phenomenology: November 2007 Archives

"I am going to stay present for the pain, and for the hope. I am an integral part of it all. I am part and parcel of this complexity. I am part of the problem . . . [and] I am part of the solution, because I love."

Thus Dr. Hassam Dweik wecomed us to Al Quds University in Abu Dis, Palestine, for the second international conference on Dialogue under Occupation.





Sabri Safadi wasted no time challenging our gathering of academics concerned with matters of occupation – literally and metaphorically. He was informative, calm, and measured in tone; this allowed most of the audience to listen. Essentially, he asked us: “What are you doing here?” Later in the day, Julia Schlam-Salman approached her study through a social constructionist lens. “The school,” she said, “is just a school”; it is guided by an educational ideology which is institutionalized and thus – metaphorically if not literally – determines things that you can and cannot do within the educational setting. The same applies to us, I thought: “the conference is just a conference”, we operate within a professional-academic ideology that is also deeply institutionalized. Julia went on to describe the additional burden of literal occupation on the inevitable educational occupation, while I reflected on how our conference itself is limited by form and the expectations of form.

Take Sabri’s questions. We have listened to the introductory logistics and official welcome, and have come to the end of the first presentation. The moderator, Dr. Munther S. Dajani, has responded and opened the floor to questions from the audience. In fact, Sabri spoke up at the first point in the structure of an academic conference in which audience members are explicitly invited to speak. (He told me his name means “patience.”)

1) What do we mean by "dialogue" in the title of the conference?
2) Do we have the transparency and the courage to speak out loud?
3) Are we legitimizing the occupation or do we want to end the occupation through this dialogue?
4) What happened to the initial, critical U.S. journalistic responses to the first Intifada that questioned what Israel was doing?


How did we (DUO participants) respond to these questions? We enacted group-level dynamics that established the primacy of academic discourse as the main mode of the conference, not dialogue. How did we do this? First, as moderator, Dr. Dajani acknowledged the importance of Sabri’s questions: “Very difficult questions you are asking!” The audience laughed in agreement. Sabri continued. Politely. At the end of his turn, the next woman returned to the official presentation with what she characterized as a "small question.” Twice, Sabri Safadi and his “very difficult questions” were discursively cut off. I am not advocating that we – those of us in the auditorium at this moment – ought to have done something different, only that we must learn to notice when we derail dialogue, no matter the reason. Only when we realize how we undercut ourselves can we begin to experiment with other tactics that may lead to political solutions.

I was fortunate to sit with Dr. Dajani during lunch. I asked him about his comment concerning the closure of universities for three days of mourning. "“There is another side of this, also to avoid any clashes between the students, we didn’t want the students to carry those problems to campus.” Was this an admission that the University lacked staff able to guide the students in dialogue? Is this a failure of the education system that they shunt the problem to the streets? "You do not understand the culture," he explained. The cultural values of friendship and agreement are intertwined. To the extent one agrees with another, the closer a friendship. The fewer areas of agreement, the weaker the friendship. "If you disagree, you are my enemy." Dr. Dajani described this as “my cousin against my neighbor, my brother against my cousin.”

Few people in Palestinian society, percentage-wise, have learned to recognize this cultural frame, let alone develop perspectives that enable different choices. The strategy, therefore, for addressing a potentially volatile situation are therefore unconventional.

University representatives (I am not sure who, I guess a mix of administration and faculty) met for seven hours on Tuesday with students from Fatah and Hamas, persisting from three in the afternoon until ten pm that night, when the students finally began to joke with each other and laugh, realizing and agreeing that the problem in Gaza was not a problem to bring to campus. I would like to know the moves in the talk that drew these youths along a path from the culture view equating disagreement with enemy and friendship with agreement. Imagine the perseverance, the commitment of time, energy, and patience required to sit in a room together and talk, and talk, and keep sitting, and talk some more . . .

The last event of the day was a viewing of Occupied Minds, followed by a discussion with journalist and co-producer "Jamal Dajani, a Palestinian-American, and David Michaelis, an Israeli citizen, who journey to Jerusalem, their mutual birthplace, to explore new solutions and offer unique insights into the divisive Israeli-Palestinian conflict" (Link TV program information). Dajani stunned the audience by telling us a one-state solution is the most practical political resolution because it reflects "the reality on the ground." Occupied Minds shows how the preoccupation with ideas one has already been taught - an "occupation of the mind" - is the greatest barrier to peace. Watch and you will witness some of the limits of imagination that lock the peoples of this "bi-national country" in futile animosity.

