Saturday, July 31, 2010
nablus snapshot
It's nearly midnight, we've eaten absurd quantities of insanely delicious food, we're smoking shisha with new friends made an hour ago, and despite the fact that it's absurdly hot the hotel staff are teaching us dabke in between cleaning up for the night. Now THIS is Palestine :-).
gaza and sderot
Sderot: the tiny town half a mile from the northeast corner of Gaza; the frequent target of Qassam rockets if crude unguided munitions can be said to have a target; the totem held up by Zionists when anyone protests the siege of Gaza.
I don't know what I expected from Sderot. I was mostly hoping to check it off as a place I've been and catch a glimpse of Gaza from over the wall. I didn't expect to be blown away by what I found there.
Sderot is a poor town. A third of the residents are on welfare. When Chen Abrahms of the Gvanim Association, which runs programs for at-risk youth, talks about settlements she get furious. "If they invested all the money they spent on settlements into Sderot, this would be a different place," she snaps. The population is a mix of Mizrahim (Middle Eastern Jews), Ethiopians, immigrants from the Caucauses who came after the USSR collapsed. Jobs are scarce. The schools are underfunded and even second-generation residents often have trouble learning Hebrew. Absurdly, Palestinian collaborators granted asylum in Israel are often resettled there as well. In short, it's all the unwanted of Israel.
Before coming to Sderot, I was quick to dismiss any comparison between the suffering in Gaza and Sderot as not only ludicrous but morally reprehensible. But listening to Nomika Zion of Other Voice, a group of Sderot residents who support ending the siege on Gaza, I am unexpectedly moved. Nomika describes clear signs of post-traumatic stress, being worn down by constant terror, teachers unable to deal with students who are acting out because they themselves are traumatized, thinking about having to choose which child to save first if the rocket sirens go off when you're driving the school van.
Certainly there is no comparison to be drawn in terms of the scale or the intensity of the violence that has been visited on the two places. The concrete bomb shelters Sderot residents have would be crushed to dust by anything Israel drops. But there are so many things that remind me of Gaza. Nomika and Chen matter-of-factly bring out a Qassam rocket that landed near the building in 2008, the metal of the explosive end bent back on itself like a banana peel. I instantly flash back to the table of spent munitions at the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza.
Nomika talks about the ceasefire that lasted from June to November 2008 as the first time in her life she felt her government was protecting her. And she tells how her own government broke that ceasefire, on November 4, 2008, while the eyes of much of the world were focused on the US presidential election.
As part of her work with Other Voice, Nomika had made connections with Palestinians in Gaza. She kept in touch with them as Operation Cast Lead started. Every day, their tales of horror poured in. At night the bombs falling on Gaza shook the walls of her home. Nomika has proceeded through the whole story of her own life under bombardment with perfect calm, but when it comes to talking about the Palestinians, she chokes up. "Instead of thinking of when the next Qassam would land, I could think only of them," she said of her Palestinian friends. "They're supposed to be our enemies, but all you want to do is reach out. But what can you do? You're helpless."
Someone like Nomika is a challenge to all Israelis. She, of all people, might seem like the most likely candidate to hate and fear Gazans. But she is one of the few Israelis I've met on this trip who seemed to feel genuine empathy for the Palestinians, to want to end the conflict not just for Israelis, but for them. At the moment of greatest danger for her, her heart was in Gaza.
My takeaway at the end of the day was that Sderot is being used. The Israeli government, Zionists who scream the town's name to silence any criticism...I don't think they give a shit about Sderot. When I tell people I've been to Gaza, I sometimes get the aggressive response: "And have you been to Sderot?" The next time someone says that to me, I want to ask: "Have YOU been to Sderot? Because what you find there may not be what you expect."
I don't know what I expected from Sderot. I was mostly hoping to check it off as a place I've been and catch a glimpse of Gaza from over the wall. I didn't expect to be blown away by what I found there.
