Wednesday 11 November 2009
Moments of hope
The bit of the wall coming down 20 years after the fall of the Berlin wall. Unfortunately I don't predict the same ecstatic reunion as a generation reunites with its family but instead a process of understanding and learning as 3 generations have passed since families were broken and divided... But the people in the West Bank and Gaza will have many many more reasons for ecstacy and feelings of liberation!
Thursday 11 June 2009
Hebron pics
Ibrahimi Mosque: (note darker stone to the right: synagogue; lighter stone to the left:mosque) - also good to check out the military post and camoflague on the tower to the left.
4 holes punched through a Palestinian water tank, this is common practice, and was done on the roof of a house that has a settler living on an outpost constructed on top of their neighbour's roof.
A sniper tower in the middle of the old city that is a slow motion land war, brick for brick.
Another military installment in the middle of the city - behind the netting are some soldiers pointing their guns at us... In the foreground stands Phelie and Peter.
4 holes punched through a Palestinian water tank, this is common practice, and was done on the roof of a house that has a settler living on an outpost constructed on top of their neighbour's roof.
A sniper tower in the middle of the old city that is a slow motion land war, brick for brick.
Another military installment in the middle of the city - behind the netting are some soldiers pointing their guns at us... In the foreground stands Phelie and Peter.
Ma'asara
Mohammad Bergai was released on bail on the 4th July! He probably wont be called to court again. This is really fantastic news and was a bit of a surprise to be honest, Hassan is still inside and probably will be for a while, but let's get this straight; out of the 7 arrested, the IDF tried all the tricks in the bag and only one is still in gaol! (Despite the heavy bail fines, the curfews and house arrests, this reallys isn't bad going)
Here's a picture of a few houses of al Ma'asara village, the one we were all trying to protect.
Here's a picture of a few houses of al Ma'asara village, the one we were all trying to protect.
Wednesday 10 June 2009
Leaving.
After finishing a few things at Angela's, and after she sent me off with some extra batteries for the digital camera that she gave me, and a nice hearty loaf of bread, I set off for my final day's work in Bethlehem.
We had a meeting about funding and then I realised that the deadline for proposals for the funding line that suited the study of the effect of the occupation on the villages near the 'apartheid wall' had just gone past and I sent the wrong application form with a different date on it, I closed up the day, said goodbye's and thank-yous and packed off to Hebron feeling a bit sad that I had not found a source of funding so that they could continue with the work that we had started, which we eventually planned to be the start of a grass-roots empowerment and community participation project with the report as a platform through which to educate the villagers of each other's grievances.... Oh well, I'm sure they'll sort it out but it just means more time not doing other fantastic things!
I stayed in Hebron for a few nights with Phelie and Simpiwe, and three girls all on the "ecumenical accompaniment program for Palestine and Israel", which observes human rights abuses, reports them, stands at check points at 4am and follows kids on school runs so that they are protected from settler violence.
That evening I accompanied Phelie, Simpiwe, and Peter, a Scottish mechanic that had done a lot of work in the salvation army, to their friend's for dinner. Their friend was an Immam called Yousef, one of the religious leaders at the Ibrahimi mosque. They had just missed witnessing the death of his son, who was a kind of Muslim missionary, but was back in Hebron. He was late for prayer and after passing the two heavily manned check points, passing through a metal detector and probably going through a strict search, he ran up the steps to the Mosque so that he wouldn't miss prayer.
A bullet was sent down the steps to meet him in the chest and another sent after him to rip through his neck.
The official excuse from the IDF was that they thought he was carrying a knife, or might have been a terrorist.
This is ludicrous; he had just passed through security that's tougher than Gatwick airport. I've seen the place and if it was accidental then these soldiers really were stupid.
The bullet that was fired from the top of the stairs actually sank into the soldier at the bottom of the stair's leg.
The soldiers then shot the 20 year old in the leg a few times so that they could say that they shot his legs first, but the autopsy suggested that these bullet holes never bled.
Yousef had to bury his son away from the mosque that was the focus of their lives because this was a highly emotional death for the community and hundreds were expected at the funeral. The occupational administration only lets 20 people at a time into the cemetery where the rest of the family is buried outside the mosque.
The Ibrahimi mosque is now split into 2 halves, one for Muslims to pray in and one for Jews. They both have different entrances and a wall divides the two communities.
The dinner was great, and they made instant last minute provision for the vegan after (again!) unsuccessfully trying to push meat on me.
After dinner we had a discussion about Islam, life, God, the universe and everything - which was great.
The next day was equally harrowing in its own way. We went to a deserted part of Hebron just under another Israeli settlement. In this deserted part of Hebron, right next to the towering stilt built settlement above it, lived a family of 5. Hasham's house.
Hasham was also a "one stater" (people like me that believe that the only way forward politically is to amalgamate Israel and Palestine so that the inhabitants have equal rights and work hard and strong for reconciliation and integration between the two communities - the main obstacles to this are the collective racist psychology of the region, the unwillingness of Israel to become a secular state, and It's reluctance to share the resources in the region etc. etc.). Hasham showed us the door upon which the settlers had descended to write "gas the arabs" under the star of David - the IDF, knowing that Hasham received politicians from Israel and diplomats from abroad occasionally as he spoke English well and has a computer to show videos on and talks openly about his family, asked him to paint over the "gas the arabs" at gunpoint, but when he went to remove the star of David, they told him to leave it "this is Israel after all" (when in fact Hebron is clearly classified as Occupied Palestinian Territories). Next, Hasham showed us where they had cut all the trunks of his grape fruit trees, the 8 meters or so of branches hanging dead on the frame. Then he explained why there was a broken washing machine in the front garden; a settler threw it at him when he was standing outside. He keeps it as a reminder, but tries to clear all the other rubbish that the settlers throw down his way each day.
Inside, we had a good chat to Hasham and he showed us some footage of what I could only describe as ‘pogroms’ but now against the Arabs, after we were greeted by his wife and given some piping hot tea to drink. Hashams wife painted pictures of the popular struggle in Palestine. She also recounted how a settler woman threatened her recently, saying that her son and husband would come to rape her.
After Hebron, I went to Beit Sahour for one of the biweekly talks given to the international community in the West Bank by the Alternative Information Centre http://www.alternativenews.org/ because Mahmoud was giving a talk about the resistance movement in Ma’asara and I wanted to see him before I left to check how he had been in prison.
The talk was pretty standard, standard simplifications, standard inconsiderate questions by the international community that need to get over themselves (me included – in the getting over themselves bit, we’re here to do what they need us to, not to restructure their lives after having a brief uneducated glance at the problem like we’re the first people to arrive on the scene – some people come to Palestine without even opening a book first, knowing anything about Judaism or Islam, or any kind of history about the region, admittedly mine was and still is very limited)
After the talk, Mahmoud and I met, hugged, laughed, bought each other tea, had a chat and I ended up extending my stay in Palestine by a day so that I could come to al Ma’asara village again, this time to chill and talk and plan rather than resist.
I went out to ‘Cosmos’ – the club in Bethlehem for the Christian community, which was… interesting… And then crashed at Debb’s house, before making some breakfast and going to mass with Debbs, learning about her deeper understanding of the church and Christ and God, which made a lot more sense than my previous understanding of Christianity – I had guessed at some of her suggestions before – that Jesus was just a man with an incredible capacity to channel God through him, that the Bible is full of metaphors although they appear to be factual etc. etc. But I know that’s treading on many people’s toes. It was just nice to hear from an Anglican priest.
Then it was off to Ma’asara, where I finally had fig-leaves!! I’ve been wanting to eat rice rolled in soaked fig-leaves since I thought I was going to Palestine but didn’t get the opportunity. So the evening meal was a treat and it was a really beautiful way to say goodbye to Palestine for me, sharing a meal, a talk, planning future links with the UK etc., and walking around the village that I was arrested for representing in a demonstration.
The next morning, before catching the service back to Jerusalem, I went to meet Mohammed and Hassan’s parents – the two that are still in gaol as you read this (unless you’re reading it after September 2009 – by which time Mohammed might be out with a bit of luck). They were kind and generously spirited but behind this you could sense that they were very worried, their grandchildren wandering fatherless around their legs, looking blank.
Then it was off back to Angela’s to drop off two sim cards for when my friend from Manchester arrives, to post a couple of things, and then to catch the service to Jordan.
On the way to Damascus Gate in East Jerusalem where I caught the transportation to the Allenby crossing into Jordan, Angela’s new intern, a logistics business owner from near Niagra falls in the US, Bill, gave me $20 to contribute to the pond sand filter that I am setting up now in the cyclone affected region in South West Bangladesh, and Angela gave me a load of change to help with the tax cost at the crossing.
Saying goodbye to Palestine was very difficult. I don’t generally miss things or people or places, even ones that I genuinely love and got a lot from, but there’s a gravity about Palestine that’s hard to put your finger on. Is it the suffering? Probably not, I’ve witnessed far more intense suffering in a government hospital in Mumbai. Is it the emotional depth, connection and generosity? Maybe. The commitment of the activists, NGO workers, taxi drivers, soldiers, Jihadis, basically everyone except the politicians? Maybe. Is it the deep political and religious history? Or is it just something about the land, something myserious and elusive that in some way explains the number of people fighting for land stability and control of the resource poor region…. Everyone fighting there says “the land is ours” – but I get a strong feeling that it’s the land itself that owns the people.
For anyone that wants too keep up to date with the rest of my travels, and what's happening at the forefront of catastrophic climate change, please tap in tominbangladesh.blogspot.com
We had a meeting about funding and then I realised that the deadline for proposals for the funding line that suited the study of the effect of the occupation on the villages near the 'apartheid wall' had just gone past and I sent the wrong application form with a different date on it, I closed up the day, said goodbye's and thank-yous and packed off to Hebron feeling a bit sad that I had not found a source of funding so that they could continue with the work that we had started, which we eventually planned to be the start of a grass-roots empowerment and community participation project with the report as a platform through which to educate the villagers of each other's grievances.... Oh well, I'm sure they'll sort it out but it just means more time not doing other fantastic things!
I stayed in Hebron for a few nights with Phelie and Simpiwe, and three girls all on the "ecumenical accompaniment program for Palestine and Israel", which observes human rights abuses, reports them, stands at check points at 4am and follows kids on school runs so that they are protected from settler violence.
That evening I accompanied Phelie, Simpiwe, and Peter, a Scottish mechanic that had done a lot of work in the salvation army, to their friend's for dinner. Their friend was an Immam called Yousef, one of the religious leaders at the Ibrahimi mosque. They had just missed witnessing the death of his son, who was a kind of Muslim missionary, but was back in Hebron. He was late for prayer and after passing the two heavily manned check points, passing through a metal detector and probably going through a strict search, he ran up the steps to the Mosque so that he wouldn't miss prayer.
A bullet was sent down the steps to meet him in the chest and another sent after him to rip through his neck.
The official excuse from the IDF was that they thought he was carrying a knife, or might have been a terrorist.
This is ludicrous; he had just passed through security that's tougher than Gatwick airport. I've seen the place and if it was accidental then these soldiers really were stupid.
The bullet that was fired from the top of the stairs actually sank into the soldier at the bottom of the stair's leg.
The soldiers then shot the 20 year old in the leg a few times so that they could say that they shot his legs first, but the autopsy suggested that these bullet holes never bled.
Yousef had to bury his son away from the mosque that was the focus of their lives because this was a highly emotional death for the community and hundreds were expected at the funeral. The occupational administration only lets 20 people at a time into the cemetery where the rest of the family is buried outside the mosque.
The Ibrahimi mosque is now split into 2 halves, one for Muslims to pray in and one for Jews. They both have different entrances and a wall divides the two communities.
The dinner was great, and they made instant last minute provision for the vegan after (again!) unsuccessfully trying to push meat on me.
After dinner we had a discussion about Islam, life, God, the universe and everything - which was great.
The next day was equally harrowing in its own way. We went to a deserted part of Hebron just under another Israeli settlement. In this deserted part of Hebron, right next to the towering stilt built settlement above it, lived a family of 5. Hasham's house.
Hasham was also a "one stater" (people like me that believe that the only way forward politically is to amalgamate Israel and Palestine so that the inhabitants have equal rights and work hard and strong for reconciliation and integration between the two communities - the main obstacles to this are the collective racist psychology of the region, the unwillingness of Israel to become a secular state, and It's reluctance to share the resources in the region etc. etc.). Hasham showed us the door upon which the settlers had descended to write "gas the arabs" under the star of David - the IDF, knowing that Hasham received politicians from Israel and diplomats from abroad occasionally as he spoke English well and has a computer to show videos on and talks openly about his family, asked him to paint over the "gas the arabs" at gunpoint, but when he went to remove the star of David, they told him to leave it "this is Israel after all" (when in fact Hebron is clearly classified as Occupied Palestinian Territories). Next, Hasham showed us where they had cut all the trunks of his grape fruit trees, the 8 meters or so of branches hanging dead on the frame. Then he explained why there was a broken washing machine in the front garden; a settler threw it at him when he was standing outside. He keeps it as a reminder, but tries to clear all the other rubbish that the settlers throw down his way each day.
Inside, we had a good chat to Hasham and he showed us some footage of what I could only describe as ‘pogroms’ but now against the Arabs, after we were greeted by his wife and given some piping hot tea to drink. Hashams wife painted pictures of the popular struggle in Palestine. She also recounted how a settler woman threatened her recently, saying that her son and husband would come to rape her.
After Hebron, I went to Beit Sahour for one of the biweekly talks given to the international community in the West Bank by the Alternative Information Centre http://www.alternativenews.org/ because Mahmoud was giving a talk about the resistance movement in Ma’asara and I wanted to see him before I left to check how he had been in prison.
The talk was pretty standard, standard simplifications, standard inconsiderate questions by the international community that need to get over themselves (me included – in the getting over themselves bit, we’re here to do what they need us to, not to restructure their lives after having a brief uneducated glance at the problem like we’re the first people to arrive on the scene – some people come to Palestine without even opening a book first, knowing anything about Judaism or Islam, or any kind of history about the region, admittedly mine was and still is very limited)
After the talk, Mahmoud and I met, hugged, laughed, bought each other tea, had a chat and I ended up extending my stay in Palestine by a day so that I could come to al Ma’asara village again, this time to chill and talk and plan rather than resist.
