Prisoner Story

I’ve decided I want to write more small stories. Here is one:

            Our class took a trip to Al-Quds University today, the only Palestinian university in Jerusalem (Al Quds is the Arabic for Jerusalem). Maybe predictably, the university thus holds a place of great pride for Palestinians, and great ire for Israel (who have gone to impressive lengths to try to close it down). Our itinerary began with a meeting with some administrators and students for a discussion, then a brief tour of the Abu- Jihad Museum for Prisoner Movement, and then most centrally a talk with the university’s prominent president – by chance the college roommate of our current professor. When the last event fell through (meetings about the faculty strike), our strikingly blue-eyed host and guide gave us a more extensive tour of the museum. One exhibit showed letters from prisoners to their families. Sinan, our host, explained the unusual make-up of Palestinian prisonry. He gave as an example his father, a Ph.D. in clinical chemistry, who was imprisoned for distributing leftist pamphlets. Because of the peculiarly arbitrary nature of imprisonment, it was not unlikely for someone highly educated to become roommates with an illiterate farmer. This stands in contrast to most of the rest of the world, where prisoners are generally uniformly poor and considered by society, at least on some level, to be immoral. The display showed a series of three letters, the first written by the educated prisoner for the illiterate one. Over the course of their time in prison, the latter came to learn to write from the former. The second letter shows the unpracticed handwriting of farmer in a letter home. The last shows the same handwriting, much improved and sophisticated, in a letter sent just prior to release.  This prisoner went on to get a high school education, attend college, and is currently working on his dissertation. That former prisoner is currently the director and curator of the museum we visited. The abuses and harm of this prison system are innumerable, but this story provides a more positive outlook – always present in situations of solidarity.