May Day NYC

Manhattan, NY, USA

From May Day NYC

When I first came to New York City, I told myself I wouldn't get involved with activism in my first year. I was teaching full time, going to graduate school at night, and the teaching alone was all the activism I needed in my life.

Then I left teaching and graduate school. For the first weeks of my unemployment, I moped and was miserable and sat at my computer all day long looking and applying for jobs ... any kind of job that seemed remotely related to my talents and would pay the bills. Over time, I became more and more involved with All Souls UU Church's young adults, for fun, networking and plain old human contact. Last week, I realized that even that was not enough.  I needed to get out more, to volunteer for something, to do more fun things with people. With lingering Socialist sympathies from all my years in Europe, and a life-long interest in civics, I asked around the church to see who was doing something for Occupy Wall Street's General Strike on May Day.

That's how I found myself on Union Square this afternoon with Occupy Faith. Their intention today was to bring a message of peaceful nonviolence and be witnesses to whatever might transpire. Several among them have previously been arrested and detained for their participation in a variety of Occupy-related demonstrations, while standing as examples of nonviolent civil disobedience. (I don't believe any of us were today, but apparently one never knows....)

In our march down Broadway to Zuccotti Park and Wall Street, we saw a lot of signs for a lot of different campaigns and issues. We sang songs and chanted. When we passed people watching from balconys and windows, we chanted, "Don't watch! Join us!" In the shopping district, we chanted, "Don't shop! Join us!" When construction workers and other union sorts paused their work to come out on the sidewalk and salute us, we cheered them on. It was a lot of fun. Here are some of my favorite images, with more in the WebAlbum:

From May Day NYC

Palestinian Solidarity

Cairo, Egypt

Yesterday we received a message from the US Embassy in Cairo that included the following:

May 15 is the anniversary of the Palestinian-Israeli territorial demarcations and is considered to be a significant date in the current Palestinian political situation involving Gaza and the West Bank.

Several Egyptian political groups have announced plans to commemorate this anniversary by staging large-scale prayer and protest gatherings, characterizing Friday as Unity Day. On Friday after mid-day prayers, there are plans for a large demonstration in Tahrir Square, with a number of protesters planning to proceed to the Israeli Embassy near Cairo University and to the Israeli Ambassador’s residence in Maadi....

On Saturday, May 14, political activists plan to converge on Tahrir Square and begin a march toward Suez, where they will link with groups from other Egyptian cities and then continue their march toward the Rafah border crossing.

The embassy probably thought this rally - as opposed to the usual Friday protests - would be of particular interest to Americans in Cairo because it can be a very short couple steps from pro-Palestinian to anti-Israeli to anti-American. As Lara Logan knows well, it only takes one person shouting "Spy!" to make a whole crowd turn on you. It certainly gave me pause.

Fajr Prayers on Tahrir
I was woken up in the wee hours of this morning to the news that thousands had started a Facebook page since yesterday, planning to have pre-dawn prayers for Palestine on Tahrir Square, led by prominent Salafi sheikhs. Since it involved defying curfew, my friend didn't go, but video was on YouTube almost immediately showing at least a couple thousand praying

By the time I did go down to Tahrir Square today, it was the biggest crowds I've seen on Tahrir Square since mid-February, though I understand the crowds were as big on April 9th.

Mixed Messages
In light of the violence and church-burning on Wednesday, there had been a call to make today a rally for Egyptian unity between Christians and Muslims, and there were plenty of signs to that effect. However, calls for solidarity with Occupied Palestine largely drowned out pretty much everything else, and there were plenty of other causes, too.

"The people want the opening of the Rafah Crossing, permanently and completely."

"The people want peace and security,"
i.e. new faces in charge of the Egyptian security forces.

The flag of Bahrain on the left, and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as Hitler.

This one's calling for reform of traffic laws!

...and many more!

"Egypt and Palestine, one hand."

Third Intifada?
What concerns me even more amid these protests and calls for a Third Intifada on Sunday, the 63rd anniversary of the first Palestinian refugee crisis, is the ambiguity about who is calling for these actions and why. Egyptians are calling for a Third Intifada in an excess of revolutionary zeal, and I have to admit to a wild hope that Palestinians might have their own success in the Arab Spring, but are Palestinians themselves calling for an uprising? If they are, I haven't heard.

In fact, a spokesman for Hamas said today that it was "not necessary" for Egyptians to come to Gaza. On the one hand, this could be a neat way of avoiding responsibility. On the other hand, though, Hamas has taken bold steps this month to form a coalition with Fatah and work politically and peacefully towards greater Palestinian unity. An Intifada now would undo everything that's been achieved in the last couple years.

(Thanks to Emma for the photos!)

Ding, dong! The Warlord's Dead!

Cairo, Egypt

"I've never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure."

- Mark Twain

It's not that I'm happy Bin Laden the man is dead. I would have preferred a trial, public humiliation, and a long prison sentence in Guantanamo or some Saudi shit-hole of a prison ... but even as I write that I'm conflicted, because those words descend to a level of vindictiveness that I don't want to live by. In the words of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Standing By the Side of Love:

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral,

begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.

Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.

Through violence you may murder the liar,

but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth.

Through violence you may murder the hater,

but you do not murder hate.

In fact, violence merely increases hate.

So it goes.

Returning violence for violence multiplies violence,

adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness:

only light can do that.

Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

(Thanks to Carter for the quote.)

