Hocus pocus fall, and others await

Written by: Hamdi Farrag

On this day in history, the memory of the assassination of Ghassan Kanafani fifty years ago jumps every time, coinciding this year with the stand of Arafat and Eid al-Adha, during which - the fifty years - witnessed the fall of many superstitions attributed once to customs and once to religion; The blue bead that hangs at the entrance of the house or on the necks of the children and sometimes on the necks of the sheep for fear of envy, mothers walk barefoot and sometimes they travel to the shrine of the green guardian in fulfillment of a vow be his vow, adjusting the inverted shoe inside the house, not sweeping the house at night for fear of disturbing the jinn, if it The mother was forced to pour water at night to associate it with the Basmala, to enter the bathroom with the right foot, to read whatever supplications were available before going to sleep for fear of the sudden raid of "Azrael", to indoctrinate the deceased before his burial by the sheikh "O Abdullah" so that it would become clear after that that it was a "fad". Stopping it, Al-Fatah who was roaming the streets of the country in search of prey in order to cure diseases and read the horoscope, so he would have dinner and find him a place to stay and get some money and old clothes, pick up any crumb of bread from the ground, kiss it and put it on a high place.

Many are "hogs" that have fallen and disappeared, and most of them are hoaxes that are still common and valid among people, and Ghassan Kanafani is present here strongly, in his unfinished novel "The Blind and the Deaf" who, despite their disabilities, agree to go and examine one of these hoaxes, the tree of the ruler Abdel Ati Atrash lifts his blind friend on his shoulders and feels the "head" and discovers that it is just a fungus that has grown inside the branches of the tree.

Ghassan does not stop at this point in exposing the "khazala" by the "atrash" who works as an employee in the distribution of supplies in the UNRWA, as he sees people but does not hear them and does not understand their screams, and the "blind man" who works in an oven that sells bread, does not see them, but he does not see them. He hears them, his fingers feel the loaves of bread is his way of seeing. However, their victory over the governor Abd al-Ati opened the way for them towards the superstitions of the revolution in the person of the usurper "Mustafa", who seeks prestige, wealth and power, and for which he may be forced to participate in the fighting; He displays his revolver, carries a metal emblem on his chest, puts a bloody map of Palestine on the wall of his office, and lectures about patriotism and sacrifice for the sake of the homeland.

In their decisions, Al-Atrash and Al-Ama realize that after discovering the falsity and delusion of the saint's miracle, Abd Al-Ati, and freeing people from his power over them, they are more powerful than the opportunist "Mustafa" despite their disability.

In Ghassan's fifties, which coincides with Eid al-Adha, we acknowledge that we are still facing many other superstitions. We may need another fifty years to knock them out and uproot them with sacrifices, sufferings and struggles that increase the opening of more of our graves. "The graves of the revolution are without culture, and culture is without revolution." Happy new year to our revolution and our people.