There have been no updates here because I have been traveling, in prison, and then traveling again.
I am now back in the US and will post a detailed report shortly. Here is the short version.
Despite fears about a no-fly list created by the Israeli government (which did keep several hundred mostly French activists from boarding their planes to Palestine), our group of about 15 Brits, Irish and Americans successfully boarded our flight at Luton airport on July 8, with one exception: American Michael Rabb was kept off the plane by security at the last minute.
We arrived at Ben Gurion Airport and were pulled aside for detention almost immediately upon arriving at passport control--I was pulled aside after I simply stated my destination as Aida refugee camp near Bethlehem. We were detained for 4 hours in a basement immigration holding area, then for another 3 hours on a very hot, poorly ventilated and roach-infested prison bus with no toilet access and no water until we pounded on the doors to demand it. While we were waiting with about 40 French, Belgian, American and UK citizens in the immigration holding area, a large number of police and Border Patrol officers entered and provoked a confrontation by trying to remove a French man of Arab descent from the room by himself, against his will. When his comrades tried to nonviolently prevent him from being removed, the police used it as an excuse to attack us, hitting a few people and shoving around many others. A small solidarity demonstration of brave Israeli activists at the airport was also viciously attacked by police and bystanders.
At about 11pm Friday night we were driven to the Givon immigration detention center in Ramla, 30km from Tel Aviv. At 1am, after having been detained for 9 hours, we finally received food, which prison guards filmed us eating so they could show how well they were treating us. I was processed and put in a six-woman cell around 2:30am.
We were held in Givon prison for 4 nights and 4 days, until we were finally deported around 8pm Tuesday. Throughout the whole process--100 hours of detention--we were never told the legal basis for our detention or shown any deportation paperwork. We did not get our passports back until we were sitting on the plane about to depart. Most people's passports were stamped ENTRY DENIED; mine and a few others were stamped with nothing at all. It's as if I never entered the country, except for the fact that I was in prison for 4 days and now most certainly have a big fat Shabak file. We were not given any information on our legal status or ability to enter Palestine in the future; we are still trying to get definitive answers on whether we have been banned from re-entering.
Throughout it all we had wonderful lawyers from Addameer, who put up with intimidation, humiliation and harassment from the prison guards in order to advise us pro bono. Elf shukran to Anan and Samer for their determined help.
The spirit of solidarity and cooperation among the prisoners on the womens' block was incredible. I am also deeply humbled by the many messages of concern and support I have received via email, Facebook, Twitter and phone, many from people I do not know personally. I believe everyone has come out of the experience empowered and more determined to continue fighting for justice for Palestinians.
While we were detained, the Israeli government passed a repressive anti-boycott law, the Israeli navy attacked an unarmed ship accompanying fishermen in Gaza, and the reports are that Gaza was heavily shelled tonight. The night after we were deported, this was the scene in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh.
I will write more soon, but just posting this brief update to let everyone know I am safe and well. Free Palestine!
Friday, July 15, 2011
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
press release: on july 8, we are flying for palestinian freedom - and for our own
For Immediate Release
Hundreds of internationals on their way to visit Palestinians in Gaza have been prevented from departing from the ports in Greece. However, we hope that on July 8th, 2011, hundreds of others of us from many countries will succeed in reaching Palestine by flying to Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv. We have been invited by some forty Palestinian organizations to "Welcome to Palestine," a week of activities in Palestine. It should be a wonderful visit, but most of us are frankly a bit scared. This is because of one decision we've all made: to tell the truth that our plan is to visit Palestine. It should be so simple, shouldn't it? But it is not, because Israel controls all access to Palestine -- by air, and by land, as well as by sea.
Even the website of the U.S. State Department warns of "prolonged questioning and thorough searches by Israeli authorities upon entry or departure," of particularly "probing questioning" visited upon "U.S. citizens whom Israeli authorities suspect of being of Arab, Middle Eastern, or Muslim origin," who are frequently denied entry. This is also true of visitors who are suspected to sympathize with Palestinians. The U.S. and the European countries refuse to protect their own citizens against these abuses by Israeli authorities.
