PALESTINE Memories of 1948 - Photographs of Jerusalem | Page 191

“Chileans of Palestinian origin: We won’t forget our roots”
imitated my Palestinian compatriots – nicknamed pai-
sanos 27 – in Chile: I set off on the roads to become a
travelling salesman. I sold some of everything to every-
body, which was called “ falt” (an invented expression
derived from lo que falta, what is missing). The idea
being that the salesman went to the buyer, and not the
other way round, and offering the client the option of
paying later. Little by little, by dint of working hard, I
grew a clientele and kept them loyal. Trading allowed
me to earn money more quickly than by farming. I
had customers everywhere, right across Chilean soci-
ety, not only among the Arabs. 28 The Shahwan, my
ancestors, had set up the first textile industry in Chile
in the 1920s, and I did the same thing. I got married
to a Chilean woman, and we settled in No. 559 Santa
Filomena Street, just next to the Santiago’s Orthodox
cathedral of San Jorge, built in 1917 in the Patronato
district. 29 In the beginning, we had sewing machines in
the dining room of our house, then we pulled down the
bedroom wall to turn it into a shop. And the business
worked very well.
I kept in touch with my Palestinian friends and rel-
atives who had stayed behind. That is how, in 1967, I
heard about the bombing and about how Israel seized
what should have become Palestine. That was probably
the moment when the Palestinians became aware that
they alone could save Palestine, that the other Arab
countries were never going to do it. Which leads to the
saying “only you know how to scratch your own itch”.
But with no means, willingness alone can do nothing.
And yet, if the State of Palestine was assassinated in
1948 by Israel, nevertheless it reappeared in 1967 when
everyone thought it had disappeared. Since then, the
word Palestine is growing everywhere in the world; it
is much respected in Chile, because it neither can nor
will disappear.
The Chileans seduced me because they are free. Free
in the heads, I mean. It is a frame of mind that I have
Nakhle
189