My Father Was a Freedom Fighter, Ramzy Baroud

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More at link: http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/11/palestine-a-familys-story/#more-24992

The author’s ability to depict these types of moments is what makes this book such a worthwhile read. Under Baroud’s pen, history truly does become the story of a people. Each individual whose story appears in My Father Was a Freedom Fighter embodies the story of the Palestinians. The story stretches from the daily battle to feed one’s family when there are no fields to harvest because the occupiers have destroyed those fields to meetings with leaders of the Intifada. Ramzy Baroud tells a very personal tale in these pages underlined by an impeccably researched historical knowledge.

In addition to depicting the relationship between Arab nations and the Palestinian movement, this text explores the nature of the Palestinian liberation movement itself. Combining his father’s political understanding and historical memory with his own knowledge, Baroud explores the reasons for the Palestine Liberation Organization’s fall into seeming irrelevance in Gaza and its replacement by Hamas. It is a story about organizing at the grassroots and corruption at the top. It is also a story of one man’s hopes in the organization he believed in being dashed. Finally, it is also the all too familiar tale of a society striving yet failing to overcome the scourge of class, especially when those at the top are offered rewards for leaving their lesser-off brothers and sisters behind.

Perhaps the most emotionally difficult storyline that runs through Baroud’s memoir is the story of his parents’ love for each other. Difficult, because it is a story like so many other love stories without hope for a happy ending. When Ramzy’s mother died of cancer at the age of 42, she was given a martyr’s funeral. This wasn’t because she was a battlefield fighter or a guerrilla, but because she was a child, mother and sister of Palestine. She died so young in part because Tel Aviv’s brutal occupation refused her the treatment she needed. Indeed, the incident that may well have exacerbated her illness was one where Israeli soldiers beat her while she pleaded with them not to break her sons’ arms. This practice was a common Israeli Defense Force tactic during the First Intifada.

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1. Your father was a thug who used human shields to protect his house.