Editor's Note: We received the following two letters, written by a courageous woman in Jordan and passed on to us by our good friend and sister, Mary Rizzo, who operates Peace Palestine, an excellent website based in Italy where she publishes news and information on behalf of the struggling people of Palestine. - LMB

Dear Les,

A young woman has decided to do what millions of other young (and not so young) men and women around the world do each and every day. She has decided to live her life in the place she desires. To make her future in the place that she knows and feels as her true home. She is a Palestinian woman with a Chilean passport. She is an intelligent, funny, sensitive and courageous young woman named Nadia Hasan. She has beautiful blog in Spanish called Palestina Resiste.

The other day, she wrote to her many friends and other people who care about the Palestinians and told us of her experiences when she left Jordan to go to Nablus, where she had friends waiting for her.

Not only did they give Nadia a humiliating third degree (why don't you change your name, where's your other passport among the absurd questions) they strip searched her, scrutinised her baggage down to every particle, and then.... sent her back to Jordan. The reason for this denial to her was because she is Palestinian. She is not a criminal, she is not a danger to anyone. She was sent away because she is not the "right" ethnic group and is unwanted, even as a tourist. Other individuals obtained a tourist visa in a matter of minutes. The discriminating factor is because of racism and prejudice.

Nadia knew they had just created a person who would not be defeated as she was forced to leave and to play out a destiny cruel persons mete out to her, not one of her own choosing. She will not run back to Chile with her head hanging, but proudly, she has become more determined to live according to her goals, to take charge of her life and not let this defeat challenge her.

Best,

Mary

From Nadia Hasan

Ahlen, first of all, sorry for my English, but I will explain for you what happened today.

Yesterday I came to Aqaba, and today I went to the border at 8 am.

I was nervous, but at the same time I felt good, making something that I was waiting for long time.

I crossed the Jordanian border without problems, only 15 minutes and I take my bag again and I start walking to the Palestinian side. Two armed guys were waiting there and asked me for my passport. They look each other and asked me "from where are you?", well, one of them had my passport in his hand, a Chilean passport, why they asked me!! After I went to the check room, and two other guys were there and asked me the normal questions, well, normal for them! All the questions were about my family name, why my name is Nadia Hasan, if I am Muslim... I answered no, I am Christian, "but why you has a Muslim name, why you don't change it?" Well, 20 minutes of that and they let me pass, even they told me "Welcome to Israel, enjoy your time here"..

I went to the passport control and a big group of tourists were there, everyone got their visa in less that 5 minutes. When was my turn, I saw a familiar face, the woman in the control office was the same that last year, the same that after gave me one month visa told me "if you don't like it go back to Chile, we don't want more Palestinians here!!!!"

Everything was normal, she asked me for my passport, and checked my name at the computer.... she was looking at it for more that 2 minutes, at that moment I knew that my name was there, but which information they have, I don't know..., she called a guy, after another woman, after another guy... all of them were talking in Hebrew, looking at me sometimes, reading again, i don't know for how long, I was so nervous.

A new guy came to me and starts to speak in Arabic with me, I told him that i don't understand, he continues speaking in Arabic.... after that he told me "Good luck" and asked me to go to the check room again. Well, he didn't asked me, he order me, he told me "Move now."

I entered in the check room and I had all the Israeli security with me, more than 15 persons, all of them not more than 22, playing an important game in their life, with power in their hands and with a terrorist in front of them, I saw excited eyes, waiting for the orders of the oldest man, the guy with the biggest M16 in his hand.

They open all my bags, they put everything on a table and start to check it, everything... After a young woman told me that she need to check my body, and with a smile on my face I answered, "OK, no problem", when she was checking me she told me whispering "I am sorry, but is my work, can you take of all your clothes?", I answer yes, but I want to keep my t shirt (I didn't want to show my tattoo), well, she checked me all, open your legs, close your legs, sit here, up and open your legs again, etc... like last year.

After the woman from last year came and asked me if I was in Israel before, I answer yes. Why you are coming again. I have friends here. Arabic friends, she asked? No, Israeli friends, Israelis????? (her face changed). Yes, Israeli friends. She asked me their names and I gave to her.

After asked me for my other passport, passport that I don't have of course, asked me about Gaza, about Nablus, about other Arab countries, about my name again...

Well, she left me alone, I check the time, was 10:30 am, I was thinking that my future in Palestine will depend on what she decided, and I wanted to smoke, of course I was not allowed to do it, sit there and wait!!!!

The time running, I was nervous but quiet at the same time, I wait for this moment since I was refused from my homeland last year, 6 long months, and I was there again, ready for that.

I checked the time again, was 12:15, I asked if I can use the bathroom, they told me no, sit and wait!!! After 10 minutes the women came to me, I wanted to cry, I knew that she has my dreams in her hands and she gave me back my passport, I take my bags (after put everything inside) and I start to walk.

I walk, with tears in my eyes, full of emotions inside me, all my memories from Palestine were in my head, in my heart, I remember in this 5 or 10 minutes every person that I met in Nablus, how much I wanted come back, how near I was.

