Waiting for the Promised Return

 

Jalal Saleh

 

Jalal Saleh has been living in Canada for well over four decades; 43 years to be exact. He was born in "Salameh", a small village right on the border between the famous old Palestinian port City Jafa (Yafa in Arabic) and the relatively new Jewish city of Tel Aviv (which later on became the Capital of Israel). The loss of his village was the most painful, indeed tragic, casualties of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war which resulted in the establishment of the State of Israel as a Jewish state. But in spite of the passage of time and Jalal's success in establishing family roots in Canada, the sweet memories of his childhood in that Palestinian village, including Jalal’s big extended family, are still quite vivid in his mind. Among other things, he fondly remembers his highly respected grandfather who was the Patriarch of the Saleh family, and the mayor/headmaster of the village. He also remembers the big family orchards and other properties that his family used to own and cultivate which no amount of money can possibly buy or replace.

 

During these early childhood years when Jalal was about ten years old, he used to go with his uncles to the citrus orchards on carts pulled by mules and horses. About one hundred people would participate in the harvest when oranges, olives, and other fruits and vegetables would be picked by hands, put in wooden boxes, to be sold to the wholesale merchants. The harvest used to be a most joyous festival. The family’s huge traditional Arab house was divided into different quarters in which related families used to live, close to homes, cows, goats and sheep. It was a reasonably peaceful and prosperous life. The 1948 catastrophe put an end to both peace and security, let alone prosperity.

 

Jalal together with his extended family and the rest of the village population ran away from their village in order to avoid the 1948 fighting. Like most Palestinians, his family thought that they would return to their homes and property once the fighting was over. Tragically, the Promised return has not been fulfilled because they were not allowed to go back. The loss of land, property and belongings, together with the destruction of their social life proved to be beyond anything imaginable. The entire family was reduced from the status of wealthy land owners to that of landless and impoverished existence, with scattered and dislocated family members sleeping in one small room in a friend’s house in the West Bank. Jalal ended up going to the City of Ramallah in order to finish his high school education. It was in Ramallah, too, where Jalal took courses in bookkeeping/accounting at a post-secondary institute where he also taught for a while after graduation.

 

Like many other Palestinian refugees, Jalal was able to find a job in Kuwait. The start of oil boom in the Gulf state opened many job opportunities for countless well-educated Palestinians. Jalal was employed by the newly established Kuwaiti Ministry of Finance whose head was Sheikh Jabber al-Ahmad al-Sabah (who later became the ruler of Kuwait after the 1960 independence from Britain). That experience proved to be uniquely valuable to the 19-year old Jalal, where he managed to move up the employment ladder. Jalal attributed his success in Kuwait to certain factors, the most important of which are honesty, determination, hard work and the ability to learn.

 

After spending ten years in Kuwait, and at the age of 29, Jalal came to Canada as a visitor, bringing with him his sister and her two children to join his sister's husband who was already living and working in Canada. Jalal was "obliged" to accompany his sister because at that time it was considered "socially" unacceptable for a lady to travel a long distance flight all alone, without a husband or a male relative. This social tradition proved to be a blessing in disguise for Jalal, because it gave him the opportunity to come to Canada. They landed in Edmonton, Alberta, in November 1966 when the temperature was 30 to 40 below zero. The weather shock could not have been greater. The holiday in Canada gave Jalal the chance not only to meet some new fine people, but also to see and experience for himself the new things he lacked and deprived of in Kuwait, namely, freedom and security. It was right there and then when Jalal decided that Canada was the country in which he and his family would like to live. At that time, Jalal’s family was relatively small, consisting of one child beside him and his wife.

 

Jalal feels that having a home in Canada is something that he cannot be more proud of. Additionally, he feels that no matter how much people complain about the existence of bigotry and prejudice in Canada, the level and intensity of these bad traits cannot possibly be compared to the way expatriates are treated in Kuwait and the other Gulf states. For in spite of all of its weaknesses, the Canadian democratic system is perhaps the best, especially when it comes to protecting individual’s rights and freedoms. As he puts it, "in any beautiful garden, one is bound to find some thorns, but this should not diminish the overall beauty of the garden".

 

Jalal thinks that among other challenges immigrants, like him, initially face are two formidable obstacles or barriers, namely, language and cultural differences. The color of skin can represent a problem, too, especially when it comes to employment. He faced all these linguistic, cultural and “skin color” difficulties, but he was able to overcome all of them through hard work, perseverance and the cultivation of inter-personal skills. As a Palestinian who was reduced to the status of a refugee after the loss of his homeland, he feels that he had no choice but to adapt and persevere in order to survive and provide a decent life for his family.

 

Jalal started his first business in Canada right after he arrived here as a visitor. He joined forces with his brother-in-law, together with a friend of the family. Unfortunately, that first business adventure ended up in failure. However, that painful experience taught him a few lessons, the two most valuable of which are: first, the need to know people well before you go into business with them; secondly, the importance of perseverance and hard work. His encounter with failure almost drove him back to Kuwait, but he decided that if he was going to succeed anywhere in the world, it should be in Canada. He never looked back.

 

Like most pioneer Arab immigrants who started their working life in Canada as peddlers, Jalal began to sell household stuff, going from one door to another, selling all kinds of items and cultivating new customers. The two years experience in this "peddling business" that took him through British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec, proved to be very educational because he was able to learn a great deal about Canada and Canadians.

 

After the two years experience with peddling and retail business, he decided to go into the wholesale field, with special concentration on leather goods. He managed to establish his own company, called the Canadian Leather Craft Company, which specialized in the manufacturing of Canadian leather items for tourists. He also began to invest in real estate in Alberta where he was able to make good money as a result of the rise in the price of properties that accompanied the oil boom in the province.

 

Jalal, together with members of his extended family in Canada, including his brothers and sisters, prefer to live in smaller communities, a preference which he attributes to his early childhood in rural Palestine. He believes that smaller communities tend to be safer and more relaxed and intimate, socially, than big cities like Toronto or Montreal. He strongly believes that the Arab community throughout Canada needs to establish more social and communal institutions in order to bring members of the new generations of Arab Canadians together. This is why he is proud of the Arab Community Centre of Toronto which he considers to be a source of pride for the community because it provides unique and essential services for all new comers, regardless of their national origin, religious affiliation, or ethnic background.

 

Jalal’s advice for young, as well as old, people is to invest their time in learning and doing something useful and beneficial to themselves and to the community at large. Nothing can be more important for young people than education. He points out to the fact that one of his sons who have disability was able to graduate from college with honor and is now married with three children. And in spite of his disability, his son teaches courses at colleges and has a small business of his own. Jalal is proud of the fact that three members of his family have PhDs. According to him, he has been successful in everything except being a husband. This is why he advises every married person to stay with his/her spouse. One tends not to appreciate the good things one has until they are lost. Things are not necessarily greener on the other side of the fence.

 

Deep down in the crevices of soul Jalal still dreams of the day when he can return to visit the site of the old family home in Palestine.