Discuss the below:
Create an 800-1000 word response.
Young Turki is a contradictory, confused and confusing character. How do you respond to this?
What did it mean for Turki to be a refugee on a practical level? How did being a refugee affect the tangible circumstances of his life?
• What did it mean for Turki to be a refugee on a practical level? Apart from the obvious---not being in his home country and unable to return---how did being a refugee affect the tangible circumstances of his life?
• Later in the book he says: "...try as you will, try as often as you might, to escape your reality, your identity, your Self, yet it follows you every hour, every day of your life---that incessant logic showing you how, with your history deflected from its preordained course, there is no rest for you until you have regained that intangible and exquisite tool which men and women use to identify themselves as spiritual beings and of which you have been robbed. Only then will you begin to become concerned with the down-to-earth issues that characterize the existence of other people." How does this issue of identity manifest itself in his life in the camp?
• The young Turki is a contradictory, confused and confusing character. Identify where these are revealed in the chapter.
• What kind of relations between Palestinians and Israelis and/or Jews, are depicted here?
• How does he feel about Americans, Nasser, other Arabs? What informs his attitudes?
• Why did Palestinian refugees refuse to settle in neighboring Arab countries, according to Turki?
• Based on your reading of this memoir, how should we evaluate accounts such as this as sources for history?