No, mostly I'm happy that Bin Laden the symbol and the excuse is dead. I'm listening to Talk of the Nation's coverage of Bin Laden's death on NPR, and one of their Middle East correspondents was talking about how Arabs see this as an end to a decade of collective punishments of the Arabs and other Muslims for the actions of Bin Laden and a few other fanatics. Afghanistan, Iraq, Bagram, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, extraordinary rendition, Pakistani drone attacks ... all of these look from the Middle East like punishment for 9/11, the USS Cole, the African embassy bombings, the first WTC bombing.... Now, finally, we've gotten rid of the man who, for the West, represents the deepest evil that Islam has to offer and too often blinds us to the great good that's present in Islam. True, Zawahiri and al-Masri are still out there, and hundreds of others bent on wreaking havoc on the West and Western installations in the East, but the biggest, baddest wolf is gone. It doesn't mean we automatically withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan, close Guantanamo and put it all behind us, but it's a powerful step in the right direction.

At the same time, I think it's important to put this event into context. While Americans are making a big deal out of this attack, Arabs have other things on their minds. Hundreds are dying in Syria every day, and in Libya, standing up to mad, relentless dictators. The outlook for Yemen is not much better. Egypt and Tunisia are busy rebuilding - or, I should say, building - nations they can be proud of. Jordanians, Palestinians, Iraqis, Bahrainis, Saudis, Lebanese ... they're all busy with extremely important and emotional domestic issues.

Osama Bin Laden is barely relevant here anymore, and the single desperate act of a fruit vendor in Tunisia deserves more credit for that than a 10-year, trillions-of-dollars manhunt. The youth of the Arab Spring are disciples of Rev. King and Václav Havel of Czechoslovakia's Velvet Revolution, with whom some of the April 6 Youth studied nonviolent resistance techniques. Even when they were being attacked with horses and Molotov cocktails on Tahrir Square, Egyptian protesters were chanting "Peaceful! Peaceful!" to hold themselves and each other to a philosophy that rejects violence, even in retaliation for violence. Disciples of Osama Bin Laden still exist, but a much larger portion of Arab youth have found a far more powerful and effective means of expression.

HR 1 and the Future of International Education

The memo below on budget cuts in the US Congress was circulated on Cairo Scholars today. The proposed budget cuts detailed below have profound effects on study abroad, cultural exchange, peace work and critical language teaching in the Egypt, the Middle East and beyond. These reductions effect both American students, professors and scholars seeking opportunities abroad, and also foreign students, professors and scholars wishing to enrich American institutions with their wealth of experience. It also represents a drastic reduction in resources and opportunities for American students starting at the kindergarten level to interact with the greater world.

In this era of globalization, interconnectivity and interdependence, we should be increasing our understanding of the rest of the world. I've seen photos of Egyptians holding placards in solidarity with striking government workers in Wisconsin, and government workers in Wisconsin holding placards in solidarity with Egypt, Libya, Algeria and Bahrain. This is how the world works now, and failing to prepare our youth for that reality will, in the long run, worsen our economic, political and cultural power far more than the deficit it reduces.

Dear MESA members,

Many of you will have been immersed in the news of the extraordinary events taking place in the Middle East over the last month or so. This update is to bring to your attention some important developments happening in the U. S. Congress that could affect programs in foreign language and area studies. A number of programs funded by the U.S government have been targeted for either major budget cuts or complete elimination.

Thinking that area studies specialists may be concerned about this possibility, I pass on information about a few programs particularly relevant to the broad disciplinary interests of MESA members.

Background
The U.S. House of Representatives passed House Resolution 1 (H.R.1) last week. What is H.R.1? It is the 2011 full-year continuing appropriations Act. It would extend the current 2011 fiscal year funding which expires March 4, 2011.The Senate returns from recess next Monday (February 28) to begin work on its version of a budget for the remainder of FY11. Many things can happen in the negotiations between the House and the Senate.

In H.R. 1:

• State Department international exchange programs would receive a 21 per cent cut, or a reduction to $501.3 million from the current funding level of $635 million. Two examples of programs funded under this program (http://exchanges.state.gov/scho-pro.html) are the Fulbright Program for Scholars serving scholars and the Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) Program serving undergraduate and graduate students.
• All funding from the United States Institute of Peace ($42.6 million) would be eliminated. www.usip.org USIP funds have supported hundreds of scholars and practitioners through its Senior Fellows program and hundreds of students through its Peace Scholars program. Its Grant Program has provided over 2,000 awards since 1986, a majority of which have supported the work of individual scholars around the world.
• Funding for the K-12 Foreign Language Assistance Program (FLAP) would be eliminated ($26.9 million). This is the Education Department's only dedicated grant program for K-12 foreign language education.
• Funding for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education--FIPSE (including the International Consortia Programs) would be cut entirely ($58 million).
• $350 million from the National Science Foundation would be cut. This could affect research funds for such disciplines and fields as Anthropology, Election Studies, Geography, Linguistics and Political Science.
• For the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), H.R. 1 provides a FY 2011 budget of $145 million. This figure represents a $22 million (13%) cut from the agency's FY 2010 enacted budget. Examples of NEH grants are the NEH Research Fellowships, NEH Summer Institutes and Seminars for College and University Teachers, Collaborative Research Awards, Scholarly Editions and Translations Awards, etc.: http://www.neh.gov/news/recentawards.html
• Funding for the Grants and Administration portion of the National Endowment for the Arts would be reduced by $20.5 million. NEA has funded Literature Fellowships for Translation Projects.

Finally, although H.R 1 did not propose any changes to the funding levels for The Higher Education Act, Title VI and Fulbright-Hays 102(b)(6), changes may come up in next week's Senate deliberations or in negotiations with the House. Funded at $125.881 million in FY 2010, these programs represent less than 0.2 percent of the U.S. Department of Education’s discretionary budget. A cost-effective investment, this federal-university partnership stimulates substantial additional funding by universities and foundations.

