Swee Chai Ang
Autor(a) de From Beirut to Jerusalem: A Woman Surgeon With the Palestinians
About the Author
Obras por Swee Chai Ang
War Surgery 1 exemplar
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Membros
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This is the story of Dr Ang Swee Chai, a Penang-born orthopaedic surgeon, and her flight to war-torn Lebanon in 1982 to treat the wounded and dying. This new edition, twenty years after the Zionist terrorism in Shabra and Shatila which killed thousands of Palestinian civilians, is a tribute to the ongoing struggle against Zionist occupation in the Holy Lands.
Estatísticas
- Obras
- 2
- Membros
- 47
- Popularidade
- #330,643
- Avaliação
- 4.0
- Críticas
- 2
- ISBN
- 5
- Línguas
- 1
also read: Lucy Watson (2016) ‘The politics of location’: memoirs of women aid workers in 1980 Beirut, Textual Practice,, 30:4, 621-643, https://doi.org/10.1080/0950236X.2015.1024731
Lucy Watson discusses the memoirs of Ang Swee Chai, Pauline Cutting and Suzy Wighton, who were volunteer medical aid workers in the Palestinian refugee camps in Beirut during the 1980s. The 3 women had worked together at various times.
My comments to the memoirs of Pauline Cutting you find here: https://www.librarything.com/review/251434300 ; I did not read Suzy Wighton’s memoir.
Swee Chai Ang’s record of her working as an orthopaedic surgeon in West Beirut in 1982 and 1985/86 is profoundly uplifting and profoundly depressing; Ang does not hesitate to record what human beings are capable of doing to others.
Swee Chai Ang grew up and studied medicine in Singapore. She and her husband Francis Khoo (http://singaporerebel.blogspot.com/2011/11/tributes-to-francis-khoo-1947-2011.html ) had to leave Singapore because they were too outspoken. She became a political refugee without passport only a ‘British Travel Document’. In 1982 she heard of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Motivated by her strong christian belief, Ang followed an international call for orthopaedic surgeons to treat war-victims.
Her christian belief had in the past made her see the state of Israel as fulfilment of scriptural prophesies, now she was shocked to hear an Israel leader remark: “to make an omelette one first had to crack eggs” (2, 31), Israel had turned from David into a swaggering Goliath.
Both, Ang Swee Chai and Pauline Cutting, describe the day-to-day medical work, the relationships they form with co-workers and Palestinians in the camps but from different perspectives. As a refugee from a non-western country living in exile, Ang is able to identify closely with the displaced Palestinians who are, just as she is, without a recognised passport (Hannah Arendt: … having lost [with citizenship] the very qualities which make it possible for other people to treat him as a fellow-man” ); they see themselves not as true refugees but as exiles (35). Lucy Watson analyses these different perspectives in her essay.
Some notes:
Aug. 1982 Ang arrives in Beirut
Sabra / Shatila camps: 1/3 poor Libanese, some Jewish families - no discrimination then (35)
The Sabra - Shatila massacre 16-18 Sept. 1982 (Ch.6 - 7); with sone of her co-workers, Ang was subjected to a mock execution (64f). What human beings are capable of doing to others … (90)
History of Palestine massacres (103) : Deir Yassin, Tel al-Zaatar, …
Ellen Siegel, US jewish nurse: “The whole society here is built on top upon injustice”
Resisting pressure from European team members Ang Swee Chai and Paul Morris join Ellen Siegel to testify before the Kahan Commission (Ch.12, 129, …)
After meeting in Jerusalem a kindly woman Israeli historian, an Auschwitz surviver, upset about the massacre, Ang writes: ‘It must be cruel for Jews who had suffered so much under the Nazis to see their own people inflict suffering on others’ … ‘Was it necessary for the creation of a home for the victims of Nazi persecution […] to be transformed into suffering for another people?’ (131)
Index (incomplete) of persons mentioned (Gaza Hospital, Sabra 1982):
Dr. Rio Spirugi, co-ordinator Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) (Ch.3);
and his new team:
Dr. David Gray, Dr. Egon, Dr. Swee Ang and two theatre nurses: Ruth from Denmark and Sheila (20f)
