Guest contribution by Fidaa Elaydi

Like every cause, the Palestinian cause is one with a number of icons. Unlike a number of causes, the Palestinian cause has its fair share of female icons.

Because of my fascination with politics and love for rhetoric, the Palestinian icon I generally have gravitated toward is Hanan Ashrawi. Although, like most Palestinians, I am critical of the PLO, I defend Ashrawi by first explaining that she was against the Oslo Accords. I have always been impressed by her, first, because she was always outspoken in expressing to the world the true nature of the Palestinian cause, even when it meant she was speaking against the faction she represented. Additionally, she emphasized the importance of education in empowering our people not merely by paying this institution lip service, but by making huge sacrifices and taking great risks to ensure that one of most fundamental pillars of the Palestinian education system, Bir Zeit University, continued to offer classes even when the campus was shut down during the first intifada. She taught classes in her home, in abandoned buildings, and every other location she could secure and gather students to keep from depriving them of their right to education. But, most importantly, I credit Ashrawi with the beautiful gift of showing me where the power behind our cause lies: in our women.

In her account of her personal struggles during the “peace process” of the 1990s, “This Side of Peace,” Ashrawi stated that “the recognition of world political figures or prominent members of the media, although gratifying, did not have the impact of the words of women from the refugee camps or men from the villages who often made a point of telling me, ‘You make us proud.’” I remember reading this sentence only days after having this exact conversation with my mother. My mother, a woman from a refugee camp, told me how Ashrawi “raised the heads of the Palestinian people,” giving them pride, when she spoke on television. She portrayed us as an oppressed people with legitimate grievances when the world only saw us as “terrorists” and “stone throwers.” She was educated and articulate and spoke better English than any Palestinian leader before her, but even with these distinguishing qualities, she did not lose site of where the struggle truly was being fought: in the classrooms, streets, and homes of Palestine. That excerpt was on page 94 of her book, I stopped reading at page 100. I didn’t stop reading because her story did not fascinate me or because the period in history she described was not important; I stopped because I knew I could learn more about the Palestinian cause by learning more about Palestinians and how the Palestinian cause has taken shape through them. [Read more...]