The Olive Tree

Only those whose ancestors' narratives are inhabited by the land can understand the meaning of “the grandmother”, with which Mahmoud Darwish had described the olive tree. The olive trees tell ancient stories about “my folks” who had been here, who had planted them, and who had been sustained by their fruits and by the meanings they hold that open humanity to enduring virtues. Mahmoud Darwish said that olive trees “train the soldiers on getting rid of rifles, and train them in nostalgia and humility…”. He did not mean all the soldiers. He who had tasted the humiliation of imprisonment, the shaming, and the banishment far away from family, friends, the land, and all that is in it... is not importing his ink, but rather is carrying it from a reality he knows. He says: “but these soldiers, the new soldiers, are surrounding them with bulldozers, and uprooting them from the progeny of the land”. A country without olives, a country without history, without memory. This is a war that is based on a past which is exposing the present. Ask “the grandmother”. With what she narrates, she is declaring on earth that those who had planted her are the people of the household!