The draconian and discriminating procedures at the borders of Israel have but one aim: to further isolate Palestinians and reinforce their inferior status; to trap them, away from any outside witnesses, in an increasingly constrictive maze of bantustans, separated by checkpoints and walls. By failing to insist that Israel allow travel to Palestine, our western governments support Israel's apartheid policies. In fact, occupied territory is not sovereign territory and Israel’s authority over the occupied Palestinian territories is subject to international humanitarian law. This authority does not include the right to arbitrarily deny entry of foreign passport holders wishing to visit, reside, or work in the occupied Palestinian territories (OPT -- See http://www.righttoenter.ps/
We are flying to Ben Gurion on July 8th to visit friends in Palestine, and we insist that our own governments support us in doing so. Supporting our visit to Palestine will be one small step towards bringing about the freedom of movement for all the peoples of Israel/Palestine that is essential for peace and justice in the Middle East.
Press Contacts:
PALESTINE: Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh, mazin@qumsiyeh.org, +972(0)598939532
JERUSALEM: Sergio Yahni, sergioyahni@gmail.com, +972(0)526375032
FRANCE: Nicolas Shahshahani, bienvenuepalestine@orange.fr
GERMANY: Sophia Deeg, sophia_deeg@yahoo.de, +49(0)88 007761, +49(0)1799878414
UK: Sofiah MacLeod, secretary@scottishpsc.org.uk,+
USA: Karin Pally, myizzy@gmail.com or kpally@earthlink.net, +1 310-399-1921
English articles and stories on the event
http://dissidentvoice.org/
http://www.alternet.org/news/
Other related websites/links:
http://www.righttoenter.ps
http://www.palestinejn.org
http://bienvenuepalestine.com (French and English)
http://www.kopi-online.de/
Hundreds of internationals on their way to visit Palestinians in Gaza have been prevented from departing from the ports in Greece. However, we hope that on July 8th, 2011, hundreds of others of us from many countries will succeed in reaching Palestine by flying to Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv. We have been invited by some forty Palestinian organizations to "Welcome to Palestine," a week of activities in Palestine. It should be a wonderful visit, but most of us are frankly a bit scared. This is because of one decision we've all made: to tell the truth that our plan is to visit Palestine. It should be so simple, shouldn't it? But it is not, because Israel controls all access to Palestine -- by air, and by land, as well as by sea.
Even the website of the U.S. State Department warns of "prolonged questioning and thorough searches by Israeli authorities upon entry or departure," of particularly "probing questioning" visited upon "U.S. citizens whom Israeli authorities suspect of being of Arab, Middle Eastern, or Muslim origin," who are frequently denied entry. This is also true of visitors who are suspected to sympathize with Palestinians. The U.S. and the European countries refuse to protect their own citizens against these abuses by Israeli authorities.
The draconian and discriminating procedures at the borders of Israel have but one aim: to further isolate Palestinians and reinforce their inferior status; to trap them, away from any outside witnesses, in an increasingly constrictive maze of bantustans, separated by checkpoints and walls. By failing to insist that Israel allow travel to Palestine, our western governments support Israel's apartheid policies. In fact, occupied territory is not sovereign territory and Israel’s authority over the occupied Palestinian territories is subject to international humanitarian law. This authority does not include the right to arbitrarily deny entry of foreign passport holders wishing to visit, reside, or work in the occupied Palestinian territories (OPT -- See http://www.righttoenter.ps/
We are flying to Ben Gurion on July 8th to visit friends in Palestine, and we insist that our own governments support us in doing so. Supporting our visit to Palestine will be one small step towards bringing about the freedom of movement for all the peoples of Israel/Palestine that is essential for peace and justice in the Middle East.