I went out to ‘Cosmos’ – the club in Bethlehem for the Christian community, which was… interesting… And then crashed at Debb’s house, before making some breakfast and going to mass with Debbs, learning about her deeper understanding of the church and Christ and God, which made a lot more sense than my previous understanding of Christianity – I had guessed at some of her suggestions before – that Jesus was just a man with an incredible capacity to channel God through him, that the Bible is full of metaphors although they appear to be factual etc. etc. But I know that’s treading on many people’s toes. It was just nice to hear from an Anglican priest.
Then it was off to Ma’asara, where I finally had fig-leaves!! I’ve been wanting to eat rice rolled in soaked fig-leaves since I thought I was going to Palestine but didn’t get the opportunity. So the evening meal was a treat and it was a really beautiful way to say goodbye to Palestine for me, sharing a meal, a talk, planning future links with the UK etc., and walking around the village that I was arrested for representing in a demonstration.
The next morning, before catching the service back to Jerusalem, I went to meet Mohammed and Hassan’s parents – the two that are still in gaol as you read this (unless you’re reading it after September 2009 – by which time Mohammed might be out with a bit of luck). They were kind and generously spirited but behind this you could sense that they were very worried, their grandchildren wandering fatherless around their legs, looking blank.
Then it was off back to Angela’s to drop off two sim cards for when my friend from Manchester arrives, to post a couple of things, and then to catch the service to Jordan.
On the way to Damascus Gate in East Jerusalem where I caught the transportation to the Allenby crossing into Jordan, Angela’s new intern, a logistics business owner from near Niagra falls in the US, Bill, gave me $20 to contribute to the pond sand filter that I am setting up now in the cyclone affected region in South West Bangladesh, and Angela gave me a load of change to help with the tax cost at the crossing.
Saying goodbye to Palestine was very difficult. I don’t generally miss things or people or places, even ones that I genuinely love and got a lot from, but there’s a gravity about Palestine that’s hard to put your finger on. Is it the suffering? Probably not, I’ve witnessed far more intense suffering in a government hospital in Mumbai. Is it the emotional depth, connection and generosity? Maybe. The commitment of the activists, NGO workers, taxi drivers, soldiers, Jihadis, basically everyone except the politicians? Maybe. Is it the deep political and religious history? Or is it just something about the land, something myserious and elusive that in some way explains the number of people fighting for land stability and control of the resource poor region…. Everyone fighting there says “the land is ours” – but I get a strong feeling that it’s the land itself that owns the people.
For anyone that wants too keep up to date with the rest of my travels, and what's happening at the forefront of catastrophic climate change, please tap in tominbangladesh.blogspot.com
Sunday 24 May 2009
settlers...
Settlers..Barack (president of Israel, basically as powerless as a monarch) has just said that he's getting rid of 22 'illegal outposts' of settlers with or without their consent.
This is a good step forward, but Obama needed to push a hell of a lot more than this when he had his meeting with Netanyahu on the 18th - it was pretty much the last ray of hope for many Palestinians, and it turned out to be a success for both politicians, but not at all a step forward for peace and justice in the region. They just babbled on about Iran and how scary it was and then talked a little bit about the settlements and the war on Gaza.
nothing about the disposession of Palestinians, nothing about the constant theft of resources and the coming water crisis, nothing about the injustice, nothing about building a lasting peace, nothing about the right of return for refugees...
So, pretty much the only thing Obama stood firm on (with words anyway, he still increased the military support to Israel from 3 billion to 3.275 billion USD) was that the settlements need to go.
This is great!
But 22? Is that it? there are 14,000 more settlers every year piling into the West Bank and they're talking about knocking down 22 of the most extreme settler's 'outposts' which are usually a handful of families pushing the frontier.
Settlers.....
Hold up the peace process, break the international law that it is illegal to transfer a civilian population into an occupied territory, cut off freedom of movement through their web of connecting roads only used for Jews throughout the West Bank, frequently go and attack villagers, never leave without an M16 or Uzi and handgun by their sides, encourage their kids to beat 'the Arabs', preach racism to visitors, put a lot of energy into distorting the truth, believe they can do what they want and that the land is rightfully theirs because God said so, which includes:
-poisoning Palestinian crops and livestock
-letting herds of pigs through Palestinian fields (if they can't eat bacon how are they going to feel when they see a stampeed of pigs run through the crops that they were relying on to feed their kids?)
-stealing olive trees that are up to 1500 years old to plant in settlements, giving them a more permanent feel
-threatening kids with death on the way to and from school
-going on rallies to block off Palestinian roads (I think the message is 'what a niusance these pesky Arabs are living in our Holy Land, we're going to kick them off no matter what anyone else thinks about it')
-going to the Jewish diaspora and recruiting people to 'return now' and preferably to a settlement
-committing the occasional pogrom and massacre
-warp the facts of history and select periods from the last 2000 years to justify their claim to the land
For example they say that there were only 100,000 Palestinians in Palestine in 1948, if fact many of the settlers' families were involved in terror groups like Hagana, Ida Stern and the Alexandrioni Brigade that ethnically cleansed 750,000 Palestinians 61 years ago between February and July 1948. There are now up to 4 million refugees officially registered with UNWRA that have a claim to return, descendants from these families, they are living in abject conditions but obviously better than most refugees because they've been able to build up the camps for 60 years, but they are still waiting, people are dying that have done nothing more than wait for what is theirs since birth, it isn't uncommon for the older generation to still have their keys from the houses that they were expelled from or were blown up by Zionist militia.
Uf...
Settlers...
I've got to hand it to them, they are determined, they are quite selfless and don't live for money, they really care about this and are dead set of having the whole of Palestine. But that doesn't make it right, they're greedy in another way, greedy for the group.
When I just used the word 'settler' then, I meant the extremist settlers.
Most settlers are 'economic settlers' - the government subsadises the water at agricultural rates, the schools and social services are much better in the settlements, the place is painted really nicely and the religious zionist settlers make a real effort to try and create this other-worldy rightous and internaly loving community that draws people in, painting the water and electricity boxes by hand with animals and bright pastel pinks and blues, their roads are immaculate, you can do car-pools or hitch spontaniously... there really is a lot going for how these places live.
Many settlers find cushy religious teaching jobs or are involved in the running of the state or the settlements themselves and have time to honour every single religious holiday, everyone with a strong cultural significance bringing the community together through a mixture of pride and guilt and victimisation....
It's a nice way to live (apart from the hatred fear insecurity and violence).
But, as I said before, they are very problematic, some of them are exceptionally cruel and it's like they're living pre 1900's, in terms of ideology and what's acceptable anyway.
What's most scary about these people is that they are so sure of themselves, or at least make out like they are so sure of themselves.
How do you argue with God?
Although I rile him, I'd hate to be Netanyahu, just observing international law would probably be a suicide note in terms of assassination from a settler, like Rabin was assassinated from a right wind extremist not so long ago - and he wasn't that much of a force for peace!
AIPAC, the settlers, the politicians and the torture are probably the most depressing aspects of this conflict to me so far in terms of preventing a way out in the future.
How do we transcend this if we've only got closed minds to work with?
"minds are like parachutes, the work best when open"
I'm afraid it's more than that; unless our minds open we're going to crash hard into the ground.
Awareness is revolutionary, but I don't think it's possible to force it.
rhythms of resistance
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhVu9tCLwJk
So I went back to Um Salamouna.
I wanted to see the guys but they were all under cerfew.
Mohammed the 17 year old that was arrested with us was in his house and he invited me to eat chicken and onion with him (still finding it difficult explaining my concern for all sentient beings in arabic).
I met his grandmother, who's son, Mohammed's father, had been killed by the occupying forces, an activist with Fatah before Madrid peace talks (when Fatah became corrupt and started really selling out following the murder of many of their best political leaders in exile, including two in Indonesia)
His Grandmother was the woman that the soldiers took and started beating when she crossed the barbed wire the day that I was arrested, it was because of this that Mohammed stepped in to save his mother and was himself arrested, it took 4/5 soldiers to take him down. Then, after people had watched this the sound bombs and tier gas went off etc. The story was filled in for me piece by piece...
Resistance is a strange thing. It's such a shame that we need it, such a shame that people can't respect each other and are not considerate truthful or loving enough to resolve conflict before it gets physical. But it is physical, on many many corners of the earth, and we need to accept that addressing physical conflict is a difficult thing to do, very difficult.
So when I see resistance that is compassionate, that refuses to give in to anger, that does no harm, that changes peoples lives in an incredibly positive way, brings together communities, uses music and dance and doesn't forget to celebrate life - I can't help but be overwhelmed by pride for the human race, for our ability to fight violence with loving action, not to succumb to harming others, but instead trying to show them a truth that they are doggedly trying to ignore, trying to show them that they in fact are hurting themselves by hurting these people, that it doesn't have to be this way.
This is non-violence. This is mostly selfless dedicated action to bringing about a better world, a peaceful world. But for some reason people have bought the line of many people in power, that it is just causing a fuss and disturbing the peace - this cannot be farther from the truth. Non-violent resistance aims to expose the structural conflict and violence that is being experienced every day, and to address it in the most peaceful way possible. It might be pushing those in power to give up some of their power and give it back to the people, it might be asking for fairer distribution of resources, it might be asking for many things at the expense of strong self interests, but I don't see that as a bad thing. The interests need to be held in common, things need to be shared, and just as you would take back from a child a stash of sweets that he stole from his friends and redistribute them, teaching him to share, so would you wish for the wider world no? Where people have earned things, it is up to them, but when people are stealing and using violence so continue the process then you want change, you want peace, you want harmony.
Social justice is a beautiful thing and I think that it helps us to recognise each other as more similar, to recognise the truth - that we are all pretty much the same, we all have something to contribute, and life is much more suited to working together than against each other.
What's the best way of pushing this forward? I still have absolutely no idea, but I do know that political participation, especially championing the cause of the Whole and not the self or the tribe, is a pretty sound step forward, and can prevent a lot of the worst manifestations of cruelty, and has contributed to monumental positive change in people's lives over the last 100 years at least.
I like what a Kerelan novelist says about this: "not only is another world possible, but on a quiet day you can hear her breathing"
here's another video done on the same day... Instead of drums they used prayer, very different result.
Gotta love Israeli democracy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UbhZvsvRgk
Mohammed's trial is on Tuesday and I'm going to give my support. It will be strange to actually sit through a military court proceedure that's being put upon someone that was charged at the same time in the same place with the same things as myself. Feels wrong.
Got my vaccinations for Bangladesh and Zim today and now have a nifty little WHO card.
Only a week left and I still haven't published any of the posts that I said I would!
My my how time flies.
Tuesday 19 May 2009
Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTvzkhc6LW0
I'm the one in the red hat - I was completely unaware of the others being arrested until I saw Hassan get taken in after the tier gas - you can't really see when he pushed me down into the wall - the face banged against the bonnet was when he was rather homo-erotically bending me over the police bonnet, which only made things worse. Really annoyed that Bt'Selem didn't get his face!
Another activist here, Shai, who reminds me a lot of Adie, just a lot harder and quieter, made a really decent documentary about protest in Palestine called "Bil'in Habibti" - which I can get a copy of for anyone that fancies. How about I send it out to anyone that donates to the cause? email me blind+bandgers+bi+te(at)gm+ail.com (take out the plusses, can't be dealing with spam!)
http://www.awalls.org/donations
Al' Ma'asara is now falling apart, the border police have become a lot more aggressive, there are now many checkpoints to stop people from even getting there in the first place, people's records are filed, a particular captain has made this his little mission, and is personally breaking down doors and going on night raids with gangs of IDF kids at 3/4 in the morning, there were more injuries last week. All this against non-violent protesters asking for the International Court of Justice's decision that the wall was illegal allong it's current line and should be taken back to the green line or demolished altogether. Farmers asking for their land not to be taken, their olive trees not to be uprooted and planted in a settlement, giving the impression that the olive treee in the settlement has been there for hundreds and hundreds of years (olive trees are up to 2000 years old here, where the world had its first olive grove), for their water to start running continuously without the occupying forces switching it on and off at will, for the settler violence to stop, for their crops to be free from random poisoning with pesticide, for their children to stop turning to violence, being imprisoned for voicing a political opinion, for their confidence to come back, to free their minds and their hearts, to have some hope, to stop begin cut off from 3 sides, as the Israeli settler road already cuts off one side, to stop the disgusting profiteering from the Masters of War, to keep the right to protest, to assemble, freedom of movement, to feel safe from random visits by the IDF, so that they can sleep at night - and still the soldiers don't seem to get it "why wont these savages behave?" is the kind of mentality "why wont these rabble just die quietly and leave us in peace?" If you divide a population and keep them in a box while their populations expand, it isn't a good idea, if you steal their resources, it isn't a good idea, if you purposefully go about destroying what means most to them, it isn't going to bring you peace, if you control their economy, water supply, set up over 600 checkpoints, fence them in with a massive wall, infiltrate their refugee camps and blow up teenagers in their sleep, it isn't going to give Palestinians the opportunity to "pipe down" if you go on and on and on about your own security, upholding it in one of the most aggressive ways in the world but at the same time deny them the basics of self defence, it isn't going to win over terror. The terror attacks have dramatically stopped after the construction of the wall, but it wasn't that that stopped them, people realise they don't work now. That's the reason they gave up on non-violent resistance, because it didn't work. They organised general labour strikes, boycots, all of these things as far back as the ottoman empire, and frequently in the british empire, then they had to deal with Israel, the ALA forces let them down completely and the Arab world, especially the complicity or lack of regard shown by King Abdullah I of Jordan, a Saudi born puppet of the British Empire that had faught alongside T.E.Lawrence in the great arab revolt in WW1, as he struck a deal with Hagana and Ben Gurion that he would only defent the West Bank then he could have it, in a word. They protested in the refugee camps to be met with further violence by the Zionist militias, they have tried everything, they have taken their case to the ICJ and its rulings have been ignored, the Arab countries have encouraged and helped get through a plethora of General Assembly resolutions that are ignored and Israel has ignored over 69 UN Security Council resolutions since it's inception 61 years ago last week. If you cut off their right to peacefully protest, if you inflict on them further control and further oppression, then you will kill these people inside, and they will want to die. How does a Muslim man die that's been oppressed by Israel? Well it's Haram, it a "shame"/"sin" to kill yourself, so they will just let loose and go crazy, like the man a group of settlers led a pogrom against that came into a settlement wielding an axe and killed a 13 year old boy. The parents will then do a hell of a lot of settler activism, probably led the following pogrom that left 38 injured in the village by the 8th April, I'm sure the count is much higher now, there isn't much forgiveness from the occupying forces. The IDF granted a 24 hour curfew, rounded up the young men and put them in the school yard, three homes were taken over for military outposts, all roads leading in and out of the village were blocked to everyone except settlers for days, all this collective punishment for an individual crime that was perpetrated by a desperate and angry man. This is more than and "eye for an eye" - Israel has taken so many "eyes" that Palestine has become blind, it can't see its way out, it has tried everything and still things are getting worse. What can they do? That's my question, what can they do? What does Israel expect of them? Israel puts them in a cage, uses bribes and divide and rule to fracture palestinian society, kills all their decent leaders or imprisons them, uses a network of informers, makes Palestinians dependant on working for Israel, cuts down their trees kill their livestock, poisons their crops, constructs more check-points than chip shops in England, regularly abuses people at these checkpoints, sexual harrasment or indiscriminate detention - many of the check-points just go up for rush hour and then come down again straight afterwards, just to delay the movement of people, make people late for work etc. (well that's the effect anyway, if the intention genuinely is to stop terror, then they are genuinely foolish), tortures teenagers and young adults, denies the existance of certain gaols to the UN, makes it difficult for even the International Committee of the Red Cross to observe "interrogations" and fulfil their mandate to provide for some of the most basic needs of prisoners, continues to construct settlements at an ever increasing rate calling it "naturaly growth" even though many settlements are half empty, the list really goes on and on and on and on, and this is the West Bank. Gaza is another story altogether. They expect this to bring them security and peace? Come on, it's obvious that the leaders are fulfilling their Zionist agenda to expand Israel and push the Palestinians into transfering into Jordan. The policy that seems to underly everything here is the policy frequently espoused by politicians and military personel in memos "maximum land minimum population" - the policy of taking as much land as possible with as few Arabs as possible. This is really really obvious once you're here, when you see the way the wall snakes around Palestinian villages, the way it zig-zags right up against the houses on the outskirts of a town, leaving a vast expanse of land on the Israeli side. The zionists are winning, the settlers say that they have a 200 year time frame but people think they'll be done a lot sooner than that, annexing the whole of Palestine with as few arabs as possible. But nothing lasts forever, and the beacons of hope in Palestine are dazzling, even if they are few and far between. Optimism is a long way off but there are beacons of hope, working away at what they believe in.