Dr. Amir Hamawi, Lebanese surgeon, Gaza Hospital (37, 94, 267)
Azziza Khalidi, Lebanese Palest. administrator of Gaza Hospital (39pp, 57, 59p, 69, 76, 83, 92, 105, 109)
Dr. Paul Morris, British surgeon (45, 59, 62, 116, 121, 125)
Dr. Phil McKenna, (female) Irish anaesthetist (47, 207)
Abu Ali, Palestinian operating theatre superintendent (48p, 93)
Dr. Per Miehlumshagen, Norwegian orthopaedic surgeon, volunteer, Gaza Hospital (58, 68,
Um Walid, director of the PRCS in Lebanon (76ff, 109, photo)
Hadla Ayoubi, PRCS director of public relations, co-ordinator of the foreign medical volunteers, Palestinian from Jericho (76ff, 109)
Leila Shahid, PRCS administrators, Lebanese Palest. (82ff)
Ellen Siegel, US jewish nurse (95-99, 102pp, 108f, 113, 141
Ben Alofs, Dutch volunteer (100, 156, …)
Jill Drew, Mary (101p), Charlotte, US nurses (117, 121)
________________
1984 Ang and her husband Francis Khoo co-found Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP); Dr Rafiq Husseini elected director (Ch.24), Major Derek Cooper, president of MAP (219, 222)
1985 first MAP team sent to Beirut: Alison Haworth, nurse - John Thorndike, anaesthetic - John Croft - Immad - Ben Alofs (156, photo)
Makmoud, 16-year old Palestinian fighter, his two older brother have joined the hostile Amal militia - the split went through families (175)
Hannah, nurse from Gaza Hospital (179f, 194) and her friend Nahla (photo, 240ff) - four women (among them Nahla) went out and tied bullets around their bodies to smuggle them into the camp (180)
Joyous greetings by children, widows, old men who recognised her when walking from Shatila towards Gaza Hospital (184f); Gaza Hospital had been burned and looted by Amal militia during Lebanese civil war.
By 1985 “the warmth, generosity and unity between Libanese and Palestinian” she experienced in 1982 “seemed to have been replaced by sectarian hostility, cynicism and a sense of helplessness.” (199)
Hommage to the selfless people who risked their lives to help others, like Nabila Brier, UNICEF field officer, Beirut (Chap. 23)
23 January 1987: The London MAP office received a first desperate letter from the besieged Bourj el-Brajneh camp signed by Pauline Cutting, Ben Alofs, Susan Wighton (214p)
30. March 87: Ang sends a letter to Hafez al-Assad to send troops to lift the Amal siege of Bourj el-Brajneh, first reaction on 3. April: Swee gets a Syrian visa to go back to Beirut, arrives on the 10th, greeted by Øyvind, NORWAC co-ordinator. 6. April: the BBC announces that Syrian forces will impose a ceasefire at Bourj el-Brajneh (Ch. 25); Swee walks into Shatila past Amal fighters. (Ch. 26) meets Chris Giannou, Greek-Canadian surgeon, Director of Shatila hospital (237f, photo): amazingly efficient setup in the rubble of the camp.
Swee becomes a truck-driver to bring in food, medical supplies , … - her medical skills are not needed and it is easier for her to cross the numerous checkpoints (Ch. 28, 256f). She started treating people at the checkpoints, then Amal soldiers, later Syrians, brought their families for treatment (259).
Ang writes: “It took the uprising in 1987 (the 1st Intifada) to expose the true face - the brutal violence - of the West Bank occupation” (Ch. 29). “The uprising gave the Palestinians in Lebanon dignity and a new meaning to life, but as 1988 unfolded, the same forlorn situation persisted.” (Ch. 31)
________________
Index (incomplete) of persons mentioned (Haifa Hospital, Bourj el-Brajneh 1985 - 87):
Um Walid, director of the PRCS in Lebanon (158f, 164, 191, 193f, 231, 243, 266f)
Nabila Brier, UNICEF field officer, Beirut, murdered 18.Dec. 1986 (Ch. 23)
Nidal, hospital administrator (165), died in 1986
Dr. Reda, medical director, Haifa Hospital (165f, 168ff)
Dr. Rio Spirugi (Ch.3, 165f)
Prof. Arnaouti (190f)
Dr Pauline Cutting, British Surgeon (214, 218-20, 242 photo)
Ben Alofs, Dutch Nurse (172f, 214, 218)
Susan Wighton, Scottish Nurse (214, 218, 220f photo)
Hannes, Austrian physiotherapist (216, 218, 220 )
Mike Holmes, Scottish MAP publicity officer based in London (215, 219)
I suggest to read Parts I-IV then Pauline Cutting: Children of the Siege before Part V. (X-23)… (mais)