Press Contacts:
PALESTINE: Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh, mazin@qumsiyeh.org, +972(0)598939532
JERUSALEM: Sergio Yahni, sergioyahni@gmail.com, +972(0)526375032
FRANCE: Nicolas Shahshahani, bienvenuepalestine@orange.fr
GERMANY: Sophia Deeg, sophia_deeg@yahoo.de, +49(0)88 007761, +49(0)1799878414
UK: Sofiah MacLeod, secretary@scottishpsc.org.uk,+
USA: Karin Pally, myizzy@gmail.com or kpally@earthlink.net, +1 310-399-1921
English articles and stories on the event
http://dissidentvoice.org/
http://www.alternet.org/news/
Other related websites/links:
http://www.righttoenter.ps
http://www.palestinejn.org
http://bienvenuepalestine.com (French and English)
http://www.kopi-online.de/
Friday, July 1, 2011
press roundup
I have been writing a lot for other places lately, which is why the posts here have not been as frequent as I'd like. That and, you know, having a job and such.
I have pieces on Mondoweiss (reprinted in Socialist Worker) and Alternet about the July 8 week of solidarity in Palestine.
I also co-wrote an op-ed on for Gay City News on queer/Palestinian solidarity along with Brad Taylor, a fellow member of Siege Busters Working Group who is currently in Athens hoping to sail with the US Boat to Gaza. For laughs, you can read the crazy Zionist "rebuttal" they also posted.
I will be in Chicago at the Socialism 2011 conference this weekend, but will most likely be doing an interview by phone for KPFK Pacifica radio on Sunday. Check my Twitter for details--and frequent updates from the US Boat.
I have pieces on Mondoweiss (reprinted in Socialist Worker) and Alternet about the July 8 week of solidarity in Palestine.
I also co-wrote an op-ed on for Gay City News on queer/Palestinian solidarity along with Brad Taylor, a fellow member of Siege Busters Working Group who is currently in Athens hoping to sail with the US Boat to Gaza. For laughs, you can read the crazy Zionist "rebuttal" they also posted.
I will be in Chicago at the Socialism 2011 conference this weekend, but will most likely be doing an interview by phone for KPFK Pacifica radio on Sunday. Check my Twitter for details--and frequent updates from the US Boat.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
world's war-makers, poor-makers prepare to tempt fate, may 2012
Today Obama announced that NATO and the G8--quite literally, the organizational representations of the world's imperialist powers and economic elite--will be meeting back-to-back in May 2012, in Chicago.
Whoever planned this is a fucking idiot. Or possibly just very, very arrogant.
The G8 developed a pattern over the years of meeting in increasingly isolated locations--like an island off the coast of Georgia--to avoid protests by thousands of people angered by the economic policies of austerity and neoliberalism enforced by the west's most powerful governments.
Now, in an about-face that I'm sure was partially engineered by Obama as a centerpiece of his 2012 presidential campaign, they're meeting in the US's second-largest city. A city with a large, multi-racial, well-organized left, easily accessible from many points in North America, with a decent public transit system to ferry around lots and lots and lots of protesters. A city that has been a historic center of protest since the fight for the eight-hour work day (remember when we had those?) A city where police brutality is kind of an issue, and people might not react well to their streets being taken over by the phalanxes of riot police it will take to defend these rich, murdering asshats. A city where there might just be a few people who are angry about slashing social services to the bone while pouring money into endless war.
In short: It. Is. So. ON.
Whoever planned this is a fucking idiot. Or possibly just very, very arrogant.
The G8 developed a pattern over the years of meeting in increasingly isolated locations--like an island off the coast of Georgia--to avoid protests by thousands of people angered by the economic policies of austerity and neoliberalism enforced by the west's most powerful governments.
Now, in an about-face that I'm sure was partially engineered by Obama as a centerpiece of his 2012 presidential campaign, they're meeting in the US's second-largest city. A city with a large, multi-racial, well-organized left, easily accessible from many points in North America, with a decent public transit system to ferry around lots and lots and lots of protesters. A city that has been a historic center of protest since the fight for the eight-hour work day (remember when we had those?) A city where police brutality is kind of an issue, and people might not react well to their streets being taken over by the phalanxes of riot police it will take to defend these rich, murdering asshats. A city where there might just be a few people who are angry about slashing social services to the bone while pouring money into endless war.
