A Letter to a Palestinian Friend
My Dearest Nura,
I can fully understand your wanting to leave Jerusalem and Palestine. This is a decision that is going to be so much harder for you than it would be for a one of us here in Canada. We do not have your deep roots which go back thousands of years. We have little sense of family and our culture changes from moment to moment. We seem to crave novelty where you Palestinians seem to me to crave peace and security. I can see very little hope of your obtaining peace and security where you are now.
I enjoyed my time in Israel as a young woman. I worked on Kibbutz Metzer which had very friendly relations with the Palestinian village of Metzer. My boss ,Joshua, would drive the work truck to the village every morning and we would pick up a couple of older men who helped with the pruning in the orchards as this is a task which you cannot leave to the inexperienced.
The village was neat and prosperous. The last time I saw the Kibbutz and the village, they were both behind high fences of barbed wire and the Kibbutz was surrounded by a high electric fence for good measure. The farmers could no longer get out of the village to tend their fields.
I used to walk for many miles through the West Bank. The Israeli lady in charge of us volunteers insisted we take a boy with us for protection from the Arabs. This worked a couple of times until the word got around that when I suggested a walk, it was going to be a hike of many miles and we might end up in Syria by mistake. I carried on walking and those times alone hiking in the west bank are my favourite memories of Palestine.
There were plentiful wildflowers as it was early spring and the grass was lush and green. I would walk on the West Bank accompanied by the calls to prayer from the many villages. No one ever made me feel unsafe or unwelcome. It was a better time.
Now, I wish to tell you a few things abut America and Canada to help you make an informed choice. People here will be prejudiced against you, not because you are a Muslim, but because you are religious. I have even heard people say that anyone who is religious is mentally ill.
People here are all for women’s rights up until the moment a woman chooses to wear the hijab. Laws have been passed against the custom here and there. The famous open-mindedness of the West and respect for another person’s private life do not encompass freedom of religion.
Most Muslims end up living in the cities where they form enclaves with other Muslims. A dear friend lives in Edmonton Alberta, Canada and she tells me there are many Palestinians and Syrians in the city. Her Doctor is a Palestinian and there are many Middle Eastern restaurants that she enjoys. She also told me that they are experiencing a balmy -15 degrees Celsius after a bad cold snap. During Canada’s cold winters, no one would notice you wearing the hijab because they will all be bundled up and their faces covered by scarves to fend off the cold.
A lot of Muslims emigrate to the United States every year and some people convert to Islam but the total number of Muslims does not seem to grow as many people leave the faith. In Vancouver, I met a lovely Algerian man who was diving a taxi. He told us that when his children were young, they thought him wise. As they grew older, he became stupid and old fashioned. His children wanted to drink alcohol with their friends and go out partying with them.
The man ordered his whole family into the taxi and took them to a famous area in Vancouver on the corner of Hastings and Main Street. This is an area where mentally-ill people and drug addicts, prostitutes, drug dealers and similar congregate.
A Doctor friend from Germany saw this area and was deeply shocked by the sickness, open drug use including very unsanitary injections, people with open running sores from the injections and people who were clearly insane and in distress. He asked me if we had any mental hospitals and I had to tell him we do not. They were closed many years ago. The government said the community (whatever that might mean) would take care of these people. The results are not great.
The taxi driver’s family lasted fifteen minutes before they said he was, in fact, right and they would strive to be good Muslims if only he would take them home. He made them sit there and watch hell on Earth for two hours. He hasn’t had any trouble out of his kids since then.
So, as a Muslim, immigrating to Canada or the States, it can be done but don’t expect it to be easy or comfortable.
by Maxine Rogers