Sincerely,
Amy W. Newhall
Executive Director

Edward Said: A Contrapuntal Reading

Cairo, Egypt

I could go on at great length on what Judith Butler (whose name is spoken by feminists and Middle East experts with great awe) had to say at the Edward Said Memorial Lecture this evening about nationalism, diaspora, the Right of Return vs. the Law of Return, and the inevitability of binationalism in Palestine. I could talk about the politics of "dispossession, destruction, expulsion and containment" she elucidated. But I think many of you have heard it before.

Instead, I just want to recommend the poem that she analyzed, "Edward Said: A Contrapuntal Reading," in which Palestine's most beloved poet Mahmoud Darwish celebrates the life and complexity and dreams of Palestine's most beloved academic, Edward Said, in whose voice are the lines

"I am from there, I am from here, 

but I am neither here nor there.

I have two names which meet and part...

I have two languages, but I have long forgotten

which is the language of my dreams.

I have an English language, for writing,

with yielding phrases,

and a language in which Heaven and

Jerusalem converse, with a silver cadence,

but it does not yield to my imagination."

...

"Here a margin advances. Or a centre

retreats. Where East is not strictly east,

and West is not strictly west,

where identity is open onto plurality..."

...

"...Do not describe what the camera can see

of your wounds. And scream that you may hear yourself,

and scream that you may know you're still alive,

and alive, and that life on this earth is

possible. Invent a hope for speech,

invent a direction, a mirage to extend hope.

And sing, for the aesthetic is freedom!"

...

"I leave you the impossible task...."

Gaza Graffiti Exhibition

Cairo, Egypt

Tonight photographer Mia Grondahl opened an exhibition at American University, in honor of the English translation published with AUC Press of her book Gaza Graffiti: Messages of Love and Politics. Before the gallery opening, she sat on a panel of experts on the state of the Gaza Strip since the Hannukah War of 2008/2009, the blockade, and the Freedom Flotilla.

Also on the panel were two Swedish journalists covering the region, and a Palestinian activist. They talked a lot about the dehumanization of the Palestinians by the media, which portrays them primarily as victims, which they are, but not often enough as human beings with personal joys and triumphs as well as personal dreams and tragedies. They talked at length about the need to build sympathy for the Palestinian cause by showing the people there as sympathetic, not as pitiful.

But Mia also talked about the graffiti movement in Palestine, which started in the 1980s during the first Intifada, when Israel had forbidden the Gazans from producing pamphlets or radio programs, and even from having telephones in many cases. Ever resourceful, Palestinians turned to graffiti as both a political tool and simply as a way to spread news. Graffiti artists themselves became polarized, some in the employ of Hamas, others in the employ of Fatah. Over time, Hamas developed a reputation for having the best calligraphers, because Arabic is a holy language, given to Muslims by God, and must be respected as such. Most recently, after Hamas's election victory in 2006, Fatah graffiti has all but disappeared.  All of this is chronicled in Mia's book.

She also talked about how graffiti has begun to change again in the last couple of years, a change not reflected in her book but present in the photo exhibition at AUC.  There's a new movement now of art students and independent artists taking to the walls of Gaza. This time the message isn't overtly political, or at least not in the way it's been in the past. This new wave of artists is producing murals of their hopes and dreams. Images of how they imagine the world outside the massive prison that is Gaza. Images of breaking out of the Strip. You can see pictures of some of those murals on Mia's blog. Even if you don't read Swedish, she's such an evocative photographer that you get the idea.

Ancient Palaestina

Bet She'an, Israel/Palestine

Originally, the plan was to cross the border into Jordan, and then head for Umm Qais (aka the Decapolis city of Gedara) for the spectacular view from the northwest corner of Jordan. When Michelle mentioned Roman ruins near her kibbutz in Bet She'an, though, Wade and I guessed that it might be another Decapolis city, one that neither of us had seen, so we decided to go there instead. (In fact, a quick trip to Wiki reveals that Bet She'an has a long and illustrious history, being mentioned in conjunction with most of the major periods of the region's history.)

In addition to suffering the consequences of last night's fun, we had an unexpected delay on the way there, being pulled off our bus at a checkpoint to have our luggage scanned and our IDs verified. But we weren't the only ones stopped at that checkpoint on our way to Bet She'an, and we managed to hitch a ride right to the gate of the archaeological park.

From A New Decapolis City

Wade, a theater management major when I knew her back at Goucher College, was thrilled by the beautifully preserved Greco-Roman theater. I was excited about the exposed heating system that would have been under the floor of the West Bathhouse, and by the pomegranate trees, which always remind me of my Peace Corps house. The views from the top of the tel were also quite spectacular.

From A New Decapolis City

Biting My Tongue

Jerusalem, Israel/Palestine

From City of 3 Faiths

Midway through Peace Corps Pre-Service Training, we met our counterparts and were supposed to confide in them our greatest fears about the next two years. Mine was a fear of political discussions, especially of regional issues like Iraq and Israel/Palestine, which are such personal issues in this part of the world. This fear was partly because I remembered how frustrating it was to speak to my Jewish friends and classmates at Goucher College about Israel/Palestine; how entrenched and adamant they tended to be about their opinions on the issues. Now, living in a city that is at least 80% Palestinian, most of my friends in Jordan have family in the Occupied Territories, and are equally entrenched and adamant about their own opinions on the same issues. So when I came on this trip, I was firmly resolved not to be sucked into political conversations.

