https://arab.news/p3k6v
Her voice crackled with indignation: “How could anyone in Gaza even think about marriage while Israel wages a war of annihilation against them without any moral restraint?” The anger in her tone did not surprise me, as she described her shock at learning her Gazan friend was busy preparing for her son’s wedding. Though I acknowledged her bewilderment, suggesting it might be an isolated case, the topic resurfaced a week later when I spotted a BBC Arabic headline: “When a loaf of bread becomes the most precious wedding gift in Gaza.” This suggested something broader than mere individual cases.
Just days after reading that article, I had my realization confirmed. During a routine call to check on my cousin’s family, I learned that the youngest son in the family was getting married in a few days. I was caught off guard. Hiding my astonishment, I casually asked the groom’s sister about his age. “He’s just 24,” she said. I could not help but wonder: why not wait a few months, at least until a long-term ceasefire is secured? Would it not make more sense to hold off until wedding celebrations could be received with fewer raised eyebrows, even amid the sorrow and loss of war? But before I could dwell further, the groom’s sister seemed to read my thoughts. She quickly reassured me that the wedding would be modest, stripped of the usual fanfare associated with such events.
The mind struggles to reconcile how a mother can bury her firstborn son as a martyr, then celebrate her youngest’s wedding just months later
Bakir Oweida
Her explanation tempered my initial shock, though questions lingered. How does one rationalize rushing into marriage while homes burn in a merciless war? Such puzzlement might arise in any conflict zone, particularly in shorter wars, and perhaps even more so in Gaza’s case, now in its second year. The mind struggles to reconcile how a mother can bury her firstborn son as a martyr, then celebrate her youngest’s wedding just months later. Should we recoil from such choices or admire these mothers’ determination to maintain life’s continuity as an act of resistance against occupation?
Opinions will surely differ between support and criticism, shaped by individual values and experiences. Yet one truth stands undisputed: human emotions transcend time and circumstance. Love’s pulse can quicken any heart at any moment. It can blossom in the ruins of war, just as it does in the calm of peace, whether in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Ukraine or anywhere else in our troubled world.
- Bakir Oweida is a Palestinian journalist who pursued a professional career in journalism in Libya in 1968, where he worked at Al-Haqiqa newspaper in Benghazi, then Al-Balagh and Al-Jihad in Tripoli. He has written for several Arab publications in Britain since 1978. He worked at Al-Arab newspaper, Al-Thadamun magazine and the international Arabic newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat. He has also worked as a consultant at the online newspaper Elaph.
This article first appeared in Asharq Al-Awsat.