lebanon

“Ongoing return”: A living archive of Palestine

To cast my net I found the waves Some laughing, some crying The wave asked me ‘what’s the matter?’ I said ‘I’ve lost my beloved’ Truly, I’ve lost my beloved Partition, a film directed by McGill anthropology professor Diana Allan, begins with an Arabic song confessing to the sea. The lyrics ring against granulated black and white footage of the sloping hills and winding roads of Gaza, 1917. The scenes shift to British soldiers marching in synchrony and to explosions – grainy, soundless, and distorted.  Sleep, my son, sleep The slumber of gazelles in the wilderness  Oh Lord, may my…

Read More“Ongoing return”: A living archive of Palestine

“From the river to the sea, from the cedar to the olive tree”: Stories of Lebanon and Palestine

“There is nothing that will compare to that childhood,” says Lebanese-Canadian PhD student Amer El-Samman, who grew up in the port city of Tripoli in northern Lebanon. He remembers the city as huge, bright, and authentic. It boomed with up-and-coming Internet cafés while remaining lush with old towns infused with unique, intergenerationally-preserved customs. The people were tolerant. Ways of life were passed down with “care, affection, and stability”. All religions lived side by side; El-Samman remembers sects of Muslims and Christians, and a Jewish family in his grandmother’s town who were a “remnant of a once sizable population before the…

Read More“From the river to the sea, from the cedar to the olive tree”: Stories of Lebanon and Palestine