Susan Abulhawas Mornings in Jenin - Book Report/Review Example

Mornings in Jenin here Number here Introduction Susan Abulhawa’s novel d “Mornings in Jenin”, published in has provided a rare insight into the atrocities that Palestinians have endured in the hands of Zionists since 1940s. In the 1948 Nakba, for instance, the community was visited with a catastrophe in their invasion which led to the creation of the Israeli state. The conflict witnessed Israeli soldiers snatching valuables including young babies from the native Palestinians and who were then transferred to Israel and taught to hate their Palestinian kin. Interestingly, Abulhawa tells the story of a victim of such abduction meeting his blood brother, David. The simplicity of various scenes of the book is a well-calculated move targeted at humanizing the persecution of the overall Palestinian community. This paper examines the cruel impacts of Zionism on Palestinians as depicted in the “Mornings in Jenin”. Synopsis Abulhawa’s being a child of one of the victims of the Six Day war in 1967 enabled her to tell a first-hand account of the painful experiences of Palestinians not only in the 1960s, but throughout the history. In her late childhood, she fled to the United States where she successfully pursued her studies in biomedical science. Her training earned her a job in the medical industry. Notably, “Mornings in Jenin” takes readers through almost seven decades the experiences of Abulheja’s descent. The family is said to have settled in Ein Hod east of Haifa, a village in which the main economic activity was farming figs and olive1. The family endures the vagaries targeted at them by Israeli forces from 1940s throughout the history. The protagonist, Amal, is the female descent of Yehya, the renowned patriach. The character is an amiable personality, with motivation, humor and brains. Abulhawa portrays with smoothness and precision Amal’s growth and development in an environment that has, perhaps, one of the harshest realities of life in the entire twentieth century world. The characters chosen by Abulhawa to complement Amal’s efforts in building the story are equally up to the task in presenting the realities facing Palestinians throughout their lifespans. Amal expresses his dismay and confusion that most Palestinians face in their everyday lives; she is split in thought as to whether her killing would attract regret from the Zionists terming it as ‘accidental’ or it would be termed as mere ‘collateral damage’ as many Palestinians’ fate has been consumed. Abulhawa chooses to build the story of the cruelty targeted at Palestinians around Amal, the female sibling of the twin boys. Orphaned and wounded in the conflict that gripped the region in 1967, she flees from the Jenin camp for refugees for fear that she has outgrown it and may be set for transfer to an orphanage in Israel orphanage in Jerusalem any time. Fortunately, she opts to lead her early adulthood life singly in Pennsylvania, United States2. The character becomes hopeless, and upon her comeback to Lebanon enters into a relationship only to suffer more from heartbreak. Albulhawa narrates a courageous, sad story that depicts the problems which the ordinary Palestinians have witnessed in the extraordinary circumstances created by Zionism. Throughout the book, it is evident that Abulhawa tells the story in the form of a documentary by allowing historical facts to roll out freely3. Analysis The literary work of Abulhawa’s shows clearly her novelist prowess in an area that few authors have explored. The Mornings in Jenin shows the author’s subtle sense of ire and resolve. “Mornings in Jenin” is an interesting novel backed by wide research, and encompasses a bibliography. Owing to the incorporation of Abulhawa’s own personal experiences, the source is very credible and accurately reflects the lack of voice of the members of the Palestinian community who have remained oppressed for almost seven centuries in the hands of Israeli forces. Her incorporation of the experience she came face to face with during her visit to Jenin back in 2002 after reports of senseless killings of innocent civilians in the asylum facility reached her, lends credence to her side of the story. It is evident that the horrors which she came across emboldened her to pen the story and do so without any hesitation. The steadfastness, bravado, and humanity of the Jeninians were not only her inspiration, but served to reflect the resolve of the overall Palestinians whose quest to have their own independent state, institutions of governance, and a national identity has been hijacked and nipped in the bud by the aggressive Israeli ideology and influence. Abulhawa captures the love, defeat, discovery, and the undying hope of Palestinians in the rather simpler social context of the family of Abulheja. By doing do, readers now have the ability to distinguish the Palestinian land separated between two important eras and peoples, and an apparent continuous conflict that dominated the better part of the second-half of the twentieth century through to the current 21st century. In this book, Abulhawa uses the Abulheja family to narrate the chronological experiences of the Palestinians through four generations of life marked by two cruel conflicts of the Nakba (1948) and Naksa (1967), and the impacts of the wars. The third generation of the Palestinians since the first war is represented by Amal. Abulhawa builds the story about the plight of the Palestinian woman around the character, whose allegorical name means optimism by showing how women have suffered in the hands of Zionist forces. Whereas some Palestinian women lost their children in the war, their vulnerability led to the wounding of many more. Yet others were confined in refugee camps where any hopes for reprieve were dead and gone4. The challenges notwithstanding, some strong-willed members of the Palestinian community are concerned about the plight of the previously safe and wonderful community before the invading forces brought havoc to the region. Born in an asylum center in Jenin the eviction of her grandparents and her parents from their lands in Ein Hod village to create room for the settlement of the Jews, the hope in Amal transforms her into the power behind her family in the smaller context and the ultimate voice of the Palestinians who were uprooted from their native lands and let scattered elsewhere due to constant brutal attacks meted out against them. Amal