Seattle Press on Line - The Agony of Identity

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The Agony of Identity

By Stephen Herold

Aug 15, 2002 -- Atop the eternal need of every generation to define themselves as people, we have the bubbling cauldron of national identity. Today it is still the most pressing and divisive movement of our time. Starting with the First World War, and building on the scattered national struggles of the 19th century, the principle of "National Self Determination" determines the color and direction of modern politics.

Originally, when all people were in small and isolated tribes it was obvious who was a "people," but as we multiplied so did the confusion. Great kingdoms and empires swallow different peoples, absorbing some forever, and assimilating others only until a collapse of power makes them free again. As we settle down to the consequences of this today, the world has become a relatively stable jigsaw puzzle of recognized nations. The tragedy is the few leftovers--sometimes ill-defined, sometimes despised and ignored and sometimes just too trivial to become another 120 square mile country. Of all these, the most pressing and difficult plight is that of the so-called Palestinians.

Books on this topic are almost hopelessly mired in dogma, doctrine and prejudice, either for or against someone. It is, therefore, amazingly refreshing to find a perceptive, touching insight into Palestine and the Palestinians. In Staircase of A Thousand Steps Masha Hamilton looks at all this through the eyes of people living ordinary lives in Palestine. With great wisdom Masha places her novel a generation ago under the Jordanian occupation of the West Bank. This frees her from the onus of current politics and violence and lets her deeply steep us in the psyche of the people.

The great struggles of mankind are more generational--tradition against innovation--than issue oriented. Nowhere is this more easily seen than in the Islamic world where the traditions run deep and ancient but in opposition to most of the values of the modern world. Given the low esteem and position of women in primitive societies, their struggles for equality are a central part of any identity movement. Hamilton grasps this truth and speaks through the voices of a distrusted but wise midwife and a small girl who foretells the past with agonizing accuracy. It is this weaving of country and gender that makes Staircase of A Thousand Steps so rewarding to read and perceptive of the Middle East today.

If this were all, it would be an important, but dull, book that analyses a political quagmire. But Masha Hamilton writes with flowing ease and rippling words that are hard to turn away from. She lived in the area for many years and seems to have a marvelous insight into the minds and hearts of the Palestinians, especially their women. Here we see the frustration of people trying to life ordinary lives while pawns of the power struggles of others. And even more disturbing, we see the abuse of women to the lasting weakness and detriment of Palestinian survival. They cannot move ahead and take their place in the world so long as they abuse and ignore half of their own people and ever turn to a distant past long dead.

Consider how Jammana and her mother, Rafa, the old and new generations, react to meeting Bedouins in the desert.

"Mama pulls her donkey back, but Jammana speeds up. She's never met a Bedouin. She imagines they speak in poetry and smell musty, like earth after rainfall. She is so busy urging her donkey forward that she almost misses the man sitting alone under a tree. Her attention is drawn by his music--high notes that are, to Jammana's ears, tuneless."

I am neither Palestinian nor Jewish, although I know many of both, but this book by an outsider to their communities rings true with the inner voice of poetic truth. I often had to take long breaks in reading it to digest its message and escape the harsh emotions of Palestinian life, but I would not have missed reading it for anything.

Steve Herold operates the Wit's End Bookstore in Fremont.

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