From City of 3 Faiths

I did pretty well for awhile. Plenty of things were said about Palestinians that made me bristle like, "They all want to kill us," or, "They don't know how to take care of their homes," or "I'm afraid to go through the Arab souq." I managed to bite my tongue and just enjoy the beauty of Jerusalem, to take pictures instead of taking offense. I really genuinely liked the people we spent time with, and I certainly didn't want to make them feel uncomfortable in their own city.

From City of 3 Faiths

I do have to admit to being much more moved by the view of the Dome of the Rock and the Temple Mount than by our excursion to leave a prayer for a friend at the Western Wall, but for aesthetic reasons, not religious or political ones.

From City of 3 Faiths

In the evening, we took some wine up to a beautiful overlook of the city, listening to the sunset adhan from the mosques of Jerusalem. Halfway into my bottle of wine, and most of the way through Michelle's, I lost my resolve. Michelle started to ask me how I could support Palestinian nationalism when it was a complete fiction, and there never has been a people known as the Palestinians. She asked, so I tried to answer, remembering what I'd learned in Prof. Magid's class on Palestinian nationalism at Indiana University. I particularly wanted to talk about Khalil Shikaki's results from polling about the Clinton Accords. But I never managed to finish an answer. (A bottle of wine does not a patient listener make!) Eventually I gave up.

But this is my take-away: There was almost nothing Michelle said that was objectively false. There is very little that my Palestinian friends say that is objectively false. But there is intense propaganda on both sides, which emphasizes some truths and ignores others. To parse just one sample argument from this evening: Yes, Gazans destroyed perfectly good settlers' houses and have not built new houses in their place. This ignores the fact, on one hand, that Israelis will not allow Gazans to import building materials for new houses, claiming that those materials could be used for military purposes. It also ignores the emotional impact of living in the abandoned housing of one's occupier. If the Jews had been liberated from the Warsaw ghetto, would they want to live in the former barracks of their Nazi oppressors? I'm pretty sure they would have torn those barracks down. The tragedy here is that passions are so inflamed on both sides that objectivity and empathy have become almost impossible.

The Stories We Tell Ourselves

Jerusalem -> Tel Aviv -> Nazareth, Israel/Palestine

From Arab Israel: Nazareth

...goldenrod, poppies, Queen Anne's lace, purple hollyhocks, flowering bushes in red, yellow, pink, white, lavender and fuscia, forests of tall imported eucalyptus trees. And then the agriculture, miles of lush, cultivated fields.

From Arab Israel: Nazareth

The driver opened the window and you could just smell the green, the moisture. I'm not unaware of the political implications, how Israelis' stewardship of the land has been used as a controversial and, frankly, poor justification for pushing the Palestinians out and keeping them out. I'm fully aware that the bus drivers on this trip are Arab, and I got quite an earful from last night's Arab cab driver about how the Israelis oppress the Arabs. But as far as pure aesthetics go, this side of the Valley is more to my liking. It's easy to see why the Palestinians want to come back here, and the Israelis want to stay.

Today I saw the mountain of Megiddo where Armageddon's final battle will rage, the hill where Jesus was revealed to his Disciples as the Messiah, and Nazareth, home town of Mary and Joseph, to which young Jesus returned after his family's exile in Egypt.

It was fascinating to listen to the tour guide talk about Israeli history. I've been reading for the last week about national narratives, in Mona Baker's Interpretation and Conflict, and Howard Zinn's famous People's History of the United States. They both talk about how we choose the narratives we tell ourselves about our nation, and how the narratives we've chosen change how we act as individuals and societies. The tour guide's narrative told so much about Israel. He talked about the Jews tiring of "the filth of Yaffa" and building Tel Aviv, meaning "archaeological mound of renewal." He described the brave settlers, buying the land no one wanted and turning it into an agricultural paradise. Tales of nameless national heroes defying the odds to build a majestic nation. Only the obliquest references to the people who preceded those settlers, and when they were mentioned, they were "the Ottomans," a nation that no longer exists either geographically or ideologically. I kept wondering what the driver would think if he could understand English. What Heba and my many other Palestinian friends would say.

My Story of Nazareth
My stay in Nazareth is best described in the captioned photos of my online album.

From Arab Israel: Nazareth

It was also really nice to spend the afternoon and evening with Andy Lehto. The last two times I saw him, he was in the most intense moments of getting married, so we didn't really get to catch up. This time, we had hours and hours to share our stories of being abroad, the triumphs and tribulations that are only fully understood by others who are straddling the same two worlds we are.

...Just Different

Eilot -> Dead Sea -> Jerusalem, Israel/Palestine

I’ve heard so much about the stark differences between Israel and the Arab world, so of course it’s the first thing I looked for as I came across the border.

You can see it in the city of Eilot: cleaner, neater, and more central European in architecture. In the people, for sure! I haven’t seen so many mullets outside of Lower Chanceford Township, nor so many leggings since the 80s, not to mention the short skirts – far too short for my high school dress code! It’s also much harder to pick out the foreigners on sight.

But pass outside the city limits, and one side of the Rift Valley is pretty much like its opposite. It’s still Wadi Araba. It may be a touch more green.

I’m fascinated by the date plantations: hundreds of palms, all the same height and shape, in a perfect grid of straight lines and right angles, the dead fronds trimmed neatly away.