In short: It. Is. So. ON.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
how the us boat to gaza became the unofficial flagship of freedom flotilla 2
The passengers on Freedom Flotilla 2 are currently assembling in Athens, parachuting into a country on the brink of mass revolt. (Perhaps more on that in a future post, but for now check out someone who knows a great deal more about Europe than me.)
As anyone who has been following developments with the Flotilla knows, all forces even remotely associated with it have been under intense pressure from Israel (and presumably the US, behind the scenes.) One result of this pressure is that the Mavi Marmara, the ship owned by the Turkish charity IHH on which nine activists were murdered by Israeli commandos last summer, will not be sailing in the Flotilla as expected (although my understanding is that IHH is still participating as an organization, contrary to what some reports have said.)
This is a blow on a symbolic level, obviously, but also in terms of pure logistics. The withdrawal of the Mavi Marmara has cut the numbers of the Flotilla in half. But something interesting has also happened. With the highly charged symbolism of the Mavi Marmara out of the picture, the star of the Flotilla (at least in the US media) has sort of become the US Boat to Gaza. This is something I'm sure no one expected when fundraising began for the US Boat over a year ago.
As Joseph Dana points out, the US boat is now the largest in the Flotilla. It will carry 36 activists, 4 crew members, and 10 journalists, including reporters, photographers and/or camera crews from the New York Times, CNN, and CBS News. Also among the press corps are two of Israel/Palestine's finest independent journalists: Mya Guarnieri, writing for Ma'an, and Dana himself, who will be covering the Flotilla for The Nation.
Wait, wait. Let me repeat that list again. The New York Times, CNN, and CBS News. Are on the Flotilla.
Remember last year, when there was a virtual media blackout on the first Freedom Flotilla, right up until the moment people got murdered? This time around, there's been a sea change (sorry, had to do it) in media coverage that is nothing short of surreal. Major US media outlets have run significant and not-appallingly-bad stories about the Flotilla, well in advance of its departure, including at least two in the Paper of Record, which is hardly known for its favorable coverage of Palestine. The US media is beginning to see the Flotilla itself, and not just the Israeli reaction to it, as a major news story that can't be ignored.
Of course, that does not guarantee at all that what happens will be reported fairly or make it past unfriendly editorial filters. But it does change the dynamics of the situation in significant ways. When the first Flotilla was attacked, grassroots journalists had to fight tooth and nail to wrest control of the media narrative away from the Israelis. It's just not going to be that easy this time around. Even if US mainstream media journalists are not particularly sympathetic to the Palestinians, they are used to being treated with respect and decency, particularly by governments and militaries that, y'know, we pay for. I have a feeling they may be in for a very rude awakening, and that can only have a positive impact on their coverage.
I do think Israel will intercept this Flotilla. I don't think they'll repeat the wholesale killing spree they unleashed on the Mavi Marmara, although they have already threatened other forms of violence against the unarmed passengers of the boats. But it's going to be really hard for them to spin whatever they do as a justified response to crazy violent Islamist terrorists when the most high-profile passengers on the Flotilla are citizens of a nation that is one of their only remaining allies.
As anyone who has been following developments with the Flotilla knows, all forces even remotely associated with it have been under intense pressure from Israel (and presumably the US, behind the scenes.) One result of this pressure is that the Mavi Marmara, the ship owned by the Turkish charity IHH on which nine activists were murdered by Israeli commandos last summer, will not be sailing in the Flotilla as expected (although my understanding is that IHH is still participating as an organization, contrary to what some reports have said.)
This is a blow on a symbolic level, obviously, but also in terms of pure logistics. The withdrawal of the Mavi Marmara has cut the numbers of the Flotilla in half. But something interesting has also happened. With the highly charged symbolism of the Mavi Marmara out of the picture, the star of the Flotilla (at least in the US media) has sort of become the US Boat to Gaza. This is something I'm sure no one expected when fundraising began for the US Boat over a year ago.
