As if we were all human beings
I met up with Dunya, and Hannah and the rest of the volunteers working at Birthright Replugged at a wonderful restaurant in Jerusalem.
60 kids from four different refugee organizations throughout the West Bank would be grouped together during the coming three days. They would be hanging out, playing, getting to know each other, socializing, be allowed to taste the freedom of being in the Mediterranean sea. They'd be granted a brief glimpse of a mirage, get to see the country that they only heard about, namely Palestine outside the camp, beyond the walls and soldiers, before returning to the West Bank.
As foreigners with Swedish and American and British passports we can do what their parents are not able to - take them through the network of roadblocks, and the matrix of control. It requires manipulation to get through the maze, and an air of swedishness/Yankeeness to walk that road, but these are things we have in abundance.
We were Palestinians from exile, Jews from the US, and Palestinians from different parts of the West Bank. Together we were going to make sure that the kids experience the next few days would be a memorable one.
We divided the refugee camps up between us, and went to pick up children from each camp. They were to be escorted to the monastery where the summer camp would be held.
My group went to the Balata camp outside of Nablus and so we were dropped off at Huwwara checkpoint, while the bus continued up to Jenin, in the northern West Bank, where they would pick up Jenin kids, and then return for us.
It was Chris, Heike, Rosie Ben and I.
We got off the bus, we walked past palestinian travelers crossing the roadblock and headed out to places beyond the confines of Nablus. As were they ordinary people.
We crossed Huwwara, in through those fucking metal bars that I hate. We took a taxi to Balata, located a few kilometres away from Huwwara.
Balata was swarming with children in the streets, we strode past the pictures of martyrs and the murals of Palestine that filled these walls and as we arrived Yaffa Cultural Center I was smiling.
There were the kids who would be accompaniying us. They were restless, anxious, excited, in complete spin. Running and shouting and utterly out of control. It was amazing.
We were to divide them into smaller groups and take them to Huwwara, past the first checkpoint and its first ring of fire.
Parental reprimands were handed out to kids unwilling to pay attention. Fathers demanding obedience and calm of teenagers who'd never been allowed to move outside of their camp. Mothers requiring matureness of the adult child who longed to try their wings outisde of these barbed wired confines.
This was a trip where age was the definitive
Some of the girls were obviously over the age of 16, but I had not the heart to turn them back. We spoke about everything they would be experiencing these coming days.
We split up into yellow crowded taxis and arrived to a checkpoint packed with people, and we placed ourselves in the queue for internationals, women, children and men older than 45 years.
It was hot, bodies pressed tightly against each other, line creeping forward.
Holding mothers green West Bank ID
Then, everything came to a halt! Something was going on in the front, the crowd grew increasingly inpatient.
A few minutes later, the madness begins.
A soldier shouted "Bomb Practice" the next one yelled "la wara, wara la" (go back, go back!)
And then with the brute force that only four armed soldiers can inflict against 120 Palestinians, we were to be subdued.
The orders were that we move backwards another 50 metres.
Moving when pinned in a crowd is impossible.
Anyone who has been to a rock concert will testify to that.
It's degrading. To be treated like cattle, forced back as if standing in a stable's pen, by a boy in a mans uniform. A boy that might as well be my little brother. I could not begin to imagine what the experience was like for the older women and men, who had patiently and with great dignity stood waiting in the queue for hours. I could not fathom what it was like to wait there, hoping to be able to pass and do their jobs on the other side of that checkpoint.
Waiting to be able to visit grandchildren,go to the hospital, go to town, to live the semblance of a life as though you're a human being.
My kids grew even more restless, frustrated and worried. They feared that the trip would be canceled, and that they'd be forced to return to the camp.
The boys in my group were strong, broad-shouldered semi-adults, with the cocky attitudes only teenagers can display. Now they began to worry.
"Hanin, they will send us back won't they" "What happens now Hanin", "Hanin what was it he said to us"
I do not answer - as I can not allow myself to answer them in Arabic.
My Arabic makes me "one of them" when I desperately need to maintain my status as a foreigner for the soldiers to respect Swedish passports. I need to distance myself from my Palestinian side at that moment, to be seen as a human.
Soldiers shouting, soldiers scorn, soldiers beating with rifle over our bodies, the heat from his gun burns my back, it races with the heat created by a scorchin sun, sweat dampens my skin, feet that trample mine increase the confusion, humiliation fills my itching skin, blends in with boys confusion and nervousness. Their camp leader's grief of not being able to protect teenagers who were promised freedom from prison. This prison that shrinks by the minute and mixes with the nitrogen of anger, sadness, humiliation. A blend that puts us all in danger, a mixture that penetrates the walls caging us in.
I speak politely in my polished English.
