tolerance

today I visited the Nativity church in Bethlehem.

Leaving from Ramallah, I took a taxi van to the Kalandia checkpoint.
then I went through the checkpoint on another bus, just me and one other Palestinian women. We surprisingly weren't hassled and went right through.
Then I got to Jerusalem and took another bus to another checkpoint, then had to take a ride from a random stranger, then finally got to the Bethlehem checkpoint leaving Israel.

the trip took about 2 hours, but the distance couldn't have been more than 40 km.

I walked around the Wall. It is covered with graffiti.
words like 'Viva Palestina"
 "This is not a wall, This is apartheid"
"The maker of this wall is human. The breaker of this wall is human"
 "A country is not only what is does. It is also what it tolerates"
"Love wins"
"For He himself is our peace who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility"
when you walk around the wall, you come across a Palestinian cemetery. The Wall cuts right through it.
It cuts right through peoples' lives and histories and doesn't make sense.
It cuts right through decency.


after that walk, I went to the church of the Nativity. Sort of a surreal experience for one who has grown up with very Western ideas and images of Jesus' birthplace and the whole Bethlehem narrative.
I had images of a very rustic old farm-like manger scene, maybe some goats walking around, and perhaps a holy plaque or something.
but no.

Its really quite the opposite of what I imagined.
Its a huge almost empty cathedral with loads of Polish and Italian tourists taking pictures of a small hole in a marble inlay. lots of chandeliers.
there are no goats.
 
and next door is a beautiful renovated Italian chapel.

But what I was struck with in general, with all of this was that The holy site for Christians, the place where their Saviour was supposedly born, is right in the heart of what many Westerners, and all too many Western media outlets, deem terrorist territory. How calm and respectful and peaceful the whole scene was. and it was in an area that normally gets portrayed as suicide-bomber riddled mayhem.

Who is telling the official story?
I think most people reading this know who.
But why are so many others silent?

I was just amazed when I realized that this would definitely not be the case in many other parts of the world.
But here is was, and I wanted to tell you about it.

the peace of wild things

When despair grows in me
and I wake in the middle of the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.


Written by Wendell Berry.

empower me, alone?

One does not necessarily achieve empowerment, but rather it is a process of growth and change, continual throughout our lives. So says Paolo Friere (1973).

Rather than being a specific state, it is instead a way of interacting with the world (Gutierrez, L.M., 1994).

interviewing women in refugee camps, camps that have been around for 60 years, makes one reflect on freedom, power, control and value.
today I am going to Jalazone refugee camp in Ramallah. I will talk to women there about their communities, and hopefully gain some understanding about how they flourish and what it means to make a life there.
these are not what most people think of as refugee camps. they are indeed villages unto themselves. they have camp leaders and councils, schools and hospitals - provided by UNRWA.

I want to see how women see themselves. I have met many very confident, powerful female leaders in similar circumstances in Honduras and Colombia. They were the heart of the community, knew who did what and how to get anywhere.

I'm doing research on community resilience. why are some communities able to thrive in extremely adverse situations? how do they retain cohesion and internal commitment when the individuals within the communities are pressured by so many external factors that could lead to depression, hatred, anxiety or apathy?

my hypothesis is that people are stronger when they are together. we know this is true. it is intrinsic and not controversial. I struggle sometimes, however, with the self-directed and self-involved and self-validated nature of my daily life and modern daily life in Canada, and throughout the West.
we are taught to be independent, to go what we wish, and only rely on ourselves at the end of the day.

where has that left us?
why do we have such high rates of environmental destruction, substance abuse, domestic abuse and chronic disease?

I think we've lost something, something human and vital in our belief, our false belief that we can go it alone. maybe today I can put some words to that.
just some thoughts.

today I went to a baby shower and a funeral.

“we eat dates and drink coffee”

 “We come and sit and listen to the Koran in silence. We show our respects this way”

“Every time there is a new life, a new baby, all the women come and celebrate. Women only. We drink many nice things and eat sweets. Babies are sweet”

“you don’t pray- you just sit and listen and be”

“In Palestine, women keep community together. We have very important roles.”

 “Allah al-akbar”

I was struck again by how rich religious societies are. I was in a beautiful open courtyard, at sunset, surrounded by only women, covered in dark scarves, listening to the Koran sung in the background. The whole community had come to be there. Not just family. But everyone. The deceased, a 75-yr old man, probably knew everyone there. He never met me. But because I was visiting, and because you invite visitors into your home and into your life, I was there.

I definitely felt mixed feelings today regarding the headscarf. As soon as we got to Rania’s house, she took all her elaborate coverings off and was wearing normal clothes- sweat pants and a t-shirt.

She and her extended family live in a nice part of Qualqilya. Right next to an Israeli settlement though. The Israeli’s are creating a wall around parts of Qualquilya.

