We Demand to Shake Earth Day
I remember that day well in 1974, when we were in the ninth grade, when the class teacher asked us to engage with Jewish students from a secondary school in Upper Nazareth in a dialogue and discussion with Yitzhak Rabin, who was going to be a guest at the Cultural Centre in Nazareth. And indeed, we met, but they divided us into two parts: a section for Jewish students and a section for Arab students. After we sat down and calmed down a bit, Yitzhak Rabin came in and sat down with the class teacher. Suddenly the Jewish students stood up and began to chant the 'Hatikva' in a loud voice that astonished and amazed us, because it raised in front of us the wall of helplessness from not responding with that sharp language that dominated the atmosphere. The astonishment lasted for a few minutes, and one of my classmates stood up and began to sing “Haze, Nawaem, with your silk hair” by the Lebanese singer Issam Raji. This song was dominant in the Arab singing street at the time. We started chanting the song in defiance of the Jewish students. We did not discover that we are from the miserable lost generation until after the newspapers started writing about the phenomenon of “Shake Ya Nawaem”, which showed that the Palestinian student in this country does not know his national anthem, and cannot stand strong and capable in front of the other who daily robs him of his right to land, history, memory and narration Palestinian.