I found an Arabic tutor. Her name is Ranad and she is really great. She was just starting university here when the second Intifada broke out. It was impossible to attend school so she went to the Chicago and studied architecture. She stayed for seven years and just returned last year. Anyway, she is a great teacher and hopefully will be a great friend. Saturday evening we went to a musical performance sponsored by the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music. It is a beautiful, new, unique structure in the old city of Ramallah. They added modern materials and shapes to the old stones of the city. I don't usually like this combination of modern and ancient but I really loved this place. The music was played on a roof that had large pieces of metal towering and bending above and around us to aid the acoustics. The first to perform was a group of classical musicians from Spain, Italy, and France. They were very enjoyable although I got a laugh out of their decision to play "What Would You Do With a Drunken Sailor" to a group of people living in a landlocked country that requires permits to leave, most of whom practice a religion that prohibits the consumption of alcohol. The second group was a Palestinian group. They are known for singing the songs of Sheikh Imam, an Egyptian singer and composer who was famous for his political songs against the ruling elite and in support of the common man. Much of his music was written from Egyptian prisons where he spent time due to his criticism of the government. His lyrics are still used today in anti-government street demonstrations in Egypt. The message of his music resonates throughout the Arab world and is particularly meaningful to the Palestine question. Here are some translated lyrics from a song he wrote about Palestine in 1974:
"O Palestinians, exile has lasted so long,
That the desert is moaning from the refugees and the victims,
And the land remains nostalgic for the peasants who watered it
Revolution is the goal, and victory shall be our first step"
The first few songs that they played contained very complex language but the later songs were much more accessible to the audience and everyone started joining in by clapping and singing along. It was really a beautiful evening and had an effect on me for some reason. There were many children there and others could be heard playing in the street below us. People were on the roofs of nearby buildings, watching and listening. As we arrived at the venue old men had been sitting in a circle outside carrying on some type of discussion. People so enjoyed their musical guests from Europe and really seemed to appreciate these small gestures of international recognition that Palestinians are so often denied. The evening just felt like this big gift of beauty, happiness, peace, freedom.
I am also really enjoying the women that I work with. A new woman just started last week. She is from Gaza and her husband is a Fatah member. When Hamas took over in Gaza he fled to the West Bank. She followed him here seven months later. We have all managed to find time during the day or over ice cream after work to discuss and share our lives as women. Bikinis, marriage, the difficulties of being a working mother, domestic violence, what does "women's rights" mean?, remembering that we are all living within a culture that shapes us and our views on these things. These conversations have just reinforced for me how much women around the world share and that there is a tremendous amount of strength that we can gather from these shared experiences. Of course in our conversations there are many things that we disagree about but we have so many issues to discuss because as women we face the same things even if we differ on how we choose to face them.
One more thing - a friend of mine who is in El Salvador this summer, another society that has recently lived through a traumatic conflict, was telling me about how he interacts with people who lost fathers or limbs, or eyeballs in a conflict with a government that is still in power. He said that the current situation is not exactly Peace, but more like a "hangover". So he was asking me, in light of a poll that he saw that showed 2/3 of Palestinians supporting "terrorist attacks" on Israel, if I thought that even if a political agreement was reached that removed the settlements, gave Palestinians free access to Jerusalem, set up a Palestinian state with the territorial integrity to flourish, etc., etc. would society still be suffering for generations from the hangover of this 60 years of conflict? I don't know. I think it would help that unlike El Salvador or South Africa for instance, that their former enemy would be in another state altogether. The internal Palestinian fighting is very concerning though. I think there would be such an exuberance in the air if (biggest IF you have ever seen) there is a just and comprehensive agreement that allows Palestinians to live freely within their land and control their own lives and futures (and too many other details to possibly list). But, no, I don't think people are going to forget about their Nakhba (catastrophe) of 1948. How could they? It is a defining aspect of their history and identity. No, they will not stop thinking about the land they used to own along the sea in what is now Tel Aviv or the farms they worked in the Galilee. And they will never forget the indignities and oppression they continue to live with now. (I'm sorry that these thoughts are so disjointed. I wasn't planning on writing any of this. I guess I'll just keep going with it though.) Many Palestinians have told me that these experiences make them stronger. They are proud that they continue to live. They are proud to be the most highly educated society in the Arab world. They are proud that they have not given up and that they continue to seek freedom and independence. While dispossession and oppression is central to every negative aspect of life, it is also central to every positive aspect of life. To marry, to laugh, to fly a kite all mean something different, something more when you are struggling for your ability to exist.
I guess one last thing that I will address here - the fact that 2/3 of Palestinians support "terrorist attacks" on Israel. To me this has no meaning unless we understand who is doing the defining of "terrorist attacks". Are they attacks on the Israeli security that is denying shipments of food and fuel into Gaza? Are they rockets fired out of Gaza into the surrounding Israeli areas? If it is these two acts then I would put the number of supporters or at least sympathizers at an even higher figure. Here is why - to Palestinians these attacks are not terrorism. They are a response to a state military apparatus dropping bombs in their neighborhoods where children play and using their position of power to cut off the population of Gaza from the outside world, not to mention food, fuel, and medicine. Sure, maybe the Israeli army doesn't "target" civilians (usually) but they don't care to avoid them either. Therefore Palestinian militant actions are not seen as acts of terrorism but as acts of war, self-defense, revenge, resistance. I don't want to give the impression here that 2/3 of Palestinians are participating in violent methods of resistance. I am just saying that there is no way they are going to label these actions terrorist and outright reject their use while the world continues to give Israel free reign to disregard the lives of Palestinian civilians, not to mention Lebanese! What I would like to underscore, because I don't think we ever hear about it in the American media, is the strength of the non-violent movement here in Palestine. Nearly everyone participates in some way. Whether it is trying not to buy Israeli-made goods, joining your neighbors in flying kites out the window of your house after a curfew has been put into effect that denies you your right to leave your own home, or participating in one of the protests that occur throughout every week here. This non-violent movement has somehow stayed alive throughout all these years. This is quite remarkable since besides the occasional favorable court ruling or the delay in Israel's theft of land because people have chained themselves to bulldozers, what has it accomplished? The outside world is largely ignorant of this extremely active movement, the situation has deteriorated to a level of complete absurdity, and the international community has not yet been willing to join them on the large scales that brought down Apartheid in South Africa. More thoughts on this later.
1 comment:
If that felt as cathartic to write as it did to read, you must feel awfully free :) Love your thoughts.
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