English that sounds with authority and calm, apolitical and free of threats, despite the soldiers' stare at anyone "Arab".
The scream in my throat quelled, my anger subdued, so that the children will not suffer for it. I convince myself to be quiet so that my rage does not risk their hours of freedom.
Soldiers' orders is the law here. It's to be viewed as divine as any god, or force of gravity and we are expected to obey willingly.
One of the soldiers looks at me with shame. He protected me from recieving any more beatings despite his female colleague who was more than willing to cover me with her rage.
I recognize her from last year, recalling an encounter we had at Qalandiya checkpoint, and I suspect that she recognizes me also, even though no words are exchanged on the matter.
We remain standing, and I decide to send away all the kids, from the front of the queue to the very back of it. I don't want them to risk any more battering.
I am left standing in the front, a strange alien phenomenon dressed in a bright yellow tunic. Speaking with the same suave tone of voice as if I am trying to enter a popular night club.
As if we are all humans beings.
Time races, Dunya, and the others have already come back from Jenin with their kids and now await us with impatience.
She wants to know what is happening, and behind me she hears the chaos, hears my diplomacy among the madness. She hears me convincing the Commander to let my kids go through the checkpoint. I tell him to let us walk in the car lane, passed the queing palestinian elders, the children, the workers. I'm filled with shame for what I've just done. As soon as I have his nod, I run towards impatient kids, let them line up one by one and walk towards the bus, towards imminent freedom, past the soldier who protected me from beatings.
One of the boys, a big burly young sweet miracle catches one of the soldiers' attention. He is suddenly accused of having glanced defiantly, a glance! against the uniformed boy.
I pretend madness, I reprimand and threaten mothers scoldings, and the defiant miracle is allowed to pass.
Finally all the kids are through, and their camp instructors draw a sigh of relief, and my heart resumes it beating.
I get on the bus, while burning tears make it impossible to open eyes, while my heart aches.
The rest of the trip is a haze.
Seated at the front of the bus I am quiet, as I let the others tell kids what to do next.
We pass a few more checkpoints, but now safely sitting in the bus, and at one point, we are almost turned back.
Finally, we reach Beit Jmal. An incredibly beautiful monastery, inhabited by a small number of Italian monks, one of whom has resided in Palestine since 1937.
Kids amazed at the surrounding forest, kids who cannot wait to get off the bus.
Kids running, kids playing, kids who do not believe their eyes when they see the magnificent green mountains that surround them, basketball courts, gardens and abundance of beauty.
Kids who do not want to sleep even though the clock is one AM, and then two, and three and four AM. Kids at summer camp.
As if they were human beings.
lördag 14 juni 2008
torsdag 12 juni 2008
Contact info, correct this time
The phone number I posted earlier is incorrect. The correct number has been changed in the previous post as well, but I'll write it here also, for maximum accuracy. 00 972 54 975 30 46. Not sure where I got the first number from. Probably too much shisha.
Love
Hanin
Love
Hanin
Saving Edward
I need to confess something to you, something that I am ashamed of admitting:
I've stolen a book!
The 24 hours I've spent in Yaffa, the calm contrasting the subversion within me, the houses renamed, the trees re-rooted. It all became unbearable.
Woody lives with three israelis in an apartment in Yaffa. In the midst of all the arty and kindof indy things scattered around the flat I come across a book, by the late palestinian author Edward Said, my personal hero.
Edward Said was one of the reasons for my wanting to come here in the first place, at 18. He kindly and humbly answered my letters upon that first return to sweden, at a time when I was shaken and in chaos, and his example and his voice continues to speak truth, and remains one filled with human nuance.
The book that catches my eye is not just any book, either, but Said's autobiography "Out of Place".
It's in the bookshelf, amid a countless number of other books, on herbs and medicines, and novels in hebrew.
I'm in Yaffa, a palestinian city slowly transformed to something else, in a slow and painful ethnic cleansing, Edward Saids autobiography is in front of me, wherein he describes in miniscule detail, the very same powers that came to dispossess him.
I took it. Stole it.
Not because I had not read it, or because I did not own a copy, but because I wanted to save Edward. I could not leave him there, in the book shelf, as I was getting ready to leave.
I admitted to Nora and Woody what I had done. They both laughed, but seemed to understand, although it did not releave my guilty conscience.
Edward is now placed in a plastic bag, at the bottom of my suitcase, gnawing at my guilty conscience, reminding me that theft is wrong, especially when it erases a story so desperately needed to be heard.
I've stolen a book!
The 24 hours I've spent in Yaffa, the calm contrasting the subversion within me, the houses renamed, the trees re-rooted. It all became unbearable.
