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This morning I've been reading a feature article in The Nation, "What does it mean to be Palestinian now?"
https://www.thenation.com/article/world/what-does-it-mean-to-be-palestinian-now/
Powerful stuff. Heartwrenching too. The writers are all living more or less safely in the U.S. but all have close or extended family caught up in all the destruction in Gaza. What's particularly depressing is that while these writers are mostly relatively young, this is a situation that has persisted for many decades now.
I remember seeing the Vanessa Redgrave documentary The Palestinian at the National Film Theatre, soon after the film's release in 1977. At the time, NFT screenings were held in the National Library building at 395 Wellington Street and since I worked for the National Film Archives library, side-by-side with Canadian Film Institute staff, I had a pass to get into any of their film presentations free of charge. Anyway, the place was packed. But the people introducing the film were, shall we say, not exactly opening the door to a free exchange of views on what the situation in the Middle East might be. It was more like a subtext of "Well, of course this film is pure propaganda and you're too smart to be taken in by it, but here it is for what it's worth." Well, that's how I read between the lines anyway, or in this case heard between the spoken words. There were, as I recall, a few brief murmurs of protest in the crowd but not a lot. It was as if "Palestinian" was being conflated with the PLO (and probably their more extreme factions at that), much as many people today equate Palestine and Hamas.
Then maybe 30 years later, working in a completely different federal government office, I attended a lunchtime presentation by a young man working on our floor who had taken an unpaid leave of absence to work with Stop the Wall (www.stopthewall.org) That was fascinating too. While still floored by what Palestinians had endured over the intervening years, I was impressed by this guy's combination of passion for the cause and lack of bitterness towards the Israelis for a range of acts, from wanton destruction of olive groves to far more grisly occurrences. I suppose maybe it was his ability to see both the forests and the individual trees, so to speak:
https://imgur.com/gallery/mMujATf
I've watched the terminology of these things evolve (and sometimes deteriorate) over time. Settlers? Settlements? Colonizers and colonialists? Well, aren't we ALL settlers really, whether we're indigenous or immigrant or second- or third- or tenth-generation somethingorother?
As I once wrote in another context, set out to establish a land of milk and honey and sooner or later you'll be trampled by the sacred cows and stung by the bees!
https://www.thenation.com/article/world/what-does-it-mean-to-be-palestinian-now/
Powerful stuff. Heartwrenching too. The writers are all living more or less safely in the U.S. but all have close or extended family caught up in all the destruction in Gaza. What's particularly depressing is that while these writers are mostly relatively young, this is a situation that has persisted for many decades now.
I remember seeing the Vanessa Redgrave documentary The Palestinian at the National Film Theatre, soon after the film's release in 1977. At the time, NFT screenings were held in the National Library building at 395 Wellington Street and since I worked for the National Film Archives library, side-by-side with Canadian Film Institute staff, I had a pass to get into any of their film presentations free of charge. Anyway, the place was packed. But the people introducing the film were, shall we say, not exactly opening the door to a free exchange of views on what the situation in the Middle East might be. It was more like a subtext of "Well, of course this film is pure propaganda and you're too smart to be taken in by it, but here it is for what it's worth." Well, that's how I read between the lines anyway, or in this case heard between the spoken words. There were, as I recall, a few brief murmurs of protest in the crowd but not a lot. It was as if "Palestinian" was being conflated with the PLO (and probably their more extreme factions at that), much as many people today equate Palestine and Hamas.
Then maybe 30 years later, working in a completely different federal government office, I attended a lunchtime presentation by a young man working on our floor who had taken an unpaid leave of absence to work with Stop the Wall (www.stopthewall.org) That was fascinating too. While still floored by what Palestinians had endured over the intervening years, I was impressed by this guy's combination of passion for the cause and lack of bitterness towards the Israelis for a range of acts, from wanton destruction of olive groves to far more grisly occurrences. I suppose maybe it was his ability to see both the forests and the individual trees, so to speak:
https://imgur.com/gallery/mMujATf
I've watched the terminology of these things evolve (and sometimes deteriorate) over time. Settlers? Settlements? Colonizers and colonialists? Well, aren't we ALL settlers really, whether we're indigenous or immigrant or second- or third- or tenth-generation somethingorother?
As I once wrote in another context, set out to establish a land of milk and honey and sooner or later you'll be trampled by the sacred cows and stung by the bees!