Sderot is a poor town. A third of the residents are on welfare. When Chen Abrahms of the Gvanim Association, which runs programs for at-risk youth, talks about settlements she get furious. "If they invested all the money they spent on settlements into Sderot, this would be a different place," she snaps. The population is a mix of Mizrahim (Middle Eastern Jews), Ethiopians, immigrants from the Caucauses who came after the USSR collapsed. Jobs are scarce. The schools are underfunded and even second-generation residents often have trouble learning Hebrew. Absurdly, Palestinian collaborators granted asylum in Israel are often resettled there as well. In short, it's all the unwanted of Israel.
Before coming to Sderot, I was quick to dismiss any comparison between the suffering in Gaza and Sderot as not only ludicrous but morally reprehensible. But listening to Nomika Zion of Other Voice, a group of Sderot residents who support ending the siege on Gaza, I am unexpectedly moved. Nomika describes clear signs of post-traumatic stress, being worn down by constant terror, teachers unable to deal with students who are acting out because they themselves are traumatized, thinking about having to choose which child to save first if the rocket sirens go off when you're driving the school van.
Certainly there is no comparison to be drawn in terms of the scale or the intensity of the violence that has been visited on the two places. The concrete bomb shelters Sderot residents have would be crushed to dust by anything Israel drops. But there are so many things that remind me of Gaza. Nomika and Chen matter-of-factly bring out a Qassam rocket that landed near the building in 2008, the metal of the explosive end bent back on itself like a banana peel. I instantly flash back to the table of spent munitions at the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza.
Nomika talks about the ceasefire that lasted from June to November 2008 as the first time in her life she felt her government was protecting her. And she tells how her own government broke that ceasefire, on November 4, 2008, while the eyes of much of the world were focused on the US presidential election.
As part of her work with Other Voice, Nomika had made connections with Palestinians in Gaza. She kept in touch with them as Operation Cast Lead started. Every day, their tales of horror poured in. At night the bombs falling on Gaza shook the walls of her home. Nomika has proceeded through the whole story of her own life under bombardment with perfect calm, but when it comes to talking about the Palestinians, she chokes up. "Instead of thinking of when the next Qassam would land, I could think only of them," she said of her Palestinian friends. "They're supposed to be our enemies, but all you want to do is reach out. But what can you do? You're helpless."
Someone like Nomika is a challenge to all Israelis. She, of all people, might seem like the most likely candidate to hate and fear Gazans. But she is one of the few Israelis I've met on this trip who seemed to feel genuine empathy for the Palestinians, to want to end the conflict not just for Israelis, but for them. At the moment of greatest danger for her, her heart was in Gaza.
My takeaway at the end of the day was that Sderot is being used. The Israeli government, Zionists who scream the town's name to silence any criticism...I don't think they give a shit about Sderot. When I tell people I've been to Gaza, I sometimes get the aggressive response: "And have you been to Sderot?" The next time someone says that to me, I want to ask: "Have YOU been to Sderot? Because what you find there may not be what you expect."
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
samoud in sheikh jarrah
Effusive welcomes, gifts from people who have little to give, unrefusable offers of cool drinks and strong coffee, incredible spirit and amazing resistance...ahh, here is the Palestine I know and love! It's in Sheikh Jarrah.
For the Palestinian families of Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem, the Nakba is quite literally at their doorstep. Jewish settlers have moved not just into their neighborhood, but right into their homes, evicting them with the help of the police. This is just one of a myriad number of efforts to ethnically cleanse Jerusalem of its native Palestinian Arab inhabitants and maintain a Jewish demographic majority.
The evicted families have been stubbornly living in tents in their own backyards, facing harrassment, humiliation and often violence from settlers. If Palestinian residents of the neighborhood go to the police to complain about settler violence, they are more likely to find themselves arrested than helped. And, in the final Orwellian absurdity, at least one family has been fined by Israeli authorities who claim the tent they sleep under in their own yard is an "illegal dwelling"--erected without a building permit. The tent has been torn down and confiscated seventeen times. They keep putting it back up.
We meet with several generations of the Hanoun and Rawi families and one of their lawyers, a man diligent enough to represent them in a court system completely stacked against them. At first the women are fairly quiet while the men do most of the talking. But when someone asks one of the women a direct question, the most amazing stories of resistance come pouring out. "Every time we're attacked, I get stronger," says a mother from one of the families. "Before I faced them, I was afraid of the police, but now I have no fear. Now I'm as strong as any man in the neighborhood and maybe more so." Other women echo her sentiments. Since many of the women of the families don't work, they play an important role in Sheikh Jarrah's resistance, maintaining a physical presence near their houses during the day and confronting police and settlers.