Palestine will be free, but it will take a lot of time and effort on one side and big fat chill pill on the other.
I'm the one in the red hat - I was completely unaware of the others being arrested until I saw Hassan get taken in after the tier gas - you can't really see when he pushed me down into the wall - the face banged against the bonnet was when he was rather homo-erotically bending me over the police bonnet, which only made things worse. Really annoyed that Bt'Selem didn't get his face!
Another activist here, Shai, who reminds me a lot of Adie, just a lot harder and quieter, made a really decent documentary about protest in Palestine called "Bil'in Habibti" - which I can get a copy of for anyone that fancies. How about I send it out to anyone that donates to the cause? email me blind+bandgers+bi+te(at)gm+ail.com (take out the plusses, can't be dealing with spam!)
http://www.awalls.org/donations
Al' Ma'asara is now falling apart, the border police have become a lot more aggressive, there are now many checkpoints to stop people from even getting there in the first place, people's records are filed, a particular captain has made this his little mission, and is personally breaking down doors and going on night raids with gangs of IDF kids at 3/4 in the morning, there were more injuries last week. All this against non-violent protesters asking for the International Court of Justice's decision that the wall was illegal allong it's current line and should be taken back to the green line or demolished altogether. Farmers asking for their land not to be taken, their olive trees not to be uprooted and planted in a settlement, giving the impression that the olive treee in the settlement has been there for hundreds and hundreds of years (olive trees are up to 2000 years old here, where the world had its first olive grove), for their water to start running continuously without the occupying forces switching it on and off at will, for the settler violence to stop, for their crops to be free from random poisoning with pesticide, for their children to stop turning to violence, being imprisoned for voicing a political opinion, for their confidence to come back, to free their minds and their hearts, to have some hope, to stop begin cut off from 3 sides, as the Israeli settler road already cuts off one side, to stop the disgusting profiteering from the Masters of War, to keep the right to protest, to assemble, freedom of movement, to feel safe from random visits by the IDF, so that they can sleep at night - and still the soldiers don't seem to get it "why wont these savages behave?" is the kind of mentality "why wont these rabble just die quietly and leave us in peace?" If you divide a population and keep them in a box while their populations expand, it isn't a good idea, if you steal their resources, it isn't a good idea, if you purposefully go about destroying what means most to them, it isn't going to bring you peace, if you control their economy, water supply, set up over 600 checkpoints, fence them in with a massive wall, infiltrate their refugee camps and blow up teenagers in their sleep, it isn't going to give Palestinians the opportunity to "pipe down" if you go on and on and on about your own security, upholding it in one of the most aggressive ways in the world but at the same time deny them the basics of self defence, it isn't going to win over terror. The terror attacks have dramatically stopped after the construction of the wall, but it wasn't that that stopped them, people realise they don't work now. That's the reason they gave up on non-violent resistance, because it didn't work. They organised general labour strikes, boycots, all of these things as far back as the ottoman empire, and frequently in the british empire, then they had to deal with Israel, the ALA forces let them down completely and the Arab world, especially the complicity or lack of regard shown by King Abdullah I of Jordan, a Saudi born puppet of the British Empire that had faught alongside T.E.Lawrence in the great arab revolt in WW1, as he struck a deal with Hagana and Ben Gurion that he would only defent the West Bank then he could have it, in a word. They protested in the refugee camps to be met with further violence by the Zionist militias, they have tried everything, they have taken their case to the ICJ and its rulings have been ignored, the Arab countries have encouraged and helped get through a plethora of General Assembly resolutions that are ignored and Israel has ignored over 69 UN Security Council resolutions since it's inception 61 years ago last week. If you cut off their right to peacefully protest, if you inflict on them further control and further oppression, then you will kill these people inside, and they will want to die. How does a Muslim man die that's been oppressed by Israel? Well it's Haram, it a "shame"/"sin" to kill yourself, so they will just let loose and go crazy, like the man a group of settlers led a pogrom against that came into a settlement wielding an axe and killed a 13 year old boy. The parents will then do a hell of a lot of settler activism, probably led the following pogrom that left 38 injured in the village by the 8th April, I'm sure the count is much higher now, there isn't much forgiveness from the occupying forces. The IDF granted a 24 hour curfew, rounded up the young men and put them in the school yard, three homes were taken over for military outposts, all roads leading in and out of the village were blocked to everyone except settlers for days, all this collective punishment for an individual crime that was perpetrated by a desperate and angry man. This is more than and "eye for an eye" - Israel has taken so many "eyes" that Palestine has become blind, it can't see its way out, it has tried everything and still things are getting worse. What can they do? That's my question, what can they do? What does Israel expect of them? Israel puts them in a cage, uses bribes and divide and rule to fracture palestinian society, kills all their decent leaders or imprisons them, uses a network of informers, makes Palestinians dependant on working for Israel, cuts down their trees kill their livestock, poisons their crops, constructs more check-points than chip shops in England, regularly abuses people at these checkpoints, sexual harrasment or indiscriminate detention - many of the check-points just go up for rush hour and then come down again straight afterwards, just to delay the movement of people, make people late for work etc. (well that's the effect anyway, if the intention genuinely is to stop terror, then they are genuinely foolish), tortures teenagers and young adults, denies the existance of certain gaols to the UN, makes it difficult for even the International Committee of the Red Cross to observe "interrogations" and fulfil their mandate to provide for some of the most basic needs of prisoners, continues to construct settlements at an ever increasing rate calling it "naturaly growth" even though many settlements are half empty, the list really goes on and on and on and on, and this is the West Bank. Gaza is another story altogether. They expect this to bring them security and peace? Come on, it's obvious that the leaders are fulfilling their Zionist agenda to expand Israel and push the Palestinians into transfering into Jordan. The policy that seems to underly everything here is the policy frequently espoused by politicians and military personel in memos "maximum land minimum population" - the policy of taking as much land as possible with as few Arabs as possible. This is really really obvious once you're here, when you see the way the wall snakes around Palestinian villages, the way it zig-zags right up against the houses on the outskirts of a town, leaving a vast expanse of land on the Israeli side. The zionists are winning, the settlers say that they have a 200 year time frame but people think they'll be done a lot sooner than that, annexing the whole of Palestine with as few arabs as possible. But nothing lasts forever, and the beacons of hope in Palestine are dazzling, even if they are few and far between. Optimism is a long way off but there are beacons of hope, working away at what they believe in.
Palestine will be free, but it will take a lot of time and effort on one side and big fat chill pill on the other.
Friday 15 May 2009
Number One Killer....
http://www.buddhistglobalrelief.org/respondGlobalHunger.html
Also, anyone interested in hunger and malnutrition please leave a comment with some resources that I can look at before I go to Bangladesh, it woud be much appreciated :)
Also, anyone interested in hunger and malnutrition please leave a comment with some resources that I can look at before I go to Bangladesh, it woud be much appreciated :)
Thursday 14 May 2009
Where did Tom go? Where has Tom been? Who is Tom?
http://www.medialens.org/cogitations/080216_non_violence_and.php
Coming to the Middle East has not only given me lots to feel compassionate about, but it has taught me extremely valuable lessons.
If you fancy a bit of ramble then read on, otherwise wait for a post more centred around Palestine.
I have been caught up in some ego-driven desire to be 'a good person' and this has been driving me since... Well I can't quite tell but it's always quietly been there lurking in the shadows.
As all of you probably know, this time last year I was in pain, tomorrow last year, yesterday last year, for a significant time. I had a lot of time to think and it made me a much stronger person. I really appreciated the fragility and mortality of life and I became very dependant. Dependant on family, friends, compassion, empathy, medicines of one sort or another, meditation, and strength. It really showed me how bad pain is (I know it's obvious but I ignored it at all costs before it hit me hard enough to acknowledge it!) and how 'unacceptable' it is for any of us to go through physical pain unecessarily.
This awoke a deep well of compassion within me, I knew it was there and had explored it and ignored it at different times before - I didn't find it culturally acceptable or compatible with modern life, so I left it to fester and lived in a small box of ego... mostly because that's what everyone else was doing, and I thought that compassion was a negative emotion, and while it was difficult to do at first you soon get carried away with yourself!
Back to the awakening.
Pain forced me to acknowledge suffering, and love showed me that it was possible to do things that would help other people in a similar situation, then a load of amazing activists showed me that we can have an effect even on the big bad world, and that it was fun and rewarding. Love is rewarding, compassion is rewarding and campaigning is rewarding, for me at least.
Somewhere along the way, however, that 'rewarding' started to take over from what was driving it - a strong desire to alleviate suffering or prevent unecessary suffering.
I don't think it ever took over completely but there were certainly moments/times/acts/days/weeks in the last 7/8 months, where it was more than half of the mix. I also have a load of other problems like wanting to be 'right' and wanting attention and wanting to be wise and getting a bit fascist about everyone being 'good' so that we can all enjoy a wonderful world together, and cynically criticising people in the process(hypocracy, irony...) but those are on a slightly different plane.
And now, I'm in Palestine, I realise that it isn't that easy to sacrifice yourself to help others, it isn't that easy to solve everything, and that you are an infinitely more complex animal than you think... and I started distancing myself from things because they were overwhelming. The problem here isn't just a power-hungry few, or a profiteering clan shipping arms off to the world, it's the psychology of a nation, 5 million or so, most of them comfortable seeing themselves as part of an ethnic group that is superior to the Arabs, even a lot of the activists. It is so hopeless here, you can't demonstrate without being a victim of violence, Ghandi was up against far far less than the average participant in non-violent resistance in the West Bank and Gaza, at least in terms of violent oppression. So what can you do?
Lots actually, but it was in the West Bank, bearing witness to the emotional pain, the hopelessness and despair that comes after trying every possilbe way of changing the unjust situation that's facing you and your children and has been for 60 years, knowing that you are being slowly snuffed out or transfered out of sight of the Jewish majority in Israel.
The selfishness of Jerusalem and the ego of the place, "a country of takers" is how Israel has been described to me and it kind of fits, as generalisations about millions of people go. It's more an atmosphere than a collective judgement, more a way of life. It rubbed off on me in some way, not an obvious way, but my spirituality or universal love turned into being about 'i need to feel love' rather than 'a want to give you myself/my efforts/my energy in anyway that you will accept' which made it manipulative, manipulative love for everyone! Yes! How enlightened I had become! Rooooolll up for your loving manipulation!
One of the consequences of this growing selfishness, I think getting arrested really egnited a lot of it, a lot of other things as well, a deeper connection to what's going on here and a deeper understanding of freedom and power, but a fear and a selfishness that wasn't so strong before.
like the article posted says,
We can imagine a mind dominated by unconditional compassion for all sentient beings as a vast space, like a huge landscape. In this kind of context our own individual problems would appear very small, very manageable. By comparison, a mind limited to concern for ourselves is a very restricted space, like a small box room.
obviously we're all somewhere between the two unless we're in a moment of self or a moment of compassion/love, but I certainly haven't got to the "unconditional compassion for all sentient beings" yet, well I've felt it twice very strongly but I think that the conditionallity was lying dormant at the time, but it was an amazing full/emptiness/truth/enlightenment. Both times during spiritual practice in a group. Getting back to this, I was boxing myself in, and started coming out with desires to get rid of things, real desire to see change here "by any means possible" like Malcom X says. But this was very far from how I embarked on the journey - compassion for all of humanity, compassion for every single one of the 6,779,833,757 hearts beating in unison(at around 7pm on the 14th May 2009 according to the International Programs census).