I was certainly not the only one who had never learned that the Palestinian people are more interested in equality (fair treatment under law) than a separate state. Oddly, the idea has been around at least since 2003 (see this article from The Nation; and this article from The Guardian). Our host later inquired whether we, as non-Israelis, found the idea as "difficult" as she did, admitting that she knew her reaction was irrational and being aware that she is relatively "awake" compared with many (if not most) of her compatriots. Her self-reflection is evidence, I think, of a partial response to Sabri's searing inquiry: are we - the participants of this conference - here to make a difference or simply to ride an intriguing academic current? It seems we desire to make a difference, even if we are unsure exactly how.

As I walked slowly through Yad Vashem, taking in - yet again - the history of humanity's immense cooperation in the attempted annihilation of the Jewish people, I could not help but draw connections between the strategies of the past and similar strategies adapted for the present. The Shoah (Hebrew for holocaust) is unique in its massive coordination of industrial, civic, cultural, and institutional means for the purpose of mass murder. The build-up to Germany's expansionist military and comprehensive campaign of dehumanization is strikingly parallel to the build-up in the U.S. prior to the invasion of Iraq, and alarmingly similar to the rhetoric now laying the groundwork for bombing Iran.
Young conscripts for the Isreali Army also happened to be touring the museum at the same time. My spine chilled to witness this part of their indoctrination as much as my heart sank at the documentation of sheer brutality. We humans can yet do no better?

Remember only that I was innocent
and, just like you,
mortal on that day,
I, too, had had a face
marked by rage,
by pity and joy,
quite simpy, a human face!

~ Benjamin Fondane, Exodus (1944)

I was inspired by the Jewish Youth Organizations: Almanac of the Defiant Ones - Ha'-Ma'apilim (1944), Irgun Brit Zion, Akiva(h) Youth Movement, the Hahulutz Halohem - "The Fighting Jewish Pioneer Youth Organization, and Drov. Will it remain the burden of youth to save us from adult folly? The Righteous Among the Nations are also a source of optimism. Despite their relative small numbers, that they existed then allows the possibility that more of this breed of human being could exist today. Bulgaria (did you know?) saved most of the their Jewish community, as did Denmark, the LeChambon-sur-LIgnon region of France, Italy saved 80% of their Jewish community, and an organization in Poland, Zegota, also saved Jews.
The Nuremberg Trials, which I've studied somewhat for their use of live interpretation, decreed three particular and distinctive types of crimes:

1) crimes against humanity
2) war crimes
3) crimes against peace.





Despite all the musuems, remembrances, memorials, and daily current events, few of us seem willing to do the work necessary to make peace. Are we all so satisfied with "the breaks between pain.....[that somewhat resemble] happiness"? (Imre Keresz, Fateless).

The ten-year-old hawker in the Old City may or may not have known what he implied.

Such an intriguing place, so many obviously different types of people, mingling altogether, all over, with a few clearly marked locations for "members only." We were both denied entrance to Al-Aqsa and the Temple Mount, and I was hustled away from the men's part of the Western Wall thinking that was odd - surely I've seen pictures of women at The Wall? Yes, there is a segregated section. I also inquired about a jacket. "Yes ma'am, but that's for men." "Does that mean you won't sell it to me?" I asked. "I want to sell it, yes," he replied, "but it is cut in a man's style." "He does not want any harm to come to you," my erstwhile traveling companion commented. This after we had remarked on the utter failure of my attempt to dress a bit more "girly" in order to attempt to blend in (at least as far as gender norms go) a bit moreso than usual. Too bad my women's slacks are lime green. No one else in all of Jerusalem was dressed as brightly as me! oops :-/ {sheepish foreigner grin} But but but!

We wandered for hours and took lots of pix before huddling into a bar during an afternoon rain for some reading: Three Cups of Tea, about the establishment of primary schools, particularly for girls, throughout northeastern Pakistan and later, Afghanistan. The Central Asia Institute grew from the extraordinary efforts of an American mountain climber and hundreds of Pakistanis who invested all their dreams in hope for their children's education.

The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats was read by Jon Krakauer as he introduced the man behind the Central Asia Institute, Greg Mortenson:

Mortenson was in Pakistan on 9/11. Three days later, Mortenson attended a school dedication in Kuardu, where a moderate Muslim religious leader, Syed Abbas, gave "an incredible speech" (257).

I request America to look into our hearts...and see that the great majority of us are not terrorists, but good and simple people. Our land is stricken with poverty because we are without education. But today, another candle of knowledge has been lit. In the name of Allah the Almighty, may it light our way out of the darkness we find ourselves in (257).

Mortenson stayed to see on-going projects through, returning many times and eventually expanding into Afghanistan.