These ladies are awesome. They are exploding the stereotype of the meek, submissive Muslim woman and teaching us all about resistance. If only to meet them, the trip has already been worth it.
P.S. Samoud is an Arabic word generally translated as steadfastness, as in being a total badass who won't back down for anything. A generally abundant Palestinian trait.
For the Palestinian families of Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem, the Nakba is quite literally at their doorstep. Jewish settlers have moved not just into their neighborhood, but right into their homes, evicting them with the help of the police. This is just one of a myriad number of efforts to ethnically cleanse Jerusalem of its native Palestinian Arab inhabitants and maintain a Jewish demographic majority.
The evicted families have been stubbornly living in tents in their own backyards, facing harrassment, humiliation and often violence from settlers. If Palestinian residents of the neighborhood go to the police to complain about settler violence, they are more likely to find themselves arrested than helped. And, in the final Orwellian absurdity, at least one family has been fined by Israeli authorities who claim the tent they sleep under in their own yard is an "illegal dwelling"--erected without a building permit. The tent has been torn down and confiscated seventeen times. They keep putting it back up.
We meet with several generations of the Hanoun and Rawi families and one of their lawyers, a man diligent enough to represent them in a court system completely stacked against them. At first the women are fairly quiet while the men do most of the talking. But when someone asks one of the women a direct question, the most amazing stories of resistance come pouring out. "Every time we're attacked, I get stronger," says a mother from one of the families. "Before I faced them, I was afraid of the police, but now I have no fear. Now I'm as strong as any man in the neighborhood and maybe more so." Other women echo her sentiments. Since many of the women of the families don't work, they play an important role in Sheikh Jarrah's resistance, maintaining a physical presence near their houses during the day and confronting police and settlers.
These ladies are awesome. They are exploding the stereotype of the meek, submissive Muslim woman and teaching us all about resistance. If only to meet them, the trip has already been worth it.
P.S. Samoud is an Arabic word generally translated as steadfastness, as in being a total badass who won't back down for anything. A generally abundant Palestinian trait.
bil'in
On our first full day in Palestine, we are already off to Bil'in, one of the best-known (although certainly not only) centers of unarmed resistance to the Apartheid Wall in the West Bank.
The villagers of Bil'in and their international and Israeli supporters have protested every Friday for the past five years against the wall (here a fence) that cuts them off from their land. Our driver exhibits nerves of steel as he manuevers the bus around rollercoaster hairpin turns through the West Bank's rocky hills.
Eyad Burnat of the Bil'in Popular Committee greets us at the door to his home. Bil'in is busy today--he is also expecting a crew of Belgian Palestine solidarity activists. While Eyad waits, his twelve-year-old son Majd hops on the bus and directs us out to "the battlefield," the gate that keeps Bil'in's residents from accessing their agricultural lands beyond the wall. Majd knows the way; he is at the protests every week.
The battlefield looks the part. The earth in front of the gate, and in many patches along the steep, narrow path, is scorched black from exploding tear gas canisters. Spent canisters dot the ground like weird fruit. The hill by the gate is also home to the grave of Bassem Abu Rahma, killed when an Israeli soldier fired a high-velocity tear gas canister at his chest. It's hard to miss how steep and rocky the path is--bad for running crowds, bad for quick evacuations of wounded.
Eyad arrives with the Belgian group. There are now about 30 of us hanging around right near the gate. Eventually an Israeli soldier emerges from the army fortifications above the gate. Then a second one. They watch us. "I am not supposed to be here; they've banned me from the demonstration site," Eyad says calmly. He makes no effort to hide from view, though, standing on a rock to address us and the Belgian Palestine solidarity group that has arrived.
Later, in Eyad's living room, we watch video of the weekly protests and of the punitive night raids into the village by the Israeli military. Ten times they have come to his house at night, Eyad says. He lassos one of his younger sons--he can't be more than ten--to tell us about how the soldiers roughed him up for trying to film a raid on a neighbor's house with a cell phone camera. Was he afraid? "No," he answers instantly with a smile.