As Joseph Dana points out, the US boat is now the largest in the Flotilla. It will carry 36 activists, 4 crew members, and 10 journalists, including reporters, photographers and/or camera crews from the New York Times, CNN, and CBS News. Also among the press corps are two of Israel/Palestine's finest independent journalists: Mya Guarnieri, writing for Ma'an, and Dana himself, who will be covering the Flotilla for The Nation.
Wait, wait. Let me repeat that list again. The New York Times, CNN, and CBS News. Are on the Flotilla.
Remember last year, when there was a virtual media blackout on the first Freedom Flotilla, right up until the moment people got murdered? This time around, there's been a sea change (sorry, had to do it) in media coverage that is nothing short of surreal. Major US media outlets have run significant and not-appallingly-bad stories about the Flotilla, well in advance of its departure, including at least two in the Paper of Record, which is hardly known for its favorable coverage of Palestine. The US media is beginning to see the Flotilla itself, and not just the Israeli reaction to it, as a major news story that can't be ignored.
Of course, that does not guarantee at all that what happens will be reported fairly or make it past unfriendly editorial filters. But it does change the dynamics of the situation in significant ways. When the first Flotilla was attacked, grassroots journalists had to fight tooth and nail to wrest control of the media narrative away from the Israelis. It's just not going to be that easy this time around. Even if US mainstream media journalists are not particularly sympathetic to the Palestinians, they are used to being treated with respect and decency, particularly by governments and militaries that, y'know, we pay for. I have a feeling they may be in for a very rude awakening, and that can only have a positive impact on their coverage.
I do think Israel will intercept this Flotilla. I don't think they'll repeat the wholesale killing spree they unleashed on the Mavi Marmara, although they have already threatened other forms of violence against the unarmed passengers of the boats. But it's going to be really hard for them to spin whatever they do as a justified response to crazy violent Islamist terrorists when the most high-profile passengers on the Flotilla are citizens of a nation that is one of their only remaining allies.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
back to palestine, july 8-16
I'm doing this. It's a week of international solidarity actions in Palestine, which will bring together hundreds of internationals to work with 15 Palestinian civil resistance organizations across the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
It also includes this--a mass fly-in to Ben Gurion Airport on July 8. Hundreds of internationals will arrive on the same day, and, if all goes according to plan, hundreds of people will refuse to lie to Israeli security about the fact that we are here to visit Palestinians and participate in nonviolent solidarity actions.
"You're crazy," you might say. "They're just going to deport you all, and you will have spent all that time and money for nothing."
It is true that they may deport us. The Israeli authorities will do what they will do and we cannot control their behavior. But if that happens, I don't believe it will be for nothing.
I heard about the fly-in action months ago. Like many people, I thought it was a great idea, but I was afraid of getting deported, and downright terrified of losing my ability to enter Palestine in the future, especially at such a critical time.
But then came Nakba Day, Naksa Day, and the announcement that seven of my friends will be on the US Boat to Gaza, which is due to sail very shortly before the July week of action. The action started to seem more and more like an important challenge to Israeli apartheid, and I began to feel more and more like I was the exact right kind of person to do it.
I've been to Palestine twice on "witnessing" delegations. I've seen what things are like on the ground. I'm done with traveling there simply to witness. On the last trip I was questioned extensively by Israeli security, and I have been writing and speaking openly and publicly about Palestine since then, using my full name and with a very visible online and real-world presence. This leads me to believe that I would probably be questioned no matter what I did and how carefully I tried to hide the next time I tried to enter Palestine, and that trying to pass myself off as a "tourist" in the future might in fact only piss off Israeli security and give them an excuse to deport me anyway, for lying to them.
For what it's worth, I have absolutely no problem with activists going on the DL, not telling the whole truth, or otherwise obfuscating in order to get into Palestine and do work that undermines the rotten apartheid system. That is the standard M.O., and I think people should continue to go for it. But I'm excited by the possibility of trying a different route this time.
