Tis' the season to be jolly

There is no tolerance for side stepping awkwardly on the edge of the dance floor at Arabic weddings (not that I’d personally ever entertain such behaviour).  You have no option but to get well and truly involved in the dance floor action and whatever you do, don’t forget to move those hips! 

Almost every night I can hear the sound systems blaring and car horns honking for another night of nuptial revelry.  Summer time means wedding time and this year’s season is particularly busy because everyone wants to tie the knot before the start of the holy month of Ramadan in just over a month.  Good job I packed my dancing shoes!  Last night we went to our first wedding of the trip and what an opener it was.  Wedding parties here generally fall into two categories; those with the men and women together and those with the men and women separated.  Although last night was segregated, needless to say the less popular kind of shindig, there was much fun to be had.

A disproportionately high number of the groom’s family were deaf and dumb, including the groom himself, but that didn’t keep them off the dance floor.  At one point the DJ cleared the tiles purely for the deaf people (around 30 lads), wacked up the volume and let the mayhem ensue.  Watching the group go absolutely spare to ridiculously loud arabesque disco music was a sight I won’t be forgetting in a hurry. 

I still had my time to shine.  After lots of Arabic music and traditional dabkha dancing the DJ thought he’d play something for the younger crowd to really get down to.  Out of nowhere he slammed on some dodgy Euro-dance music and the place went completely insane.  As the only foreigner in the house I was dragged into the centre and everyone wanted to have a dance with me, or at least throw me up on their shoulders. I think they were adequately impressed or at least entertained by my moves.  It was half nine at night in Bethlehem, no one was on anything stronger than 7up, groups of amused and slightly bemused middle aged Arab men watched on and yet this was one of the maddest little raves I think I’d ever been in.  Happy days!  

Who am I and what is it to you?

There are now more Palestinians living outside of Palestine as part of the diaspora than those who remain. I suppose this is not so surprising considering their history of more than half a century of conflict and in nearly all cases defeat. “Happiness is not to be enjoyed alone but has to be shared” proffered Karim to me as he poured me some of his fresh herbal tea. Born and raised in Jerusalem he has spent a considerable amount of his adult life adopting a nomadic existance as one of these scattered people and life as a daffodil picker on St.Ives was one of his incarnations during these wondering years. It is rare for foreigners to sing the praises of British cuisine but he holds Scottish muffins followed by a nip of whisky as one of the world’s great culinary delicacies.

Years of dislocation and reflection have graced the man with a melancholy yet inspired manner and his years of searching for understanding and new experiences have gifted him an insightful and philosophical lens through which to view life back home. Whilst we were sharing a flat together we spent many hours discussing everything from great British food to the history of Palestinian resistance. “There is no policy for peace, only a policy for power” he said as we lamented the reality of what people still insist on calling the “peace process”. Like Karim I believe the “peace process” has remained a misnomer for what is in affect a policy of continued occupation, military expansionism, racist discrimination and economic subversion.

Karim is a film maker and photographer who is currently working with a local cultural centre to educate young people and their trainers in the tools of his trade. His personal mission extends beyond teaching just the technical skills. For him it is about nourishing creative courage by honest, probing minds. Why? Because the survival of culture is pivotal to the survival of the Palestinian people.

A great success of the Zionists and a great failure of the Arabs has been the virtual complete dehumanising of the Palestinian people and their resistance. The consequences are grave. Firstly, those of us external to the situation become unable to truly empathise with their reality and therefore fall short of offering any significant level of support or pressure for change. However, perhaps more damaging is how the new generation of Palestinians are in danger of losing a true understanding of themselves, where they come from and the communities they compose. When vacuous political slogans and myopic religious dogma become the primary forms of personal and communal expression the forecasts are ominous. This truth is by no means limited only to Palestine! The mentality and means of true creative self-expression are integral to the development of a real peace process.

A concrete canvas

People often ask me why I love the Middle East so much and I always struggle to find a suitable answer. After almost three years back in the UK I arrived a couple of days ago in Tel Aviv airport at some ungodly hour in the morning. Relieved to have been spared the notorious hospitality of the Ben Gurian airport security I made a beeline straight to the revered city of Jerusalem. As I spent the early hours wondering around watching the ancient medina rise from its slumber I decided it was the cordial chaos of life and intimate banter here that pleases me so much. Cockey lads selling fruit juice, groups of men huddled over the black gammon board and jostling market traders. Time flows through this place and the people don’t chase it.

Before my arrival my minds eye had this contested land clearly delineated into Arab and Jew or Israeli and Palestinian. However in the old city of Jerusalem (admittedly only less than 1% of the whole municipality) there is a history of inter-communal and interfaith existence that precedes any of our modern states by millennia. It is true that the fate of this city, which is a spiritual and actual epicentre for all of the monotheistic faiths, is integral to the ongoing conflicts in the region. However, to fresh eyes at least, there is somehow at least the illusion of a continued coexistence which muddies the waters of whose is whose and where is for whom.

En route to Bethlehem, which is in the occupied territories of the West Bank, olive trees speckle the hillsides on terraces, stacked like sedimentary layers of toil, sweat and love. Although I’ve seen plenty of pictures of the separation wall the reality of the crass, violent and insidious concrete structure that cuts it’s way through this biblical scene strikes as a stark reminder of the nature of the Israeli occupation; to ghettoise the remaining Palestinian communities and further cantonise the land. It is suddenly very clear whose is whose and where is for whom! Having arrived in Aida refugee camp where I will be based for the coming couple of months the wall is only ever a stones throw away. Just a few hundred metres from my flat the anonymous UK street artist Banksy used this ubiquitous monstrosity as his canvas to succinctly illustrate the natural conclusion of the wall’s construction. And what did he paint? A snipers target sitting squarely over the heart of a dove of peace.