We will see who - if any - of the students in my classes are ready to converse....I am trying to facilitate a dialogue without leading them too much by the nose. I know full well that it could be that the reality of their lives, like most of us, are dictated by what they have the time for instead of what they wish to do.

“we are all researching to fight for something”
~ redsoxfan218

Smith: Does Big Brother exist?

O'Brian: Of course he exists. The Party exists. Big Brother is the embodiment of the Party

Smith: Does he exist in the same way as I exist?

O'Brian: You do not exist

Smith: I think I exist

I am conscious of my own identity. I was born and I shall die. I have arms and legs I occupy a particular point in space. No other solid object can occupy the same point simultaneously In that sense, does Big Brother exist?

O'Brian: It is of no importance. He exists

Smith: Will Big Brother ever die?

O'Brian: Of course not. How could he die? Next question (11/12/84 7:19 PM)

This is my question; perhaps it is my quest. I was inspired at last year's first conference on Dialogue under Occupation by the incredible range of subjects and breadth of expertise. Presentations ranged through historical military occupations to the present-day, literal, metaphorical, and legal, across various communication technologies such as newspapers, propaganda films and weblogs. The attendees included peace activists, military personnel, and academics from many countries. We could have talked with each "better" last year, but we did - at least! - talk with each other enough to sustain the momentum for a second conference in a region where occupation is configured in every way one can imagine.

We are all occupied - by institutional discourses, political ideologies, spiritual passions - none of us is exempt from the talk and images of our time. Trying to hold such a conference in a setting rife with discourses that are in direct, deliberate, and overt competition with each other is an endeavor of great ambition (or huge insanity - time will establish the verdict).

How identities are established - how "you" come to understand yourself as (for instance) "American," or "Palestinian," or "Israeli" - is not much of a mystery anymore. Nationalistic identities are established by nationalistic discourses. Individuals (to the extent such subjective entities actually exist) absorb the attitude of nationalism from those who express patriotic sentiments. Individuals (you, me) give the attitude back - reinforcing and recreating it - to those with whom we interact, preparing our children to embrace a similar (if not the exact same) orientation-to-country to carry forth into the future.

We're born into streams of discourse that carry us along; we learn to swim in them, sometimes against the current but more often with the flow - because going upstream or crosscurrent takes much more effort. Occasionally we even float. :-) To get out of a stream, to travel across a completely foreign and disorienting landscape until we are immersed in another stream, is a challenge. We might want out, but the power of the moving water sucks us back....we might be spit out, sprayed up into space and a different place over a fallen tree or partially-submerged boulder...ouch! Whichever way it happens, moving between streams is gonna have moments that are wicked uncomfortable.

Trying to do things differently is hard.

So, here we are, ten days away from the opening of Dialogue under Occupation II in East Jerusalem. There have been changes to the conference program, cancellation of a pre-conference event, periodic messages from participants informing everyone that, after all, they cannot attend. There was a brief email flurry of consternation about citizenship and checkpoints some time back. And now, this: an inflammatory article masquerading as journalism. The author of the piece is described by the Director of Middle Eastern Programming for Link TV as "associated with neo-con groups like Campus Watch led by Daniel Pipes and David Horowitz" and "is considered a joke by most academics and journalists in the Bay Area."

I wish it was so easy.

I found myself uncomfortable in my skin to be accused of anti-Israel desire - just as uncomfortable, I might add, as I would be if accused of anti-Palestinian sentiments. I worried (not so much, but enough to acknowledge), that I do not know, as the conference organizer proffers, how to "protect yourselves if questioned about your destination and purpose for those colleagues having to cross checkpoints, for those entering from international locations, and for those who may suffer reprisals from co-workers."

The most insidious aspect of the skewed (skewing?) op-ed by Kaplan is the triggering of distrust. He writes from a deep part of the river, using an already-established discourse. Culling the program for workshop titles and descriptions that can be interpreted in the way that fits his view, he presents a lopsided view of the conference - what profile is "left behind" or "left out" with all the presenters and sessions he does not name? The damn thing is, and I have been hedging my way toward actually writing it because I do not want "it" to be true - is that Kaplan's assault makes me feel suspicious. Again, this is not a strong concern, but the doubt is present, the question has been evoked. "So, he is not writing about me, and I know what my intentions are, but maybe 'those other conference people' whom I do not know have other agendas?"

I choose to trust my colleagues who have made the commitment to attend this conference. I assume they did not make the decision lightly; I certainly did not. I want to emphasize that I am deciding to trust, I am setting my mind and will to resist the fears and insecurities which so readily turn us to various dis-courses.