Eyad tells us something remarkable. "Bil'in does not observe curfews." When the Israeli military declares a curfew, locking residents in their homes twenty-four hours a day, the village simply defies it en mass. When neighboring Ni'lin was under curfew for several days, the residents of Bil'in organized a march to bring them food. One video clip shows Israeli armored jeeps apparently retreating from the village under a hail of rocks.
For its resistance the village has paid a heavy price. Bil'in currently has 85 residents in prison, including 4 minors. Within a four-month period last year, 35 people were arrested, held for anywhere from four months to a year. In Ni'lin, five people have been killed and three members of the Popular Committee are currently in prison. But Eyad says without the presence of Israeli and international solidarity activists, it would be much worse.
The villagers of Bil'in and their international and Israeli supporters have protested every Friday for the past five years against the wall (here a fence) that cuts them off from their land. Our driver exhibits nerves of steel as he manuevers the bus around rollercoaster hairpin turns through the West Bank's rocky hills.
Eyad Burnat of the Bil'in Popular Committee greets us at the door to his home. Bil'in is busy today--he is also expecting a crew of Belgian Palestine solidarity activists. While Eyad waits, his twelve-year-old son Majd hops on the bus and directs us out to "the battlefield," the gate that keeps Bil'in's residents from accessing their agricultural lands beyond the wall. Majd knows the way; he is at the protests every week.
The battlefield looks the part. The earth in front of the gate, and in many patches along the steep, narrow path, is scorched black from exploding tear gas canisters. Spent canisters dot the ground like weird fruit. The hill by the gate is also home to the grave of Bassem Abu Rahma, killed when an Israeli soldier fired a high-velocity tear gas canister at his chest. It's hard to miss how steep and rocky the path is--bad for running crowds, bad for quick evacuations of wounded.
Eyad arrives with the Belgian group. There are now about 30 of us hanging around right near the gate. Eventually an Israeli soldier emerges from the army fortifications above the gate. Then a second one. They watch us. "I am not supposed to be here; they've banned me from the demonstration site," Eyad says calmly. He makes no effort to hide from view, though, standing on a rock to address us and the Belgian Palestine solidarity group that has arrived.
Later, in Eyad's living room, we watch video of the weekly protests and of the punitive night raids into the village by the Israeli military. Ten times they have come to his house at night, Eyad says. He lassos one of his younger sons--he can't be more than ten--to tell us about how the soldiers roughed him up for trying to film a raid on a neighbor's house with a cell phone camera. Was he afraid? "No," he answers instantly with a smile.
Eyad tells us something remarkable. "Bil'in does not observe curfews." When the Israeli military declares a curfew, locking residents in their homes twenty-four hours a day, the village simply defies it en mass. When neighboring Ni'lin was under curfew for several days, the residents of Bil'in organized a march to bring them food. One video clip shows Israeli armored jeeps apparently retreating from the village under a hail of rocks.
For its resistance the village has paid a heavy price. Bil'in currently has 85 residents in prison, including 4 minors. Within a four-month period last year, 35 people were arrested, held for anywhere from four months to a year. In Ni'lin, five people have been killed and three members of the Popular Committee are currently in prison. But Eyad says without the presence of Israeli and international solidarity activists, it would be much worse.
Monday, July 26, 2010
welcome to israel
I arrived in Palestine this evening for a two-week trip with Interfaith Peace-Builders.
This is my first time flying into Ben Gurion Airport and interacting with Israeli border control/security of any kind.
Ben Gurion Airport may very well have the most unapologetic system of racial profiling in the world. Immediately off the jetway, one of the three people of color in our group is singled out by security--before we even get to passport control--for questions about his parents' names (designed to detect any trace of Arabness.) His grandfather's name, which is Jorge, apparently convinces them he is not a threat.
I expected to get some questions about why I have a Jordanian visa in my passport already, plus the normal bits about where I'm going, what I'm doing, etc. I consider myself pretty white. But apparently with dark eyes and dark wavy hair I am not quite white enough to avoid the Arab test myself at passport control. Or maybe the border control agent (who, I must point out, could pass for Arab herself) is just in the mood for extra questions.
