April 3rd, 2002

The President
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC, USA.

Mr. President:

I am writing you from the Middle East, from a small town called Ramallah (as big as Georgetown in DC where I studied and worked for five years), in a country we hope will one day be called Palestine.
Since Friday March 29th 2002 (6 days ago today) neither I nor my husband have been able to go to work. My 3 year old daughter has not gone to her nursery. Garbage in my town has gone uncollected. Soldiers burst into my neighbor’s home, destroyed the furniture and stole 2,500 $ in cash. My brother in law lived for 5 days without electricity, heating or telephone. One of my co workers at the small art center I run has had his 20 year old brother arrested by soldiers in the middle of the night and taken no one knows where. Their home was ransacked in the process. Anyway, his brother is in the company of 700 other young men arested in this manner in my town alone. Another co worker’s husband was also arrested, but he returned to tell of his being blindfolded and handcuffed for 13 hours in the cold and rain, while he was beaten and urinated on. By the way, he was arrested for preventing soldiers from beating his teenage son who had sneaked out of his front door.
To go beyond my friends and relatives, I will mention the 29 bodies of men killed in cold blood over the last 5 days, that piled up in my town’s hospital morgue, 2 to a fridge. Since there are more such bodies incoming, hospital staff buried them yesterday afternoon in the hospital’s courtyard, by bringing a tractor that tore the asphalt out, and then covered the shallow hole with earth. That was a mass grave for people whose relatives did not kiss in their coffins. This happened because some of the same soldiers who murdered these 29 men earlier, were also blocking all exits from that hospital. By the way, the freely elected leader of my people has been isolated from the outside world and encircled for six days. Finally, in another little town called Bethlehem were Jesus Christ was born 2002 years ago, tens of civilians, priests, and bishops have been encircled for two days in the Nativity Church. A few yards away the corpses of two people killed by gunfire lie in their home, amidst their family which is unable to get them out for burial.
These are not scenes from a post apocalyptic "Mad Max" style movie, but real life, taking place in the third month of the third year of the 21st century, in full view of CNN and Fox News and ABC and CBS, and NBC, etc.. I am writing from Palestine, once the land of peace, now the setting to a string of ghettos, its inhabitants regularly repressed, killed, exiled and imprisoned until they become the new century’s newest lost tribe.
I am writing you Mr. President, to ask why hundreds of countries around the globe, African, Arab, Asian, European, Latin American, etc, are all wrong when they say we should really get what we want: First lifting the siege imposed on our cities that I described above, and ultimately lead normal and free lives, in dignity, on our land.. I am asking you this question as you run Mr. Bush, the only country in the world that the soldiers in my neighborhood, and the soldiers around my town’s hospital -& those who have been sending them here for the last 17 months- will listen to. The people of my town and others like it are not bombing anyone’s home with supersonic planes, they are not laying siege to anyone’s home, and they have not driven out a whole civilian population half a century ago. Even if after 53 years and 17 months of repression, the most desperate among us commit suicidal acts of destruction, we all simply want to be able to lead normal, simple, peaceful and free lives. A life where we can drive for miles on open roads, go to a concert in another town, forget about politics, have career plans and retirement plans, and celebrate joyful independence days. Instead of wondering if my daughter will not grow up to say one day: I could have been a Palestinian.

Best regards,
Adila Laidi,
Khalil Sakakini Cultural Centre Director,
Ramallah, Palestine.
http://www.sakakini.org