PALESTINE Memories of 1948 - Photographs of Jerusalem | Page 105

insist they know the truth are ignoramuses,’ he says,
smiling, thus inspiring confidence to the most scep-
tical, who say to themselves that if the leaders of the
PLO are this respectful of opposing views among their
own members, if they are capable of such a level of
self-criticism, victory must be certain.
With his friends Mu’in Bseiso and Mahmoud Dar-
wish, he spends his evenings discussing politics and
telling jokes, making fun of everything and everyone,
starting with himself, always being careful never to
hurt anyone. ‘Gaining a rank within the Committee
is to lose a place in the resistance,’ he is used to saying,
thus summarizing what he thinks of political hierar-
chies and adding that very soon he would drop it all
and go back to writing.
His family life is shattering: Fatima falls ill. The
doctors diagnose cancer, the disease progresses quickly
and finally consumes her. She dies in London with ter-
rible suffering in 1975. For Samaa and Salam, nine and
seven years old, it is the end of their childhood and the
beginning of a pain that will never leave them. Luckily,
they can count on their father: Majed never neglects
his children and gladly hangs up his political hat at the
weekends to spend time with them. Affectionate and
protective, he is as vigilant of their education as of their
diet, preparing them an avocado or a meat broth at
night before bed so that they get the necessary nutri-
ents. In their company he clearly finds the very essence
of his commitment, because he sends out this message
to his comrades in the struggle: ‘Those of you who want
to continue fighting for a free Palestine and want to
triumph, should look into the eyes of children.’ Majed
remarries in 1977, to Inam Abdel Hadi, and they have
a daughter, Dalia.
To stay on course, the PLO needs people capable
of uniting when lack of unity is like a sword hanging
over them. Majed is the perfect man for the role and
that is why he is elected in early 1981 to the Central
Committee, the highest body of Fatah, less than a
year before his assassination. Majed is chosen because
he has the good sense of the well-grounded man, the
sensitivity of a poet and the frank and sharp humour
of a complete soul. And because he is one of the only
people able to point out contradictions and hold his
own with the big leaders of Fatah, with whom he rubs
shoulders frequently. Yasser Arafat – to whom he is
very close and is one of the only people who can crit-
icize him openly – listens to him with a great deal of
attention and respect. Those who met Majed at PLO
summits say he ‘stopped them from going round in
circles and from thinking that they were always right
about everything, was firmly opposed to under-the-
table deals and cronyism and of the shamelessly lavish
lifestyle some of them led.’ Majed goes even further:
he creates unity when others try to divide, infiltrate or
manipulate the movement. He proclaims loudly what
looks like a challenge: ‘We will not allow any terror-
ist group, nor any foreign secret service, nor even any
state to hide behind the Palestinians to cover up their
own terrorist operations.’
Even today, the mere mention of Majed Abu Sha-
rar’s name brings tears to the eyes of Palestinians, no
doubt because of the strong vision and complex rich-
ness of his personality. Dozens of places are named
after him, as if to thumb their noses at his assassins. 18
He has become the symbol of a certain Palestinian dig-
nity, embodying the idea that being a witness is a way
of resisting crime and that by killing him, thousands
of others have risen up and will rise up still to be able,
one day, to return home, as Mahmoud Darwish has
written in the verses he dedicated to him. 19 Rare are
those who are at the same time rebels and unifiers, who
question everything yet find the road to conciliation,
rare are those who step into the breach when discus-
sions are shutting down. His assassins had understood:
Majed was such a person.
Majed
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