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One of the outstanding authors participating in the Edinburgh Festival was Raja Shehadeh, West Bank lawyer and author whom I heard in the first instance in The Scottish Story Telling Centre in the High Street.
He introduced in an exhibition there, the landscape photos of five photographers including those of Bassam Almohor and Emile Ashrawi.
This exhibition can still be seen until the end of September.
Raja spoke further about Shat Ha (or picnic), which includes his hobby of walk abouts in the hills of Palestine now severely restricted by the ever growing Israeli settlements. He had shared with a large audience the contents of his book "Palestinian Walks" in August 2008 & 2009 where the joys of the open hillsides were becoming more and more hazardous. The aforementioned book won him the Orwell Prize in 2008.
I had the chance to listen to Raja once more this summer when he
presented in the Edinburgh Book Festival his brand new book: "A Rift
in Time: Travels with my Ottoman Uncle". I found it an amazing book
revealing the landscape and life of an Ottoman Palestine which is rapidly disappearing. Raja's uncle Najib travelled during the early years of the 20th Century, a time when he could enjoy the balmy air of the hills and see the valleys engulfed by a rich carpet of all flowers of the field and hear the animal sounds and rising smoke of villages.
Unfortunately I was unable to hear Archbishop Elias Chacour of Galilee's
talks on 20th August. His festival lecture title was: "The Promise of the Promised Land."
I did however attend the exhibition "Cartooning on Conflict", also
part of the Festival of Spirituality. Although many of the cartoons were
drawn by famous cartoonists, the impressions of many of us was that by no stretch of the imagination could the fight for existence, respect and self-determination be equal. Any thinking human being in this universe could see that Palestinians and Israelis are not starting from a level playing field; it is pretty obvious who is much, much stronger and richer. |