| Community Heritage Project: Wattan Report |
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Banksmeadow, Friday February 11, 2000.
The Project Officer was a guest, and the participants in the Arab Women’s Group were discussing issues of history and personal cultural heritage materials. Note: the woman who shared these stories would prefer to remain anonymous.
She told the story of her “kharrouf”: she has a sheepskin at home, which is very dear to her. She has it packed away. When she was five years old, her family used to keep sheep on the (flat) roof of their house in Lebanon. She would feed her special sheep from a baby’s bottle. Her mother loved them too, giving them all sorts of names. Her special sheep was Antar. She fed him green “hummous” which grew wild, and she brought him up. When he was slaughtered she could not eat his meat, and she has his skin as a special memory of her childhood.
She also remembers that she has a piece of embroidery of her mother’s handwork.
She brought it to Australia with her, unfinished. She has it packed away and she has deliberately left it unfinished...
Note: this past week, February 7 to 11, has seen more Israeli military bombing of Lebanon. It is Friday, after a week of regular bombing of South Lebanon - but this week also saw the bombing of power stations in three major regions in Lebanon. There were many civilian injuries, infrastructural damage, blackouts in city areas and power rationing. The following quote reflects the continuum of the effects of war and occupation, which are experienced by many Lebanese and Arab Australians. The interpretations of “Heritage” and “History” are significantly altered in this context. The quote also encourages a reflection on the complex issues of representation in documentation.
Later, in another part of the discussion she says strongly:
Note: Her family lived in the city in the north of Lebanon, not in a village.
“Why do I want to know about history? I don’t want to think about the past. I don’t want to think ...”
“ I don’t want to remember. Even the news is too much. We’ve had enough. I can’t listen to any more news. I don’t want to remember the war. Blood. Killing. Slaughter. Why do you think I pulled out a nice story for you? Why do you think I don’t want to talk about memory and history? I have to go right back to when I was five years old to find a nice story for you, the story of the sheep that I raised.”
“I remember another story about getting water. We were just kids. There was no water – it had been cut off. We were collecting water down there. Above us were foreigners taking photos of us. It was very early in the war. Before the foreigners all left. I can still picture them. They looked like foreigners. We were just kids and just looked at them. Later as an adult I remembered that scene very well. Why did they take our photos? Was it to show how poor we were? How troubled our lives were? It made me angry. It made me upset. Even though it was a long time ago and we were just kids. It still makes me angry.”