What Mornings in Jenin taught me about culture
A review and insight into Susan Abulhawa's debut novel.
*SPOILERS AHEAD FOR MORNINGS IN JENIN*
When compiling a list of books for my Pali-Lit Read Along I knew for a fact that I wanted to read some of Susan Abulhawa’s work. My mother had read both Mornings in Jenin and Against the Loveless World and gave both novels 5 stars, a clear indication of just how impactful they had been on her. While I knew these books would provide an in-depth insight into Palestinian life I don’t think I was truly prepared for the effect they would have on me. In the aftermath of finishing Mornings in Jenin I can only feel a palpable sense of sadness, appreciation, and longing.
Mornings in Jenin travels through an array of perspectives, primarily that of Amal Abulheja, however Abulhawa expands Amal’s story to explore a large ensemble of characters in Palestine at the time of occupation. From the beginning it is clear that this is not just a story on Palestinian-Muslims, indicative from the story of Ismael, or David as he is later known, nor is this just a story solely set in Palestine as Amal finds herself in Lebanon and the US in latter parts of the novel. What is concurrently clear is that this story, through and through, is one of Palestinian and Arab struggle - what it means to be raised in Palestine, what it means to be stripped of your Palestinian identity (whether intentionally or not), and what it means to grow up, find love, and experience grief in the Middle East.
I’ve never travelled to the Middle East at this point in my life. I long to travel to Lebanon and explore the Levant as a whole and discover parts of my culture that I haven’t before. For the past 19 years I have lived vicariously through the lives of family and friends who have travelled overseas and experienced what it means to embrace culture. Consequently I have felt a disconnect from culture and the traditions that come with it, and I find it hard to embrace this culture when living in a Western country if I am completely honest. Call it white-washing or whatever you will, but a disconnect from my culture and a struggle to feel truly connected whilst living in Australia does not erase me of the desire to be connected, and in the past year specifically I have felt a longing to just embrace everything around me with love.
All this to say that Mornings in Jenin, despite being a Palestinian story, is so intertwined and connected with life in the Middle East in general that I could not help but feel incredibly moved by the events of the book and Amal’s story as a whole.
Descriptions of life in the beginning of the novel were so incredibly simple - prayers before meals, pronouncements of long life upon each other, music filling the streets alongside the scent of oil, figs and olives - and yet they were so vivid in my mind that I genuinely could not help but feel emotional before the devastation even began. Whether it is my longing for the simplicity of childhood or a desire to travel and learn more about myself is irrelevant because, regardless of whatever the reason for my emotion was, I still felt it and I felt it in a way unlike any longing for culture I have felt before.
This continued well into Amal’s story around the middle of the novel. Her childhood playing with Huda at the 1500-year-old olive tree then swiftly being juxtaposed by holding Huda and her infant cousin for days on end whilst armies swept through the refugee camp were a grim reminder of the reality of living overseas, of the torment and grief that becomes so deeply embedded into life as tragedy continues to unfold without remorse. No one wants to experience tragedy, and yet it has become so incredibly engrained into Arab life that the scars of war have become a norm of our culture, regardless of where you come from or what you follow. Amal’s story in her youth is a reminder that tragedy and war, especially within the Middle East, has no exceptions, a reality that never becomes easier to accept or grasp.
At one point in the novel Fatima, wife of Amal’s brother Yousef, speaks about Western love compared to the love experienced in Palestine:
“Amal, I believe that most Americans do not love as we do. It is not for any inherent deficiency or superiority in them. They live in the safe, shallow parts that rarely push human emotions into the depths where we dwell…Consider fear. For us, fear comes where terror comes to others because we are anaesthetized to the guns constantly pointed at all us. And the terror we have known is something few Westerners ever will…Our anger is a rage that Westerners cannot understand. Our sadness can make the stones weep. And the way we love is no exception, Amal.
It is the kind of love you can know only if you have felt the intense hunger that makes your body eat itself at night. The kind you know only after life shields you from falling bombs or bullets passing through your body. It is the love that dives naked towards infinity’s reach.”
I’ve struggled to explain why I can’t stop thinking about this passage. Why, even after finishing the novel it is this specific page, these paragraphs, that have left the most profound impact on me, and I don’t think I’ll ever know why.
What I do know, for a fact, is that the love explored in Mornings in Jenin is so incredibly beautiful, so tender and strong and unabashed in passion and devotion that I truly believe in what Fatima says, that the love experienced overseas is so much stronger because of how well accustomed Palestinians specifically have become to tragedy and grief, and how this forces them to love each other in the most intense way.
This doesn’t just apply to romantic relationships in the novel but with the familial relationships as well. The relationship that the Abulheja family has is strong despite distance and generations between each other. Despite the little time spent between Amal and her father Hasan she still shows such a deeper love and compassion for him, evident in seeking out his best friend Ari Perlstein for stories of their childhood and youth together. Despite the generational gap between Sara, Amal’s daughter, and her great grandfather Haj Yehya there is still such a strong desire from Sara to learn more, to know her family and their story and embrace the memories of a past she has not become witness to. The value of storytelling in this novel, the desire to pass down stories from generation to generation, is not unappreciated, and I truly loved the way Abulhawa embraced this throughout the entire novel. We need to pass these stories down or they will be long forgotten.
It isn’t lost on me that the ending to the novel is not particularly a happy one. I won’t spoil the ending however I think it is important to acknowledge that not every story, especially one of such tragedy and loss of life, is going to have a happy ending or be tied up with a bow. This is especially notable with a story like Mornings in Jenin where, while it is a fictional story, the events are undoubtably inspired and take after actual events in Palestinian history i.e., El Nakba, El Naksa. These events did not have a happy ending and the people of Palestine still continue to suffer, and I think it is so important to acknowledge this fact throughout the reading experience. Amal’s story and the story of the Abulheja family is not so far removed from the tragedies unfolding in occupied Palestine. However it does show that, while devastation transpires, there is also love and happiness and simplicity in the stories of the Palestinians that is not so dissimilar to the love and happiness experienced in Western stories.
Mornings in Jenin is hauntingly real and beautiful, and I would be surprised to hear if anyone has not been impacted by Abulhawa’s recounting of 61 years of suffering and occupation. Abulhawa beautifully examines what it means to live and experience love, and yet she never sacrifices nor strays away from the horror faced by those experiencing said love.
There is more to be said about Mornings in Jenin and yet all I can say is that I can’t help but feel incredibly grateful to experience culture and love in safety, whilst also longing for the intensity of love and light that Abulhawa explores through the Abulheja family story.
So beautifully articulated Lilyana.