It’s at the northern end of the Dead Seat that I started to see a real difference in the natural scenery, about where I spotted the distinctive Wadi Mujib Bridge over on the Jordanian side. From there most of the way to Jericho, between the road and the Dead Sea, was miles and miles of salt marsh, thick with reeds, acacia trees and the occasional palm, and bordered with short grasses in vivid earth tones. All of it was protected by chain link fence topped with barbed wire. It was just beautiful, even if segments of the trees had been ruined in a fire in the last year.

Then we turned left at the top of the Dead Sea and went up, up, up to Jerusalem. As we wound our way through the hills, which on the Jordanian side are barren and rocky, on the Israeli side were covered in a soft fuzz of green and yellow grass. Where the road cut into the hillsides, you could see a thick layer of fertile soil above the sharp, white layers of rock. Then we got to the top and it was greener than the greenest parts of Ajlun. How much of that difference is Mother Nature and how much human (mis)management is not mine to judge, but it was a dramatic difference.

Then we ducked into a tunnel and...
...there it was, the holy city, with the golden Dome of the Rock glowing in the late afternoon sunlight.

Promised land, indeed!

...And Now I Love Israel!

Amman, Jordan

I had another fascinating conversation with a taxi driver this morning. Almost immediately he announced that he was Palestinian. This isn't surprising, as most taxi drivers are.

Then he told me he'd been recently kicked out of Israel/Palestine, and would have to stay away for 6 years. I didn't ask why. I mean, what do you say to that kind of statement? ...smile and nod...

Then he told me that his daughter was in the hospital. This I do know how to respond to! Allah yasa3adha! (God help her!)

Then the real drama began. When his daughter was well enough to go home, the hospital announced that he owed them 1,000 dinar for her care and stay at the hospital. He was a taxi drive, so of course he didn't have JD1,000, but he offered all he had, and promised to return with the rest within a week to 10 days. Not good enough, said the hospital; they refused to release his daughter until his bill was paid, while adding to his bill for every day she stayed in the hospital. Can you believe it? Holding his own daughter as collateral? And charging him for it. At a hospital! It took him another 2 days to beg and borrow the money from friends and family, at who knows what additional cost to him.

Now, this is the good part: Here's a Palestinian who's been kicked out of his home by the Israeli government, forced to move his whole family to Jordan and build a new life for himself. And yet he said to me, "As much as I suffer at the hands of the Israeli government, the people of Israel are so much nicer than the Jordanians. In Israel, I wouldn't have paid a cent for that hospital stay; the Israeli government would have paid for the whole ordeal automatically. I wish I were back in Israel. I love Israel!"

And as I was telling this story, I was thinking how like America this is. In fact, I mentioned that to him: that Americans are talking a lot back home about how many people go bankrupt from healthcare costs. He knew exactly what I was talking about, too.

NHS Bliss
On a similar note, there's been much scrutiny of the details of our company healthcare policy in the office this week, and British Melanie is appalled at the things that are not covered. Every time she brings it up, I think, It looks like a pretty good policy to me. Just like your average American healthcare policy....

Irish and Jewish Voices for Peace

Amman, Jordan

Oh, how I wish I'd had my camera this morning!
From the taxi down the Airport Road this morning, I saw a garishly amazing vehicle. It must have been an ambulance once; it still had "AMBULANCE" spelled backwards on the bonnet. It had rows of squares of colored reflective tape on all sides, and from either side of the back door flew Irish and Palestinian flags. Stamped across its sides were "Gaza Freedom March," "Viva Palestina" and "Derry Anti War Coalition."

Then I arrived at work and opened my email, and what should I find in my Inbox but a message from Jewish Voice for Peace to support their Gaza Freedom March through solidarity events and a petition urging the Egyptian government to let the convoy through. I've blogged about Jewish Voice for Peace before, and believe that this is the way peace in Israel/Palestine has to be achieved: through coalitions that include Palestinians, Israelis and voting citizens of Western governments with interests in the region.

But I was curious. I wanted a good picture of that crazy ambulance I'd seen on the Airport Road. I googled "Derry Anti War Coalition," and found something completely different from what I expected. DAWC made a big splash back in 2006 in response to Israel's attack on Lebanon, which was aided by bunker-buster missiles manufactured by an American company, Raytheon, in a plant in Derry, Ireland. Some coalition members, dubbed the "Raytheon 9," blockaded themselves inside the Raytheon facility for days, and were later tried under anti-terrorism laws. Last year, they were found not guilty. I have been unable, however to find anything about their ambulance travelling (presumably) to Gaza.

I did, however, learn a little more about Viva Palestina, under whose umbrella DAWC is sending its ambulance. There's been plenty of reporting on their caravan of ambulances, lorries and other vehicles making its way from London through Europe, Turkey, Syria, Jordan and Egypt to the Rafah Crossing into the Gaza Strip. They've been picking up participants all along the way, in addition to having the very public support of British Member of Parliament George Galloway.

And finally I found it. You can catch glimpses of the DAWC ambulance at the beginning and end of this video, as well as seeing many other fantabulous vehicles.

The Jiffet Process

Amman, Jordan

It's that time of year when I've got olive trees on my mind, and all the uses to which they are put here in the Arab world. The felaheen, the Arab peasant class, invest in olives as they invest in their children, and an olive tree can produce benefit for the family for hundreds of years.

From Olives, Olives!

The obvious uses are for eating and as olive oil, but this is only the beginning. Olive oil is a popular cosmetic ingredient. It can be made into soap, as they do at the Orjan Soap Houseand many other places. It can also be used in lotions. Many young men use olive oil instead of hair gel, and Wijdan even said her son's doctor reccomended it as healthier for the hair and scalp.