Woody lives with three israelis in an apartment in Yaffa. In the midst of all the arty and kindof indy things scattered around the flat I come across a book, by the late palestinian author Edward Said, my personal hero.
Edward Said was one of the reasons for my wanting to come here in the first place, at 18. He kindly and humbly answered my letters upon that first return to sweden, at a time when I was shaken and in chaos, and his example and his voice continues to speak truth, and remains one filled with human nuance.
The book that catches my eye is not just any book, either, but Said's autobiography "Out of Place".
It's in the bookshelf, amid a countless number of other books, on herbs and medicines, and novels in hebrew.
I'm in Yaffa, a palestinian city slowly transformed to something else, in a slow and painful ethnic cleansing, Edward Saids autobiography is in front of me, wherein he describes in miniscule detail, the very same powers that came to dispossess him.
I took it. Stole it.
Not because I had not read it, or because I did not own a copy, but because I wanted to save Edward. I could not leave him there, in the book shelf, as I was getting ready to leave.
I admitted to Nora and Woody what I had done. They both laughed, but seemed to understand, although it did not releave my guilty conscience.
Edward is now placed in a plastic bag, at the bottom of my suitcase, gnawing at my guilty conscience, reminding me that theft is wrong, especially when it erases a story so desperately needed to be heard.
onsdag 11 juni 2008
Freedom is imminent
Nora Woody and I hang out at the beach.
The last time I was here was three years ago. Everything is different now.
Suheil and Mahmoud from DAM stop by. They are on their way to their tour in France and Italy, and we talk about the experiences we've had in Palestine so far.
Their music has been the soundtrack in my head these past few days. Their asking who the terrorist is, their bringing dreams to live, their reminding us all that we share a bond stronger than territorial borders and walls, their reminding me that justice is the most powerful dream of them all.
I share the happiness over their sucess, because it is a big old FUCK YOU in the face of self righteous israeli nationalism.
Every once in a while we run into the water to swim, but mostly we just hang out and talk, work on our tans, read and chill.
It could be any beach, anywhere in the world.
Me and my ability to fall asleep anywhere, Woody, pale and stubborn, refusing to put on sunscreen lotion. Nora with her stories.
But the only thing in my head is that land, beneath the stones. That all of this is Palestine, that I am here at their will, that history is denied and tucked away.
Woody lives in palestinian Yaffa, a city that after 60 years connot be defined by any border to Tel Aviv, unless you look at architecture, mosques, population. Then it is absolutely unique.
A few months ago Woody filmed a brutal attack by a number of israeli police men here, he filmed them beating a palestinian man, an israeli palestinian.
He told me that the only thing significantly different about this beating was that it was actually caught on tape, but that the news shows who were at first interested in the abuse declined as soon as they found out that the victim was an arab.
I buy a sandwich by the young men at the deli a few blocks down from the beach, who could all be my brothers. The brown faces, the wide eyes, the Yallas and Salamats and shoo yaanis. I carefully use arabic instead of english when making my order, as a reminder that we are all connected somehow.
Afterwards I cannot say whom I am trying to remind. Myself or them.
We go to Woody's smelly room, and decide to meet up with our old friend Hammoudi, from Balata.
Hammoudi is 6 foot tall, and hyperactive.
He moves as if someone is timing him, and his carefully sculptured beard makes him ever more noticeable. The sound he makes when he is happy makes Nora and I roll over with laughter. Something inbetween a laughter and an eruption. HoHaaaaaayyyyyh.
Hammoudi sneeks in and out of Israel a few times every week, staying until he gets tired.
He travels from his refugee camp in Balata, in the outskirts of Nablus, along with a dozen or so other young men from town, heading towards Israel.
For work, for family, or just to let the thoughts slip, so he wont have to worry about every day problems and routines.
What a normal 20 something guy from Sweden takes for granted can cost Hammoudi jailtime, a big fine or his life.
Hammoudis dad left the family when Hammoudi was 20 days old. At 23 he tells the story as if it is a fact he's come to terms with, and goes on to tell me that the first time he ever met the man who conceived him, he was 13 years old.
Hammoudis father lives and works in Israel, he has a new family now, and it seems to be common knowledge in Balata that Hammoudis father is a collaborator.
This goes to say that he works for or with the israeli intelligence, which is something of the most dishonerable thing a palestinian can do.
I know of a suspected collaborator in Nablus who was shot in both legs, 6 bullets in each leg, as a warning to others.
Bu Hammoudi is not his fathers son. He is a man who speaks of freedom as if it is something dangling infront of him, but still cannot be reached. He loves Israel because he is free here, as long as no one catches him, reports him to the police, or shoots him on his way to and from freedom.
What I love about Hammoudi is that he is not satisisfied with merely watching his dreams. He goes after them, seizes them, holds on to them for dear life.
