Fiction: A valid medium

Creativity is a concept that many people seem to cast aside when writing. The story that I wrote of Ali Shadid was fictional, but the events that took place in his life form the very real and brutal Palestinian narrative. Rather then simply list all the massacres and events in Palestinian history, I attempted to tie them together in a fictional story to perhaps better depict the misfortune that many Palestinians have endured. I received positive responses to the article from a plethora of readers, including those as far away as UCLA. The article was also republished in a Hispanic weekly (www.hispanicvista.com). The article was not simply cast aside.

There is of course another side to this conflict, but many people simply do not understand the suffering that Palestinians have endured, and a list of dates and numbers no longer suffices to depict the very personal pain that thousands were and are faced with. The "fictional" narrative is a forum to express that pain and depression. Of course, it is a little sensational, but there are a number of stories of Palestinian refugees that we would never be able to understand, and that seem too surreal to have happened.

Most importantly, the Palestinian people are dehumanized everyday in the media and in history books. They are portrayed as a people simply enraged but without cause and without sincere emotions. If those people are not made to appear as human as you and I, and as vulnerable as you and I, then we will not understand the intricacies of this conflict. Writing the "fictional" account in The Daily Princetonian was an attempt to bring home Palestinian emotions but in a medium that we rarely see. I have read time and time again, articles that begin with "Imagine you are an Israeli . . ." I submit to you to think just once: Imagine if you were a Palestinian. Taufiq Rahim is from Vancouver, British Columbia. He can be reached at trahim@princeton.edu.