It's easy for compassion to spin into anger or vengeance or revenge - but I think that this is a really superfiscial way of expressing it. Follow it past the point of percieved comfort and it becomes a fullness and roundness that gives life a lot of importance - its very very easy to strike back with anger/fustration, to close yourself off to suffering just at the point when it is really important to develop your compassion. But, as the Dalai Lama says again and again, it's blind.
There's no truth in violently expressing anger, it's superfiscial. If you really want to express your anger or your compassion or how upset you are by someone's behaviour then make them understand deep down, show them what they are doing, show them how valuable life is, hit their soul, not their skin - and it will be more effective, that person might change forever, that person might flip for a moment, that person might get more angry - you can never tell and it's not a command, but when it works it's worth more than a lifetime of forcefully educating people.
So all these things spin round in a cycle, in a circle, we are always chasing one idea and leaving another, taking up yet another and neglecting the one we just took up, taking up another that suits our ego or personal desire or sounds cool or clever or neat and slowly and quietly leaving a life-changing idea that brought us on to the round a bout in the first place.
I pretty much forgot my raison d'etre that I adopted after my experience with my nerves going haywire and the raison d'etre that has driven so much of what I have loved about my life in such a short time - compassion for all sentient beings. I didn't include the unconditional part because I wasn't aware that feeling compassion for Bush Blair Kim Jong Ill or General Than Shwe was I good thing to do, and I was still concerned with being 'good' to a certain extent, to the point where I was holding it over people and making them feel bad (which is mean and I'm deeply sorry to all those affected by my volatile ego). I still don't have the answer for that one except that I don't feel compassion for them as vectors of so much suffering but I do feel compassion for them as people, and would if I saw them being tortured without doubt, if they were to be hung in front of me I would probably feel a lot. Power does have a funny way of dehumanizing people so it's a challange, but I don't see it as a good or bad thing now, and I'm not so bothered.
"A sound man's heart is not shut within itself
But is open to other people's hearts:
I find good people good,
And I find bad people good
If I am good enough;
I trust men of their word,
And I trust liars
If I am true enough;
I feel the hear-beats of others
Above my own
If I am enough of a father,
Enough of a son"
This is where I would like to be. This is the state of mind that would give me the confidence that I was doing the right thing, not nurturing a self-image of a 'good man' but just feeling the weight of other's hearts as heavier than my own.
I am very very far from it at the moment, and although I have a clear dialogue between my mind my heart and my soul, something that has really come on recently, I have been empathising with people here less and less and less.
Today we were at a demonstration, and I was holding up a placard in Hebrew that said "Jewish National Fund, Hands off the lands of the al Oukbi tribe" - Nouri, the elder of a Bedouin tribe in the Negev desert, inside Israel, has been fighting singlehandedly against the Israeli State for years and years and has run up fine after legal expense after court case and is severely in debt, defending the land of the tribe. Usually the State goes and steals the lands of the Bedouin without a fuss because the Bedouin didn't ever see the need to register the land with the Ottoman Empire or the British Empire, but in this case the tribe did have the deeds from teh Ottoman Empire, the British mandate and the early Israeli state. And still the Jewish National Fund has stolen the lands and is ploughing them up.
http://www.dukium.org/
One of the Bedouin elders read my placard, and let water out of his eyes, just like that. Very quietly, so quietly that it took me a few seconds to notice. But my reaction wasn't compassion and empathy, it was surprise/shock. This must have been down to prejudice and ego getting in the way of the spirit of compassion, I had classified him as a hard old man of the desert and was surprised at the tears. Why should I be surprised? This man had been struggling with authority for a long time and was old enough to have seen his community thrive as it should, old enough to have gone through what Nouri was doing now and fought the Israeli State for a while, old enough to have experienced racism, old enough to know what this all means to the children, old enough to really feel the tradgedy, and to know it. If there was a westerner my age that was letting a silent tear go because his village was under threat in Yorkshire and they had no runing water and little access to food let alone medicine education and playgrounds, employment and decent shelter, that their land was being ploughed up by the businessmen in London and their neighbour's village had been demolished and voluntarily re-built 22 times over 60 years, that their ancestral land was being given over from supporting a community of over 90,000 to being given to 60 single family ranches. It's a hearbreaking life, and I was unaware, or at least I wasn't present with this, trying to bustle up to the other activists and get the message accross to the Israeli public in a measured and effective way like it was a bit of a game, like I was pushing an agenda. David Edwards is absolutely right for me, that showing compassion and awareness/understanding in these situations can change the world, where was my compassion? How had I lost this? Was this not the very thing that had driven me out to the protest? Probably not, it was probably more like my need to feel that I'm doing something while I'm here rather than my compassion.
This lack of connection, lack of presence was quite unsettling. I had a good snippet of a conversation in the taxi on the way back with the BBC documentary maker that had also been in a wheelchair for 5 months following a bike accident and went to a primary school just next to mine in London, Ravenscourt Park(went there until I was 5). He also made a film about the Ananda Marga Yoga groups in Manchester, which I quite like, but didn't know about their infighting in India "all life is an expression of one infinite loving consciousness/beba nam kevalam" - maybe, funny kind of love sometimes but possibly.
Then I was challenged about my ego by Angela and it was starting to click.
Where had my compassion gone? How has it that my ego has been operating so obviously without me seeing it? How had I been tricking myself all this time (indeed, what am I still tricking myself of, a hell of a lot I guess)?
So this is beautiful now, in a sublime state of emptiness, of space, of choice. It's too late now and I'm going to bed but tomorrow, the next day, the day after that and that I have the choice between ego and compassion, between self and love. I'll probably find that the dichotomy isn't that simple and deconstruct it again and go around on the merrigoround again, but each time you do a circle you can get a bit closer to the centre, you can stay aware of the circle that you're going in rather than think you're going along a straight line, you can bring in more to your life than before, you can choose. But I only have one choice in life really, and that's attitude. Do I train my mind to work for what's best for others, what's best for those close to me? What's best for those I've never met the other side of the world? What's best for the Whole? What's best for the good and the nasty tykes irrespective? Or do I just join the masses plugged into iPods and TVs and drugs and cool/ego and pleasure and revert to the illusion that I'm making choices but actually just coast along doing whatever's best for me until I reconnected again with the earth and my opportunity is gone and this magical and mortal life that was given to me is ended in trajic loneliness cynicism deep depression and misery?
Did I seriously think that was a choice?
We can choose to ignore this and we really have been trained to do so, sometimes it's difficult starting to be aware of this stuff and sometimes we need personal suffering to connect with this side of life, I certainly did, and I'm just sending out my feelers, still frightened and awed by the beauty majesty mystery and depth of love, compassion and the spirit - it's really tempting to hang on to your ego. But when I get the rare moment of just embracing this, you don't need to choose, it's a higher level, you just do, and you love it, and it's obvious, and it's natural and it's goooooooood :)
OK so that paints quite a simplistic picture, but you can make life simple. I'm not ready for that yet and want at the moment to just do as much as I can, which probably means giving up on some of the purity of the love, which needs space to grow in that activism doesn't afford as much as doing the occasional bit of 'spiritually engaged social/loving action' - which probably reaches farther in the way that it spirals out, like Mother Teresa(I think - check google) said "small acts done with great love will change the world" But I'm young and not egoless and wont be satisfied until I've tried the avenue of 'more is better' for a bit, which comes with more complex choices where you need to value truth over love to a certain degree.
Truth is something I could definitely get better at, get a more nuanced view of the world, bear witness and listen hard, be more honest, report things in a less dramatic and subjective (egoful) way....
Anyway, truth be told, I'm off to bed :) xxxx (in case it wasn't obvious, I LOVE YOU!)
Coming to the Middle East has not only given me lots to feel compassionate about, but it has taught me extremely valuable lessons.
If you fancy a bit of ramble then read on, otherwise wait for a post more centred around Palestine.
I have been caught up in some ego-driven desire to be 'a good person' and this has been driving me since... Well I can't quite tell but it's always quietly been there lurking in the shadows.
As all of you probably know, this time last year I was in pain, tomorrow last year, yesterday last year, for a significant time. I had a lot of time to think and it made me a much stronger person. I really appreciated the fragility and mortality of life and I became very dependant. Dependant on family, friends, compassion, empathy, medicines of one sort or another, meditation, and strength. It really showed me how bad pain is (I know it's obvious but I ignored it at all costs before it hit me hard enough to acknowledge it!) and how 'unacceptable' it is for any of us to go through physical pain unecessarily.
This awoke a deep well of compassion within me, I knew it was there and had explored it and ignored it at different times before - I didn't find it culturally acceptable or compatible with modern life, so I left it to fester and lived in a small box of ego... mostly because that's what everyone else was doing, and I thought that compassion was a negative emotion, and while it was difficult to do at first you soon get carried away with yourself!
Back to the awakening.
Pain forced me to acknowledge suffering, and love showed me that it was possible to do things that would help other people in a similar situation, then a load of amazing activists showed me that we can have an effect even on the big bad world, and that it was fun and rewarding. Love is rewarding, compassion is rewarding and campaigning is rewarding, for me at least.
Somewhere along the way, however, that 'rewarding' started to take over from what was driving it - a strong desire to alleviate suffering or prevent unecessary suffering.
I don't think it ever took over completely but there were certainly moments/times/acts/days/weeks in the last 7/8 months, where it was more than half of the mix. I also have a load of other problems like wanting to be 'right' and wanting attention and wanting to be wise and getting a bit fascist about everyone being 'good' so that we can all enjoy a wonderful world together, and cynically criticising people in the process(hypocracy, irony...) but those are on a slightly different plane.
And now, I'm in Palestine, I realise that it isn't that easy to sacrifice yourself to help others, it isn't that easy to solve everything, and that you are an infinitely more complex animal than you think... and I started distancing myself from things because they were overwhelming. The problem here isn't just a power-hungry few, or a profiteering clan shipping arms off to the world, it's the psychology of a nation, 5 million or so, most of them comfortable seeing themselves as part of an ethnic group that is superior to the Arabs, even a lot of the activists. It is so hopeless here, you can't demonstrate without being a victim of violence, Ghandi was up against far far less than the average participant in non-violent resistance in the West Bank and Gaza, at least in terms of violent oppression. So what can you do?
Lots actually, but it was in the West Bank, bearing witness to the emotional pain, the hopelessness and despair that comes after trying every possilbe way of changing the unjust situation that's facing you and your children and has been for 60 years, knowing that you are being slowly snuffed out or transfered out of sight of the Jewish majority in Israel.
The selfishness of Jerusalem and the ego of the place, "a country of takers" is how Israel has been described to me and it kind of fits, as generalisations about millions of people go. It's more an atmosphere than a collective judgement, more a way of life. It rubbed off on me in some way, not an obvious way, but my spirituality or universal love turned into being about 'i need to feel love' rather than 'a want to give you myself/my efforts/my energy in anyway that you will accept' which made it manipulative, manipulative love for everyone! Yes! How enlightened I had become! Rooooolll up for your loving manipulation!
One of the consequences of this growing selfishness, I think getting arrested really egnited a lot of it, a lot of other things as well, a deeper connection to what's going on here and a deeper understanding of freedom and power, but a fear and a selfishness that wasn't so strong before.
like the article posted says,
We can imagine a mind dominated by unconditional compassion for all sentient beings as a vast space, like a huge landscape. In this kind of context our own individual problems would appear very small, very manageable. By comparison, a mind limited to concern for ourselves is a very restricted space, like a small box room.
obviously we're all somewhere between the two unless we're in a moment of self or a moment of compassion/love, but I certainly haven't got to the "unconditional compassion for all sentient beings" yet, well I've felt it twice very strongly but I think that the conditionallity was lying dormant at the time, but it was an amazing full/emptiness/truth/enlightenment. Both times during spiritual practice in a group. Getting back to this, I was boxing myself in, and started coming out with desires to get rid of things, real desire to see change here "by any means possible" like Malcom X says. But this was very far from how I embarked on the journey - compassion for all of humanity, compassion for every single one of the 6,779,833,757 hearts beating in unison(at around 7pm on the 14th May 2009 according to the International Programs census).
It's easy for compassion to spin into anger or vengeance or revenge - but I think that this is a really superfiscial way of expressing it. Follow it past the point of percieved comfort and it becomes a fullness and roundness that gives life a lot of importance - its very very easy to strike back with anger/fustration, to close yourself off to suffering just at the point when it is really important to develop your compassion. But, as the Dalai Lama says again and again, it's blind.
There's no truth in violently expressing anger, it's superfiscial. If you really want to express your anger or your compassion or how upset you are by someone's behaviour then make them understand deep down, show them what they are doing, show them how valuable life is, hit their soul, not their skin - and it will be more effective, that person might change forever, that person might flip for a moment, that person might get more angry - you can never tell and it's not a command, but when it works it's worth more than a lifetime of forcefully educating people.
So all these things spin round in a cycle, in a circle, we are always chasing one idea and leaving another, taking up yet another and neglecting the one we just took up, taking up another that suits our ego or personal desire or sounds cool or clever or neat and slowly and quietly leaving a life-changing idea that brought us on to the round a bout in the first place.
I pretty much forgot my raison d'etre that I adopted after my experience with my nerves going haywire and the raison d'etre that has driven so much of what I have loved about my life in such a short time - compassion for all sentient beings. I didn't include the unconditional part because I wasn't aware that feeling compassion for Bush Blair Kim Jong Ill or General Than Shwe was I good thing to do, and I was still concerned with being 'good' to a certain extent, to the point where I was holding it over people and making them feel bad (which is mean and I'm deeply sorry to all those affected by my volatile ego). I still don't have the answer for that one except that I don't feel compassion for them as vectors of so much suffering but I do feel compassion for them as people, and would if I saw them being tortured without doubt, if they were to be hung in front of me I would probably feel a lot. Power does have a funny way of dehumanizing people so it's a challange, but I don't see it as a good or bad thing now, and I'm not so bothered.
"A sound man's heart is not shut within itself
But is open to other people's hearts:
I find good people good,
And I find bad people good
If I am good enough;
I trust men of their word,
And I trust liars
If I am true enough;
I feel the hear-beats of others
Above my own
If I am enough of a father,
Enough of a son"
This is where I would like to be. This is the state of mind that would give me the confidence that I was doing the right thing, not nurturing a self-image of a 'good man' but just feeling the weight of other's hearts as heavier than my own.
