Image: Guerilla

RIGHT

For personal reasons, I was engaged with limited duties; of course I fought and argued so I can join the battle. I started with training women so they can join the resistance, some duties included the hospitals or as watch guards, these tasks incorporated safe and dangerous orders for both civil and military purposes, At the time it was a rare sight women wearing the hijab, In my opinion the goal was that this neighborhood is not to be invaded or overrun by any faction no matter what. We placed limits and conditions on how much control each faction may have. For example, we had a rule that the bread needed to be distributed in a just and fair way not for military purpose but to local families. I remember there was a time when we were baking and distributing bread from the local bakery, a militia from another area came pointing their weapons at us demanding the bread. At that time I was in charge but with no weapons, I had to stop them by saying “you can kill me but the bread you can’t take”.

Our comrades would fall regularly on a daily basis and the majority of them were young and students, we lost one after the other but we would always respect their sacrifice. After a while, there was a moment of realization, an idea that the real accomplishment was that Palestine is the priority, and the liberation of Palestine is the goal of every Arab as a childhood memory or home teaching. At that time, Abdel Nasser’s ideas were amongst us, the formation of the Syrian unity and the Arab coups, we were young but we lived and grew amongst this ideology, through radio headlines about Palestine and for me Palestine is a dream. As a child, I remember there were train tracks where I lived, I asked my mother “Where does this track go to, is there a train or not”, she replied to me “this track takes you to Naqura and from Naqura you will be in Palestine”, I responded so “why are they fighting when we can all follow the tracks to Palestine”.

There was a moment during the civil war where we recognized that our neighborhood was outside our control, we weren’t able to stop or even keep any militia in remaining clean, so we asked each other where is the real battle, the battle is towards Palestine and for fact this is how it was, many of my friends and comrades went, left when the civil war became extremely difficult only a few remained because we fled from the internal hardships, we couldn’t deal with the militias or their demands anymore. Once I had to deal and negotiate with a cannon being placed in camouflage on a medical centre, I tried and succeeded that time by stating that this is no place for it, it will harm the innocent and affect the political support of that particular militia with the people. Another time I failed when two local parties began fighting each other when they were once together, so I started to separate my self emotionally from these situations questioning my self where has my strength gone, I was only trying to stop atrocities and this war has become unrestrained so many of us left to the South and Palestine became the focus for us and this gave us strength.

Not one day do I regret the experience of the South because in fact there was accountability and observation from all those concerned.

There was a democracy; people wouldn’t act without the approval of the majority. This assisted in a fair practice and this maintained even when there were mistakes. We were all responsible and these included horrific battles, we were all the same and the people saw us in various uniforms and roles from civil to military, we lobbied for aid for the people, we wrote poems and took part in public celebrations, performing in our names and in our situations. In my opinion this approach reassures the people that we are part of the local and we can be trusted, this method and movement carried on into the South of Lebanon, this relationship was important because even till now when I meet people from that area and period, its like a growing connection that remains small in relation to the nation.