"What is your father's name? What is your mother's name?"
I give their first names, neither of which sound Arab/Muslim/Middle Eastern in the least. If they had, the border control agent might have asked to go further back in the family tree, looking for any damning trace of Arabness or alleged Arabness, which would surely have resulted in a trip to the back room for further questioning of indefinite length.
"Durkay...is that an American name?"
I want to tell her how absurd this question is. What the hell is an "American name?"
"Yes," I say. And shortly thereafter my passport is stamped.
While I make it through passport control fairly easily, three people are taken for additional questioning in the back room: our Palestinian co-leader, who is always, without fail, taken for extra questioning, sometimes for hours; a young Muslim woman of South Asian heritage; and a super-white guy who happens to have gone to an Arabic-speaking country deemed suspicious. We wait for them under the "Welcome to Israel" sign. He's out in a couple of minutes. Our co-leader is thrilled to only be held for an hour--last time it was five. The third person is held for three hours. Welcome to Israel, indeed.
By the time we leave the airport it's getting dark and a surreal full moon is rising. We are instantly in the midst of an apartheid system. Here is al-Lydd (Lod), the city from which the ancestors of the main character in Gaza Sunrise were ethnically cleansed in 1948. Here is Canada Park, a vast green space built to cover up the remains of destroyed Palestinian villages. Here is the wall, dividing the Palestinian city of Ar Ram in half. Here is Ofer military prison, with its own high concrete walls and a giant Israeli flag on the watchtower. And here and there and there, brightly lit up on hilltop after hilltop, are settlement after settlement after settlement.
We drive on Route 443, a modern highway from which Palestinians were banned until a month ago. While they are legally allowed to use it now, in practice the harrassment and delays they face at the checkpoints have kept almost everyone off the road. Our bus, with its yellow Israeli licence plates, skates through at least three checkpoints with hardly a pause.
It is not like entering Gaza at all. That was hours of anxiety followed by unmitigated joy. It is infinitely more depressing and sad, to see so much of the finished product of settler colonialism (which looks atrociously like southern California) and the grinding, implacable momentum of the process still at work today.
This is my first time flying into Ben Gurion Airport and interacting with Israeli border control/security of any kind.
Ben Gurion Airport may very well have the most unapologetic system of racial profiling in the world. Immediately off the jetway, one of the three people of color in our group is singled out by security--before we even get to passport control--for questions about his parents' names (designed to detect any trace of Arabness.) His grandfather's name, which is Jorge, apparently convinces them he is not a threat.
I expected to get some questions about why I have a Jordanian visa in my passport already, plus the normal bits about where I'm going, what I'm doing, etc. I consider myself pretty white. But apparently with dark eyes and dark wavy hair I am not quite white enough to avoid the Arab test myself at passport control. Or maybe the border control agent (who, I must point out, could pass for Arab herself) is just in the mood for extra questions.
"What is your father's name? What is your mother's name?"
I give their first names, neither of which sound Arab/Muslim/Middle Eastern in the least. If they had, the border control agent might have asked to go further back in the family tree, looking for any damning trace of Arabness or alleged Arabness, which would surely have resulted in a trip to the back room for further questioning of indefinite length.
"Durkay...is that an American name?"
I want to tell her how absurd this question is. What the hell is an "American name?"
"Yes," I say. And shortly thereafter my passport is stamped.
While I make it through passport control fairly easily, three people are taken for additional questioning in the back room: our Palestinian co-leader, who is always, without fail, taken for extra questioning, sometimes for hours; a young Muslim woman of South Asian heritage; and a super-white guy who happens to have gone to an Arabic-speaking country deemed suspicious. We wait for them under the "Welcome to Israel" sign. He's out in a couple of minutes. Our co-leader is thrilled to only be held for an hour--last time it was five. The third person is held for three hours. Welcome to Israel, indeed.