I am very very far from it at the moment, and although I have a clear dialogue between my mind my heart and my soul, something that has really come on recently, I have been empathising with people here less and less and less.
Today we were at a demonstration, and I was holding up a placard in Hebrew that said "Jewish National Fund, Hands off the lands of the al Oukbi tribe" - Nouri, the elder of a Bedouin tribe in the Negev desert, inside Israel, has been fighting singlehandedly against the Israeli State for years and years and has run up fine after legal expense after court case and is severely in debt, defending the land of the tribe. Usually the State goes and steals the lands of the Bedouin without a fuss because the Bedouin didn't ever see the need to register the land with the Ottoman Empire or the British Empire, but in this case the tribe did have the deeds from teh Ottoman Empire, the British mandate and the early Israeli state. And still the Jewish National Fund has stolen the lands and is ploughing them up.
http://www.dukium.org/
One of the Bedouin elders read my placard, and let water out of his eyes, just like that. Very quietly, so quietly that it took me a few seconds to notice. But my reaction wasn't compassion and empathy, it was surprise/shock. This must have been down to prejudice and ego getting in the way of the spirit of compassion, I had classified him as a hard old man of the desert and was surprised at the tears. Why should I be surprised? This man had been struggling with authority for a long time and was old enough to have seen his community thrive as it should, old enough to have gone through what Nouri was doing now and fought the Israeli State for a while, old enough to have experienced racism, old enough to know what this all means to the children, old enough to really feel the tradgedy, and to know it. If there was a westerner my age that was letting a silent tear go because his village was under threat in Yorkshire and they had no runing water and little access to food let alone medicine education and playgrounds, employment and decent shelter, that their land was being ploughed up by the businessmen in London and their neighbour's village had been demolished and voluntarily re-built 22 times over 60 years, that their ancestral land was being given over from supporting a community of over 90,000 to being given to 60 single family ranches. It's a hearbreaking life, and I was unaware, or at least I wasn't present with this, trying to bustle up to the other activists and get the message accross to the Israeli public in a measured and effective way like it was a bit of a game, like I was pushing an agenda. David Edwards is absolutely right for me, that showing compassion and awareness/understanding in these situations can change the world, where was my compassion? How had I lost this? Was this not the very thing that had driven me out to the protest? Probably not, it was probably more like my need to feel that I'm doing something while I'm here rather than my compassion.
This lack of connection, lack of presence was quite unsettling. I had a good snippet of a conversation in the taxi on the way back with the BBC documentary maker that had also been in a wheelchair for 5 months following a bike accident and went to a primary school just next to mine in London, Ravenscourt Park(went there until I was 5). He also made a film about the Ananda Marga Yoga groups in Manchester, which I quite like, but didn't know about their infighting in India "all life is an expression of one infinite loving consciousness/beba nam kevalam" - maybe, funny kind of love sometimes but possibly.
Then I was challenged about my ego by Angela and it was starting to click.
Where had my compassion gone? How has it that my ego has been operating so obviously without me seeing it? How had I been tricking myself all this time (indeed, what am I still tricking myself of, a hell of a lot I guess)?
So this is beautiful now, in a sublime state of emptiness, of space, of choice. It's too late now and I'm going to bed but tomorrow, the next day, the day after that and that I have the choice between ego and compassion, between self and love. I'll probably find that the dichotomy isn't that simple and deconstruct it again and go around on the merrigoround again, but each time you do a circle you can get a bit closer to the centre, you can stay aware of the circle that you're going in rather than think you're going along a straight line, you can bring in more to your life than before, you can choose. But I only have one choice in life really, and that's attitude. Do I train my mind to work for what's best for others, what's best for those close to me? What's best for those I've never met the other side of the world? What's best for the Whole? What's best for the good and the nasty tykes irrespective? Or do I just join the masses plugged into iPods and TVs and drugs and cool/ego and pleasure and revert to the illusion that I'm making choices but actually just coast along doing whatever's best for me until I reconnected again with the earth and my opportunity is gone and this magical and mortal life that was given to me is ended in trajic loneliness cynicism deep depression and misery?
Did I seriously think that was a choice?
We can choose to ignore this and we really have been trained to do so, sometimes it's difficult starting to be aware of this stuff and sometimes we need personal suffering to connect with this side of life, I certainly did, and I'm just sending out my feelers, still frightened and awed by the beauty majesty mystery and depth of love, compassion and the spirit - it's really tempting to hang on to your ego. But when I get the rare moment of just embracing this, you don't need to choose, it's a higher level, you just do, and you love it, and it's obvious, and it's natural and it's goooooooood :)
OK so that paints quite a simplistic picture, but you can make life simple. I'm not ready for that yet and want at the moment to just do as much as I can, which probably means giving up on some of the purity of the love, which needs space to grow in that activism doesn't afford as much as doing the occasional bit of 'spiritually engaged social/loving action' - which probably reaches farther in the way that it spirals out, like Mother Teresa(I think - check google) said "small acts done with great love will change the world" But I'm young and not egoless and wont be satisfied until I've tried the avenue of 'more is better' for a bit, which comes with more complex choices where you need to value truth over love to a certain degree.
Truth is something I could definitely get better at, get a more nuanced view of the world, bear witness and listen hard, be more honest, report things in a less dramatic and subjective (egoful) way....
Anyway, truth be told, I'm off to bed :) xxxx (in case it wasn't obvious, I LOVE YOU!)
Wednesday 13 May 2009
ICAHD
Dear everyone,
I've got some good news - Mahmuud Hassan and Azir have been released.
The bad news is that they managed to hike up the price of bail (bale?) to 50,000 shekels for all of them. Azir's family have been able to pay is 20,000 (4000 in GBP), don't ask me how! For the other two the Israeli activists cobbled together the money through other really amazingly generous people. Does make my heart sing a little bit when I see that level of dedication and committment, and they act normal - it happens all the time. They go through extraordinary things for each other all the time. That's the real peace work.
What have I been doing with myself?
Good question.
I've been working with ICAHD's "action advocacy officer" Angela Godfrey-Goldstein. She's a British Israeli, her father was a doctor and she grew up in Africa and England and then moved to Israel a long time ago. She's seen it change and morph and progress and twist into the bitter sinew of racism and superiority that it is now, calls herself a post-Zionist and works harder than anyone else I've seen so far.
I'm staying at her house for the moment, typing up speeches, finding funding for ICAHD with KIOS and the EU Comission etc., reading, thinking about it all, I accompanied her on a tour of the Negev and the bedouin there
I'll say a little something about the bedouin
They are the most obvious poor, they live in shanti like houses in the desert, there are over 20 unrecognised villages, many of which have had land fill sites or chemical factories or NUCLEAR POWER STATIONS set up right next to them, they don't have access to primary healthcare and the roads don't accomodate ambulances, plus they aren't in the Israeli welfare or insurance systems because they're unrecognised. They are the nobodies of the nobodies, not even worth mentioning, at least to the staunchly ant-arab government. That's something that Israel and Egypt can agree on - how not to treat the Bedouin.
I'm also seeking out 40,000 for a school bus for a year and 35,000 so they can finish building and start running a small school there.
There was a women's group there run by a bedouin woman in her 20s that was taken out of school at a young age to do the house work, and fought a tough battle with her family and her community to be allowed to return to her studies, she is 27ish now and just finished high school. She has just embarked on an open University degree, and has refused to marry as she didn't want to marry the man they arranged for her, she did this by just staying engaged and saying 'later' 'later' 'later' until, 7 years later, he got bored and found someone else to marry, taking some of the blame. Fantastic, really strong and enlightened woman, a real joy to see. She made some nice Tommy compatable food as well... And ran a women's centre to help women generally, hear their concerns and help themin the community, to promote the place of the woman in the local community, to give them somewhere to chill out, somewhere so that they can share baby-sitting, hold small events, I think they probably kept women there if husbands needed a bit of time to cool down but possibly not. So that was an inspiration. All done with pure sweat, no external funding.
The state of the villages was just too sad next to the industrial sites, business and the government seem to just use the Negev desert as a dumping ground for pollution etc. that they don't want to have to deal with around Jewish communities, with complete disregard for the ancestral lands of the Bedouin and what their tribal areas mean to them.
One village has been razed to the ground 22 times. Can you imagine a community in England that had their houses torn down and they had to rebuild them 22 times in 60 years? So moving.
What else...
lots of paper work and computer work...
The Pope's here now and he's coming by my road tomorrow morning so I might pop out and see him in his funny car.
Last night I went to meet with Anat, a girl that Kevin, a friend from Rusholme brought to my goodbye drinks.
She invited me to see some "jewish culture" - it was the equivalent of Guy Fawkes night, there was a Judean revolutionary figure that was unsuccesful against the Romans and he was burnt alive, except this guy is really celebrated openly, not like Guy Fawkes which has always been to me, as a child at least- Dammit, he was so close! Not because of the consequences just because there was so much unexploded gunpowder underneath a bunch of politicians...
So I arrived, after she told me the name of the 'village' and the bus number - the bus' windows were double perspex, a 'security measure' - I swear they have all the security equipment on the wrong side of the wall, anyway, I couldn't see where I was going.
Everyone on the bus was suspectly orthodox or military, I mean it's a highly militarised society and you see army uniforms everywhere you go but this was a bit too much.
When I got off I thought that it looked quite nice but a bit wierd, and after popping in to see one family where she told them I was a peace activist and the father grumbled a lot and never gave me eye contact, it was a bit surreal, the whole place was like desperate housewives suburbia. Like a film set. Anat told me that this road was more extreme, I asked her what she meant and she went "you know...." like she couldn't name it because of her English rather than because it was completely unacceptable - I offered "zionist?" and she said, "don't be silly everyone here is a zionist" I thought, right, well, we are in Israel but I didn't know that everyone wanted a theocracy... (Zionist means someone that wants a Jewish State - like an Islamic State or a Christian State, nor a State for the Jews but a religious state, or a state with a vertain "demographic balance" ranging from 68/32 to 100%) and she settled for the word religious.
So we walked around, she showed me a small group of quiet shops and said that this was the site of a terrorist attack where someone she knew through someone she knew got killed. I think it was during the first or second intifada but I couldn't tell.
Then we went out of a fence that imitated childrens fences, you know with the overlapping half circles at the top, usually in green or a primary colour, except that it was really adult size. There was a secret door/gate and Anat led me through down to a bench and arm chair where we had a chat about the arab/israeli situation and Manchester and Kevin and the other people she met and what she did in England. We were sat close to a fence and on the next hill there was a village that looked like a settlement.
"Are we in a settlement?"
"of course! I told you in Manchester."
"did you?"
"and I told you today"
"did you? Sorry, I must have thought you said something else."
So there I was, in the heart of it. Karney Shomron. Settlers.
My previous experience of settlers had been when I recieved what I thought was a panicked phone call from some Christian observers saying that they were surrounded by IDF and settlers near Beit Sahour south of Bethlehem so I drove down there to find them but they were alright, the settlers were going for a picnic where it was illegal for them to go under international law, but it was OK because they were protected by a ring of IDF soldiers. A picnic, seriously? It's such a psychological game here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQVgwkjSzEw&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYtvb8OW_cg&feature=related
this is what i've seen of the settlers so far. Driven by God to do as much as they possible can to 'transfer' the 'violent corrupt hateful untrustworthy arabs' out of Palestine. Violent. The scary thing is that the ideology behind the violence is one of naked ethnic dominace - if there was ideology of liberation or equality or a better life for everyone then I could start to go along with it, but just to keep millions of darkies down to secure what you think God promised you? Come on, this isn't the 1600s...
So I was introduced, to my great peril and fear, as a peace activist to every settler that we encountered.
One woman looked very shocked and blurted out while giving me an intense stare "throw him in the fire"
it was bonfire night and I was right next to the fire...
Thank goodness they never took her up on that imperrative :) - it would have hurt.
So then Anat brought forward 3 men, one by one, to explain to me "intellectually" why it was OK to be a settler and why the whole of Palestine should be Jewish.
I was never scared of losing the argument, it was foolish, childish and made no sense. I was scared of physical violence though and was walking a very thin line between holding my ground that it wasn't OK to kill arabs or to generalise about arabic society in the way that they were doing, or to be racist "but they're different, if you lived with them you'd know" "they're all lying to you" "all the refugees are lyers, they're from Jordan and Iraq, there were only 500,000 Palestinians in 1950 how can there be 10 million now? It's pure mathmatics, it's all a lie" (even though 750,000 Palestinians alone where ethnically cleansed/removed from the land given by the quango UN delegation to create a new Israel)
They were making a real effor to try and put on a good face, to attempt to be as lovely as possible to show that they were people too and to try and win my support with manipulative emotional bribary.... it was really horrible, but I can see why these dutch ministers that go over to the settlements come back with islamophobic rhetoric. It's kind of - I'll give you an extra slice of tomatoe for your pitta bread if you admit that arabs are at least a bit horrible... and a bit more for a bit more. I wasn't having any of it, but I was warry of the stick side of things, I still had to spend the night there and Anat had left me with her cousins. I young father and mother, they were zealous and she was attractive and they really tried to be sweet, but I just couldn't take it seriously.
There's a childish ignorance to racism and that transposes quite neatly into a naivity about their own government. Oh my days. It was an experience. That's all I can say.
There's so much happening out here that it's difficult to process, I suppose I'm doing most of the processing as a write and I'm sure I'll look back on it in a years time and be able to tell a more accurate story but things are just so extreme here.
Talking about solutions and this racist settler's experience in the army he said that he wouldn't except anything except a full Israel, and that he thinks that in war it's OK to kill children and women and do anything that you need to do to win the war and he hates Bt Selem, one of the human rights groups.
He delivered all this in a very very calm way, unlike the older men the night before.
He's an activist on the other side of the fence. He believe's he's serving God by bringing as many jews as possible into settlements, from abroad as well, and making everyone who is Jewish a Zionist.
