lördag 14 juni 2008

As if we were all human beings

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.

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