By the time we leave the airport it's getting dark and a surreal full moon is rising. We are instantly in the midst of an apartheid system. Here is al-Lydd (Lod), the city from which the ancestors of the main character in Gaza Sunrise were ethnically cleansed in 1948. Here is Canada Park, a vast green space built to cover up the remains of destroyed Palestinian villages. Here is the wall, dividing the Palestinian city of Ar Ram in half. Here is Ofer military prison, with its own high concrete walls and a giant Israeli flag on the watchtower. And here and there and there, brightly lit up on hilltop after hilltop, are settlement after settlement after settlement.
We drive on Route 443, a modern highway from which Palestinians were banned until a month ago. While they are legally allowed to use it now, in practice the harrassment and delays they face at the checkpoints have kept almost everyone off the road. Our bus, with its yellow Israeli licence plates, skates through at least three checkpoints with hardly a pause.
It is not like entering Gaza at all. That was hours of anxiety followed by unmitigated joy. It is infinitely more depressing and sad, to see so much of the finished product of settler colonialism (which looks atrociously like southern California) and the grinding, implacable momentum of the process still at work today.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
germany to america
I returned to the US on Friday, although I'll only be here for a few days before leaving on another three-week international trip (more on that later.)
Bavaria puts on a sublime show for my departure: a golden-red sunrise over Tolkien-worthy Alps; meringue tufts of fog thick enough to sculpt wafting off the ground. It's amazing and makes me not want to leave. It was worth getting up at 4:30 in the morning for this.
The Munich airport is nearly empty due to the early hour, and so clean you could eat off the floor. How do Germans keep everything so clean? I guess in part by hiring sufficient cleaning staff for public places.
In contrast Newark airport seems like the Third World: jarringly loud, crowded, dirty and hot. I know people all over the world talk about inane things while waiting in airports, but suddenly being able to understand all the conversations again is overwhelming. It's now Friday afternoon and the security lines are epic. The bathroom near my gate is gross and entirely soap-less, the waiting area is overcrowded and the seats are grubby, and the last tiny leg of my flight, from Newark to Baltimore, is delayed. Welcome back to America, indeed.
I realize I feel homeless in the US, and not in a carefree, smiling-hobo way. I've pulled up whatever meager roots I managed to plant in Los Angeles. Baltimore hasn't been my home for ten years and doesn't really feel like it now. My childhood bedroom is full of stuff that isn't mine. New York feels like home but I don't actually live there yet, and every time I think about the city I feel an unpleasant mix of acute longing and despair at my profound and total lack of money. I find myself looking forward to leaving the US again in a few days. Then at least I can be a traveler and not some kind of weird self-imposed internally-displaced person.
Bavaria puts on a sublime show for my departure: a golden-red sunrise over Tolkien-worthy Alps; meringue tufts of fog thick enough to sculpt wafting off the ground. It's amazing and makes me not want to leave. It was worth getting up at 4:30 in the morning for this.
The Munich airport is nearly empty due to the early hour, and so clean you could eat off the floor. How do Germans keep everything so clean? I guess in part by hiring sufficient cleaning staff for public places.
In contrast Newark airport seems like the Third World: jarringly loud, crowded, dirty and hot. I know people all over the world talk about inane things while waiting in airports, but suddenly being able to understand all the conversations again is overwhelming. It's now Friday afternoon and the security lines are epic. The bathroom near my gate is gross and entirely soap-less, the waiting area is overcrowded and the seats are grubby, and the last tiny leg of my flight, from Newark to Baltimore, is delayed. Welcome back to America, indeed.
I realize I feel homeless in the US, and not in a carefree, smiling-hobo way. I've pulled up whatever meager roots I managed to plant in Los Angeles. Baltimore hasn't been my home for ten years and doesn't really feel like it now. My childhood bedroom is full of stuff that isn't mine. New York feels like home but I don't actually live there yet, and every time I think about the city I feel an unpleasant mix of acute longing and despair at my profound and total lack of money. I find myself looking forward to leaving the US again in a few days. Then at least I can be a traveler and not some kind of weird self-imposed internally-displaced person.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
wizard blitzkrieg
Yes, this is a Harry Potter post.
It's also a war post, because Harry Potter is a children's adventure story that turns into a grown-up war story halfway through, which is part of its brilliance.
