Sumud - Symbols, Icons, Literary References

Symbols, Icons, Literary References

In addition to the peasant, and the pregnant peasant woman in particular, the olive tree and its long history of rootedness in the region is a primary symbol of sumud for Palestinians. This association manifested itself in Palestinian poetry, such as in Raja Shehadeh's 1982 poem which reads:

"Sometimes, when I am walking in the hills ... unselfconsciously enjoying the touch of the hard land under my feet, the smell of thyme and the hills and trees around me, I find myself looking at an olive tree, and as I am looking at it, it transforms itself before my eyes into a symbol of the samidin, of our struggle, of loss. And at that very moment I am robbed of the tree; instead there is a hollow space into which anger and pain flow."

Shehadeh, a West Bank lawyer, did not confine his references to sumud to poetry. In his book The Third Way (1982), he wrote, "We samidin cannot fight the Israelis' brute physical force but we must keep the anger burning - steel our wills to fight the lies. It is up to us to remember and record." Adriana Kemp notes of his representation of the samid that it is a situation of ambivalence, citing Shaehadeh's note on his voluntary return to the West Bank after being in Europe where he could have stayed, wherein he writes, "It is strange coming back like this, of your own free will, to the chains of sumud." Shehadeh also harshly critiqued the Palestinian elite who benefitted from paying "only widely patriotic lip-service to our struggle, was more than my sumud in my poor and beloved land could stomach." Ironically, many Palestinians viewed people like Shehadeh, from a notable middle-class family in the West Bank, as forming part of the strata which benefitted most from the policies of financial support for the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in the 1980s and accused them of promoting maintenance of the status quo through the policy of sumud.

Edward Said found encouragement in the increased self-consciousness and determination to stay in historic Palestine that had gained prominence among Palestinians in the occupied territories. In After the Last Sky: Palestinian Lives (1986), he references Shehadeh's work and characterizes sumud as "an entirely successful tactical solution" at a time when no efficacious strategy is available.

In Palestinian Like Me (1989), Yoram Binur, an Israeli journalist and committed Zionist who lived undercover as an Arab labourer for six months in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem in order to experience what such a life might be like, describes sumud as "an attitude, a philosophy, and a way of life." It is, " a more basic form of resistance growing out of the idea that merely to exist, to survive and to remain on one's land is an act of defiance - especially when deportation is the one thing that Palestinians fear most."

In describing more active forms of sumud, Binur tells of his encounter with two Arabs who were employed as construction workers at the Israeli settlement of Beit El. In response to Binur's admonishment (in his role as an Arab) for working for the "worst of them", the workers replied that not only does the money they receive for such work allow them to be samidin by living where they are, but that in their work they take advantage of every opportunity to "fight them". Binur asks, "What can you do as a simple labourer?" To which one of the workers replies:

"Quite a bit. First of all, after I lay the tiles in the bathroom or kitchen of an Israeli settler, when the tiles are all in place and the cement has already dried, I take a hammer and break a few. When we finish installing sewage pipes, and the Jewish subcontractor has checked to see that everything is alright, then I stuff a sackful of cement into the pipe. As soon as the water runs through that pipe the cement gets hard as rock, and the sewage system becomes blocked."

Sliman Mansour, a Palestinian artist, has produced images that "gave visual form to the newly formulated ideology of Sumud," which Gannit Ankori describes as "a firm rootedness in the land, regardless of the hardships and humiliation caused by occupation." Among the examples of Mansour's work that are cited by Ankori are two oils on canvass, Olive-picking (1987) and Olive-picking Triptych (1989).

Muhannad 'Abd Al-Hamid, columnist for the Palestinian daily Al-Ayyam, wrote that resistance (muqawama) is the legitimate right of the Palestinian people, but that, in light of its steep cost and limited results, other means of struggle should be used. Al-Hamid argues that:

"Resistance is survival and steadfastness. It is planting trees, developing education, boycotting Israeli products, a popular uprising against the racist separation fence, building homes in Jerusalem, reopening the institutions, struggling against all forms of corruption, boycotting companies that contribute to the Judaization of Jerusalem and also to the building of the settlements, and also boycotting companies that supply arms to the occupation army. There are a hundred more ways of resistance that will damage the occupation more than they will damage us, while preserving the legitimate right of resistance under conditions that will not harm the security and interests of the people.

However, some other high pofile Fatah members, as Husam Khader, declared: "Fatah has not changed its national identity, and it retains the option of resistance and armed struggle. But now, for the first time... it is permitting the option of negotiations as one of the Palestinian people's strategic options and as a possible way of attaining its political goals."