Ramallah - Nisaa FM -Susana Muhamad is a women of palestinan and Colombian decesnt.She is a political scientist and the Minister of Colombia's environment and sustainable development.
Personal Palestinian pilgrimage
What once felt weird or out of place became a source of pride for Susana. So to understand her family’s origins, she traveled to Palestine in 2009 to visit her grandfather’s hometown and “answer the questions” she had about her family’s past and the weight of her name.
“I just wanted to go and visit the place and get a better understanding, but when I arrived I found a whole family there. That was very surprising because it’s intense,” she says, tears welling in her eyes and her voice cracking as she recalls her trip.
“Meeting that family was like completing myself,” she says. “Witnessing that family bond of so many decades, [having] that question and going to answer it was very significant for me. It answered a lot of personal questions.”
Muhamad wears her Palestinian heritage on her sleeve, and she’s woven her family’s origins into her politics and personal growth. The pilgrimage to her family’s ancestral homeland and meeting her distant relatives struck a chord with the minister, and the personal weight the trip holds is evident even 14 years later.
“I realised it wasn’t just a surname, it’s a product of a historic process. I’m involved in that historic process and it has a meaning, so I always have something that reminds me of those origins,” she tells MEE.
She still wears a necklace a distant relative gifted her on her trip to Palestine, and occasionally holds it during the interview while recalling the visit and its impact. A box adorned with Arab calligraphy and full of local Arab sweets also adorns the table in her office.
Political influence
Muhamad is now a prominent figure in the cabinet of Colombian President Gustavo Petro, the first leftist leader in the country’s history and an open defender of the Palestinian cause.
As minister, she has been tasked with spearheading an ambitious environmental agenda and is working on the government's energetic transition to steer Colombia towards renewable and sustainable energy.
Prior to being appointed minister, she also served as secretary of the environment as well as secretary general of the Bogota town hall, while Petro was serving as the capital’s mayor between 2013 and 2016. In 2015, while Muhamad served the town hall, the Palestinian flag was raised in Bogota’s central Bolívar Square to mirror the United Nations’ gesture.
The minister was also recently included in Reuters' list of 25 most influential womenleading the fight against climate change.
“I sometimes wonder if my grandfather would have imagined me to be in the position I am in today,” she says, holding back tears.
Muhamad confesses that her Palestinian background has helped shape her politically and considers herself an active defender of the Palestinian cause.
However, she recognises that her position as a cabinet minister has restrained the level of advocacy she can make in favour of Palestine. “I am a defender of the Palestinian cause, but now as a public servant in the Colombian government, it is complex.
“I try to internally push this government – I cannot do so externally – to have a strong position in its international relations regarding the demands of the Palestinian nation and hopefully speak out against Israel's abuses,” she explains.
'I am a defender of the Palestinian cause'
- Susana Muhamad, Colombia's environment minister
In April, she responded to a tweet by President Petro by saying “there is a lot we need to do for Palestine, starting by renegotiating [Colombia’s] free trade agreement with Israel”.
Last May, she celebrated the Bogota city council’s decision to rename a street in the capital the State of Palestine Street.
During Petro’s presidential inauguration last August, Muhamad also shared a photo of her alongside Palestine's foreign minister, Riyad al-Maliki, who had attended the ceremony in Bogota.
The caption accompanying the photo reads: “I always carry in my spirit the Palestinian roots from which I come, it was an honour to greet the foreign minister of Palestine and to talk about the future of our peoples.”
Her surname is no longer a source of confusion yet more so a reminder of a family bond and a collective cause that has come to shape Muhamad.
Despite sitting in her office flanked by the Colombian flag, her heritage is clear, as is her personal and political connection to the Palestinian cause and the country her grandfather left behind almost a century ago.
Source:
By : Inigo Alexander