Mediterranean Dialogues

In the evening of 10th February in Cosenza, MeYouMe has opened the “Mediterranean Dialogues” programme with a very special guest: Hamdan Jewe’i, one of the young protagonists of the last Meeting, who is travelling all over Italy for a series of meetings about the topics he cares for: the current situation in his country, Palestine, and human rights of disabled people.

As many of you will remember, Hamdan is President of Lighting Candles for developing abilities Association in Betlehem, and an active member and cooperator of many other local, regional and international organisations dealing with disability, solidarity and international cooperation, social protection, education, environment and political rights.

The meeting focused on the topic “Living today in Palestine” and took place at “Delfino Lavoro” Social Cooperative in a very informal and cosy atmosphere, which gave us the chance to better know this amazing young man.

Hamdan is 26 and he has always suffered from a physical disability. He has lived the first 12 years of his life isolated in a room of his family’s house, because in Palestine handicap is still a shame towards community. Then, he decided to go out, to free himself, to walk. Ever since, he has been struggling for human rights, specially working to support disabled people. His handicap never stopped his unrestrainable activity, not even for a day. He travels, he builds new and wider networks, he develops cooperations, specially in the humanitarian field.

His personal story is a small reflection of his people’s situation. Hamdan himself compares the room of his long seclusion to the space surrounded by walls and checkpoints (750 in the Occupied Territories) in which Palestinians are living today.

The aggressiveness he felt during those years is exactly the same feeling that a people feels when it perceives himself as surrounded by a cage, without the chance to move, to create its own economy, undergoing – even in its daily activities – the Israeli control. Even the organization of a small international cooperation projects (the ones Hamdan cares for) can be very hard to carry out: “you need to reach an agreement with Israel, first”, says Hamdan when someone suggests to do something together. But he says it without a trace of discouragement in his voice and with a smile on his face. A smile that does not disappear when talking about his friends and relatives who died in the conflict, because – despite all this – Hamdan leaves hatred and grudge aside: they are useless. His analysis of the Palestinian situation is very clear and leads him to the sincere admission of the problems coming from contradictions and division within his own people. From his words the continuous and hopeful wish of a pacific solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict comes out. Listening to Hamdan is good. Because newspaper and television do not lead you where his eyes can. And it is good because it reminds us that, even if we have perfectly working legs, sometimes we don’t go anywhere…

Paola Scirchio