{"id":7960,"date":"2017-06-09T23:33:23","date_gmt":"2017-06-09T21:33:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/?p=7960"},"modified":"2017-06-09T23:37:52","modified_gmt":"2017-06-09T21:37:52","slug":"the-scars-of-1967-through-the-eyes-of-an-arab-millennial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/2017\/06\/the-scars-of-1967-through-the-eyes-of-an-arab-millennial\/","title":{"rendered":"The scars of 1967 through the eyes of an Arab millennial"},"content":{"rendered":"

Source: TRT World<\/a><\/p>\n

Young Ahmed is raised with his father\u2019s scarring memories of the Six-Day War only to grow up and face his own socio-political trauma.<\/h3>\n
\"TRT

Credit: Mageed Alzaidy and Zayd Alshagouri<\/p><\/div>\n

Achment Gonim is of Egyptian descent, raised in Greece and educated between Britain and the US. As part of TRT World\u2019s coverage of the 50th anniversary of the 1967 Six-Day War, the <\/i>25-year-old reflects on how that historic scar helped shape his identity.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0Humble beginnings<\/b><\/p>\n

\u00a0The smell of salty waves splashing against the decaying rocks commands the air. There is a peculiar solitude engulfing the magnanimous coastline as it gently echoes its Mediterranean legacy.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Sitting on the corniche in the northern Egyptian city of Alexandria during a visit back to their homeland, a father looks deeply into the eyes of his son, telling him:<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cAhmed, you must never forget you are a Muslim Arab. I am telling you this so you know who you are. Whatever happens to me, you need to be proud of where you come from and help your people.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cSo why don\u2019t we stay here, dad?\u201d the inquisitive child asked.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cBecause of what Israel and the West did to us in 1967. They took our land and we lost everything we had. Our family was starving so I had to leave to provide for them. The \u2018Naksa\u2019 son, you must never forget it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0At five years of age, this was the first time the young boy was confronted with his identity, an inherited belief system coupled with an ancient tribal culture and tormented history that was to burden him throughout his future travels, yet become the epicentre of his raison d\u2019etre.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Naksa<\/i>, Arabic for \u201cthe Setback\u201d, refers to the 1967 Six-Day War which marked Israel\u2019s victory over Palestine, Egypt, Syria and Jordan. Israel\u2019s military, economic, and political superiority were established, and today marks 50 years of the occupation of Palestine.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cI will become president of Egypt,\u201d the young boy would excitedly exclaim to his family and friends.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Every Sunday, it was football, politics and religion \u2014 an educational opportunity for Ahmed, who didn\u2019t spend much time with his migrant parents who spent their days and nights serving wealthy Greek suburban families.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cYou don\u2019t need to celebrate your birthday. Have you liberated Palestine and Jerusalem? Have you saved Iraq<\/i> [from US occupation]? What have you done my son?\u201d <\/i>his father would tell him. \u201cWhat you need to do is to stop wasting your time, start reading, writing and learning.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0Though he was intrigued, the boy was starting to get overwhelmed by the heavy rhetoric and was finding other ways to pass his trouble-free days instead.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Bouncing the ball on his head while his feet sank in the soft white sand on the Greek coast, Ahmed started developing a knack with the round ball. A talent limited by a clear absence of team spirit and temperament.<\/p>\n

\u00a0He was inherently influenced by the contrast between what he learnt and observed at school, and what he was hearing and living at home. A singular personality was brewing in the mind of someone who was living across two divergent worlds, and therefore different from most other children his age.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Tormented Identity<\/b><\/p>\n

\u00a0In the early 2000s \u2013 while attending an international school in Athens, Greece \u2013 Ahmed was experiencing what is known as \u201cthird culture\u201d, a term referring to children raised in a culture other than that of their parents. Being taught everything through a British curriculum and world view meant that he was increasingly starting to question his father\u2019s teachings. A different history, different values and different outlook on life all started becoming ingrained.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cYou cannot live like people here. They will never treat you like one of them. You are not one of them, and you cannot believe the lies they teach you at school,\u201d<\/i> his father poignantly murmured while walking his now high school-aged son to the bus station one morning.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Parallel characters started to develop as the child sought football stardom, and alternatively dreamed of being immortalised as a revolutionary hero. Yet he envied the ability of his peers to maintain their childlike consciousness, untouched by blasphemy, war, divisive politics and conspiracy.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0His undiplomatic disposition, familial scepticism and unintentional narcissism were enough to prevent him from pursuing his Zidane-like moment. Unsurprisingly, as an egocentric testosterone-filled teenager, he aggressively blamed this failure on those around him, and the nepotistic, corrupt and at times racist nature of grassroots football.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Fortunately, the pursuit of knowledge had not died, mostly thanks to the persistence and upbringing of his mother \u2014 an orphan who had raised her eight younger siblings \u2014 and the ideological intellect passed on by his 70-year-old father.<\/p>\n

