right and that Palestinians – and Muslims – will enter Jerusalem “like they did the first time”. You say that the Israelis have abducted Palestine for five decades and that their rule over it is de facto. However, he reminds you that the Crusaders spent in Jerusalem double the time and then left. You say that the Palestinians were left alone in the battle and that Arabs let them down, but he showers you with examples that acquit the will of peoples of the calculations of states. You ask him: “What do you have in hand that makes it possible for you to place the Palestinian national project on the path of historical achievement?” He answers: “I have the colossal people”.
This revolutionary optimism – and the shining smile drawn out of it – inspired Yasser Arafat to speak out more insightful phrases in moments of hopelessness and despair. Many would think such talk was unreasonable contention, which is said to console oneself or create a mobilisation from nothing. In Beirut, a journalist asked him while he was preparing to leave together with thousands of Palestinian fighters in the 1982 summer: “Where to after Beirut?” “To Palestine”, Arafat answered him. We heard that answer and wept bitterly for this dream which shattered. It seemed as if it was a haughty answer. Nevertheless, Arafat returned to Palestine about 12 years later. We wanted it to be a more beautiful and greater return with better terms and conditions than those prescribed by the infamous Oslo. Still, he returned, but did never abandon his principled values which we imagined – before the second Camp David negotiations (July 2000) had been launched – were neglected. We were disappointed. Yasser Arafat’s smile is more than a sign of perseverance; it is a title of history, a title of a stage that is abundant with great expectations and open-ended trust and confidence in triumph – trust and confidence that did never forsake him in the pitch-black darkness.
Who would smile after you, Abu Ammar?
* Al Mustakbal Newspaper, Lebanon, 23 November 2004
