My Salwa My Palestine

DESCRIPTION

Di Atas Bukit Tuhan Kisah Tentang Kesetiaan Pada Tuhan, Tanah Air, dan Manusia Ibrahim Fawal menuturkan kisah memilukan terusirnya sebuah bangsa dari tanah air yang telah ribuan tahun mereka diami. Fawal seakan-akan melantunkan nyanyian duka puluhan ribu penduduk Palestina yang dibantai, diperkosa, kehilangan rumah dan keluarga, bahkan kehilangan pandangan hidup karena situasi politik yang nyatanya masih berlangsung hingga saat ini. Bersamaan dengan itu, pecahlah kedamaian antar-umat Kristen, Islam, dan Yahudi, yang sebelumnya hidup rukun beratus-ratus tahun di Palestina. Dendam dan amarah pun tumbuh. Kisah dalam novel ini tambah menarik karena diwarnai lika-liku cinta antara Yousif Safi, sang tokoh utama, dan Salwa, seorang gadis cantik di kotanya. Bukan sekadar kisah romantisme sebagai pemanis atau bumbu belaka. Bukan pula kisah cinta remaja yang penuh kecengengan. Yousif bahkan menempatkan Salwa dan Palestina pada tataran yang sama. Cintanya terhadap Palestina sama besarnya dengan cintanya terhadap Salwa. Bahkan ada benang merah yang menghubungkan bahwa perjalanan cintanya terhadap Palestina memiliki alur yang mirip dengan kisah cintanya terhadap Salwa. Inilah kisah seorang anak manusia yang terjebak dalam situasi yang menguji kesetiaannya pada Tuhan, tanah air, dan kemanusiaan. Akankah ia mengkhianati semua yang dicintainya itu? Ataukah ia akan menyerah pada dendam dan amarah yang membutakan hati? *** IBRAHIM FAWAL lahir di Ramallah, Palestina. Ia pindah ke Amerika Serikat untuk menyelesaikan pendidikannya, menerima gelar master dalam film dari UCLA. Ia berkerja bersama sutradara terkenal David Lean sebagai "orang Yordania" pertama yang menjadi asisten sutradara dalam film klasik Lawrence of Arabia. Fawal tinggal di Birmingham, Alabama, tempat ia mengajar film dan sastra di Birmingham-Southern College dan University of Alabama di Birmingham. Baru-baru ini ia meraih gelar Ph.D dari Oxford University, yang memusatkan perhatiannya pada penelitian mengenai kultur Arab melalui film karya Youssef Chahine, sutradara terkemuka di dunia Arab. Disertasinya, Youssef Chahine, telah diterbitkan oleh British Film Institute. On the Hills of Gods adalah novel pertama Fawal. Novel ini meraih PEN-Oakland Award untuk kategori Excellence in Literature dan telah diterjemahkan ke dalam bahasa Arab dan Jerman. Keunggulan buku ini: 1. Novel peraih PEN-Oakland Award untuk kategori Excellence in Literature. 2. Menuturkan pergolakan dalam masyarakat Palestina yang multi-religi menjelang berdirinya negara Zionis Israel.

REVIEW My Salwa My Palestine

Oleh : A_Anggono, 30 Nov 2007-12:29:13

Rating

On the Hills of God describes the year-long journey of a boy named Yousif Safi becoming a man, while all that he has known crumbles to ashes. When we first encounter Palestinian Yousif Safi in June 1947, he is filled with hopes for his education abroad to study law, and with daydreams of his first love, the beautiful Salwa. But as the future of Palestine begins to look bleak due to the pressure on the United Nations from the international Zionist movement, Yousif is frustrated by his fellow Arabs' inability to thwart the Zionist encroachment and by his own inability to prevent the impending marriage of Salwa to an older suitor chosen by her parents. As Palestinians face the imminent establishment of Israel, Yousif resolves to face his own responsibilities of manhood. Despite the monumental odds against him, Yousif vows to win back both his loves—Salwa and Palestine—and create his world anew.

We could see how the evil axis consists of United States of America, United Kingdom and Israel Zionist works using United Nation. They plan to taking over Palestine systematically from Balfour Declaration to give time to the Zionist to prepare and army to attack Palestine. At the same time British army hardly force and guard Palestinian from any movement to prepare their defense, not mentioned collecting weapon as Zionist have done in support by the evil axis.

We also could see how Ben Gurion is better in the eye of Fawal by saying that Ben Gurion would cries if he know what Menachem Begin have done using his army attacking a village than kill all the people, torture man was not killed yet (then kill after torture them) and rape women before kill them. He picture how sadistic Zionist army is. They kill baby by torn the mother’s womb and make both (the baby and the mother dead slowly). It is truly impossible for Begin to do this without Gurion and all Zionist leaders permitted him.

We also see how Arab leader not support Palestinian people by full support. Only Jordanian King Abdullah sent his army to help the Palestinian. But it is then no use when UN, USA and UK support Zionist when it has difficulty to fight Jordan Armed Forces. The evil axis then force Jordan to enter cease of fire to make Zionist heal and make another preparation to fight back. In this cease of fire period Zionist make another attack to the Palestine. As all holly book said and all people know, this is the character of Jews, could no be trusted and always break the commitment. Even their God (or messenger was more precise) was killed by them.

Another reason for Jordan not to support Palestine in full because of on that time Jordan was a poor country compared with Palestine people. Jordan on that time has to be supported by UK.

When the Zionist enact their forced to taking over the Palestine, all non-jews Palestine people are brutally turned out without (and forbidden by Zionist) any preparation and not allowed to bring anything with them. Much of them do not survive in the long, hard march across the dessert without water to safe refuge. This is planned by jews to kill much as non jews people.

The Arab-Christian voice is no longer silent On The Hills Of God. Finally, one can read about al-Nakba, the Great Catastrophe. The interesting in telling this Nakba is, this story was told from the viewpoint of an Arab Christian. Fawal gives a very personal, human face to the main characters (drawn as composites of his contemporaries) as he describes the destruction of a centuries-old way of life by a virtually 100% foreign-born army in its relentless push for control of land, water and economic resources. One can read the first-hand account of the mass exodus of frightened people from Haifa and Tel-Aviv, and the beginning of more than 50 years of exile and dispersion. These events set the stage for the dramatic drop in Christian population from 60% to 2% of Palestinian society. This is an excellent starting point for a more balanced understanding of Middle Eastern politics without hype or extremism.

The stages of disengagement between indigenous Jews and Arabs, which precede the reverse-Exodus of the diaspora (or at least the portion of the diaspora classifying itself as Zionist), and which co-incides with the Arab expulsion from this ancient and perpetually famous territory, is documented in the lives of Fawal's fictional characters with intricate detail and with constant imagery of the surrounding geography and references to the distant and near-past history of the places.

This caught my attention and brought some modern light to bear on the peoples previously categorized in my mind as modern Philistines, many of whom are actually now Catholic, Orthodox Christian, and of course Muslim. As the liberals always tell, there is a great deal of complexity to this particular area of the world, and this novel deliberately reflects a cross section of it.