Watching the winners at the Beijing Olympic Games brings mixed emotions especially when there is a drastic or a dire story behind the gold medal winners. Human ability to achieve extraordinary physical goals is unlimited, such as a female runner who won a gold medal and yet she was born unable to walk for the first several years of her life. A myriad of remarkable stories were told by television anchors about the competing athletes and contestants to dramatize the events of the Olympiad. Many of the tales and narratives are boring, tedious, and uninspiring. Occasionally, while watching the games and without any tales associated with the competitors, I would start shedding some tears, my body starts tensing, enter an anxious state of mind, and an attack of spasms hits my diaphragm to the point where I would start sobbing. Whenever I get to this point, I just simply stand up and leave the room to disguise my emotions from others. After all, I grew up in a culture were men do not whimper, weep, or wail. I then would try to get hold of myself and behave like a macho-man.
This state of mind happed every now and then, but it is exasperated every four years during the Olympic Games. I think the cause of all these symptoms spurs from my wild imagination of picturing Palestinian athletes standing on the podium to receive their gold medals. Several years ago, the name Palestine would not appear in the Olympic opening ceremony as the participants marching in front of the spectators. It is only a few years back that a sole Palestinian athlete marched in the Olympiad. This round I noted four of them marching in Beijing and, who knows, perhaps one would see tens of them in future games. The only predicament with this picture is back home children and youths cannot walk or drive between towns and cities without being stopped at several checkpoints erected by their enemy for the purpose of security reasons. I am sure those four athletes were subjected to thorough body search and delays before they were able to proceed to Beijing. China. May be they have walked several miles on dirt roads crossing manmade barriers to reach their destination. If one asks any participants in this year games (athletes and spectators) about these checkpoints, none of them would believe it or even believe the daily suffering of the Palestinians under occupation they continue to endure for decades.
What is so urgent now is to see school children attending their classes without being fetched and terrorized on a daily basis. Those young people need to see safety and security for their parents and relatives with a freedom of movements in their own towns and cities. Nothing more humiliating to a child than seeing his or her father being slapped on the face by an enemy soldier. This would have an everlasting psychological impact on these young people for the rest of their lives. What is more humiliating is to see a parent being kicked, booted, and beaten up by a policeman or a soldier from his own kind.
The priorities are missed up now. While having the minimum and the least luxury of all, such as attending a game, is very helpful to the mind, soul, and body, opening roads and removing checkpoints are more important to the general populous. For a man being able to safely go to work and bring a piece of bread to feed his family should be of a paramount concern. To have a nation with a secure border and able to defend itself is what is needed at this critical stage of history. I visualize building schools, playgrounds, and sport arenas will then be useful in training competitive athletes capable of being decorated with gold medals.
It is all right to slow down and focus on what is needed now, because I know the children will be born to run and not to crawl or walk. The young generation will catch up with what was, is, and will be lost. Each one of them will have a story to tell and their ability to perform will be out of this world. They will be fast enough to reach their goals, I will be watching from wherever I am, and then I will shed all of my tears.

Omar Manasreh
16 August 2008

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