He is engaged to a beautiful and talented british-pakistani woman, whom he met in the camp as she was there to help, and they plan to get married this summer.
He does as he pleases, on a whim, seemingly unhindered, like a whirl wind.
In many ways Hammoudi is freer than most people I know, as he actually knows the value of his freedom.
His hand is always clutched around his cell phone, seemingly in constant communication with everyone at the same time, and we decide right then and there to take a trip to Tiberias, in our rented car.
Taking up palestinians in your car is an offence in Israel. If caught, you face a fine , imprisonment or in our case deportation.
But Hammoudi and his friend Rizq are our friends, our hosts, despite their not being welcome here, in contrast to Woody Nora and I, because we happen to carry gringo passports filled with fancy stamps.
We drive from Yaffa to Haifa, with Nora behind the wheel, me in the front seat and the three guys in the back. Still with DAM as our only CD we find our way to Haifa. Whenever a police car is spotted, or an army jeep passed, my heart skips a beat, my brain flashes a thought.
We arrive to Haifa around 11 at night, and decide to go to Akka instead of Tiberias.
Akka is the ctiy to which merchant ships set course, when they wanted to access Palestine. As one of the oldest cities still inhabited, Akka flaunts her beautiful stone walls, the fortress meant to protect her from invaders.
We sit by the wall, Rizq, Hammoudi, Woody Nora and I.
Hammoudi talks alot, mostly about how much he loves the ocean and freedom. She talks to me, he says, and I smile, but do not laugh. We drink and talk and listen to music from the guys cell phones.
Freedom seems imminent.
The last time I was here was three years ago. Everything is different now.
Suheil and Mahmoud from DAM stop by. They are on their way to their tour in France and Italy, and we talk about the experiences we've had in Palestine so far.
Their music has been the soundtrack in my head these past few days. Their asking who the terrorist is, their bringing dreams to live, their reminding us all that we share a bond stronger than territorial borders and walls, their reminding me that justice is the most powerful dream of them all.
I share the happiness over their sucess, because it is a big old FUCK YOU in the face of self righteous israeli nationalism.
Every once in a while we run into the water to swim, but mostly we just hang out and talk, work on our tans, read and chill.
It could be any beach, anywhere in the world.
Me and my ability to fall asleep anywhere, Woody, pale and stubborn, refusing to put on sunscreen lotion. Nora with her stories.
But the only thing in my head is that land, beneath the stones. That all of this is Palestine, that I am here at their will, that history is denied and tucked away.
Woody lives in palestinian Yaffa, a city that after 60 years connot be defined by any border to Tel Aviv, unless you look at architecture, mosques, population. Then it is absolutely unique.
A few months ago Woody filmed a brutal attack by a number of israeli police men here, he filmed them beating a palestinian man, an israeli palestinian.
He told me that the only thing significantly different about this beating was that it was actually caught on tape, but that the news shows who were at first interested in the abuse declined as soon as they found out that the victim was an arab.
I buy a sandwich by the young men at the deli a few blocks down from the beach, who could all be my brothers. The brown faces, the wide eyes, the Yallas and Salamats and shoo yaanis. I carefully use arabic instead of english when making my order, as a reminder that we are all connected somehow.
Afterwards I cannot say whom I am trying to remind. Myself or them.
We go to Woody's smelly room, and decide to meet up with our old friend Hammoudi, from Balata.
Hammoudi is 6 foot tall, and hyperactive.
He moves as if someone is timing him, and his carefully sculptured beard makes him ever more noticeable. The sound he makes when he is happy makes Nora and I roll over with laughter. Something inbetween a laughter and an eruption. HoHaaaaaayyyyyh.
Hammoudi sneeks in and out of Israel a few times every week, staying until he gets tired.
He travels from his refugee camp in Balata, in the outskirts of Nablus, along with a dozen or so other young men from town, heading towards Israel.
For work, for family, or just to let the thoughts slip, so he wont have to worry about every day problems and routines.
What a normal 20 something guy from Sweden takes for granted can cost Hammoudi jailtime, a big fine or his life.
Hammoudis dad left the family when Hammoudi was 20 days old. At 23 he tells the story as if it is a fact he's come to terms with, and goes on to tell me that the first time he ever met the man who conceived him, he was 13 years old.
Hammoudis father lives and works in Israel, he has a new family now, and it seems to be common knowledge in Balata that Hammoudis father is a collaborator.
This goes to say that he works for or with the israeli intelligence, which is something of the most dishonerable thing a palestinian can do.
I know of a suspected collaborator in Nablus who was shot in both legs, 6 bullets in each leg, as a warning to others.