Something interesting happened once I signed up for this venture. I completely lost my fear of Ben Gurion Airport, which has to be one of my least favorite places on Earth. Israeli-controlled borders are miserable places. They're factories of humiliation, intimidation, dehumanization, and forced submission to vile degrees of racial profiling, political policing, and generally unchecked dominance behavior by cocky soldiers and cold-eyed secret police. Usually, internationals and Palestinians accept submitting to this system as a necessary evil, the unwritten price of an entry visa into Palestine.
But there is something so wonderful about the prospect of being able to defy that system, of being given permission to defy it as part of a nonviolent civil disobedience action. It releases every natural rebellious instinct, the very impulses that draw people to Palestine in the first place, and channels them into mass action. The prospect of getting deported alone is lame, pointless and depressing. The prospect of getting deported along with hundreds and hundreds of people who are challenging Israel's racist, repressive entry policies sounds like it just might be worth it.
The brilliance of this action is that it takes an experience that is often isolated and isolating--interacting with the fearsome Israeli security apparatus--and turns it into a collective, mass solidarity action. The whole system of interrogation, detention, prison and deportation is designed to isolate you as much as possible, to create the impression that you are completely alone against this overwhelmingly powerful repressive machinery. Mass civil disobedience completely undercuts and inverts this power dynamic, which is one of the reasons Israel finds acts of unarmed civil resistance so threatening.
It's not that any of us want to get deported. We don't. We want permission to enter Palestine and travel freely to visit our Palestinian friends, as is our universal human right. But we have no illusions about the system that stands in our way.
I love Palestine. I love the people I've met there, Palestinians and Israelis, who are fighting for Palestinian national liberation and a country where everyone can live in peace with justice and equal rights. To be invited--welcomed--into such a heroic struggle is an honor beyond words. It physically hurts to think about the prospect that I might not be able to go back there for years.
But really, what justification do I have to hold so tightly to my ability to enter Palestine when that right is denied to so many actual Palestinians? When Palestinian refugees in Lebanon have to brave Israeli snipers just to catch a glimpse of their homeland? When it was recently revealed that 140,000 Palestinians from the West Bank lost their ability to return home, simply because they had the temerity to live, work, or study abroad?
Israel is being challenged on every border. If Palestinian refugees can brave minefields and live ammunition, and the folks aboard Freedom Flotilla 2 can face Israeli gunboats and navy commandos, we can stand up to the Ben Gurion security apparatus. Yalla, let's go to Palestine.
It also includes this--a mass fly-in to Ben Gurion Airport on July 8. Hundreds of internationals will arrive on the same day, and, if all goes according to plan, hundreds of people will refuse to lie to Israeli security about the fact that we are here to visit Palestinians and participate in nonviolent solidarity actions.
"You're crazy," you might say. "They're just going to deport you all, and you will have spent all that time and money for nothing."
It is true that they may deport us. The Israeli authorities will do what they will do and we cannot control their behavior. But if that happens, I don't believe it will be for nothing.
I heard about the fly-in action months ago. Like many people, I thought it was a great idea, but I was afraid of getting deported, and downright terrified of losing my ability to enter Palestine in the future, especially at such a critical time.
But then came Nakba Day, Naksa Day, and the announcement that seven of my friends will be on the US Boat to Gaza, which is due to sail very shortly before the July week of action. The action started to seem more and more like an important challenge to Israeli apartheid, and I began to feel more and more like I was the exact right kind of person to do it.
I've been to Palestine twice on "witnessing" delegations. I've seen what things are like on the ground. I'm done with traveling there simply to witness. On the last trip I was questioned extensively by Israeli security, and I have been writing and speaking openly and publicly about Palestine since then, using my full name and with a very visible online and real-world presence. This leads me to believe that I would probably be questioned no matter what I did and how carefully I tried to hide the next time I tried to enter Palestine, and that trying to pass myself off as a "tourist" in the future might in fact only piss off Israeli security and give them an excuse to deport me anyway, for lying to them.
For what it's worth, I have absolutely no problem with activists going on the DL, not telling the whole truth, or otherwise obfuscating in order to get into Palestine and do work that undermines the rotten apartheid system. That is the standard M.O., and I think people should continue to go for it. But I'm excited by the possibility of trying a different route this time.