From Orjan Soap House

After the olive harvest, the trees are trimmed, and the branches sit on the ground for a few days while the sheep and goats strip them of their leaves. Then the wood can be used for heating, but it's not the only way olive trees contribute to household heating. Many villages are heated by jiffet, what's left over from the pressing of olives for their oil.

From Olives, Olives!

If you take your own olives to the press, you can get a discount on buying a truckload of the leftovers to be dumped in your front yard.

From Olives, Olives!

This sludge is mixed with water and formed into balls, which are left for several days to dry in the sun, turned over, and left several more days to bake on the other side.

From Olives, Olives!

These balls, about the size of a softball, will burn for about 15 minutes each, and much hotter than wood because of the residual olive oil in the jiffet.

From Olives, Olives!

Altogether, a family can heat their home for the 4 months of the winter for about JD100, which is far less than if they used propane, kerosene or diesel, and with a much more pleasant smell, in my opinion. The government also pushes for more use of jiffet in communities where olives are grown, because it is an eminently renewable resource, making use of what would otherwise be a waste product of a major Jordanian industry.

Jiffet is also prevalent in the Palestinian territories, where olive trees and all their byproducts are similarly integral to the felaheen way of life. That's why images like these from Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem make me so angry and anguished.

My 15 Minutes Remain Elusive

I finally found the YouTube broadcast of the panel that Queen Noor of Jordan participated in at last year's ServiceNation Summit.

I was sitting in my 2nd grade classroom at the Modern American School, having just sent my students off to gym class, when my phone rang. I put down the math homework I was grading, and picked up the phone, pleased by the serendipity of its timing. It wasn't a number I recognized, but I answered anyway.

"Is this Maryah? My name is Barbara, and I'm the Chief of Staff for Queen Noor." I was glad I was sitting down. "Her Majesty is participating in a panel in New York City next week, and someone recommended you as a Peace Corps Volunteer who loved Jordan enough to come back again. I wondered if I could get some stories from you about the importance of Peace Corps, and international service."

Of course, there are few things I love more than talking about my travels abroad, and especially about Peace Corps. I told her many of my favorite stories, including the story of the Jebel Bani Hamida bus station, which she thought would be too controversial for her purposes. Most importantly, I talked to her about Peace Corps' Third Goal, to bring knowledge of my host culture back to America. For the first time, I explained, I had come home from somewhere that people really cared about. Even the most unexpected people, housewives who'd never been 100 miles from home and never seemed interested in international affairs, had a thousand questions about Arabs, Muslims, Islam, women in the Middle East, public opinion of America in the Muslim world, the education system in Jordan, etc. And unlike the few questions I would get about the places I've lived in Europe, when it came to Jordan, people were very conscious that they really had no idea what the answers to their questions would be. People really listened to what I had to say.

Due to computer problems, I've not seen more than two thirds of the video myself, and I haven't yet heard Her Majesty mention anything that might have come from me. Nevertheless, what she and others have to say about public service, international service, and its importance to international relations are worth hearing.

"no like america"

Amman, Jordan

My colleagues and I were, as usual, sharing a taxi back from work this evening, and chatting about some harmless subject related to our teaching. I had given the directions to the cab driver in Arabic, though he insisted on speaking to us in his very broken English. About half way into Amman, he asked, "You American?"
Before I could reply, John jumped right in. "No, no. British. Well, British and American. Two British, one American."
The cab driver said, "No like America." He had to say it twice before we understood it. There was a moment of silence before John turned to Martha and continued whatever innocuous conversation we'd been having. I don't know how they felt, but I felt extremely awkward.

What's a girl to say? I ask this as a rhetorical question, but it's not really rhetorical. What is a girl supposed to say to that? I'm not going to say, "I don't like America, either," even though that's how my Nana thinks I feel. I do like America. I'm a big fan of Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence, George Washington and the two-term presidency, Ralph Waldo Emerson and "The American Scholar," Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Dream, John F. Kennedy and the Peace Corps, and the other noble ideals with which the United States of America has been built. I wouldn't want to have been born anywhere else, because being an American opens doors to me that aren't open to so many other people around the world.

But I sympathize with America's detractors. A friend asked me today why my G-chat status message read "Maryah can fly her country's flag again with a clear conscience." I've never been a great fan of patriotic gestures, but since 9/11 and the dictatorial, damn-the-consequences cowboy diplomacy of the Bush Administration, I've shuddered every time I've seen an ostentatious show of American patriotism. For the last seven years, the United States hasn't had a government I could be proud of, or that I even really wanted to be associated with.

But today on BBC I've seen clips of President Obama's appearance on Al-Arabiya television network, saying that too often America dictates what other countries should do without knowing all the relevant factors, and that this new administration is prepared to listen first, and not make decisions until all the factions have been consulted. (Much has been made of the fact that he still won't talk to Hamas, but he does support Egypt's talks with Hamas, and we can't expect too much so soon.) I can't tell you how impressed I am that our new president, despite the pressing domestic issues like economic crisis, health care, lobbying reform and transparency reform, has taken the time out of his very first week in office to address the Arab people directly, and in such self-effacing tones. In addition, I've been listening to the Secretary of the Arab League and other regional spokespersons express their delight at the appointment of George Mitchell as the Obama Administration's Middle East Envoy, and praise him as someone who listens. Finally, the United States has leadership that I can believe in, that I am comfortable being associated with.

Backing Hope With Action

If you've been following this or my other blog, Alternate Witness, you will know that I have been following two causes very closely in the last few year, one which gives me great hope, and one which gives me great pain.

