Palestine: The Banality of Suffering

Is it looking at my own students at Birzeit University that reminds me of my old English teacher John S.? Every Tuesday and Thursday at 3:10 pm, and ten minutes before the end of class, they are all restless in their chairs, eager to continue their day without me. I do not take it personally. I feel their energy. But I do remember John fondly.

I recall his ability to last throughout the lesson and to end it with a virtual cliffhanger. Not all, but some of us would just be sitting there, nailed to our chairs, as the bell rang and other students began chatting, doors opening, noise everywhere. And, in the midst of clatter and laughter, John's last sentence would linger in the air. His cliffhanger.

One such cliffhanger I remember particularly well. We were discussing Brueghel's Fall of Icarus painting--the one that you can find in Musee des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. The myth of Icarus and his father Daedelus who made wings with wax to escape their Crete-prison. Flight. Youthful desire. Hubris. Icarus flying too close to the sun. Wings melting. The young Icarus falling into the sea and drowning. Tragedy.

In fact, not much of Icarus is showing in the painting. Only his white legs sticking up from the water in the bottom right-hand corner. But there are other people depicted, all going about their everyday lives. One man is ploughing. I do not remember the details, only the big panorama of a landscape with people in it, doing their things, like ploughing, undisturbed by the boy drowning. Icarus. The silent drama of a boy dying.

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