Perspectives

As I had anticipated, this has been a true journey of discovery. In my last blog I briefly described some of the conversations that have been taking place around me - the tanks, snipers, torture, and humiliating oppression, for example. Coming from a place where such 'trauma' is effectually imponderable, these stories may sound contrived to you. Until now, I have had no prior reference point in regards to these very real experiences, save for a few readings I may have done or impassioned speeches I was able to entertain.

But to call it 'trauma' is to miss the real essence of what it's like to live through it, so I gather. Is it really a trauma when an entire community has suffered from it? Or can it be more accurately described as 'normal reactions to abnormal circumtances'? I was speaking with an Italian psychologist last evening, someone who has worked in Palestine for many years exploring just that. Putting on my researchers hat I began asking him if counseling or 'therapy' has any value in this environment. He admitted that it does very little, aside from some extreme cases, becuase so many members of the community suffer from the same thing, you can call it trauma or whatever you like. His experience has revealed that the most beneficial type of activity for persons living through such a context is simply having something to do, something to occupy their time in a constructive and meaningful way, precisely that which the Ibdaa Cultural Center has strived to do for over 10 years.

But Ibdaa is not alone. Foreign funders and enlightened local actors (not the cinema variety) have been collaborating in Palestine for many years in order to offer the types of activities that create something to cheer about. Ask most Americans about Palestine and the conversation becomes unsophisticated rather quickly, no fault of their own in most cases I will grant you. Yet if they were able to be present in a stadium filled with roaring fans lauding their respective soccer teams, attend a championship basketball game between Christian and Muslim Arabs, or sit with hundreds of enamored onlookers as a broad-minded poet (educated in America) moves the audience to tears with his narration, maybe they would feel that people here aren't that different after all.

It is understandable that Americans would be fearful of the Arab world, maybe of Muslims in general. I too have been influenced by negligent and circumspect exposure to the real experience of people making their way through life as best they can in this part of the globe. We know only of suicide bombers and 'terrorists' with black masks wielding AK-47's, with virtually no context or more penetrating comprehension whatsoever. Not to say that there aren't persons here of extreme persuasions (as there are in every country), but how pervasive is it really when a white, blonde, blue-eyed man (and American) stands among thousands of Arab males and he recieves only smiles, hello's and handshakes? I'll leave you to ponder that one.

The real story is of everyday people trying to make the most of what they've got, which isn't much here in Palestine. What they do with the little they have (meaning little land, money, freedom, and so on) would amaze anyone who has an inkling of what it might be like growing up under military occupation. It would offend my colleagues here, however, if we were to assume that they are a charity case. My impression of what they need is solidarity, not charity, people to stand shoulder to shoulder with them in order to help maintain the dignity and respect they rightly deserve, to collaborate in order to offer something tangible and meaningful to future generations. Right now, this is how I am coming to make some sense as for my presence in the Dhiesheh refugee camp in the West Bank, Palestine.