I was thinking destructively. I had just stayed the night in this mans house, I had seen him play with his baby in a really loving way and saw that he had a good relationship with his wife, and it pissed me off. Why do I know so many good people that are finding life so much more difficult than this arrogant tosser? He's making life miserable for so many people, and he's enjoying it as a duty, how can he be so happy? How can he enjoy hate and fear? Is it real? That must afflict you in some way.. The older men were certainly very grumpy and bitter, but there are some bitter and grumpy old men in every community and society.(sorry Roddie...)
Eventually I got him to acknowlendge that Israel's lack of respect for the UN and international law, human rights and the idea of the universality of humanity was hampering those very institutions and delegitimising human rights and interntaional law and the UN at a very important time. We are facing climate change and peak oil and water problems and a globalised world where we need international co-ordination and a respect for the human being more than ever, especially as non-Western powers are rising to the level of super-power, and had little to do with the creation of the UN and human rights after the 2nd World War, and if little Israel could get away with so much what do you think these guys are going to get away with? So he said that he cold never accept the Right of Return for the refugees, but he did finally concede that he would have to accept a two state solution so long as he had a promise from the international community that the moment that the first bullet was fired against Israel, Israel could transfer the whole arab population out of Palestine. I thought that that was a little unrealistic but at least a start! "we wont ethnically cleanse you if you really really really really behave yourselves and never once murder us no matter what we do to you" I suppose is better than "we need to kill or remove you all now". But he was just saying it for me and he still has a long way to go...
God.... Urghh.... What have You done! How have You pitted off one fan-base against another and another... How is that worship? How is killing each other a good way of saying thank you for the life that we have?
So then I hitch-hiked to Tel Aviv, went to the Jordanian Embassy, met a really attractive French TV journalist in the lobby, got my Visa - the guy behind the glass didn't think I was the same person in thw photo - that how different I look without hair...
Then I went to drop off 2,000 shekels to Shai for the bail money for the others, an Israeli documentary maker about the popular struggles in the West Bank, he came to the same protests and is a really sound man, he's getting the mouuulaaa together with a friend and driving people to and from hospital and is actually one of the general mother geese of the Palestinian non-violenct resistance movement.
Then I went to the beach to read about the ethnic cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappe, it's a really good book and although difficult to read if you are an Israeli, very well written and well researched. I'd recommend it as the best book I've read on the 1940-present history of Palestine, but apparently Whalid Kalili is also great, and said all of this ages ago but got no recognition because he was Palestinian and not Israeli. RACE! It works on so many levels.
Oh, one more exciting thing, I got to sit in on an UN OCHA (Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) meeting. My days there is soooo much stopping you! We went round in circles for three times before we got started, just talking about what we were going to talk about. Too many egoes and not enough structure - but I wasn't in a position to take the lead so I just kept quiet. The aim is to freeze house demolitions immediately and then to create a legal framework for dealing with displaced people in ISrael-Palestine and also to change policy about planning to accomodate the needs of the Palestinians ~(I put the last bit in because they were getting stuck but they left it hanging. It's difficult to use any words because a big team of lawyers is working on the other side to manipulate language and encode it into law before youve even opened your mouth.... it's tricky)
And... I've cooked a lot of Miso soup and pasta and aubregenes and yummy tasty things now that there's a kitchen to do it in. As much as I respect the quality of Palestinian homous, I was needing a bit more variety in my diet.
Oh yeah, and I met the circus from Iraq, I'm sure I said that before? THey had a whole mock prayer about Jade Goody and a Hym about her... it was funny. It was also great hearing some British banter, I loved it.
The day after they left they performed their last show in Israel-Palestine in front of 1500 Bedouin children in the Negev desert. Amazing. Unfortunatly I have nothing but a picture - again, not with me, I'll have to get it up soon.
OK, it's 3 in the morning and I need an early start so goodnight and be well and merry and free :)
I've got some good news - Mahmuud Hassan and Azir have been released.
The bad news is that they managed to hike up the price of bail (bale?) to 50,000 shekels for all of them. Azir's family have been able to pay is 20,000 (4000 in GBP), don't ask me how! For the other two the Israeli activists cobbled together the money through other really amazingly generous people. Does make my heart sing a little bit when I see that level of dedication and committment, and they act normal - it happens all the time. They go through extraordinary things for each other all the time. That's the real peace work.
What have I been doing with myself?
Good question.
I've been working with ICAHD's "action advocacy officer" Angela Godfrey-Goldstein. She's a British Israeli, her father was a doctor and she grew up in Africa and England and then moved to Israel a long time ago. She's seen it change and morph and progress and twist into the bitter sinew of racism and superiority that it is now, calls herself a post-Zionist and works harder than anyone else I've seen so far.
I'm staying at her house for the moment, typing up speeches, finding funding for ICAHD with KIOS and the EU Comission etc., reading, thinking about it all, I accompanied her on a tour of the Negev and the bedouin there
I'll say a little something about the bedouin
They are the most obvious poor, they live in shanti like houses in the desert, there are over 20 unrecognised villages, many of which have had land fill sites or chemical factories or NUCLEAR POWER STATIONS set up right next to them, they don't have access to primary healthcare and the roads don't accomodate ambulances, plus they aren't in the Israeli welfare or insurance systems because they're unrecognised. They are the nobodies of the nobodies, not even worth mentioning, at least to the staunchly ant-arab government. That's something that Israel and Egypt can agree on - how not to treat the Bedouin.
I'm also seeking out 40,000 for a school bus for a year and 35,000 so they can finish building and start running a small school there.
There was a women's group there run by a bedouin woman in her 20s that was taken out of school at a young age to do the house work, and fought a tough battle with her family and her community to be allowed to return to her studies, she is 27ish now and just finished high school. She has just embarked on an open University degree, and has refused to marry as she didn't want to marry the man they arranged for her, she did this by just staying engaged and saying 'later' 'later' 'later' until, 7 years later, he got bored and found someone else to marry, taking some of the blame. Fantastic, really strong and enlightened woman, a real joy to see. She made some nice Tommy compatable food as well... And ran a women's centre to help women generally, hear their concerns and help themin the community, to promote the place of the woman in the local community, to give them somewhere to chill out, somewhere so that they can share baby-sitting, hold small events, I think they probably kept women there if husbands needed a bit of time to cool down but possibly not. So that was an inspiration. All done with pure sweat, no external funding.
The state of the villages was just too sad next to the industrial sites, business and the government seem to just use the Negev desert as a dumping ground for pollution etc. that they don't want to have to deal with around Jewish communities, with complete disregard for the ancestral lands of the Bedouin and what their tribal areas mean to them.
One village has been razed to the ground 22 times. Can you imagine a community in England that had their houses torn down and they had to rebuild them 22 times in 60 years? So moving.
What else...
lots of paper work and computer work...
The Pope's here now and he's coming by my road tomorrow morning so I might pop out and see him in his funny car.
Last night I went to meet with Anat, a girl that Kevin, a friend from Rusholme brought to my goodbye drinks.
She invited me to see some "jewish culture" - it was the equivalent of Guy Fawkes night, there was a Judean revolutionary figure that was unsuccesful against the Romans and he was burnt alive, except this guy is really celebrated openly, not like Guy Fawkes which has always been to me, as a child at least- Dammit, he was so close! Not because of the consequences just because there was so much unexploded gunpowder underneath a bunch of politicians...
So I arrived, after she told me the name of the 'village' and the bus number - the bus' windows were double perspex, a 'security measure' - I swear they have all the security equipment on the wrong side of the wall, anyway, I couldn't see where I was going.
Everyone on the bus was suspectly orthodox or military, I mean it's a highly militarised society and you see army uniforms everywhere you go but this was a bit too much.
When I got off I thought that it looked quite nice but a bit wierd, and after popping in to see one family where she told them I was a peace activist and the father grumbled a lot and never gave me eye contact, it was a bit surreal, the whole place was like desperate housewives suburbia. Like a film set. Anat told me that this road was more extreme, I asked her what she meant and she went "you know...." like she couldn't name it because of her English rather than because it was completely unacceptable - I offered "zionist?" and she said, "don't be silly everyone here is a zionist" I thought, right, well, we are in Israel but I didn't know that everyone wanted a theocracy... (Zionist means someone that wants a Jewish State - like an Islamic State or a Christian State, nor a State for the Jews but a religious state, or a state with a vertain "demographic balance" ranging from 68/32 to 100%) and she settled for the word religious.
So we walked around, she showed me a small group of quiet shops and said that this was the site of a terrorist attack where someone she knew through someone she knew got killed. I think it was during the first or second intifada but I couldn't tell.
Then we went out of a fence that imitated childrens fences, you know with the overlapping half circles at the top, usually in green or a primary colour, except that it was really adult size. There was a secret door/gate and Anat led me through down to a bench and arm chair where we had a chat about the arab/israeli situation and Manchester and Kevin and the other people she met and what she did in England. We were sat close to a fence and on the next hill there was a village that looked like a settlement.
"Are we in a settlement?"
"of course! I told you in Manchester."
"did you?"
"and I told you today"
"did you? Sorry, I must have thought you said something else."
So there I was, in the heart of it. Karney Shomron. Settlers.
My previous experience of settlers had been when I recieved what I thought was a panicked phone call from some Christian observers saying that they were surrounded by IDF and settlers near Beit Sahour south of Bethlehem so I drove down there to find them but they were alright, the settlers were going for a picnic where it was illegal for them to go under international law, but it was OK because they were protected by a ring of IDF soldiers. A picnic, seriously? It's such a psychological game here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQVgwkjSzEw&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYtvb8OW_cg&feature=related
this is what i've seen of the settlers so far. Driven by God to do as much as they possible can to 'transfer' the 'violent corrupt hateful untrustworthy arabs' out of Palestine. Violent. The scary thing is that the ideology behind the violence is one of naked ethnic dominace - if there was ideology of liberation or equality or a better life for everyone then I could start to go along with it, but just to keep millions of darkies down to secure what you think God promised you? Come on, this isn't the 1600s...
So I was introduced, to my great peril and fear, as a peace activist to every settler that we encountered.
One woman looked very shocked and blurted out while giving me an intense stare "throw him in the fire"
it was bonfire night and I was right next to the fire...
Thank goodness they never took her up on that imperrative :) - it would have hurt.
So then Anat brought forward 3 men, one by one, to explain to me "intellectually" why it was OK to be a settler and why the whole of Palestine should be Jewish.
I was never scared of losing the argument, it was foolish, childish and made no sense. I was scared of physical violence though and was walking a very thin line between holding my ground that it wasn't OK to kill arabs or to generalise about arabic society in the way that they were doing, or to be racist "but they're different, if you lived with them you'd know" "they're all lying to you" "all the refugees are lyers, they're from Jordan and Iraq, there were only 500,000 Palestinians in 1950 how can there be 10 million now? It's pure mathmatics, it's all a lie" (even though 750,000 Palestinians alone where ethnically cleansed/removed from the land given by the quango UN delegation to create a new Israel)
They were making a real effor to try and put on a good face, to attempt to be as lovely as possible to show that they were people too and to try and win my support with manipulative emotional bribary.... it was really horrible, but I can see why these dutch ministers that go over to the settlements come back with islamophobic rhetoric. It's kind of - I'll give you an extra slice of tomatoe for your pitta bread if you admit that arabs are at least a bit horrible... and a bit more for a bit more. I wasn't having any of it, but I was warry of the stick side of things, I still had to spend the night there and Anat had left me with her cousins. I young father and mother, they were zealous and she was attractive and they really tried to be sweet, but I just couldn't take it seriously.
There's a childish ignorance to racism and that transposes quite neatly into a naivity about their own government. Oh my days. It was an experience. That's all I can say.
There's so much happening out here that it's difficult to process, I suppose I'm doing most of the processing as a write and I'm sure I'll look back on it in a years time and be able to tell a more accurate story but things are just so extreme here.
Talking about solutions and this racist settler's experience in the army he said that he wouldn't except anything except a full Israel, and that he thinks that in war it's OK to kill children and women and do anything that you need to do to win the war and he hates Bt Selem, one of the human rights groups.
He delivered all this in a very very calm way, unlike the older men the night before.
He's an activist on the other side of the fence. He believe's he's serving God by bringing as many jews as possible into settlements, from abroad as well, and making everyone who is Jewish a Zionist.
I was thinking destructively. I had just stayed the night in this mans house, I had seen him play with his baby in a really loving way and saw that he had a good relationship with his wife, and it pissed me off. Why do I know so many good people that are finding life so much more difficult than this arrogant tosser? He's making life miserable for so many people, and he's enjoying it as a duty, how can he be so happy? How can he enjoy hate and fear? Is it real? That must afflict you in some way.. The older men were certainly very grumpy and bitter, but there are some bitter and grumpy old men in every community and society.(sorry Roddie...)
Eventually I got him to acknowlendge that Israel's lack of respect for the UN and international law, human rights and the idea of the universality of humanity was hampering those very institutions and delegitimising human rights and interntaional law and the UN at a very important time. We are facing climate change and peak oil and water problems and a globalised world where we need international co-ordination and a respect for the human being more than ever, especially as non-Western powers are rising to the level of super-power, and had little to do with the creation of the UN and human rights after the 2nd World War, and if little Israel could get away with so much what do you think these guys are going to get away with? So he said that he cold never accept the Right of Return for the refugees, but he did finally concede that he would have to accept a two state solution so long as he had a promise from the international community that the moment that the first bullet was fired against Israel, Israel could transfer the whole arab population out of Palestine. I thought that that was a little unrealistic but at least a start! "we wont ethnically cleanse you if you really really really really behave yourselves and never once murder us no matter what we do to you" I suppose is better than "we need to kill or remove you all now". But he was just saying it for me and he still has a long way to go...
God.... Urghh.... What have You done! How have You pitted off one fan-base against another and another... How is that worship? How is killing each other a good way of saying thank you for the life that we have?
So then I hitch-hiked to Tel Aviv, went to the Jordanian Embassy, met a really attractive French TV journalist in the lobby, got my Visa - the guy behind the glass didn't think I was the same person in thw photo - that how different I look without hair...
Then I went to drop off 2,000 shekels to Shai for the bail money for the others, an Israeli documentary maker about the popular struggles in the West Bank, he came to the same protests and is a really sound man, he's getting the mouuulaaa together with a friend and driving people to and from hospital and is actually one of the general mother geese of the Palestinian non-violenct resistance movement.