Something interesting happened once I signed up for this venture. I completely lost my fear of Ben Gurion Airport, which has to be one of my least favorite places on Earth. Israeli-controlled borders are miserable places. They're factories of humiliation, intimidation, dehumanization, and forced submission to vile degrees of racial profiling, political policing, and generally unchecked dominance behavior by cocky soldiers and cold-eyed secret police. Usually, internationals and Palestinians accept submitting to this system as a necessary evil, the unwritten price of an entry visa into Palestine.
But there is something so wonderful about the prospect of being able to defy that system, of being given permission to defy it as part of a nonviolent civil disobedience action. It releases every natural rebellious instinct, the very impulses that draw people to Palestine in the first place, and channels them into mass action. The prospect of getting deported alone is lame, pointless and depressing. The prospect of getting deported along with hundreds and hundreds of people who are challenging Israel's racist, repressive entry policies sounds like it just might be worth it.
The brilliance of this action is that it takes an experience that is often isolated and isolating--interacting with the fearsome Israeli security apparatus--and turns it into a collective, mass solidarity action. The whole system of interrogation, detention, prison and deportation is designed to isolate you as much as possible, to create the impression that you are completely alone against this overwhelmingly powerful repressive machinery. Mass civil disobedience completely undercuts and inverts this power dynamic, which is one of the reasons Israel finds acts of unarmed civil resistance so threatening.
It's not that any of us want to get deported. We don't. We want permission to enter Palestine and travel freely to visit our Palestinian friends, as is our universal human right. But we have no illusions about the system that stands in our way.
I love Palestine. I love the people I've met there, Palestinians and Israelis, who are fighting for Palestinian national liberation and a country where everyone can live in peace with justice and equal rights. To be invited--welcomed--into such a heroic struggle is an honor beyond words. It physically hurts to think about the prospect that I might not be able to go back there for years.
But really, what justification do I have to hold so tightly to my ability to enter Palestine when that right is denied to so many actual Palestinians? When Palestinian refugees in Lebanon have to brave Israeli snipers just to catch a glimpse of their homeland? When it was recently revealed that 140,000 Palestinians from the West Bank lost their ability to return home, simply because they had the temerity to live, work, or study abroad?
Israel is being challenged on every border. If Palestinian refugees can brave minefields and live ammunition, and the folks aboard Freedom Flotilla 2 can face Israeli gunboats and navy commandos, we can stand up to the Ben Gurion security apparatus. Yalla, let's go to Palestine.
Saturday, May 28, 2011
what is the point of political film?
"Movies have an accessory and not a decisive usefulness in the various events and elements that contribute to the transformation of society. It is naive to believe that you can start a revolution with a movie and even more naive to theorize about doing so. Political films are useful, on the one hand, if they contain a correct analysis of reality, and, on the other, if they are made in such a way to have that analysis reach the largest possible audience."
--Franco Solinas, screenwriter of The Battle of Algiers
Those of us who are concerned with political storytelling often hear that the goal of a political film is to convince--to sway people who are on the fence on a particular issue. We are frequently cautioned against "preaching to the choir." The unspoken corollary is that if you are speaking to the "middle," you must moderate your message. You must not be too strident, too angry, too militant. You must not be too "one-sided" by showing oppressors as they really are (particularly if that depiction challenges the dominant narrative). You must not demand the audience sympathize with characters who may make them uncomfortable (like, for example, the pair of would-be suicide bombers in Paradise Now), or have demands and goals that seem unreasonable.
Personally, I do not think being "moderate" or "toning it down" is the best way to convince someone; I think telling the truth and being unapologetic is. But more importantly, I do not think convincing the fence-sitters is the best, most powerful use to which political films can be put.