On the drive here today, we drove past a couple soldiers entering a Palestinian farm, and as we passed by, felt the tear gas that had been used to push the farmers back in the attack.

I asked the women at the baby shower what they teach their kids about the Israeli settlers. They said “they see them everywhere. They used to come into our homes, they know they walk around town with weapons. They are scared. Our kids see us talking with them, arguing with them. They know what is happening.”

This, as usual, is a little scattered. But so is life. And the situation here.

I saw such elegance and flashiness in one house and then ramshackle roads and horse-drawn carriages leading to another.

Many contrasts within this country. But the feeling of being a prisoner, being under siege is a constant.

 

peaceful protests

Yesterday, all throughout Palestine and farther, there were protests in support of the political prisoners on hunger strike in Israeli hospitals.

It seems like unequivocal that Israel's refusal to transfer the young men, Bilal Diab and Thaer Halahla, could lead to their death. Doctors in prison are employees of the Israeli Ministry of Public Security and "their "loyalty to their employer sometimes conflicts with the needs of their patients," says the organization Physicians for Human Rights. The group reports alleged violations of medical ethics by prison doctors, such as forced treatment on shackled detainees.

To me, it sounds like the pre-cursor condition to torture. Which, if it is, needs to be documented, decried, and addressed.

Everyone in the protest knew this. Everyone knew that 12,500 of their fathers, sons, daughters and best friends had been illegally detained without reason for in some cases more than 10 years.

Young kids, no more than 6 years old, walked beside me and waved the Palestinian flag, chanting in support of the prisoners and for peace.

Older women walked with priests and young grand-kids in what seemed to be a regular part of life here in Ramallah.

I suppose I am writing this to say that I have never seen such a beautiful, and confusion demonstration before. It is outrageous that these 12,500 prisoners have been detained on administrative charges. Often these charges stem from questioning the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) why they are confiscating Palestinian land, or challenging the presence of the IDF in Palestinian villages. The prisoners are simply being human, and demanding their dignity.

I was touched by the march, because it so clearly mattered to the women and men walking with me.

I felt it and knew.

state politics

I awoke today, with the sounds of the call to prayer in the background.

And then the news of Francois Hollande's victory in France. A socialist-minded politician who says he wants to return to the "earnest postwar years of government-mandated employment and central-planned projects. Those seem to be increasingly rare today, in these times of debt crises and paranoia of state-supported services.

This conversation seems like it is from a different world than the one I woke up in.

What would it be like for politicians here to say these words? Today I am going to meet with staff at OneVoice, which is an international Palestinian-Israeli youth organization dedicated to lobbying politicians on both sides to begin negotiations and push for a two-state solution.
I am interested to see their views on how much state activity will be permitted here?

So far, I've seen the Israeli state flex its muscles in serious ways. I am excited and intrigued to see what Palestinian authorities are doing...

my first day in Palestine

I crossed the checkpoint yesterday, from Jerusalem to Ramallah.
I'd heard 'you'll be taken and searched, you'll be interrogated and questioned, you'll have to wait for hours.'
We drove in the taxi, right through. No questions asked. No passports checked.

I am moving to Ramallah for the summer. So far, my journey has been terrific, but filled with so many complex emotions.

I spent a couple days in Israel, in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, before crossing into Palestine.
I entered hesitantly. I have come with a sort of hatred for the Israeli state. For its gross violations of Palestinian and Israeli human rights, and for its international grand-standing that takes exception to any probe or question about its actions. I felt I would say something wrong at every turn. Flip out on an unsuspecting coffee shop owner - 'do you know what your country is doing! Do you have any idea what is being done in your name?!'
But I didn't.

Instead, I was completely awe-struck by the place.
It was beautiful, people invited us to drink and dance with them, they drove us around and let us stay in their homes. They were incredibly kind and human. Just like anyone else.

I am starting this blog to put up words and experiences I think capture the situation, or at least my situation (a Canadian women working in Palestine) today.
I want to show how there is real dissent from within the country, how there are amazing people and how confounding all this is.


I woke up this morning, in my new flat in Ramallah, and started reading Haaretz. One of the editorials, from this ultra-Zionist newspaper, said "Israel is becoming a pariah state because the extreme right has taken it over almost entirely. The army has undergone an extreme turnabout and does not distinguish between anti-Semitism and the abhorrence the enlightened world feels toward it as a settler and an occupier."

Rachel Neiman, in Haaretz, wrote "I would like to be happy with my Israeliness - I have no other tongue. But I feel like a stranger in this country that has walls and fences in its heart, and I can find neither joy nor pride in my own heart."

I am here to spend four months working in community health programs and doing research on women's participation in local society. I want to know how people on this side of the Green Line feel, and if or how weary they have become. Comments like those above suggest to me that the settlements in the West Bank, and the "myths about the pioneers and the draining of the swamps" have had their time, and are not sustainable for much longer.

Thanks for reading so far, and I hope I can bring some more words and thoughts up soon.