http://proliferations.tankgreen.com all the stars are dead, but still they shine on... Thu, 20 Nov 2008 14:49:44 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en In my last year at university I wrote two 5,000 word essays and two 10,000 word essays and then there was all the work associated with my Persian/Farsi language class. One of those 5,000 word essays was on Sufi poetry and the other was a study of a Syrian mystic and an analytical comparison of her power and the gendering of the Levant; both of those essays are now used as teaching material for that class. Of the 10,000 word essays, one was a critique of the idea of universality and the other was called 'The Myth of Secularism'; the latter has been recommended for publication. For all essays I got either a First or a Distinction [1], and with them, I managed to move a large chip from my shoulder. I am mentioning that because it makes me feel better, because I am sat in my house and I am cold as shit because I can't afford to put the heating on. My toes are numb and my hands are only kept warm by holding endless cups of Earl Grey; I have so much inside of me that won't go away. I'm writing a book, you know? It stems from, and builds upon, a part of my 'Myth of Secularism' essay, and it is, *gasp*, a critique of free speech. I am not going to say much more about it at this stage because the idea is mine and it is original and I want to keep it that way. So I'm writing, but first, before I can even get that far, I am reading, reading, reading so much stuff and I am so much in love with this book [2] right now. I never knew how much I would have in common with Mill [3], but there you have it - maybe it's a Taurean thing? ;) I was looking into funding opportunities but nearly all of them are for organisations, not individuals. I looked at the Arts Council [4], but apparently they rarely fund unpublished writers and I can't even begin to figure out how to fill in their budget section, so I am back to wondering how on earth to survive. I just need my overheads paid for as I write this book, nothing more; if only patrons of the arts still existed! (Or maybe I mean if only I knew a patron of the arts, or maybe just a patron of Tank Green.) The fact is that I don't want to work at the things I used to do any more: I don't want to go back to business management, office management, PA work or bookkeeping. I've burnt myself out on the countless application forms I've filled out and the millions of CVs I've sent in the last few months - all of which have fallen on deaf ears. And, you know what, maybe I am glad of that because I am really being forced to think about other things to do. Although, it has to be said, most of those revolve around Plan B which is now developing nicely into moving to Biarritz [5] and opening a multi-lingual bookshop. Oh dreamy days! And, of course, my other emerging reluctance about finding another shitty office job is because, if I don't get funding again for my Masters at LSE [6], I'm out of here. It just seems so pointless to be expending so much energy working towards something I won't enjoy, don't like, don't care about and will have to leave in a few months if things don't go according to plan (A). *Sigh*, I really just don't ever remember things being so difficult for me before, and so I am taking solace in my brainiacness because if I don't, maybe I'll start hating it and hiding it again. I was thinking about dumbing down and hiding everything in order to find work as the job advisor told me, but I just don't want to. In fact, I am going to keep revealing more of me because I am starting to find more and more people who get it, even if none of those are in the position to employ me. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_undergraduate_degree_classification#First-class_honours [2] http://www.penguin.co.uk/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780141441474,00.html?/On_Liberty_and_the_Subjection_of_Women_John_Stuart_Mill# [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill [4] http://www.artscouncil.org.uk [5] http://www.biarritz.fr/en/Website/site/en_accueil.php [6] http://www.lse.ac.uk/resources/graduateProspectus2009/taughtProgrammes/MScRaceEthnicityAndPostColonialStudies.htm http://proliferations.tankgreen.com/2008/1200/consolation/ In keeping with the busted broke theme, I went to the Job Centre today to try to sign on (transatlantic translation: get welfare). It turns out that I can't sign on because of this interviewer job, but the problem is, of course, that the interviewer job doesn't pay me enough to live off. Ultimately I would be better off if I just quit that job and signed on so I could get some weekly money and my rent and council tax paid; the advisor suggested I do just that if things don't look up in a month. In my desperation I asked him for advice and suggestions about why I can't find work. I told him that I hold a first class undergraduate degree from a top ten university and that I have an unconditional offer from one of the most prestigious universities in the UK to do a Masters, and that I have never had a problem getting a job before. And I really mean never; I've always had too many offers rather than too few. He asked what my degree was in and confirmed my suspicions that it is the BA that is the problem. When I said the study of religions, he immediately assumed that meant theology and that I had trained to be a priest or something, when the reality is that the degree has nothing to do with that at all. It would be more appropriate to call my degree a history degree if theology is the only way religion is to be understood. To be honest I had a suspicion that the degree subject was the problem: in my personal life I have had such an overwhelmingly negative reaction to my subject of choice, and when I tell people who would consider themselves atheists or 'secular' about it, I am generally verbally attacked. People make all kinds of assumptions about what it must mean about me as a person to have studied this subject, and - this is key - what I must believe about the world, when the reality of the fact is that they don't even understand the basic fundamentals of the topic. Religion, like politics, is one of those things on which everyone has an opinion; certainly everyone at least thinks they know what it is. The problem is that the way most people understand religion (beliefs and faiths) only relates to (Protestant) Christianity and to even begin talking to someone who hasn't studied it, you have to take away half of their vocabulary and redefine the world for them. Most everyone is reluctant to think that their basic understanding of the world is wrong and so nowadays I tend to not talk to people about religion at all. So I suspected that my degree choice was the problem because if nearly everyone I meet randomly in my personal life are negative about it, then why wouldn't the random people who are reading my CV (resume) be the same way? Additionally, a friend who graduated a year before me also could not find work until she moved back to the States. Compounding that, according to my Job Advisor, the second problem is that I got a First. He said that employers would prefer someone with a 2:2 in whateverthefuck because they see them as having less options (than someone like me) and so think they can employ them for cheaper and get them to stay longer. Urgh. Talk about a catch-22. I find this all so completely ironic because my motivations for doing this degree were to understand the world around us better. I think the degree is so important in a globalised world where we interact with people who think differently and have different concerns and ways of ordering themselves and their lives. I did it because I wanted to understand people and because I wanted to foster dialogue because there is so much misunderstanding in the world, and so much of that is because people think they understand religion (and the lack of it) when they don't. I honestly think this is one of the most useful degrees going and I don't regret my choice for a second; ultimately, I think peoples negative reactions toward the subject really just underscores the importance of more people studying it. So yeah, I think this a really important degree, but god, I sure do wish it wasn't such a hindrance to me making rent this month... :/ So, can you believe that the job centre mannie told me to delete the degree from my CV? He told me it would be better to have a unexplained 3 year gap than to have a First in the Study of Religions. He also told me not to put on the LSE offer either, because employers just don't want someone smart. Failing that, he told me to say that the degree was in something different (something I could at least fudge knowledge about) and to lower the grade or omit it. :( To be honest I had already thought about doing that, so nothing he said came as a surprise, it was just really, really, really disappointing to hear. I had hoped I was just being cynical and pessimistic, but the reality is that London is as closed minded and judgemental as I'd thought. http://proliferations.tankgreen.com/2008/1175/the-kiss-of-death-that-is-a-degree-in-the-study-of-religion/ The police have finally declared me free of the criminal lurgy and so I have been able to start a job which, whilst not paying enough to make ends meet, is, at least, a start. I am a face-to-face interviewer for a social research agency which essentially means I cycle and walk around London a lot and call at people's address' and try to get them to take part in social research. If they say yes, I do the interview and get paid, if they don't, I get travel time and mileage for my bike. In many ways, it's a really nice job: I get to be outside all the time, I get to ride my bike places, I don't have a boss looking over my shoulder, I get to discover parts of London I didn't know, and most importantly, I get to meet all kinds of people. The day after the American election I interviewed an 80 year old white lady who'd lived in London for 60 years. She was so refreshing as she loved London: loved her house, loved her neighbours and just loved everything about being in London all these years. She said she had stayed up until 4am that morning waiting for the results of the American election and was so happy that Obama had won. She gave me a little piece of happy. :) The irony to this job is that the project they have me working on in November is for a study which I used to rip to shreds when I was at SOAS. I find most everything about it either embarrassing or inappropriate and ignorant, but here I am being paid to collect the data. A lot of it stems from how to get people more involved in their local area and to find out whether or not people from different ethnic/religious/cultural backgrounds are 'mixing' and if not, why not, and what can be done to improve the levels of 'mixing'. Much of my uncomfortability about it stems from the fact that it is so patently clear that whoever is writing these questionnaires has borderline no knowledge of the areas they are trying to get information on. All the questions about 'religion' are cringeworthy and make absolutely no sense to anyone other than those from an atheist, agnostic, 'secular' or (Protestant) Christian background (which, by the way, is all the same thing). The separation out of ethnicity, culture and religion from other aspects of life is something peculiar to the Christo-secular mindset and so since one of the very obvious reasons for this study is to try to figure out how to get Muslims to 'integrate' better, it's failing at the get-go since it is asking the wrong questions and making assumptions that just don't apply. The most problematic question I have to ask is about whether or not the person thinks it is possible to maintain a separate religious and cultural identity and still be a part of Britain. Oh my god, there is absolutely nothing that I do not hate about that question, and I am so embarrassed that I have to ask it. To start with, you have on the one hand the discourse that Britain is a