Handala is the eternal child; the eternal 10-year-old refugee child conceived in the fragmented childhood of the late Palestinian cartoonist Naji Al-Ali.
In March, I first saw Handala in a painting in the wretched Bourj al Barajneh Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut; a camp similar to Shatila Camp, where Al-Ali grew up after his family was dispossessed of their home in Al-Shajara village near Nazareth during the 1947 Nakba.
The Nakba, with its symbol of precious keys from stolen or demolished homes (representing the right of return), is the Palestinian Catastrophe in which 750,000 Palestinians were forcefully expelled from their homes, from their beloved ancestral lands and roots by Israeli militia.
In a cartoon, Handala stands under a key hanging around the neck of the crucified Christ. Below is the caption 'Jesus is a Palestinian, says Naji Al-Ali; like all Palestinian people he too dreams of returning to his home in Bethlehem.'
Al-Ali has said of Handala's creation; 'I drew him as a child who is not beautiful; his hair is like the hair of a hedgehog who uses his thorns as a weapon. Handala is not a fat, happy, relaxed, or pampered child. He is barefooted like the refugee camp children, and he is an icon that protects me from making mistakes. Even though he is rough, he smells of amber.'
I learnt about Handala while perusing A Child in Palestine: The cartoons of Naji Al-Ali in a Jerusalem bookstore. On the cover Handala stands beside what seems to be a candle taller than him, but is in fact a pen: Al-Ali's pen was such a tour de force for truth that he was assassinated in London in 1987.
The image of this little child reminded me of Michael Leunig's iconic duck and his celebration of innocence as the ground of our conscience or what he calls 'the morality of the heart'.
Handala stands with his little hands clasped behind him silently witnessing the 63-year-wide cinemascope of 'slow motion ethnic cleansing' by Israeli state violence, by Arab and international betrayal and by callous human indifference. As a child he is vulnerable and needs protecting, so to stand by him we must reclaim, with heartfelt honesty, our lost innocence, to imagine what 10-year-old eyes, minds and hearts see and feel when suffering.
In Palestine, Handala is loved and cherished as a symbol of righteous steadfast resistance.
He is everywhere, not only on walls, stickers and T-shirts, but in