Bu Hammoudi is not his fathers son. He is a man who speaks of freedom as if it is something dangling infront of him, but still cannot be reached. He loves Israel because he is free here, as long as no one catches him, reports him to the police, or shoots him on his way to and from freedom.
What I love about Hammoudi is that he is not satisisfied with merely watching his dreams. He goes after them, seizes them, holds on to them for dear life.
He is engaged to a beautiful and talented british-pakistani woman, whom he met in the camp as she was there to help, and they plan to get married this summer.
He does as he pleases, on a whim, seemingly unhindered, like a whirl wind.
In many ways Hammoudi is freer than most people I know, as he actually knows the value of his freedom.
His hand is always clutched around his cell phone, seemingly in constant communication with everyone at the same time, and we decide right then and there to take a trip to Tiberias, in our rented car.
Taking up palestinians in your car is an offence in Israel. If caught, you face a fine , imprisonment or in our case deportation.
But Hammoudi and his friend Rizq are our friends, our hosts, despite their not being welcome here, in contrast to Woody Nora and I, because we happen to carry gringo passports filled with fancy stamps.
We drive from Yaffa to Haifa, with Nora behind the wheel, me in the front seat and the three guys in the back. Still with DAM as our only CD we find our way to Haifa. Whenever a police car is spotted, or an army jeep passed, my heart skips a beat, my brain flashes a thought.
We arrive to Haifa around 11 at night, and decide to go to Akka instead of Tiberias.
Akka is the ctiy to which merchant ships set course, when they wanted to access Palestine. As one of the oldest cities still inhabited, Akka flaunts her beautiful stone walls, the fortress meant to protect her from invaders.
We sit by the wall, Rizq, Hammoudi, Woody Nora and I.
Hammoudi talks alot, mostly about how much he loves the ocean and freedom. She talks to me, he says, and I smile, but do not laugh. We drink and talk and listen to music from the guys cell phones.
Freedom seems imminent.
tisdag 10 juni 2008
We left Bethlehem the morning after the wedding.
Nora and I had decided to rent a car and go around Yaffa for a day.
My friend Woody lives there, so we'd all hang out at the beach as well, something I had not done for three years.
Saturday morning meant shabat, which meant that the checkpoint was excruciating, as if someone was trying to pull a tooth using piano wires.
Soldiers dragging their feet, moping, bitching and moning a little extra, and we, the travellers would be expected to deal with their ugliness.
The old lady travelling in the bus with us had arthritis, and could not stand up during inspection. She received a scoulding by a soldier, who refused to address me in english.
I have nothing but hate for the way they treat palestinians as if they were subhuman.
This system is constructed in a way that relieves you, its subordinate of having to think when acting cruelly. Inhumanity is practice, routine, cruelty the order of the day, and any reaction to the system means putting the person reacting in his or her place, it does not require you or the structure you have been put there to defend to change.
This is a picture of checkpoint Qalandia, between Jerusalem and Ramallah, and was shot last winter, with the mandatory happy greeting, to further underline the absurdity of said checkpoint system.
So this is how the system works:
To be allowed to move outside for instance Bethlehem, you need to fall under one the following categories.
Either you needA) A blue ID-cards, stating that you are a palestinian residing in Jerusalem, B) a permission to move outside of your own city, a permission issued by the israeli military, should you for instance require medical treatment unavailable in the big, illequiped palestinian hospitals, or if you for one reason or another need to be in 48 (the palestinian name for israel), or C) you have obtained a work permit, this too issued by israel, approved by the israeli military after interrogation, and possibly in exchange for information to the intelligence service.
The only other possibility to moving freely about is if you are a citizen of another country, such as Sweden, or the US.
Permits are difficult, not to say impossible to obtain, should the israelis decide that you do not deserve one. The reasons for denying you such a permit are arbitrary, and are never stated. Matters of security they say, and it is sufficient.
As a swedish palestinian the difference between myself and my palestinian countrymen becomes ever more apparent, as technically, there is no difference.
I am as brown, I am as palestinian. But it is in class markers, in language, in clothes, in patterns of movement and in whether or not the person infront of the soldier can be treated badly without any repercussions.
The restriction of movement applies to israelis also, although with no harrassment.
Should you be an israeli citizen wanting to go into the palestinian territories, you are not allowed to by law. Your own government bans you from doing so, you are not allowed to be in the West bank unless you are either a colonizer a.k.a "settler" or a soldier.
If you are a colonizer you are free to move around the West bank on roads constructed exlusively to your benefit, on land stolen and confiscated from palestinians, but you are not to travel into a palestinian town or city. If you are a soldier you venture into the same towns and cities in order to arrest, kill, cause havoc during nightly raids or other malicious reasons. Anything else is not allowed.