Then I went to the beach to read about the ethnic cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappe, it's a really good book and although difficult to read if you are an Israeli, very well written and well researched. I'd recommend it as the best book I've read on the 1940-present history of Palestine, but apparently Whalid Kalili is also great, and said all of this ages ago but got no recognition because he was Palestinian and not Israeli. RACE! It works on so many levels.
Oh, one more exciting thing, I got to sit in on an UN OCHA (Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) meeting. My days there is soooo much stopping you! We went round in circles for three times before we got started, just talking about what we were going to talk about. Too many egoes and not enough structure - but I wasn't in a position to take the lead so I just kept quiet. The aim is to freeze house demolitions immediately and then to create a legal framework for dealing with displaced people in ISrael-Palestine and also to change policy about planning to accomodate the needs of the Palestinians ~(I put the last bit in because they were getting stuck but they left it hanging. It's difficult to use any words because a big team of lawyers is working on the other side to manipulate language and encode it into law before youve even opened your mouth.... it's tricky)
And... I've cooked a lot of Miso soup and pasta and aubregenes and yummy tasty things now that there's a kitchen to do it in. As much as I respect the quality of Palestinian homous, I was needing a bit more variety in my diet.
Oh yeah, and I met the circus from Iraq, I'm sure I said that before? THey had a whole mock prayer about Jade Goody and a Hym about her... it was funny. It was also great hearing some British banter, I loved it.
The day after they left they performed their last show in Israel-Palestine in front of 1500 Bedouin children in the Negev desert. Amazing. Unfortunatly I have nothing but a picture - again, not with me, I'll have to get it up soon.
OK, it's 3 in the morning and I need an early start so goodnight and be well and merry and free :)
Friday 8 May 2009
Tuesday 5 May 2009
custody
I'm changing the names to crazy names just in case it affects their case.OK, I'd been driven to the police station by the soldiers and then we were shown the courtyard to sit in one by one. Another boy was there when we arrived from the same place, making us 7 in total.
So, after 20 minutes I managed to get them to undo the tie that was cutting off the circulation in my hands - they felt funny by this point. it was great to get them moving again but discovered a strange and little bit painful bruises on the pads of my thumbs and my wrists felt funny and I was trying to get the sensation back to my hands. But great that we could now use our hands. Cigerettes were shared out between us and chill, waiting under the surveilance of 4 M16 wielding angry guards to be brought in by the police for "interview" or "interrogation" depending on which side of the barrel you're on.
I was first.
The policeman left me with a young policewoman that was quite podgy and seemed really distant and shut off but much much more pleasant than the others. Her name was Natalie and she was actually very good at explaining things for me. I tried to take my passport back afterwards, when she went to make herself some tea, but then she got a bit more proffessional and asked for it back in an unamused manner. The interview was great, I denied the charges against me, which I was shocked at to be honest:
1). Hitting a soldier
2). Hitting a police officer
3). Destroying military property (OK, I stood on the wire when I was at the front so that it wouldn't bounce back and catch a woman's dress or the other men's legs - but it was already trodden down and I didn't actually move it at all)
4). Entering an unauthorised military zone (perhaps - I don't know which zone is which but even if I did it, I had seen people cross it before without getting arrested and the other side of this "zone" was a road with free movement, so if they constructed a 2 meter by 10 meter 'military zne' then possibly)
so I carefully explained that my arrest was unprovoked and denied the charges.
When I returned, Zak was on the floor, writhing, with his hands tied up again, groaning in the corner. "what happened?" "he got beaten up while you were in the interrogating room".
"Doctoor, doctoor, get me doctoor"
"could you please arrange a doctor fo..." I was kindly enquiring when I was rudly interrupted by the green uniformed man "shut up"
"I think that he needs medical att..." I tried again in case he didn't realise what i was trying to say "Shuuut uuup"
Now I was starting to worry that I wouldn't be able to get to my medication for my legs, which would probably mean a lot of pain later on, especially as it was starting to get quite cold and the stress of the whole situation doesn't help the nerves at all. I was waiting for the opportune moment to mention this so that it would actually get heard and addressed for the rest of the 8 hours... It didn't arise.
"Tom, Tom, you see this? I need doctor."
"excuse me sir"
nothing
"Sir, excuse me, could youplease arrange a doctor for this gentleman"
this time addressing an older police officer
"OK, he's coming"
wow - that was easier.
So then Zak started cracking us all up. We weren't allowed to speak and they really wanted us to feel like maggots and respect them because they could, so it was a bit like in the Life of Brian, when pontious pilot starts talking about "Biggus Dickus" and the roman guards crack up eaven though it means execution or the dungeons.
"Tom, you see this? Where is my freedom? Where is my freedom in Israeli democracy?"
don't worry that was just the warm up.
"Tom, Tom, tell me Tom, where is Churchill?"
I don't know why this was so funny but trust me in this situation it was hillarious, all of us cracked up and the soldier's lips turned ever so slightly at the corner even though he took himself way too seriously.
"Tom, tell me Tom, where is Gandhi?" - good question
"Tom... I have a dream.... I have a dream Tom... I have a dream that I see a Doctor"
"Paradise"
"Tom... Tell me, where is Cromwell?"
This was equally hillarious and we burst out laughing, at which point I got the giggles... it was just such a stupid situation. But neither the Israeli guards or the Palestinian like the fact that I was laughing so much, but the palestinians like my spirit, and they kept telling each other to stay strong, which was really sad and touching.
There's something about being held and watched with supremely judgemental eyes, the army and the police - except for the Russian and other Soldier - thinking that I was the reason why the Middle East is so f"cked up and that I had committed a major crime by even being there, let alone going to the protest, let alone being a naughty boy in front of the educators with guns. It did feel alot like public school though. A team of friends that knew they hadn't done anything wrong in the face of an incriminating authority.
Debbs rang me, she had been trying to ring three or four times before but I wasn't able to answer the phone with my hands tied, and then i had to switch it off quickly when a soldier tried taking it away, you really have to keep your wits about you and try to keep on to the few ropes you have left dangling in front of you to climb out of the situation, they physically tried taking the phone away twice but I just wrenched it back out of their hands and said "OK, OK, I'll turn it off" then I turned it back on again in my pocket, and sent out a few text messages - which must have looked really really unsubtle, hiding the phone up the sleeve of my jumper when it was my turn to wear it.
Eventually Debbs got through and we agreed for her to keep calling every half hour - but that proved really impractical, so it slowed down after the first few times.
Cold
cold
cold
it's funny, I never imagined that my fingers would go numb with cold in the Middle East, but as the sun started to go down, it was a really windy and relatively cold day, and there was only one jumper between us - the nice grey wooly one that I wear, it was a Christmas present from Dad. It was the jumper that the nice soldier picked up for me when i couldn't pick it up. It proved a real lifeline - i tried to give it to Betty, the man that looked the coldest, but he kept giving it back after a while because i had a skinny t shirt on and the rest had shirts. So we shared it. We weren't allowed to stand up to do jumping jacks or anything. Chris was allowed to pray once, which was quite touching (Muslim prayer, so the standing and muttering and crossing of arms, recieveing the light of God and kissing His ground before Him).
Just to let you know - Zack was really OK in the end, even though the doctor never showed up and when I asked the police later, punctuated with more "shush"'s from the other side of the machine guns, they said that he wasn't getting a doctor.
He took his jumper off after they cut his tie to stop both him groaning and us groaning about cutting his tie, and he took off his jumper so that he could lie on it as he couldn't quite stand up yet, and there was a big nasty bruise on the inside of his arm, purple and pink and brown and swollen, it looked like the end of a good hard kick from one of the border guard's boots.
He eventually started stretching out and did a few sit-ups, much to our amusement, and went on to make a few more throw away comments about democracy freedom non-violence racism and Martin Luther King.
The rest of them went for interviews one by one and hours and hours later 3 cigarettes later and many funny static exercises in the chair to keep the blood going around my legs and keep warm - I was asked for a second interview.
This man was less cool. He looked Max the Meanie from the Beatles film "yellow submarine" and he was fatter in the face and legs. He squeezed a statement out of me, I tried to ask for my rights and he said I could call a lawyer if I knew a number but was only allowed one call. Luckily Debbs was on the case and said that she had already got a lawyer. But I didn't want to faff about and didn't really want to go to court so I was just honest and gave them a very truthful detailed account of what happened making sure that I didn't incriminate anyone.
After that, I was released! Yes! after what must have been 35 minutes of being born down by the no man meanie fat obviouslydoesn'thavesexalotwithhiswife power using manipulative righteous pompous angry hating but probablygotanothersidetohimthatIwillneversee P... Oh yeah, you really can't say that word here, I'll say copper instead.
He issued us with some sheet of hebrew, made me sign about 4 forms, then let Damien and I go instructing us to pay a 1500 sheckle fine at the post office by 9am Sunday after going to get a voucher from the police station before hand.
Damien's friend came to pick us up, we rang the boy that I was staying with so that he could drop of the medicine near the checkpoint, then we set to work ringing around for a place for me to stay the night in Jerusalem.
Guess who I eventually stayed with? A dutch woman that I had met at the community centre in Al Azar camp. Guess where she was at the moment? At the camp? Guess what would be 'no problem' for her to do? Pick up all my stuff! Yes!
Oh right, the reason why this is so significant is because i didn't have anything on me and conditions for release on bail were that I wasn't allowed into the West Bank again for 2 weeks. That meant 2 weeks without underwear and with socks that get five times as stinky three times as fast in the heat and with the walking and the water preservation (a nice excuse to be boyish and go without washing for a while). Yes, she got my books, little bits of paper, phone charger, toothbrush, rolling pin I use for physio, absolutaly everything that I needed. Helga is a LEGEND!!! And she has a really nice husband, Hugo, who I was left with while she was still at the camp, he was writing a funding proposal for their project in Silwan for a library, newspaper, creative writing class and other things... Silwan is a village just outside of Jerusalem - well more like a town, that is under a lot of pressure at the moment, it's disputed, many houses are being buldozed, they're left out of the public services ring... More themes with a different local twist centering around slow ethnic cleansing and land-grab, which seems to be the general trend happening here.
Freedom.
Oh my days, it felt soooo gooood
I felt really really lucky. Had a nice chat with the lovely committed hardworking altrustic interesting supportive empathetic and wise couple (does this sound like arse kissing? Because it's an accurate portrayal of this couple, one Dutch one Israeli, both musicians).
I had a read and a sleep and woke up the next day and thought... AMAZING!!!!
But then thoughts of the others started to crop up, thoughts of the bail money, thoughts of the possibilty of deportation. It didn't matter too much but I was still a bit emotionally shaken and have just about started to calm down now, having now identified closer with the plight of the Palestinians, the value of freedom, what it feels like, the fact that these guys are going through this everyday, their fathers went through it and even their sons think that they will go through it again. I used to see the attrocities and events in the West Bank as one offs, but they aren't, they are all just one thread in a dismal rope that is a palestinian's life. There are some beautiful threads that keep the rope beautiful overall but I started to see life here as continuous, as a continuity of these events. I started to imagine how my life would be like if I was born here 40 years ago, 60 years ago, 80 years ago, if I had a child today that had only palestinian citizenship and no means to escape.
That's the thing that I always was aware of but now really hit me. I can leave. I don't face anything these guys do, I'm just a tourist. I wasn't understanding what they were going through. I was imagining what if this episode happened to me in England, I wasn't understanding what it was like to live a full life out in the West Bank hearing of your friends and family being oppressed about 5 times a year for your whole life... not being able to do anything about it, not thinking that you could do anything about it. you can do what you can, you can contribute to the end of the situation for everyone, but you cannot stop these things happening to your loved ones in the future. If you try to they will onlyget worse (for 20 years at least).
Boy... So... after quite a chilled weekend I had met the Circus to Iraq, who were hillarious and lovely to meet people from Bristol and hear about their 5 weeks here and all the dramas that they went thr0ugh, and to hear English accents and British humour... Actually everyone has a really good sense of humour here, I suppose it's inevitable with so many layers of irony in daily life.
OK, so, today I finally got Damien's numer and found out about the other's situation (and my own) - so remember that the Palestinians have 3 military appointed judges and no jury.
Hassan - jailed at least until both trials end, his previous investigation during the second intifada left him with a condition on release that he would not join any more protests, so that needs to be investigated, as does whatever they were charging him with - I think they all charged us with the same things.
He's facing at least 3 months more likely around 2 years but maximum of around 5 unless they charge him withsomething else during the investigation.
Mohamad - his ID card wasn't on him when they arrested him and they typed the number in the computer wrong the first time he recited it, then second time they it right - and on these grounds are also accusing him of deception - and he goes back to court on Thursday, but has been released on a 5000 sheckle (1000 GBP give or take for a man that has poured his resources into the communiy, living in a poor rural farming village)
The other three are released with 5000 sheckles each
But they all have the condition on release of not going to any protests or organising any protests until the trials are over. Which means that with the whole leadership for the non-violent resistance in the area being taken in the minute they do something, the wall will be constructed even faster and further in to the village.
The judge rather annoyingly gave the prosecution 24 hours to appeal the decision - and the meanie prosecutors have taken him up on this offer and are going back to try them again. So I will know more by tomorrow.
best case - 4/5 will be released with 5000 shekle bail each and be able to protest again after a few years, and a 3 month sentence for Hassan.
worst case - jail for 5 years for the 4/5 and a fine for the destruction of the military property each - which will of course spiral way way way above it's actual value, and jail for Hassan for 8 years.
Kobda Kebab - an amazing Israeli activist, has already found bail money for 4 of them, which is no small feat among a Jewish community scared about the economic downturn with poor activists in an inequitable society. No small feat at all, especially in a few days. He deserves thanks and praise from around the world :)
If anyone fancies lending some money for 4 years to cover someone's bail then email me, and I'll put whatever you said in on top of my contribution and you can pay me back in the UK.
this money will eventually be returned - it's bail. so it will be returned between a month and 4 years. Even if they get put down. The only way it won't is if they can't get to court one day.
So, I also found out that they wanted to put Damien and myself under house arrest for the week, but that THE LEGEND THAT IS, Donatello that works with me managed to organise a lawyer for us all free of charge AND got my bail money to me through a friend.