Way back at the beginning of my Germany trip, the producer (who has lived in both the US and Europe) and I had a conversation about the differences between Germany and America. I think I remember saying something like, "For Americans, war is something that happens Over There."
Due to the vicissitudes of geography and the designs of imperialism, Americans haven't had a war fought on their own soil in nearly 150 years. This means it's never your city, your street, your home being destroyed by bombs, your backyard being ground up by tanks, your neighborhood being occupied by enemy forces. It's always someone else's. Americans don't experience war as civilians trapped in the middle of it, or as resisters to occupation, but as spectators at best and conquerors at worst. I think this makes many of us take war entirely too lightly--as a game or a spectacle or a movie, not as something with catastrophic consequences for everyone involved, both the victors and the defeated.
Anyone who's been anywhere in Europe knows there is a very different consciousness about war there, born out of two world wars fought on European soil. While the narrative is of course very different from country to country, there is no doubt that war is something that feels real, that has weight, that has reached every town and village and left a memorial marker with the names of the dead to prove it. Aerial bombardment, occupation, siege, armed resistance--these are not abstract concepts but deeply rooted in the historical memory of whole nations.
Which brings me to this.
I can't get over how much I love this poster. Aside from the fact that it may be one of the most striking, visually arresting movie posters I've ever seen--right down to the slice of sunrise peeking around the side of the castle--it's incredibly true to the weight and seriousness of the final book. There is something deeply disturbing about seeing Hogwarts ablaze and smashed up almost beyond recognition, and also something distinctly modern. It looks like London after the Blitz. Hogwarts has been our home for six films so far--always the safe place, impenetrable, indestructible. But this movie is being made by people who understand that war can come suddenly and destroy safe places, buildings that have stood for centuries, places you love. And that even if you win, there is a ghastly price to be paid.
The folks at MuggleNet have made this comparison, which to me pretty much sums up the arc of the whole Harry Potter series. It also shows how far we've traveled from kiddie Hollywood director Chris Columbus to David Yates, who cut his teeth on British political thrillers. I think Yates is the perfect director for the latter half of the series, and I love him for not backing away from the darkness of the later books, and I love JK Rowling for going there in the first place. And while I'm not generally in the habit of praising film studio marketing departments, I have to give props to the folks who had the guts to go with such a strong image as this one.
Anyone out there still think this is a kids' book?
It's also a war post, because Harry Potter is a children's adventure story that turns into a grown-up war story halfway through, which is part of its brilliance.
Way back at the beginning of my Germany trip, the producer (who has lived in both the US and Europe) and I had a conversation about the differences between Germany and America. I think I remember saying something like, "For Americans, war is something that happens Over There."
Due to the vicissitudes of geography and the designs of imperialism, Americans haven't had a war fought on their own soil in nearly 150 years. This means it's never your city, your street, your home being destroyed by bombs, your backyard being ground up by tanks, your neighborhood being occupied by enemy forces. It's always someone else's. Americans don't experience war as civilians trapped in the middle of it, or as resisters to occupation, but as spectators at best and conquerors at worst. I think this makes many of us take war entirely too lightly--as a game or a spectacle or a movie, not as something with catastrophic consequences for everyone involved, both the victors and the defeated.
Anyone who's been anywhere in Europe knows there is a very different consciousness about war there, born out of two world wars fought on European soil. While the narrative is of course very different from country to country, there is no doubt that war is something that feels real, that has weight, that has reached every town and village and left a memorial marker with the names of the dead to prove it. Aerial bombardment, occupation, siege, armed resistance--these are not abstract concepts but deeply rooted in the historical memory of whole nations.
Which brings me to this.
I can't get over how much I love this poster. Aside from the fact that it may be one of the most striking, visually arresting movie posters I've ever seen--right down to the slice of sunrise peeking around the side of the castle--it's incredibly true to the weight and seriousness of the final book. There is something deeply disturbing about seeing Hogwarts ablaze and smashed up almost beyond recognition, and also something distinctly modern. It looks like London after the Blitz. Hogwarts has been our home for six films so far--always the safe place, impenetrable, indestructible. But this movie is being made by people who understand that war can come suddenly and destroy safe places, buildings that have stood for centuries, places you love. And that even if you win, there is a ghastly price to be paid.The folks at MuggleNet have made this comparison, which to me pretty much sums up the arc of the whole Harry Potter series. It also shows how far we've traveled from kiddie Hollywood director Chris Columbus to David Yates, who cut his teeth on British political thrillers. I think Yates is the perfect director for the latter half of the series, and I love him for not backing away from the darkness of the later books, and I love JK Rowling for going there in the first place. And while I'm not generally in the habit of praising film studio marketing departments, I have to give props to the folks who had the guts to go with such a strong image as this one.