We are seated in the bus as a round little female soldier with makeup like a crazy person, big earrings and a cell phone with music blasting out of the speakers makes her entry.
She begins to collect all of the IDs, without even a glance in our direction. Suddenly she peers through the window of the bus, and spots a male soldier colleague, and runs out screaming with an adolescent shrieking sound, as if she were a teenager out of control, like a little meatball on steroids.
They annoy me so much, largely due to the fact that aforementioned meatballs are in control of our days. My schedule, and everyone elses on that bus, is solely dependent on that ridiculous person. Whether or not we can make our doctors appointments, if we will make it to the wedding, being able to see friends, or going to a concert.
Being powerless so that some tool soldier girl can get her hook-up on.
After a useless wait for the soldier girl to regain control of her hormone levels, we are finally allowed to leave.
David Nora and I rent a car at Ben Gurion airport.
We get into it, listening to the only CD we've brought along, the palestinian hip hop group DAM. They're from Lidd, in Palestine, what is now Lod in Israel, and we hang out with Suheil and Mahmoud on the beach in Yaffa.
Sitting in the car, looking out the window, all I see is the land under the stones, the music ringing in my ears. Stolen land, stolen history, stolen nationality, Stolen.
Here are the lyrics to one of Dams tracks.
- Mali Huriye - I Don't Have Freedom
(Featuring Ala' Azam and Anat Ig'bariye)
Tamer:
We've been like this more than 50 years
Living as prisoners behind the bars of paragraphs
Of agreements that change nothing
We haven't seen any light, and if we peek between the bars
We see a blue sky and white clouds
In the center a star reminds me that I'm limited
But no, I'm strong, staying optimistic
You won't limit my hope by a wall of separation
And if this barrier comes between me and my land
I'll still be connected to Palestine
Like an embryo to the umbilical cord
My feet are the roots of the olive tree
Keep on prospering, fathering and renewing branches
Every branch
Grown for peace
Every branch
Under the pressure of occupation
Refusing to give up
So why don't I have freedom?
Because I refuse to live in slavery
Chorus:
Everywhere I go I see borders, imprisoning humanity
Why can't I be free like other children in this world?
Everywhere I go I see borders, imprisoning humanity
Why can't I be free like other children in this world?
Mahmoud:
We searched for peace between Generals
Until we all became war children
Asking for freedom from prisons that want us
With closed and blind eyes
Our eyes staring at the free children
Always keep on rolling to a better life
Our leaders only flavor their speeches
Opening their mouths but shutting out hope
We use power because of our weakness
So life will treat us gently
We saw that we don't rule our own destiny
So we tried to grasp it in our hands and it died
All we asked for was a breath
And what did we sacrifice for it?
Also a breath
So you tell me
Why can't I be free like other children in this world?
(chorus)
Suhell:
I don't want to live on my knees
I'd rather not die at all
I still see the Occupation
Reaching his hand
Not for peace, not for equality
Not to mend things between us
But to suffocate me
Here's another massacre
And a wall that's separating me myself and I
The U.S. has made it their 51st state
Cleaning the Middle East of its Indians
Hitting us then blaming us
But all the biggest armies in the world
Are weak against the hope of the children
(chorus)
Little girl reading a poem:
We want an angry generation
To plough the sky, to blow up history
To blow up our thoughts
We want a new generation
That does not forgive mistakes
That does not bend
We want a generation of giants
Nora and I had decided to rent a car and go around Yaffa for a day.
My friend Woody lives there, so we'd all hang out at the beach as well, something I had not done for three years.
Saturday morning meant shabat, which meant that the checkpoint was excruciating, as if someone was trying to pull a tooth using piano wires.
Soldiers dragging their feet, moping, bitching and moning a little extra, and we, the travellers would be expected to deal with their ugliness.
The old lady travelling in the bus with us had arthritis, and could not stand up during inspection. She received a scoulding by a soldier, who refused to address me in english.
I have nothing but hate for the way they treat palestinians as if they were subhuman.
This system is constructed in a way that relieves you, its subordinate of having to think when acting cruelly. Inhumanity is practice, routine, cruelty the order of the day, and any reaction to the system means putting the person reacting in his or her place, it does not require you or the structure you have been put there to defend to change.
This is a picture of checkpoint Qalandia, between Jerusalem and Ramallah, and was shot last winter, with the mandatory happy greeting, to further underline the absurdity of said checkpoint system.
So this is how the system works:
To be allowed to move outside for instance Bethlehem, you need to fall under one the following categories.
Either you needA) A blue ID-cards, stating that you are a palestinian residing in Jerusalem, B) a permission to move outside of your own city, a permission issued by the israeli military, should you for instance require medical treatment unavailable in the big, illequiped palestinian hospitals, or if you for one reason or another need to be in 48 (the palestinian name for israel), or C) you have obtained a work permit, this too issued by israel, approved by the israeli military after interrogation, and possibly in exchange for information to the intelligence service.