MORE GOOD NEWS!
Sunday morning. I went to the police station at 7am. "sit down, we'll be with you in 15 minutes" they had a meeting for 45 minutes. Then it was "that desk" "he's away" "she's out, she'll be back in 2, 5, 10 then 10 minutes"...
When I eventually got to see someone who knew what was going on it was 9am... 2 hours later and too late to pay the bail. I was panicking a bit now. I rang 100 and asked the emergency services, I rang around 10 numbers and got brick walls, redundant referal numbers and grumpy answers. I rang Hugo the Israeli community worker, he rang a friend that rang Chris, Chris had been in touch with the lawyer so when Hugo rang back he had fantastic news.
Chris had got the lawyer to ask the courts what to do because we couldn't get this voucher, which is what the policeman at the desk opposite a poster of.... CHURCHILL!! with his finger pointing at the policeman, let's call him Anabella, saying in blue writing bellow "make sure you DESERVE victory!" said to me "it's not my problem, you need to go to Gush Etzion station to get the voucher" even though if I went back to the West Bank they'd arrest me again yet alone rock up right in the middle at a large police station! That was sounding a bit mission impossible, and get there and back, which would be about 2 hours, in under minus 20 minutes....
So... The court... just dopped it.
Phew
wow
just like that, i had 1500 that i could give back to Donatello and see if he wanted to put it towards to others or repay the people that probably borrowed it from (i know, but it's insulting to refuse something like this)
real freedom, well, hopefully. They haven't said anything about court yet which probably means they won't take us but you never know. I'm hoping not. It'll be funny anyway because I've got video footage of it. I'll upload it when I get it from Debbs.
This is a land of legends, and I'm not one of them.
Monday 4 May 2009
arrest
http://palsolidarity.org/2009/
this article has the right story, the one above in the link misses out a few people - the funny thing is the one with the incomplete story is a media network that i was doing editing and translation for (I know - me translating from written Arabic! Couldn't be done without google).
So. Here's the story.
I woke up early that day. Fridays are the reflection and vision meetings at the Holy Land Trust. There is a little bit of relaxation at the beginning, then Sami, the leader, or whoever else has prepared something guides us through a discussion. This week it was about a fox eating little goats and the mother coming to rip the fox's belly open to free the goat children and throw him into the sea. It was a story meant to awaked our idea of security, roles in the family, and redemptive violence. The main spiritual adventure of the day was not until 3pm when there was a Shamen from Switzerland coming that had spent most of her life travelling and learning about shamanism. I was really looking forward to it.
Anyway. In the morning I had a lot of work to do, translation for the PNN website because the english translator was away, setting out the study of the villages that we were doing and I was behind schedule for the media reports for the right to education campaign.
But it was Labour day. There were two actions that day that were promising, one in the morning around Solomon's pools - the old pools that used to supply the water for Jerusalem, two of which were build by Solomon. Two children had drowned the day before in one of the pools, which is hard to believe because there was so little water. Only one of them had any water in. Water is a big big issue in the West Bank and the main thing guiding where the mega concrete wall is being built. The concrete wall that 84% of Israeli Jews agree is necessary. EIGHTY FOUR PERCENT! When have you seen a poll showing 84% agreeing on something political. It really highlights the degree to which Israeli Jews are blinkered by security rhetoric.
Anyway. There weren't that many people there - perhaps 55. It ended up being a tour - showing us the trees had been planted by activists to show that the land was being used (if there is no evidence of agricultural productivity on any piece of land in the west bank then it is confiscated, mainly for settlement use, despite the fact that the land owners can't reach it, that it is cut off by a wall checkpoints and settler roads, or guarded by a sniper tower as these were). It was a beautiful valley that we came to after passing the Solomon pools - which had been drained to fill an IDF swimming pool on the top of a hill. The guy couldn't understand how the IDF could get away with saying that they were under threat from violent Palestinians and that they didn't have security when they went swimming in pools on the top of hills making themselves easy targets for any violent resistance. I agree, the British forces wouldn't have made a swimming pool and gone swimming on the high ground in no-man's land.
We reached the valley. It really was beautiful, it wa breathtaking. The different coloured wild flowers and herbs, the colour of the stones and earth, the old olive trees and the steep slopes. The only problem was that there was a big fat road being built wiggling down from one side and up the other, cutting off 3/4 of the guy giving us the tour's land as it was next to a settlement that was perched ominously on the hill. The valley is going to be used for sewage. An outlet for the shit of the settlements, a running stream of crap going through a seriously beautiful fertile and productive piece of land. How much crap can the settlers disseminate I wonder - they're really doing their best to sink the neighbouring palestinians in a pile of excrement.
So we heard about how activists from the community Israel and internationally had camped for 20 days in the valley to try and stop the construction of the wall but were met with violence and arrest and had to abandon the project. Some of them were there. So during this time I had a really nice time with the South African lady that I mentioned earlier. I really like her, not only did she contribute to the end of apartheid, but she continued to actively put her energy and commitment into a buzzing and inclusive community that people travel far to live in or hear her preach at. She's really interested in setting up permaculture and getting people to produce things like vegan soaps and shampoos, chemical free products that people need - as she has a good awareness of the dangers of the pollution from commercial products that is rampant in South Africa. So that was nice, i suggested Transition towns as a good source to work from. I think these are fantastic and where we need to be heading if we want to live in harmony with each other on the planet http://www.transitiontowns.
So, after a tour and a chat, we waited for some services to take us to the labour day non-violent protest at Um Salamouna - I thought it was somewhere else, but it was the same place that I had been going to for a couple of weeks with the Holy Land Trust. Sami couldn't be there and most of the others at the organisation that weren't swamped with work took the national holiday - like a bank holiday in Britain.
So after a nice little ride in the service with some French people that were running a nursery in Bethlehem, we disembarked to a larger than usual protest, I'd say it was about 180 people but I don't know how good i am with crowd numbers.
The first bit was fine, there were lots of flags from trade unions and there were little speaches about the extreme inequality, employment and the right to gainful employment - how people were being stopped on the way to work etc. but it was among lots of noise from some French solidarity group that was shouting at the soldiers "who has the guns? Who has the guns? Why do you need security from us when you have the guns? You think you're a big man? Why do you wear this uniform...."
The set up is basically a load of Palestinians, some camera men and journalists, a couple of Christian observers, and some internationals that seem to change every week with a core of at least 6 if not more lik 15 Isrealis, usually from Anarchists against the Wall http://www.awalls.org/
We all stand one side of a barbed wire mass that is set up by a group of about 25 soldiers before hand. There are usually 4 or 5 military vehicles present and a police car or two turns up at some point.
The Palestinians chant slogans of resistance and make a few speeches, and sometimes try and cross the barrier of barbed wire, hold up a mirror with painted bars on so that the soldiers can see themselves behind bars, pictures of children from mothers that have been arrested or killed, and flags. If there is aggression from the soldiers but they don't fire anything then the people either start shouting back or someone makes everone sit down and chill out for a bit. The kids are the most foolhardy, scampering up the piles of gravel, pulling the wire back with empty trodden on coke bottles or bits of cloth. The week before they managed to pull the whole wire to one side and we were dancing among the soldiers - so from that i didn't think that there was that much of a problem approaching the soldiers. Little did I know...
So there were more soldiers than usual at the demo and the wire was strapped down to a pilon and secured to a wall the other side so they obviously didn't like what happened last week.
The protest became quite dense as some people were pushing from the back and I went in to the front to try and spread some peace and love and calm vibes, which really work by the way. Ghandi did this a lot as a crowd control measure - obviously I'm no Gandhi! - He did this with hundreds or religious rioters around the confusion of independence, in Calcutta. So then it calmed down a little bit and i ended up getting a little bit lippy at a soldier - highlighting how destructive the wall was to the villages, and that it was said to be illegal according to the ICJ and that I hoped that he didn't have too long left in the army and he could go travelling reflect on his experiences and find some peace and stability within himself. He smiled at this in a kind of "yeah, I agree this is totally stupid but there's nothing I can do about it" way and gave an embarrased shrug. People are people.
So then it calmed down a bit and I started walking back out of the centre of it towards Debbs and then
BANG
ears ringing - the right one a lot more than the left, I turned around and then saw this grotesque and surreal image of the 20 or so soldiers forming some kind of shape as they stepped back out of line, the protestors running away as fast as hell, four fantastic Palestinian men that organise the non-violent resistance in the ares being taken to a the back of the formation and 3 soldiers firing tier gas into the runing crowd.
fthuud, fthuud, fthuudfthuud, fthuud. One of them had a real grin on his face, others seemed to be enjoying it as well. That was the really sick part - that there was absolutely no need for firing the tier gas. Then they walked backwards and ducked as a volley of rocks came their way - how pathetic the volley of rocks were compared to the explosive sound and the tier gas spiralling in the road with it's strange smell, I can't describe - well, it was pathetic anyway. It's a display of emotion if not anything else. I think that they should not throw the rocks, because then it has to be reported as a protest or a clash rather than a violent clamp down on a peaceful demonstration even though the rocks are thrown in retaliation. Clever media.
So then I saw 4 of the leaders of the Ma'sara committee against the Segregation Wall being taken in - maybe this was the whole reason why the fired off in the first place, I don't know. Very convenient that they had the whole non-violent resistance leadership in the area... So i charged over there without thinking, it was just instinct kicking in somewhere after the ringing in my ears. I behaved as thought they were british police and as though i had one or two rights - forgetting that they were an army and actively opposed human rights. I walked over the barbed wire and followed as the med struggled to escape. One other Israeli gentlemen didn't run away and was also arrested, he was a legend. So I asked the soldiers "excuse me, why are these men being arrested?"
completely ignored me...
so then it was "SIR, I would like to know why these men are being..." Smack, twist, grab - I was assaulted from the right and behind by what I think was a border guard but might have been a regular in the army. The border guards are from lower socio-economics groups and have more to prove, have tougher training and are nastier generally - which is really sad to see, they're definitely manipulated to a greater extent, and they are given the toughest jobs so that the regulars don't have to do so much - this is from personal account so don't quote me.
So there I was, tackled from behind with my arm being twisted really hard - my left arm. My shoulder is still aching a little from it today and this is Tuesday. I said "OK, OK, you can let go, OK..." twisting it as hard as he could, I could hear his breathing and that was quite disturbing. Also, because it was all so sudden I just treated it a bit like a video game and was a little shocked but was just thinking about getting him to let go, with the occasional thought of how i was going to get away.
So after 10-15 seconds of twisting my arm so that i was nearly off the ground, he slammed me into the stone wall - and i got a little graze on my elbow (diddums..) and hand as my body twisted around to the right, he never let go of twisting my arm while he did this, he they hoisted me up and pushed my towards a police vehicle bonet, bent me over on it (there's something really farscicle and homo-erotic about this kind of violence... I can't imagine women doing it to women on the same scale as men practice power control and violence). He then didn't let go of twisting my arm - he was probably waiting for his friend to come with a plastic tie... but it hurt.. anyway it really wasn't that bad just annoying. Really really annoying, especially as i didn't even see the face of who it was properly, otherwise i'd like to report him (snitch or committed to truth and justice? Probably both this time). So while he was doing that he pushed my head into the car bonnet with force, further breaking my glasses (although i didn't declare this because i just thought it would be more trouble and it's a small thing - they gave me the option at the police station and seemed quite keen that I did, so that probably put me off) and busting my lip open. While he was doing this and putting on the too-tight-tie, I thought "Shit, bugger fuck(mum says this sometimes and I never say it personally but it went through my mind then) I'm arrested. Bollocks. This wasn't supposed to happen. Oh well, let's see if I can love these boys, let's see if I can make friends with my guards, let's see if I can get out of this."
And you know, i don't think about myself that much. I think about where i can be most effective and what I can do but I really don't fear for my own skin in my own thoughts, don't think like I used to, I haven't thought "what do i need? What do I want? Do I deserve this? Should I do that? how does this benefit me? what can i get out of this?" for ages, i guess since around the wheelchair time. But I had a constant stream of selfish thought when I was arrested - it was like the direction of my mind had just flipped from what can i do for these guys why are they being arrested, how horrific the soldier's faces were to.... how can I get out of this? What's going to happen to me? and a little bit of "poor me" - not much but a little bit, which was nevertheless disturbing.
When we were in the van the 6 of us (some others were arrested at a different time) had a very close bond and the Palestinians, although facing so much more than me, were really trying to look after me, asking if I was ok, having a laugh, giving me platonic love, being really really decent people - which re-connected me with the rest of humanity again and I came out of my personal bubble.
It was quite funny really, I had my bag around my shoulders and a jumper around that, and it was difficult to put back on my shoulder when your wrists are sore because the tie is so tight and your hands are behind your back. I managed just about as i was hussled into the van. Actually, the amazing thing was that I wasn't hussled - the others were manhandled and kicked and pushed and the rest of it but I was helped up and escorted with gentleness from the soldier that I previously spoke to when I was at the front of the crowd in the protest. I think it's because I did it in a respectful and loving way, so he was as respectful and loving as was possible under the current situation. And he picked up my jumper for me when it fell down.
After the confusing journey in the back of a largish army vehicle, the floor and cieling steel painted that dark green colour, with seats either side but we were sat down on the floor bellow the soldiers, making a few jokes and I had a little chat to a russian soldier before he was told to stop speaking to me by a sergeant.
So then we were at the station. I was confused about all this I've got to be honest - was I going to get a trial? Was there going to be a proceedure? Did I have to pay for deportation? Did I have to go on a whole plane to myself? How expensive would that be for the environment? Would I fly back to Jordan to work with refugees?would these guys be alright? Why don't I care about them so much now that I'm arrested (still cared but distanced)?
Not exactly the still mind of Zen... But I did meditate for brief periods when I could and this really helped and is a great source of strength, but I was dealing with really wierd and powerful enegies that you just don't come accross when you're in a cozy room with your friends and a singing bowl and some nice words about the nature of humanity... So very different.
OK, so i have to go to court, there's a man that has an eviction notice and is facing a house demolition - he refused to move so they're taking him to court. Apparently it helps if there are internationals.
Peace and Love and Respect guys - it's really really important, it's actually quite urgent :)
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