I think of the great political films I love--The Battle of Algiers, Milk, Salt of This Sea, Bloody Sunday, The Time That Remains, to name just a few. Did any one of these films really convince someone to change their mind, to support gay rights or Palestinian liberation or resistance to oppression? Probably not. Bigots and defenders of colonialism were not the target audience for those films. They weren't made for homophobes and Zionists and racists. They were made for us, or as Harvey Milk said, for the us-es. They are our stories reflected back to us.
In a film, the protagonist is the person with agency--it is her action toward a goal in the face of obstacles that drives the plot. "A movie is about someone who wants something and is struggling to get it," was the mantra drilled into us in film school. The protagonist is the person from whose perspective we see the world and with whom we identify and empathize. So choosing your protagonist is often the most political choice you make when writing a film, because you are effectively choosing who to give agency to, and who is worthy of empathy.
Marxism begins from the point of view that ordinary people make history. We are the protagonists of the story of the world. On the most basic level, one of the purposes of political art is to allow oppressed and marginalized people to see themselves represented as the subjects of the story--the subjects of history--not its objects; as beings with agency and the ability to control their own destiny, even if it is only their destiny within a movie.
This is not in itself enough to defeat oppression. Oppression is defeated through struggle; through protests, strikes, mass movements and revolutions. But it is powerful, and liberating, to see the truth of your experience reflected on film, and to watch other people who don't share that experience sympathize with it and root for someone like you. It's a reminder that our tales are worthy of being told; that we are worthy of being the hero of the story; that there are others like us; that we are not alone. To remind ourselves that our stories have power is to remind ourselves that we have power.
For the member of an oppressed group, it is a moment of saying, "That is me. That is my reality and my struggle being represented on screen as something worthy of empathy." For the ally in solidarity it is saying: "That could be me. That person is just like me, just as human as me. My life could be theirs if not for circumstance. I understand what they are fighting for, and if I was in their position, I'd be fighting too."
This is why political films must always be true--not necessarily true in a factual sense, but in the sense of accurately representing things like oppression, resistance and power. For the filmmaker this means really understanding your subject matter: researching it if it is not your own life experience, and being able to fully and unhesitatingly identify with the wants and needs of your characters. It also means being honest and unflinching about the world you are portraying, even when that may confuse the expectations of people for whom it is not their lived reality.
The best way to have political films reach the largest possible audience is to make them good, and that means making them truthful. Studios are not going to help you there. The layers and layers of assumptions behind Hollywood studios' self-fulfilling prophecies about who the American movie-going audience is and what they want to see deserve fuller consideration in another post. Suffice to say that most Hollywood films are like fast food in a poor neighborhood. Of course people will swallow crap if it's the only thing around. It doesn't mean they don't hunger for something better.
The audience for a political film is not the kind that's built through studio marketing divisions and subway ads and building-sized billboards on Sunset Boulevard, even if studios ever had an interest in doing that. It's going to be built like a movement, from the grassroots--by the people it sets on fire because it touches something deep inside them, because it reflects things they know to be true but have maybe never seen on screen. These people become the film's champions. They rave to all their friends about it, blog about it, tweet about it, organize screenings of it because it speaks to them and moves them and they have never seen anything like it. When you see a film that speaks the truth, the effect is electric.
There is a moment I love in the beginning of Salt of This Sea, when Soraya, the main character, arrives at Ben Gurion Airport. Unsurprisingly, she is searched by a couple of humorless Israeli security agents. They even search her voluminous curly hair. Both times I saw this film in the theater, people laughed at that scene. In that laughter is a moment of release from alienation. It's the laughter of relief, of realizing, "Oh, there's someone else out there who gets it." Other times, the exact same feeling can make you cry. There are several scenes in Milk that have that effect on me every time.
People make films for all kinds of reasons, but for me, it's always in pursuit of that moment--to feel it myself and to be able to bring it to others. I haven't set out to try to tell the stories of oppressed, exploited and marginalized people out of some abstract sense of political mission. I write those kind of stories because they're the ones I identify with. I don't think there's anything special about me. If I can identify with them, then other people can too. That means there is an audience for those kind of films--a powerful, passionate audience if you know how to connect with it. After all, we the us-es are the majority.
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