\u00a0At 17, having witnessed the distinct paradigm shifts created around him in the aftermath of the 9\/11 attacks and the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, he was thrown into the jungle of adult life.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Still, despite being cocooned in the theoretical bubble of academia, the young man grew more and more confused, desperately unable to reconcile the teachings of his father with his own morphing identity amidst the First World problems of life in cosmopolitan Europe.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Whilst attending an international relations lecture at university in the US, the topic of the 1967 Six-Day War is analysed. As he desperately tries to defend all that his father taught him, one of his American classmates interrupts him abruptly.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cCome on please, we completely destroyed Egypt and all the rest of your anti-semitic neighbours. You wanted to destroy Israel but we will always be the greatest and you cannot do anything to stop that. It wasn\u2019t a Six-Day War, it was more like a six-minute war.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0Many of his classmates chuckled and laughed as Ahmed was left alone boiling in rage without a chance, as the room quickly turned against him.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Sandy shores, scorching sunlight and the warmth of his family homes, whether in Athens or Alexandria, were all absent from this dimension, and slowly eroding from his dispirited existence. The confines of the lecture room were unable to fully draw him in, and his teachers were unable to nurture his mind with what he viewed as their theoretically outdated words.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Early adulthood and inspiration<\/b><\/p>\n

\u00a0The boy now looks like a man, but is more focused on confronting mundane incidents of racism, expressing his own reactionary politics, defined by a deep hatred for the US, Israel and colonial history. Still unattached to the concept of a higher education and missing a purpose in life, he was getting carried away most of his time enjoying the guilty pleasures of a Western life.<\/p>\n

\u00a0That exploded when that once unthinkable phenomenon that he had dreamt of as a child actually happened. The cry for \u201cbread, freedom and social justice\u201d roared from the streets of Tahrir Square.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cWalk like an Egyptia<\/i>n,\u201d they said around the world, as the hereditary scars of disunity and humiliation carved in 1948 and 1967 came to a momentary halt. Goosebumps creeped on all his limbs as euphoria flooded the hearts and minds of Arab youth, wherever they stood.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0Suddenly, it all made sense. His long derailed focus was back on track, and he steamed rapidly through graduation. The weary disconnected bridge linking East and West in his mind was once again reconnecting, as the young man galloped his way into what he thought would be a refreshing new era for him and the world alike.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cLearning when you are young is like carving on a stone, but when you get older it is like trying to carve in water,\u201d<\/i> his father uttered to him over the phone.<\/p>\n

\u00a0A change of curriculum, university, field of study and attitude moulded him into becoming an over-ambitious underachiever. Yet that failure was no longer disheartening. Instead, it fuelled a sense of perseverance, team-work and leadership that he never before felt.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Now multilingual, armed with a prestigious education, and a \u201cthird culture\u201d accumulated through travel, friendship and love, he returned to the heart of his beloved Arab world.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Disheartening realities<\/b><\/p>\n

\u00a0But the dimming sound of freedom was soon replaced by the violent return to the normalcy of tyranny, censorship and pain. By mid-2013, the counter-revolution was in full throttle whilst the powerless young man was left with the pressure of chasing a career whilst being mentally swamped with the sadistic myriad of inevitable events that would rapidly submerge his homeland.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It seemed like another \u201cNaksa-like\u201d moment. Unlike 1967, this time around it wasn\u2019t land being lost, but hearts and minds that were being destroyed, and the fire of hope was once again blown away.This time, it wasn\u2019t Israel killing Arabs, but rather Arab despots massacring and imprisoning thousands torturing them into silence. The collective trauma was the same, and the consequences on the psyche of future generations of Arab youth were perhaps even worse this time around.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Yet that short-lived glimpse of hope followed by the crushing defeat of people-led power, had triggered an uncensored confession of all that had been kept in the collective sewer of the Arab conscience.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The smell had escaped, and as the repulsive stench settled from the coasts of the Mediterranean to the deserts of the Gulf, the dreams of his generation had emerged only to fail them all once again. Sleepless curfew nights turned into nightmares televised in real-time, violently disheartening millions of viewers.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The now not-so young man, needed to find his bearings on the ever-shifting compass of life. So he returned to the cement-filled estates of his former colonial masters.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The young man knew he was lost in a mirage of a monotonous life masquerading himself in public as a content young professional in London. The question was, would he be courageous enough to hear the sounds from afar, trying to break into the prism of his mind?<\/p>\n