Anyone out there still think this is a kids' book?
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
an open border
On the trip from Garmisch to Wurzburg, my traveling companion tells me we're going through Austria to avoid the traffic around Munich. I assume this means I must have my passport handy and slip it into the front pocket of my bag. But the border turns out to be marked by no more than a blue-and-yellow road sign, which we breeze past without batting an eye on a winding road at the base of the Alps. It's no more dramatic than crossing from one state to another in the US.
I knew the EU has open borders, but still couldn't get it through my head that that means no passport control. Even though I assume my American passport will get me almost anywhere, I still can't conceive of crossing a border without a passport check. The reflex of asking for permission is deeply ingrained.
Later we are in Aachen, the westernmost city in Germany, which sits at the triangle where Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands meet. While eating dinner at an outdoor restaurant, the couple we are staying with point to a white house on a hill. "That house is in the Netherlands." I ask them where the border is, exactly. They have to think about it, and finally decide they're not sure. Nothing marks it, after all. If not for the change in language, architecture and flags from one country to the next, you wouldn't know there was a border there at all.
Of course, this is how it should be. The ability to cross a border freely, without fear, without having to endure harassment, humiliation, or arbitrary detention, without worrying if you will be allowed out, or allowed back in, or when or if you will be able to see family and friends again...this isn't a luxury. It's a basic human right (see Article 13). But I know so many people to whom it's denied, for whom the idea of crossing a border without even hitting the brakes would be inconceivable. It was inconceivable to many Germans as little as twenty years ago. And anyone who thinks sealed borders and walls and checkpoints and controls are a thing of the past, or the purview strictly of America's enemies, should compare this post to the one on Eva Bartlett's blog describing what it's like to cross a border with a Palestinian--even on the rare occasions that that border is technically "open."
I may never fully understand what it's like to grow up a prisoner inside your own country, but I know enough to know not to take an open border for granted. It makes me grateful for the walls that have been torn down, sad and angry about the ones that still exist, but determined and hopeful--no, certain--that they will fall one day too.
I knew the EU has open borders, but still couldn't get it through my head that that means no passport control. Even though I assume my American passport will get me almost anywhere, I still can't conceive of crossing a border without a passport check. The reflex of asking for permission is deeply ingrained.
Later we are in Aachen, the westernmost city in Germany, which sits at the triangle where Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands meet. While eating dinner at an outdoor restaurant, the couple we are staying with point to a white house on a hill. "That house is in the Netherlands." I ask them where the border is, exactly. They have to think about it, and finally decide they're not sure. Nothing marks it, after all. If not for the change in language, architecture and flags from one country to the next, you wouldn't know there was a border there at all.
Of course, this is how it should be. The ability to cross a border freely, without fear, without having to endure harassment, humiliation, or arbitrary detention, without worrying if you will be allowed out, or allowed back in, or when or if you will be able to see family and friends again...this isn't a luxury. It's a basic human right (see Article 13). But I know so many people to whom it's denied, for whom the idea of crossing a border without even hitting the brakes would be inconceivable. It was inconceivable to many Germans as little as twenty years ago. And anyone who thinks sealed borders and walls and checkpoints and controls are a thing of the past, or the purview strictly of America's enemies, should compare this post to the one on Eva Bartlett's blog describing what it's like to cross a border with a Palestinian--even on the rare occasions that that border is technically "open."
I may never fully understand what it's like to grow up a prisoner inside your own country, but I know enough to know not to take an open border for granted. It makes me grateful for the walls that have been torn down, sad and angry about the ones that still exist, but determined and hopeful--no, certain--that they will fall one day too.
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