Teen's cartoon outrages Palestinian elders

Teen's cartoon outrages Palestinian elders

By Khalil Abed Rabbo

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AFP): A teenager has raised the anger of top Palestinian self-rule officials and security services with a simple cartoon he submitted to his local paper that struck one of the most sensitive nerves in Palestinian society.

Alaa al-Malki, 17, sent his pen and ink cartoon to an issue of a weekly youth supplement of the Al-Ayyam newspaper which dealt with the issue of "returnees," the PLO officials and their families who returned to the territories with the start of self- rule in 1994.

The drawing depicts a wealthy woman decked out in western clothes shouting abuse at a porter straining under her day's shopping, telling him, "Come on! Hurry! How disgusting!"

And the porter says to himself, "Talk about arrogant! What is she, a returnee?"

It was that sentence in the cartoon published 10 days ago that had the phones ringing off the hook at Al-Ayyam -- and not just from incensed "returnees." The cartoon became an issue for national security.

"I didn't realize so many important people read the weekly edition," said the page editor Sirin Halila. "The phone has not stopped ringing since it came out."

Al-Ayyam's editor in chief received an angry call from the self-rule intelligence services condemning the publishing of the drawing.

Halila got a call from the governor of Ramallah, where the newspaper is based. "He told me that this sort of sensitive cartoon should not be published again. I said that it expressed an opinion and that we wanted an open debate."

"He told me in no uncertain terms, 'Don't do it. This subject cannot bear discussion'," she said.

At the center of the storm, Malki insists he meant no harm.

"I didn't mean to insult anyone. I've heard all these stories about returnees who insult policemen for giving them a ticket or park their flashy cars in forbidden areas," he told AFP.

"I just thought this was an issue which ought to be discussed openly," he said.

He said his only fear when he drew the picture was what his classmate Dina, who returned from Algeria with her family, would think.

"Returnees face problems as well," said Dina, 17. "Not all of us own luxury cars. Some of us left everything behind to come back here and settle."

For most Palestinians, "return to the homeland" is the central tenet of their cause. Indeed when the Al-Ayyam asked its young readers to submit articles or drawings on the subject, all the submissions were romantic praises of The Return.

All except Malki's, which sent the sobering message that the return of some of the exiles has caused social tension, not nationalist glory.

For the returnees who spent so long abroad and came back to a land where their social ties were diminished, resident Palestinians seem provincial, religiously conservative and closed-minded.

For the residents, the returnees, who were allowed to import duty free cars and are often stereotyped as living in luxury villas, seem to flaunt their wealth, and are perceived as lording over the self-rule bureaucracy.

"This sort of social clash was to be expected. Most returnees lived abroad in an atmosphere of cultural openness. Residents have been living under occupation which has closed them off," said a university professor -- a "resident" -- who refused to give his name.

Ghassan Zaqtan, a poet and a returnee, said easing the tensions was a matter of time. "Each side needs time to get used to the other. This is just a difference in lifestyles, not a chasm."

"Returnees live for years abroad with a romantic picture of the homeland. Then they got here and found it was just a normal country. Residents dreamed of the romantic PLO fighters. Then they found they were just normal people," he said.