“Measure of time,” an old English saying, takes many meanings depending on the particular context each particular individual or group is living and experiencing. In the Palestinian context, our time is measured and marked by major catastrophes, natural and man-made.

Our ancestors measured time differently than we do in contemporary times. The grandmothers to my generation marked key events such as births, marriages, deaths, and so on in relation to the “sanet el-Hazzeh,” the year of the earthquake in 1927, and her grandmother related major family events to the 1837 earthquake because there was major destruction to big cities especially Nablus resulting with many casualties and people had to relocate out of their towns. For people of that generation, the earthquake is still a major milestone in their lives. For my mother’s generation and mine, the major milestones are related to the struggle with the Zionists over the control of the land of Palestine.

1936 Thawra asha’abieh, popular revolt

1948 Nakbeh, catastrophe

1967 Nakseh, defeat

1987 First Intifada, uprising

2000 Second Intifada, uprising

Even the Arabic names given to these milestones reflect episodes of defeat and resistance in our ongoing conflict trying to maintain our continuity as a nation in our homeland Palestine.

Interwoven throughout these major catastrophic milestones, there is the ongoing process of elimination of leadership through deportations, targeted killings, and imprisonment and torture, through military incursions where precious lives of loved ones are destroyed, through forced displacements, house demolitions, land expropriation, uprooting of trees, closures, and through settler violence, all supported formally by state laws and policies and informally through “turning a blind eye” to countless human rights violations, large and small. The excruciating, inter-generationally experienced and transmitted pain—of loss of people, land, psychic and emotional space, dignity, culture, and much more—is deeply etched in our collective memory and consciousness as Palestinian people.

Consolidating the past means for us that we learn lessons from our failures and successes, simultaneously acknowledging and transcending the various painful episodes we have experienced, and continue to, as individuals and as a collective so that we may build a future based on love for our community and love for the homeland. Through repeated rounds of this consolidation we have become a resilient people. We continue to persevere and hope. We actively engage in building and maintaining strong families, in envisioning more peaceful and just futures in a Palestinian state, in creative endeavours represented in cultural productions, even as many of us wait patiently to receive our weekly allotment of water controlled by Israel, eke out a living, and pray that our loved ones return home safely at the end of the day. Our refusal to surrender to the long history of catastrophes enables us to confront the strongest and most profound challenges to our existence. We, in the larger Palestinian civil society, will “mark time” by steadfastly and simultaneously confronting the interrelated challenges from outside and within our beloved Palestine.

The history of WCLAC is also indelibly marked by these same catastrophes. But, we have faced these ongoing challenges by building on all the positive and rich organizational history and experiences to establish our path for the future. That is why we chose the title “Consolidating the Past, Growing the Future” for our next three year strategic plan. In the past we have focused primarily on working closely with NGO and community-based partners, and coalition members locally and regionally. In the coming three-year strategic period, we will link more closely with international women’s and human rights organisations to address Israel’s responsibility and accountability for their human rights violations in Palestine. The scale of catastrophes we now face has made it evidently clear that we cannot confront the Israeli occupation machine without strengthening international solidarity and generating more political pressure outside the region.

In this light, we look forward to a year of increased and strengthened interconnections, internal harmony and strength, and more wisdom to give us the necessary fuel to confront creatively the future catastrophes we are bound to face.

Maha Abu-Dayyeh Shamas
Executive Director