Suffering from a Palestinian perspective

"'I know that suffering is the truth,' Khaled said quietly His teeth were clenched. 'I know that suffering is the sharp end of the whip, and not suffering is the blunt end - the end that the master holds in his hands.'

'If you'd been born and raised in Palestine, you'd know that some people are born to suffer. And it never stops, for them. Not for a second. You'd know where real suffering comes from. It's the same place where love and freedom and pride are born. And it's the same place where those feelings and ideals die. That suffering never stops. We only pretend it does. We only tell ourselves it does, to make the kids stop whimpering in their sleep.'"

Note: This is copyrighted material that belongs to the author of Shantaram, Gregory David Roberts. I transcribe these passages on to my blog out of sheer admiration for his writing. I found the passages on suffering to be especially moving and powerful. I may include other quotes in due time but I may not since there are just too many gems in this fantastic novel.


The context:

"'I was in love with a Jewish girl once, you know?' Khaled asked. 'She was...she was a beautiful girl, and smart, and maybe, I don't know, maybe the nicest human being I'm ever gonna meet. that was in New York. We were students together. Her parents, they were reform Jews - they supported Israel, but they were against the occupation of the territories. I was with that girl, making love to her, on the night my father died in an Israeli prison.'

[...]

'Anyway, I went back home, and I was just in time for the October War - the one the Israelis call the Yom Kippur War. We got smashed. I made it to Tunis, and got some training. I started fighting , and I kept on fighting, all the way to Beirut. When the Israelis invaded, we made stand at Shatila. My whole family was there, and a lot of my neighbours from the old days. All of them, all of us, we were all refugees, with nowhere else to go.'

'Were you evacuated, with the other fighters?'

'Yeah. They couldn't beat us, so they worked out a truce. We left the camps - with our weapons, you know, to show that we weren't defeated. We marched, like soldiers, and there was a lot of firing in the air. Some people got killed just watching us. I twas weird, like a parade or some kind of bizarre celebration, you know? And then, when we were gone, they broke all their promises, and they sent the Phalange into the camps, and they killed all the old men, and the women, and the children. And they all died. All my family. All the ones I left behind. I don't even know where their bodies are. They hid them, because they knew it was a war crime. And you think...you think I should let it go, Lin?'"