\u00a0Past confessions<\/b><\/p>\n

\u00a0Upon his return to post-coup Egypt, he stood toe-to-toe, and shoulder-to-shoulder with his father outside a mosque. Ahmed\u2019s father came to terms with him about Arab people, their leaders and the self-inflicted conspiracy of what he saw as their dismal destiny.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The wise man, it seemed, had no more time for hyperbole, long-lost memories and inflated truths.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cWe did this to ourselves. When you were young [telling you about the glory of our homeland] was the only way to make you love your country and your religion. Now you are a man and you can see the truth for yourself,\u201d<\/i> his father told him despondently.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Unfazed by the pessimist\u2013stricken words of his parent and the fear of his mother losing a son, he felt determined to break out of the self-imposed normalcy of chasing a meaningless career. He desired more, as his partner reminded him of his unique oratory and linguistic talents that could \u201cchange the unchangeable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0The best is yet to come<\/b><\/p>\n

\u00a0The clock was ticking and patience was running short. Another divine opportunity revealed itself from the East, as the sun failed to appear on a wintry Friday morning in London. An offer to cross the Mediterranean arose once again, this time to fulfil the journalistic mandate of helping to convey a truth that will empower the powerless, and give voice to the voiceless.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The veil of power rapidly uncovering itself in front of him, the re-inspired young man effortlessly tries to finds solace in the swaying winds gusting across his face, while he gazes at the endless tranquility of the Bosphorus.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The sound of the Adhaan<\/i>, the Islamic call to prayer, beckons, reminding him how close he is to home, and of his responsibility towards his family whose words are prayer-like reminders of his existential purpose.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s so beautiful it hurts,\u201d<\/i> his colleague exclaims.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Mind-boggled, the young man could very much relate to an invisible feeling of pain. Still, he can\u2019t help but ponder about how he got here and where he will be next.<\/p>\n

\u00a0He can\u2019t stop and think of his fortune which separated him from the many others who turned to violence, or thousands entangled in prison cells, silently censored and tortured, only to be left in the abyss of misery and contempt.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Staring at his far more experienced peer, he thinks to himself, \u201cIt does hurt but I will do something great, <\/i>l will spend my last breath trying to help my people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0Lesson from one Naksa to Another<\/b><\/p>\n

\u00a0Ahmed had come to terms with the realities of his generation\u2019s 1967 moment. His family\u2019s struggle, forced emigration, poverty and trauma caused as a result of the Six-Day War had been described so vividly to him that it had become an intrinsic part of his own psyche.<\/p>\n

But the gust of fresh air that he witnessed during the 2011 Arab uprisings was enough to give him hope, to regain pride and a renewed sense of belonging to his land of origin. It was no longer all humiliation, defeat, depression and confusion, there was something to look up to back home.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The counter-revolution was traumatic, having seen friends, family and millions of his people suffer as a result of tyranny. Yet Ahmed refused to deal with the shock in the same way his predecessors dealt with their violent trauma.<\/p>\n

\u00a0He would not regress into anger, hate, vengeance and lack of hope. He was determined that he and his generation would use their talents to continue resisting the dictatorial epidemic that had swept the Arab world.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Now was not the time for becoming narrow-minded and rejecting others. It was not time to accept another setback as a given, or to fall for the illusion of another leaderless revolution. Before he would blame external forces, before attempting to react to the growing climate of racism and inhumanity around the world, he was was determined to tackle his own demons and those plaguing the collective mind of his un-evolving elders.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It was time to adopt a pluralistic message, it was time for freedom of expression, and it was time to sacrifice mundane pleasures for hard work and creativity.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Most importantly for Ahmed, it was time to survive this Naksa<\/i> with his head held up high and learn from the invaluably scarring lesson of history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source: TRT World Young Ahmed is raised with his father\u2019s scarring memories of the Six-Day War only to grow up and face his own socio-political trauma. Achment Gonim is of Egyptian descent, raised in Greece […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7961,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,20,47,16,52,45,122,57,88,48,10],"tags":[470,682,732,733],"class_list":["post-7960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-citizens-and-civil-society","category-culture-and-literature","category-ethnic-issues-and-communities","category-expert-narratives","category-international-justice-human-rights-online-library","category-minorities","category-politics","category-refugees-and-idps","category-slider","category-war-and-peace","category-world","tag-egypt","tag-israel","tag-six-day-war","tag-testimony","country-palestine","country-world","Documents-statements-multimedia"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7960"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7960\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8034,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7960\/revisions\/8034"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}