At the invitation of the Palestinian Ministry of Culture, the Palestinian National Library, and the Ibdaa Foundation in the Dheisheh Camp, a cultural symposium was organized at the Putin Cultural Center in Bethlehem, in which the book The Stolen Memory of the Liberated Prisoner Akram Atallah, published by the Everything Library - Haifa and located in 250, was published and discussed. Medium sized page. This was in the presence of a large number of writers, intellectuals, institutions, national forces, and freed prisoners.
Fouad Al-Laham, Director of the Ministry of Culture in Bethlehem, reviewed the book, focusing on a group of stages in the lives of prisoners, especially during the first intifada and the oppressive conditions they were exposed to in the Negev Desert Prison and in detention and interrogation centers. Al-Laham considered that the prisoner Akram’s blogs documented an important human experience in the history of the Palestinian people. It revealed the extent of the serious violations to which the prisoners were subjected and the policy of brutal repression that affected the young and old of our Palestinian people. He said that the book is the narrative of the Palestinian struggle against the occupation and its insistence on achieving freedom and independence.
For his part, the writer and journalist Osama Al-Issa said that the book recorded instances of heroism, boldness, and a little bit of brokenness, and pictures of people we knew and heard about that rise to the romance of the first time of the revolution, but we do not find in Akram a review or evaluation of those years of embers, and he said writing is a critical act, valued by the questions it raises. , to question the experiences that led to what they led to, and that Akram’s book should become a standard in the code of Palestinian prisoners’ literature. Al-Aissa said that Akram’s book is history from below, talking about the marginalized and marginalized who did not think about writing their biography or were unable to do so.
Issa Qaraqe, head of the Palestinian National Library, said that Akram’s description of the prison indicates that the prison is still the largest and most violent crime committed against the Palestinian entity and that it is still engraved on the body and memory. He said that Akram, in his review of his prison diaries, highlighted the human side of the prisoners as human beings with their dreams and wishes and did not frame The prisoners or put them in exaggerated templates of slogans, and that he wanted, through his experience in prison and the experience of thousands of prisoners, to record the history of the Palestinian person oppressed in the prisons and camps of the occupation, which is the vast majority of our Palestinian people. He does not document personal memories as much as he narrates the narrative and biography of the Palestinian people in their struggle. For freedom and the right to self-determination.
The writer Akram Al-Aissa said at the end of the symposium and in response to the interventions and questions that his motivation for writing was his feeling of responsibility to write down all the events and days he went through in prison with his fellow prisoners. Every prisoner has his own story and story that deserves to be written, recorded, and transmitted to future generations and to the peoples of the world. He said, “I was and still am a believer.” Events that cannot be written die, and the dead are powerless, and this book is part of loyalty to the freedom fighters who sacrificed their lives and youth in the path of the national struggle to get rid of the occupation and its restrictions. The symposium was moderated by Mr. Ahmed Al-Saifi
Source: Maan News Agency