The only other possibility to moving freely about is if you are a citizen of another country, such as Sweden, or the US.
Permits are difficult, not to say impossible to obtain, should the israelis decide that you do not deserve one. The reasons for denying you such a permit are arbitrary, and are never stated. Matters of security they say, and it is sufficient.
As a swedish palestinian the difference between myself and my palestinian countrymen becomes ever more apparent, as technically, there is no difference.
I am as brown, I am as palestinian. But it is in class markers, in language, in clothes, in patterns of movement and in whether or not the person infront of the soldier can be treated badly without any repercussions.
The restriction of movement applies to israelis also, although with no harrassment.
Should you be an israeli citizen wanting to go into the palestinian territories, you are not allowed to by law. Your own government bans you from doing so, you are not allowed to be in the West bank unless you are either a colonizer a.k.a "settler" or a soldier.
If you are a colonizer you are free to move around the West bank on roads constructed exlusively to your benefit, on land stolen and confiscated from palestinians, but you are not to travel into a palestinian town or city. If you are a soldier you venture into the same towns and cities in order to arrest, kill, cause havoc during nightly raids or other malicious reasons. Anything else is not allowed.
We are seated in the bus as a round little female soldier with makeup like a crazy person, big earrings and a cell phone with music blasting out of the speakers makes her entry.
She begins to collect all of the IDs, without even a glance in our direction. Suddenly she peers through the window of the bus, and spots a male soldier colleague, and runs out screaming with an adolescent shrieking sound, as if she were a teenager out of control, like a little meatball on steroids.
They annoy me so much, largely due to the fact that aforementioned meatballs are in control of our days. My schedule, and everyone elses on that bus, is solely dependent on that ridiculous person. Whether or not we can make our doctors appointments, if we will make it to the wedding, being able to see friends, or going to a concert.
Being powerless so that some tool soldier girl can get her hook-up on.
After a useless wait for the soldier girl to regain control of her hormone levels, we are finally allowed to leave.
David Nora and I rent a car at Ben Gurion airport.
We get into it, listening to the only CD we've brought along, the palestinian hip hop group DAM. They're from Lidd, in Palestine, what is now Lod in Israel, and we hang out with Suheil and Mahmoud on the beach in Yaffa.
Sitting in the car, looking out the window, all I see is the land under the stones, the music ringing in my ears. Stolen land, stolen history, stolen nationality, Stolen.
Here are the lyrics to one of Dams tracks.
- Mali Huriye - I Don't Have Freedom
(Featuring Ala' Azam and Anat Ig'bariye)
Tamer:
We've been like this more than 50 years
Living as prisoners behind the bars of paragraphs
Of agreements that change nothing
We haven't seen any light, and if we peek between the bars
We see a blue sky and white clouds
In the center a star reminds me that I'm limited
But no, I'm strong, staying optimistic
You won't limit my hope by a wall of separation
And if this barrier comes between me and my land
I'll still be connected to Palestine
Like an embryo to the umbilical cord
My feet are the roots of the olive tree
Keep on prospering, fathering and renewing branches
Every branch
Grown for peace
Every branch
Under the pressure of occupation
Refusing to give up
So why don't I have freedom?
Because I refuse to live in slavery
Chorus:
Everywhere I go I see borders, imprisoning humanity
Why can't I be free like other children in this world?
Everywhere I go I see borders, imprisoning humanity
Why can't I be free like other children in this world?
Mahmoud:
We searched for peace between Generals
Until we all became war children
Asking for freedom from prisons that want us
With closed and blind eyes
Our eyes staring at the free children
Always keep on rolling to a better life
Our leaders only flavor their speeches
Opening their mouths but shutting out hope
We use power because of our weakness
So life will treat us gently
We saw that we don't rule our own destiny
So we tried to grasp it in our hands and it died
All we asked for was a breath
And what did we sacrifice for it?
Also a breath
So you tell me
Why can't I be free like other children in this world?
(chorus)
Suhell:
I don't want to live on my knees
I'd rather not die at all
I still see the Occupation
Reaching his hand
Not for peace, not for equality
Not to mend things between us
But to suffocate me
Here's another massacre
And a wall that's separating me myself and I
The U.S. has made it their 51st state
Cleaning the Middle East of its Indians
Hitting us then blaming us
But all the biggest armies in the world
Are weak against the hope of the children
(chorus)
Little girl reading a poem:
We want an angry generation
To plough the sky, to blow up history
To blow up our thoughts
We want a new generation
That does not forgive mistakes
That does not bend
We want a generation of giants
tisdag 3 juni 2008
Contacting me
My number during my time here is +972 54 9753046.