continually embodies the challenges, nightmares, and debilitating realities of being evicted from their residences, neighbors most of whom they shared blood relations, and country. Aside from being vulnerable to harsh disasters like drought, floods, disease outbreaks and famine, the brutal murder of Amal’s infant cousin in her arms is massively debilitating. Similar stories of her long-lost male sibling, David, which is inherently full of deceptions to hide his real identity are some of the impacts of social instability that Palestinians are forced to grapple with in their day to day lives. In all, through Amal, “Mornings in Jenin” depicts human loss of life as an everyday happening and actually, an important part of Palestinian daily life5. As Abulhawa takes readers from one agonizing scene to another, she subtly creates an emotional conflict, where happiness and melancholy, life and death, and adoration and hatred rear-end, pulling the readership into an environment of seemingly unthinkable realities of life. The history of Palestine depicts the sad, historical facts of mass displacement, disasters and killings of innocent civilians either by design or as collateral damage. Such developments over the years have consumed the once happiness and love which the natives enjoyed in their own residences in company of their neighbors with whom their shared lineages. These gory scenes and ironies overwhelm the readers with deep emotions and somewhat blind them from being objective to the actual story. Eventually, the reader becomes so mesmerized by the activities of the characters and the rolling events that the novel ends in suspense, lending credence to the rather fictitious story6. Critique Abulhawa’s novel “The Mornings in Jenin” is a fictitious story that draws the factual attributes of Palestine, its past, its people, and the historical events that define the way of life. The author recognizes the fact that her authorship has been substantially influenced by the literary contributions of Edward Said and Khalil Gibran among other contemporary poetic works to craft and present stories. But whereas some are of the opinion that the literature is captivating to the entire global audience, others cite its lacking in originality. Regardless, Abulhawa captures the experiences of the ordinary man and the realities which the hapless communities come across; issues that conspire to transform the novel into a milestone of the 21st century literature whose setting is mainly based on the 20th Palestinian society. Regardless of the depiction of Palestinians as the community that is constantly on the receiving end in the long-drawn conflict, Abulhawa subtly asks the readership to recognize that even the Zionist side is at pains. Zionist agents also feel the pinch of death, and loss of wealth, lack of emotional stability and above all a roughened conscience whose correction will take many centuries to repair. The balanced approach to the plight of Palestinians lends credence to the author’s objectivity in tackling the modern day challenges affecting people in the Middle East. From the author’s humble beginnings and relatively first-person account of the challenges visited on the Palestinians, the content of the novel is by far credible. Throughout the novel, it is easy to tell the writer’s honesty in the presentation of the events and choice of characters. Despite being a descendant of Palestinian asylum seekers of the Six Day War of the late 1960s, her book reveals the effort of an individual who has tried hard to keep away her individual feelings from the literary work7. Abulhawa portrays all Jewish characters in a kind manner and without any emotional attachments. Despite the origin of the challenges facing the Palestinian countrymen being the Zionists, the author demonstrates her capacity to observe a sense of humanity throughout the novel. In addition, the ornamental choice of words and language that the writer has employed in her work by tampering scenes of joy with sadness is arguably the epitome of a mature, modern Arabic writing. The effective blend of emotions depicts clearly the culture of the people of Middle East where scenes of happiness alternate with those of strained passions and melancholy in the conflicts, displacements and even deaths in most of countries facing social instability in the Palestine8. Furthermore, whereas some critics may be tempted to punch holes on the book for exposing the tragedy facing her countrymen and women rather too thickly in the book, the reality is that the foundation upon which she has based her literature is historical and factual. Abulhawa’s careful integration of documentary and fictitious stories is one of the strengths of the novel. Notably, “Mornings in Jenin” describes tribalism in an impartial manner. Above all, even though, the writing largely adheres to Anglo-American rules, it mirrors the poetic chronology of events that is the epitome of modern Arabic literature. Abulhawa clearly presents her undying happiness, which according to her is the Arabic “gig” that facilitates the exploration of the language’s subtle civility and imaginary aesthetics. Conclusion Susan Abulhawa’s “Mornings in Jenin” is a heart-wrenching, carefully written book that explores the plight of Palestinians in the hands of the powerful Zionist forces. The novel’s multi-generational nature enables readers to have a rare view of the problems that members of the community have been subjected to over several decades. Forcibly uprooted from their native rich farming lands, in the Ein Hod village, the newly created state of Israel in 1948 led the Abulhejos to scamper for their safety in refugee camps in the Jenin. By basing the storyline around Amal, the author carefully fuses the misery visited on the displaced Palestinians with hope and determination of few within the community. And with the novel’s setting in the 20th centurys most prolonged political conflicts, Abulhawa has written a profoundly humane novel; one that is rich in historical facts, individuality, friendship, love, hate, violence, surrender, bravery, and optimism. Bibliography Abulhawa, Susan. Monrnings in Jenin. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2010. Jenkins, Nancy Harmon. Heart of Palestine. Saveur, 161(2013): 72-83. Knopf-Newman and Marcy Jane. Mornings in Jenin: A Novel. Journal of Palestine Studies, 39.4 (2010): 83-84. Rodopoulos, Loula S. Mornings in Jenin. Transnational Literature, 2.2 (2010): 1-3. Read More