I am having the itch … again. I have wanted to write an article for so long now, and every time I think of something to write about my hands simply freeze. I have written many posts for my blog and got some splendid feedback about it, but that’s the difference; when you are writing for a blog it is very easy to allow your emotions and views to take over the flow of words, but that’s not always the case when you are writing something to be published in a newspaper. Since I got back home from studying abroad and I have been wanting to write about a lot of things, the “usual” occupation, the checkpoints, the low quality of life that Palestinians have to put up with, the Israeli violations in East Jerusalem, the situation in Gaza and how it is affecting our youth there, and a whole lot more than that.
Like any form of art, -besides being a need- writing is there for a purpose, a tool where form follows function to convey a certain message across to the readers and most importantly ; reflect a reality.
I once read that in 1895 the first cinematic exhibition was held in Paris, one year later and specifically in November 1896, the “cinema” moved to Egypt and the first show was held in a show-room owned by an Italian gentleman called Dello Astrulogio in the city of Alexandria. Despite the astronomical price of the ticket many who were very eager to witness this new form of art that captivated the hearts of the Europeans stood in long lines to get a ticket. The show was very primitive and usually lasted for about half an hour showing natural sceneries, little children jumping into ponds, a man with a big fish in his hand waving for the camera, or a speeding train growling through the screen. No matter how naïve the show was, or how simple and basic the filming was people were head over heels with this new phenomena, people would be waiting patiently for the magical moment when the lights are dimmed and the pictures are put into motion on a gigantic screen and only then people would start indulging themselves in this “life-altering” experience by reacting vigorously to the scenes that were shown before them. Perhaps the pleasure the “first-viewers” had when watching simple extracts of life on the screen surpasses the joy and pleasure we experience when dealing with cinematic arts nowadays. This semi astral projecting experience brought about a little problem where people would react strongly to certain scenes, for example when they saw a humungous train marching steadily towards them on the screen with its’ long trail of smoke smudging the horizon people would jump fanatically from their seats and scream fearing that this train would hit them. To avoid this Mr. Astrulogio would take the viewers on a tour before the start of the show and when he gets to the large screen he would hold it with his fingers and respectfully say:” This screen is nothing but a piece of fabric, not different from a bed-sheet, the pictures that you will see are projected onto the screen and not out of it. In a moment you will see a momentous speeding train, Remember ladies and gentlemen this is only a picture of the train, and therefore when standing in its’ way you are still far from any danger …”.
Just like a projector in a theatre we- writers- try to project the reality that we live in on big spreads of white paper for people to read and understand, the only difference between reading an article and watching a film is that the reality projected by the words on paper are supposed to collide with the souls and minds of the reader and make them realize the gravity of the situation at hand, unlike the moving pictures in a silent movie that are meant to entertain the patrons of such an art.
During my quest to find a topic to write about I have encountered a countless number of realities that should be addressed and discussed properly by all means possible, as time passed my view expanded and my understanding started to give in for the vicious attack of these conflicting realities that burdened my thoughts and ability to analyze and conclude. Since it is not possible to show unrelated scenes in modern time cinema it is also unlikely that I would naively pour all these realities, mix them together and canon shoot them on paper because every time I tried to sort my thoughts and put them one at a time, I would fail. One morning on the bus to work, I decided to find that “magical link” between all of these seemingly random facts that run around in our society, and I did.
What Mr. Astrulogio did when talking to his guests at the show room is to make them believe that what they see is a mere illusion, and that the reality they live in the red comfortable chairs at the showroom is physically -and in essence- separate from that they see on the screen. Apparently, today in the Palestinian society, we are in no need for an Italian gentleman to propose that what we read in our papers and hear about in the news about the current situations in Palestine is an illusion and not a reality, on the contrary we took the liberty as young men and women to disengage ourselves from the general Palestinian reality that our ancestors fought bravely to maintain and enhance or even to create in the first place.
Nowadays a considerable portion of our youngsters have given up on understanding the realities that surround them and surrendered their resisting spirits to the hardships of everyday life and condescendingly took the Palestine they see … for granted. Growing up in Jerusalem, we were told and lived tales and endless stories that reflected the bitter and harsh life we Palestinians live under occupation and in the eyes of our parents and grand-parents learned the importance of resisting the hardships and fight through the legitimate channels for our rights that were taken away from us and not submit to whatever reality the occupation or other factors are enforcing on us. Suddenly, it is absolutely acceptable to go on long trips to the United States and meet Israeli peers on a camp and in the midst of all the laughs and tacky activities reach to a conclusion that the Israeli occupation is a “normal”, “legitimate” body, and justify all the violations and crimes it commits as part of protecting Israeli citizens. Perhaps to the college female student standing next to me for 2 long hours on Qalandya checkpoint, it seems perfectly acceptable for her to stand at a checkpoint to be humiliated because according to her “they need to make sure that we don’t do anything stupid”, therefore she was saying one way or another that it is legitimate to humiliate us and make our lives far more stressful than they already are only to make sure that we do not refuse their reality and create ours, which she deemed “stupid”. When I listen to two young men who for an instance seem to be cultured and well-educated and start elaborating articulately over the status of Palestinian politics and as I eavesdrop on them I realize the Palestine they are talking about is represented by what is left of the West Bank after it was torn by the apartheid wall … WHERE DID GAZA GO? I am afraid the list goes on infinitely, starting with the corruption in our Palestinian Authority, moving to the internal conflict between Hamas and Fateh, the migration of our youth to foreign countries looking for better job opportunities that they cannot find here thus resulting not only in a brain drain, but also in the loss of young and able work-force, drug abuse among school students, the plunging quality of education in our schools, and many many more and last but definitely not least accepting the idea that the Palestine that our ancestors lost their lives trying to build and establish is simply what we have in the grounds now and give up on building a better more developed Palestine on the rest of its lands and I mean … East Jerusalem.
Until we as Palestinian youth learn to reattach ourselves to the reality we live and stop acting as if we have come, we have seen, and we have conquered and that there is nothing wrong about the current situation ruling the enforced reality many live, I find it to be my duty as a Palestinian to hold this piece of paper you are readings and say respectfully: “ This is nothing but a piece of paper, pretty much like the one you sneeze into, the words that you read on this paper are intended to protrude out of the plane of the paper and get your thoughts and hearts in motion, a moment ago you have read about a number of speeding trains coming your way, remember ladies and gentlemen that these moving bodies are realities sprinting in your direction, unless you react promptly, these realities will hit you when you least expect them to”.
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