Feel free to call or message if you want to get in touch, cheer, debate or just send me a funny joke.
Also... The point of my being here writing is not just keeping the blog, but also getting stuff published in other forums and media back home. If you know anyone who should be interested in this I'd appreciate it if you told that person of the trip.
Feel free to call or message if you want to get in touch, cheer, debate or just send me a funny joke.
Also... The point of my being here writing is not just keeping the blog, but also getting stuff published in other forums and media back home. If you know anyone who should be interested in this I'd appreciate it if you told that person of the trip.
Love continues
Ahmad is a fantastic man.
He is one of my closest friends. An artist, a dreamer, an activist, an educator and an organizer.
A lot of the things that I have learned, everything from what Palestine is to what it means to struggle, I have learned thanks to him.
He has sown seeds in me that were allowed to grow for years before the result could be seen.
We were lovers for a while, but broke up for different reasons, but remained the closest of friends.
Later he was imprisoned, under so called administrative detention, a kind of legal limbo wherein Palestinians can be thrown in prison without having faced charges or a sentence in a court of law.
Ahmad spent two years in the prison of his oppressors, and was released on May 14th of last year, which also happens to be my birthday.
On Friday Ahmad got married to Sabreen, a wonderful, intelligent, soulful and strong Palestinian woman from Ramallah.
The wedding took place in Bethlehem, and hundreds of people, from all over Palestine and the world attended their wedding, to celebrate the two lovers.
It was hot, crowded and sweaty, as all of you who have attended a Palestinian wedding can imagine. Lots of people, crowded, children running around, and a crazy whirlwind of a dance taking place on the dance floor in the middle of the banquet hall.
I was joined by my friends, Oscar from Malmö, Nora and Woody from the states, All three wearing their nicest clothes.
Nora is also one amazing chick, the host and producer of the alternative grass-root oriented radiostation KPFA's show Flashpoints.
I was happy and bewildered.
Love is a force that Palestinians understand very well, one that the occupation cannot quench.
Being able to love and to dream, and to long with passion is something that palestinians have mastered to perfection.
Sabreen waited for Ahmad for two long years in order to be able to start a life together, beyond prison bars and torture, and now, one year later their declaration of love is stronger than any force of nature.
I handed over my present for the bride, a protective hand of Fatima in white gold, to be worn around her neck. On the dancefloor was Ziad, Daoud, Iyad, Ayed and Naim. All the friends who had spent time in and out of prison together were now assembled, dancing, drenched in sweat, happy.
Den kvällen iallafall kunde ockupationen inte rå på dem.
It was an evening that the occupation could not steal away from them.
He is one of my closest friends. An artist, a dreamer, an activist, an educator and an organizer.
A lot of the things that I have learned, everything from what Palestine is to what it means to struggle, I have learned thanks to him.
He has sown seeds in me that were allowed to grow for years before the result could be seen.
We were lovers for a while, but broke up for different reasons, but remained the closest of friends.
Later he was imprisoned, under so called administrative detention, a kind of legal limbo wherein Palestinians can be thrown in prison without having faced charges or a sentence in a court of law.
Ahmad spent two years in the prison of his oppressors, and was released on May 14th of last year, which also happens to be my birthday.
On Friday Ahmad got married to Sabreen, a wonderful, intelligent, soulful and strong Palestinian woman from Ramallah.
The wedding took place in Bethlehem, and hundreds of people, from all over Palestine and the world attended their wedding, to celebrate the two lovers.
It was hot, crowded and sweaty, as all of you who have attended a Palestinian wedding can imagine. Lots of people, crowded, children running around, and a crazy whirlwind of a dance taking place on the dance floor in the middle of the banquet hall.
I was joined by my friends, Oscar from Malmö, Nora and Woody from the states, All three wearing their nicest clothes.
Nora is also one amazing chick, the host and producer of the alternative grass-root oriented radiostation KPFA's show Flashpoints.
I was happy and bewildered.
Love is a force that Palestinians understand very well, one that the occupation cannot quench.
Being able to love and to dream, and to long with passion is something that palestinians have mastered to perfection.
Sabreen waited for Ahmad for two long years in order to be able to start a life together, beyond prison bars and torture, and now, one year later their declaration of love is stronger than any force of nature.
I handed over my present for the bride, a protective hand of Fatima in white gold, to be worn around her neck. On the dancefloor was Ziad, Daoud, Iyad, Ayed and Naim. All the friends who had spent time in and out of prison together were now assembled, dancing, drenched in sweat, happy.
Den kvällen iallafall kunde ockupationen inte rå på dem.
It was an evening that the occupation could not steal away from them.
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