I have followed with great hope, though equal amounts of skepticism, the campaign and now presidency of one Barack Obama. Since the very beginning, I have admired in him a humility one doesn't see in many politicians. Where other politicians, most notably our recently departed president, choose a political line and toe it against all opposition, Barack Obama is willing to admit when he doesn't know, and even when he is wrong, and is willing an eager to seek out the opinions of experts and hear all sides before reaching a conclusion.

I have also been following, since I was an undergraduate, the situation in the Palestinian Territories. I have been particularly concerned since Hamas won free and fair elections and the serious blockading and humanitarian crisis began. If you've been reading carefully, you'll understand that I am concerned about both sides of this conflict, both the Palestinian and Israeli victims. They are both victims of birth, of circumstance, of history, of violence, of intolerance, of religious extremism, of poor governance, and of propaganda on both sides. There are children dying in this conflict who did nothing wrong but be born on the wrong side of some arbitrary line in the dirt. That pains me in ways I can't describe.

Recently, I've started following an organization that unites those two causes. Jewish Voice for Peace is encouraging Americans, Israelis, Arabs and others to speak together in calling for a resolution to the conflict in Palestine. They started Thank You Jon Stewart, which I've seen posted on a number of my friends' blogs and Facebook pages. They petitioned President-elect Barack Obama to support a ceasefire in Gaza. Now that there is a ceasefire (of sorts), they are preparing an open letter to President Barack Obama about the situation in Gaza. I received the following as part of an email encouraging me to sign the open letter, and the words express very accurately how I am feeling right now:

Every time I saw one of those Obama posters with "HOPE" on it, I felt it. Hope, that is. Hope against hope that perhaps this new President would pursue a just peace with the same fervor that he pursued hope before he was elected.

And in the short time since the inauguration, we're seeing reasons to believe our hope was justified. But, here's the big challenge: Israel, Palestine, Gaza. Turning hope into reality comes down to how President Obama deals with this ongoing tragedy. This week's announcement of George Mitchell as Middle East envoy -- the man who helped broker peace in Northern Ireland-- signals that Obama is serious about even-handed diplomacy. For so many, our hope is that Mitchell and Obama will now take serious and meaningful steps towards a just and true peace.

I am also quite passionate about the idea of balanced journalism, not just in regards to Gaza, and I thank Amina for forwarding me information about a campaign by Avaaz to improve fair journalism vis a vis Gaza.

Crick-Stompin' Shoes

...or, What Protests?

Wadi al-Kerak near the Dead Sea, Jordan

On Protests
I've been getting messages from Germany, Switzerland and the USA concerned about my safety here in this volatile part of the world. And yes, it's true, there were protests in Amman today. The US Embassy sent out warden messages advising caution:

The Arab Islamic Leaders asked the people to demonstrate over all countries and they called it the anger day against Israel and to support Gaza, so in Jordan the people will demonstrate after the pray and start from the biggest mosque in each province, in Amman from the Al-Husseini Mosque to the Amman Municipality building.

I understand that tear gas was fired into the crowds again at the Israeli Embassy today. One of our friends from Tareef Cycling Club, Jad Madi, was there and has put up his photographs on his blog. But the photos of my Friday midday are far more serene:

From Wadi al-Kerak

This weekend, Tareef Cycling Club left the bicycles at home and opted for hiking far, far away at the other end of the Dead Sea. And this time, I came prepared with my crick-stompin' shoes! (For those of you who didn't grow up in Pennsylvania Dutch Country, a "crick" is what some parts of the country call a "creek" but may also describe a "stream.")

On Jordanian Customer Service
You see, when we went hiking in Wadi al-Ghwayr, I didn't know that I would not be able to avoid getting my feet wet, and I got blisters, and my hiking boots were wet for more than a week. So, last night, I went to Mecca Mall to get a pair of shoes that I could hike in but that were meant to get wet. I knew just where I would find these shoes, and made a bee-line to Champions, where I explained what I was looking for. "Water shoes?" says the salesman, without even looking around. "No. We don't have anything like that." So I walked all around the entire Mecca Mall, went into every shop with shoes, and found nothing but ordinary trainers. So I thought, well, I don't know of anywhere else in Amman where I'm likely to find just what I'm looking for, so I'll go back to Champions and get a closer look. Guess what? I found a dozen styles of shoes meant for the water! And I found a pair that were perfect. No blisters!

On Hiking
So this is the biggest crowd I saw on Friday, today's incarnation of Tareef Cycling Club:

From Wadi al-Kerak

It was a perfect day for hiking, about 19C down below sea level, sunny, and green. The scenery is just beautiful, very green because of the crick we were stompin', sometimes with boxy, wind-scoured rock walls, sometimes with more curvaceous water-carved siqs that evoke the landscape of Petra. I saw several different species of frog in different shades of green and brown, and some freshwater crabs, and at one point a bird flew over head that looked very much like a North American blue heron from the bottom of the canyon.

It did seem, at times, to be the same as Wadi al-Ghwayr, but when we came to our lunch spot, with this gorgeous waterfall and palm trees, we agreed that it was much more spectacular. The company was pretty good, too. Stephanie brought her three German roommates along on the trip, Sina, Lena and Theresa, and they spoke a lot of German to each other and some with me. To my chagrin, however, when I tried at the beginning of the trip to translate Ammar's Arabic description of the trip into German for them, I failed miserably. Oh, sure, I could get the first sentence out in decent German. But after that I switched back to Arabic without even noticing, until finally Sina said, "In English! In English!" Embarrassing. I need a lot more German practice! Unfortunately, the girls are leaving soon, with the semester over, and I'll have to find new Germans to pester with my crazy, Arabized, Swiss-influenced German!

