I have many questions to ask. Always. For when one travels it makes the world full of more questions, not less. I don’t know how to sort them, in my mind, in my heart. I find a definition for one, only to be struck with how simple and incomplete the answers must be. I learned about that from this joint American/Palestinian project, how little we really know.
We each have our own story and each of us carries not only our tiny lives inside ourselves, but that of our parents, our environment, our culture, our religion, our ancestors blood. I don’t know what it is to be Palestinian, to be Jewish or Israeli, to be a black American, to be a boy, a man, nor a bird in flight, an ant crossing a road or a mother burying her child. I don’t know what it is to be a leader and an icon, threatened with death for speaking the truth or an actor gunned down for opening the minds of children, or the simplicity of a hotel clerk wanting nothing more then to work and to be grateful that he can feed his family.
How can any of us know what it is to have a concrete wall cutting the sun, your livelihood, and your family in two with nothing but rocks to defend yourself against tanks and m16s. How can we know what it is to be Jewish, to have holocaust memories bubble through your bloodstream or even deeper hues of exile, centuries of nomadic tribes searching for home. We all need home. How can I know what it is to be black and celebrate the work of Martin Luther King only to continue facing deep discrimination now riding just under the surface with every comment made about jobs you have earned or things you should endure? How can I describe what it is to be an artist inside this world I find myself in, both externally and internally?
I was asked by a television reporter just before our last show, “What is it to be Palestinian?” How would I know?
I answered what my heart has absorbed in the short passage of time I have been here: To be welcoming; to be a people of the land, to see and feel from the heart. And unlike the land and their own governance, their hearts are pure and unoccupied, despite the conditions surrounding them. Perhaps because they share. Welcome, most welcome,” is heard on street corners and in shops alike. They insist on sharing. “Eat alone, die alone” is one of many proverbs they live by.
They acknowledge God in each greeting and response, each desire or wish. Such gracious hospitality inside their golden rocky green land of olive, lemon and almond trees; of wrapped women’s heads and protective men, of small children the size of my calf walking confidently through a crowd of people; of younger generations finding their own ways, choosing, changing and balancing, letting their hair and minds flow, yet still holding steadfast to their religion; of men inside male friendships, draping on each other; of school girls walking hand in hand, Christians and Muslims; of a rainbow color of skin tones and eyes, from the world mixing for centuries on this beautiful yet difficult land; and their accented gestures: using both hands simultaneously, dramatically starting near the chest upward and outward, or from the chin, downward, touching, slapping, cupping the faces – their own and others; and their beautiful hands, fingers gathered together to form a teardrop to ask for patience, to calm or warn depending on the pursing of lips or brow; of walking to prayers with carpets on their shoulders, hands behind, rubbing their beads between their fingers; of clapping – palms tight, fingers upright, spread, adding to the sound, the rhythm, their Palestinian beat. I understand why this place is occupied by their very brothers and more importantly, why they are crying.
What do I think it is to be Palestinian? It is to have tenacity and endurance, to be of the land and to be of the heart and to live with pain. Simply put…to love. Habib.
For the Palestinians I have met are full of heart, even if they disagree with America, our politics and our various denominations and practices of religion. Even if individuals among them value life so little that they indiscriminately kill innocents. But are not we, the Americans like this, and the Israeli’s? How many among us have done this deplorable act of “terrorism.” Do we not feed, in fact perpetrate the violence that is in our world with more violence? What stops this cycle? For does the world really understand the Americans or the Israelis? I don’t. I don’t know how one does. How does one understand Arabs? I don’t know the Middle East or the Arab World I have been gently introduced to through these beautiful Palestinian people. People.
To meet and eat and work with the other is to begin, to discuss and exchange, to get bigger and smaller pictures. This is what my government has given to me through this cultural exchange and what Al Hakawati gives to many through the power of international theatre. An opportunity to dialogue, so that I can taste the common vein of humanity and in turn, can pass this on to you, as a way of letting that dialogue ripple.
Palestinians don’t understand why Americans are so blind to their plight, that we are ignorant. Perhaps, yes – definitely we are…but I also find the Palestinians to mistake our ignorance with that of their own because like Americans, they believe the world revolves around them and their conflict. But does it? Do they know the struggles in Darfur or between Tibet and China? What about South Africa and its road to reconciliation? Do they know America, know the checks and balances between the legislative and executive branches of our government? Do they know the diversity among the citizens of my country and how it is considered our strength but we are so often pitted against each other? Do they know the mere size of my state or where Seattle actually is on a map? Do they know how young our country is and what it took and takes to fight for justice and the truth behind building a Democracy? Do they know the struggles we have with subsidies given to oil companies and bailouts for banks while cutting health programs for women and children? How Americans are over caffeinated so they can keep the pace of work work working to pay the credit we live on? And why do we shy away from this conflict here in the Holy Land? Because we don’t care? No. We don’t understand it. How can we? It is its own world, full of woven intricate webs. We don’t know how to maneuver in it, as if we’re suppose to have the answers instead of the questions.
All of these things are simply what I see, just me- the way my artistic heart absorbs the world around me. And I know all too well, I don’t have a full picture. I am blind. It is not because my eyes are shut, au contraire, it is because they are wide open and the more I see, the less I know. But still, I insist on and am grateful for being blind because I am learning to love the questions themselves and to answer my questions with more questions. And life itself, is it not one big fat question?