One man stopped me and told me something that I didn't want to hear, something that was only in my nightmares, something that I listened before: "Welcome to Jordan."

I am in Aqaba again, with Palestine in front of me but more far than ever.

I checked again in the Jordanian border, I took again my bags and I start to walk. I felt my bags lighter, not so heavy than before, the tears were still in my eyes, but my legs were stronger, I am stronger, they make me feel in that way, they don't understand that every time that they refused a Palestinian at the border they recognize that the Palestinians are there, they must to use the guns to keep something that don't belong to them, they are afraid to see us through our eyes, that we are here, near, and always will be near, they know that Palestine Exists!

I took a room in front of the sea, I will buy a bottle of wine, and this night I will drink, I will drink for Palestine, I am proud to be Palestinian.

All of you will be with me tonight.

Nadia  

Second Letter from Nadia

March 30, 2006

Today is my first day in Amman, well, today its the first of many days that I will have to live in this city. I am a little paralyzed, i dont know from where I should begin, i dont know to where I should go neither what I have to do. I am clear, in the relative clarity that we can have about an uncertain future that I will stay here the time that is necessary, I will build myself a new life until being able to recover my life, the life that I want, the one that they forced me to leave.

Today I add myself to the millions of Palestinian who lives outside of Palestine, who have been displaced, who have been expelled of their homes, to those who have been denied the basic right of belonging, of being linked with a physical space, denied to founding roots and to see them to grow and to settle. The life is about that, right?, of looking for a place where you feel that you belong?, where your feet recognize the streets, and do the streets recognize your footfalls? We can be born in a certain country, to live half life in it, but your dreams and looks point to another place, to a distant space where your face feels part, where it is recognized, where it melts with the other ones, where you belong. Jordan is the country of those displaced, of the refugees, of the Palestinian outside of Palestine. Where fictitious borders prohibit them the step, where apartheid limits castrate their return dreams, dreams of belong. It paralyzes me the fear, the fear to melt in this mass of indifference. It paralyzes me the single possibility to assume a reality that I don't like, that disgusts me, a reality that I refuse to accept.XX The Palestinian outside of Palestine don't live in a place, since no place is for they own. They live in the time, their life is determined by political, economic circumstances or of any nature, that show them the path that they must to follow. They build houses, they find works, they form families, with the intention of continuing, of continuing walking, but in each one of them the word waits have a deeper sense, a wait that they dream can transform the time in place, they hope to stop to live in the time and to live in Palestine, live in their place.

Today I will begin to look for a house, to look for a work, to build a new life, but i am clear that the feeling that levies me is that of the wait, waiting that my footfalls will recognize the land that they touch, waiting that my face will melts with familiar faces again. But in this wait the strugle is bigger, the challenge imposed by the Occupation is even bigger, because we should challenge the memory, we cannot forget, we cannot allow to conquer ourselves for the indifference, we cannot forget. To conserve the scents, flavors, colors of our place will always be the best fight that we can give, to challenge to the forgetfulness and to win to the weapons, to stop to be the children of an idea of Palestine to become the children of Palestine, because while there are memories

Palestine Exists and Palestine Resists!

Nadia

Yes, You CAN do it, Nadia!

Your spirit is in the right place, you're a fighter, and you're sensitive. I am forwarding this to Les at Axis of Logic, hoping he can share this touching letter of hope, determination and vision with his many readers. Your last letter I have put on peacepalestine, and hundreds of people have come to read it. I read it with tears in my eyes, and now those tears are coming back.

You will make it and you have the support of a lot of us out here who want to see you realise your dreams. From Chile to Palestine, the road is long, and you are getting closer! Don't let the small defeats you're encountering affect your mighty spirit!

with much love

mary

Note from Mary Rizzo

Now, I ask you, anyone who listens to your heart, if anyone at all is able in some way to help Nadia. So many of us are or have been immigrants. So many of us know what that means and how difficult it is. Nadia hasn't asked for a single thing, but I'm an immigrant. I know what she is going through in some small way, and I ask that if there is anyone near 'Amman who can show solidarity to her at this time? You will know what needs to be done. I can give you Nadia's email, and you can get in contact with her. Even meeting her or sending her a letter of solidarity is going to help a lot.

To everyone else, think about how Jewish people around the world are allowed to make Aliyah. Nadia's connection to her homeland is fresh, passionate and the separation from it is painful. She is a Palestinian who is attempting to exercise her right to her homeland, and she is not allowed to do this, not even as a tourist! She is one of millions who is denied their identity and self-realisation, while others are given it on a plate. Whoever can diffuse her story, sharing it with others, especially with those are sensitive to the fact that there is a generation of Palestinians, young men and women, who will not renounce their dreams and hopes. They are doing the most natural thing in the world, trying to build their own future in the land that they recognise as one they belong to, preserving their culture and history, bringing new lifeblood gained from years of life in other countries. They deserve all the support we can give them.

Mary Rizzo
PeacePalestine

http://peacepalestine.blogspot.com/2006/03/
nadia-hasan-you-cant-go-home-again.html