It was the perfect day, and perfect timing to get out of Amman. The closest we ever came to the issue of Palestine was watching the sun set over the Dead Sea and the West Bank. It looks so peaceful from Jordan's Dead Sea Highway!

From Wadi al-Kerak

Musical Manifestation of Solidarity

Amman, Jordan

In solidarity with Gaza, and in honor of the Palestinian martyrs, and in protest against the criminal Israeli war, and in rejection of the bias of the world regimes, a number of Jordanian artists and cultural activists are organizing a musical manifestation of solidarity at Al Balad Theatre, Jabal Amman, First circle, on Wednesday 7 January 2008 at 8:00 pm.

The event will include a piano performance by Tala Tutunji and Zeina Asfour, who will perform compositions by Tarek Younis. Omar Faqir, Tarek Jundi, Wissam Tubeleh and Fadi Ghawanmeh will also take part in this event which will include poetry readings in Arabic and English of poems by Mahmoud Darwish compiled and read by Serene Huleileh, Reem Abu Kishk, Amer al Khuffash, and Samar Dudin. Ayman Taisir will conclude the readings with poetry dedicated to Palestine. The event will be concluded by a visual presentation designed by Raed Asfour culminated by the virtual video presence of the late Palestinian poet laureate, Mahmoud Darwish.

We do not wish this event to be a simple artistic act of solidarity, but to come out with real solidarity by urging every participant to contribute, in whatever way he/she can, to support the perseverance of our people in Gaza.

Despite all the hours that Peace Corps spent ingraining in us the danger of approaching large groups of protesting Palestinians, my friend and I decided that this was one demonstration we could be a part of. I'm so glad we made that decision.

This ceremony (not just an event) was beautifully prepared and very moving. There was piano, violin, recorder and 'oud music, overlaid with poetry and a recitation of just some names of the more than 700 Palestinians who have lost their lives since Christmas.

Not surprisingly, we also saw many people we know.

Update

I've never heard of this musician before, but I applaud him:

Desert, Yes, But Warm...?

Amman, Jordan

When I arrived in Jordan for the first time in early February of 2004, I had no sweaters, no winter coat, no sweatshirt. Over two feet of snow had fallen on southern Pennsylvania the night before I left for Peace Corps Orientation. It was cold when we left Washington, D.C., cold on our layover in Frankfurt, but for some reason I didn't think it would be cold in Jordan. After all, Jordan's a desert! (I still don't know why it never occurred to me, traveller and researcher extraordinaire, to check the CIA Factbook for the average winter temperatures in Jordan...!)

When I stepped out of customs at Queen Alia Airport in Amman, the first thing I saw were several tall men with black-and-white Hattas wrapped around their faces, just like the terrorists I'd seen on TV. It took me a few hours to figure out that they do that to stay warm!

Amman is cold. It gets at least a foot of snow a year. That winter of 2004, some villages in the mountains in Shobak got so much snow that food and heating gas had to be airlifted in.

Yesterday, we could see our breath inside our apartment. And I just kept thinking, I don't understand how people could think that the total blockade that has been imposed on the Gaza Strip since November could be fair. We're not talking about an embargo on luxury items. We're talking about basic necessities, as described by Harvard professor Sara Roy here.

Maybe you think Gaza is a nice warm desert. It is a desert, yes, but while spending my third winter in Jordan, having been to the Sinai in January 2006, I can tell you that it must be cold in Gaza tonight, and there's no electricity and no heating oil.

Bike for Gaza

...or, How Jordanian Youth Respond To Crisis

Amman, Jordan

From Bike For Gaza

I was only a very minor participant in the amazing recent campaign wonderfully described by Black Iris here and here. I dropped off just one bag of non-perishable foodstuffs, having been unemployed for a number of weeks and unable to contribute more. I knew from some of my friends in Tareef Cycling Club when and where they were loading on New Years, and it was just across the Airport Road from my apartment, but I grossly underestimated the Jordanian people and didn't think they would need my help. I regret this, despite lingering shreds of my Peace Corps training telling me to avoid politically sensitive gatherings, because I think Black Iris makes a great argument in support of what I've been telling a half-Jewish friend here in Jordan: for all the anger that there is here about what is happening in Gaza, it's not being directed at individuals, but at the Israeli leadership.

I also did my part today, and a little bit more, when I went on the Save Gaza bike trip with the Tareef Cycling Club this morning. I mean, let's be honest, I was going to go anyway, because Tareef goes cycling every Friday, and I'm fulfilling a promise to myself from several years ago to become a competent cyclist post-Peace Corps. But when I found out that Tareef would be donating all the usual 5 dinar fees to the Red Cross for the relief effort in Gaza, I was especially determined to go, and even to contribute more than the usual fee.

I went because, while Tareef's members are passionate about the Palestinian cause and they were eager, as I am, to make some contribution, that was not the sole purpose of today's ride. These guys and gals get together to go cycling. Some of them are members of the Jordanian national team, others are even less athletic than I am, and there is absolutely no censure. These are some of the easiest people to spend time with that I know in Jordan, because they are all very ambitious, successful people, but they don't take themselves very seriously. The girls are very stylish, even at the end of a long bike ride, because there's absolutely no avoiding it here, but they're not the Barbie dolls you usually see around town. I suspect that most of them are of above average wealth, but you'd never know it by looking at them. And they didn't disappoint today. There was some talk about Palestine, but there was no diatribe, no vitriol, no censure of other viewpoints. More than angry, the people on this trip were disappointed.

But mostly, we were just biking!

From Bike For Gaza