place of religious freedom and that Muslims are a part of Britain, and on the other hand, the very premise of this question is that they are not. If their cultural and religious identity is separate from Britain, then it is not British - so which is it? Do Muslims belong or do they not? As far as I am concerned if you are born here and/or naturalised, you're British. In the same way that there are regional variations (apparently Northerners are friendly and welcoming? I may move!) there are other variations too: Britishness is what you make of it, it's a free-for-all and you can choose. Britain has never been culturally homogeneous (hello Scotland, Wales, England and the Cornish), but if it doesn't like all these brown people adding more variations on the British theme, then they should have taken a stand against immigration a long time ago. But that never would have done since it's too openly racist for Britain, Britain prefers the behind-closed-doors variety, the whispers and the looks. Britian had an empire! Everybody knows this, but so many seem to conveniently forget what that means in terms of the internal ramifications of it. Britain is rich because of empire and Britain has jobs because of empire, but most importantly, Britain lost its moral high-ground about who and what belongs because of it. 'We are here because you were there' is one of the most profoundly succinct things I have read on the matter, and if Britain let those it colonised inside its own little borders, then Britain has to accept that, at that very moment, it radically expanded the variations within the theme of Britishness. I'm going to wind this up, since I could go on for a very long time about inherent contradictions and problems in discourse about religion, culture and ethnicity in Britain today. Fundamentally I think that if you want to 'integrate' people better, don't start by assuming that they are separate. Start by recognising that you are ignorant of your neighbour and that you need to learn more about them and the ways in which contemporary society has changed and expanded and increased. http://proliferations.tankgreen.com/2008/1164/a-little-bit-of-british-ranting/ So... I'm back! It was inevitable, I suppose, since I am incapable of shutting up; however, this time I am going to use this place to be a little more constructive than the previous maniacal blatherings. But first, a status update. I graduated last June with a BA in the Study of Religions from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS [1]). Finally, after all these years, I managed to complete something I meant to complete and so here I am, a proud graduate, and not only a graduate, but the holder of a First class award [2]. I am now officially a Brainiac. I also managed an even bigger Brainiac achievement and was offered an unconditional place at the London School of Economics (LSE [3]) to do a Masters in Race, Ethnicity and Postcolonial Studies under the much esteemed Prof. Paul Gilroy. Despite being over-the-moon about getting accepted, I have not, alas, been able to start because I am also Brokey McPoverty [4] (best.name.ever) and I can't afford the tuition fees. Of course, getting a First and being academically great has actually meant fuck all for my 'career'. I don't have a career and in fact, have been completely incapable of finding a job since I graduated. I suppose the situation would be laughably ironic if I weren't living in one of the most expensive cities in the world. I am completely and utterly busted broke. I deferred my place and I am applying for funding again and with any luck (although I've had none since February) I will get it and I can start the Masters next September. However, in the interim I've been thinking really heavily about what I want to do income-generating wise, and I've realised that there still isn't a job/career out there that I want. Every job that I am qualified to do now is crap and even when I pretend I am my super Ph.D. qualified Dr. Tank, I still haven't seen a single hypothetically interesting job advertised. On top of that, people fucking annoy me and the thin veneer of tolerance I once had for idiots is chipped and battered and borderline worn off. I need help. So I am setting my brain into creative over-drive and trying to think up things that I can do; I am looking at myself as objectively as is possible and trying to grasp which of my talents might be turned into a career. I mean, my primary talent is for getting wound up by complete fucking idiots and also for being taken advantage of by vampiric soul suckers, but I'm thinking more along the lines of what could make me money, not what makes me sick. Suggestions welcome, also paid work offers - preferably freelance and from home ;) - would be highly appreciated. In the meantime, I will probably start writing about how you all should stop harping on about religion because you don't know what the bloody hell you are talking about. Stay tuned folks - you all need to shut up and listen! [1] http://www.soas.ac.uk [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_undergraduate_degree_classification#First-class_honours [3] http://www.lse.ac.uk [4] http://brokeymcpoverty.wordpress.com http://proliferations.tankgreen.com/2008/1130/a-status-update/ is this thing still on..? http://proliferations.tankgreen.com/2008/1125/taps-mic/ i got another new blog: road rage tank green style [1]. [1] http://bike.tankgreen.com/ http://proliferations.tankgreen.com/2008/862/bike-blog/ please check out my new project - how i read the news [1]. i think i'm done with this journal, but while school's out, i'm making purdy pictures once a week. [1] http://www.tankgreen.com/collage/ http://proliferations.tankgreen.com/2007/860/how-i-read-the-news/ It's come to my attention that there are a few of you crazy bastids still checking this website from time to time, so I wanted to wish you a happy new year, and say, "why, you crazy buggers, why???" ;) Maybe a brief explanation of my silence? To quote Tina, whom I saw recently at The Roots [1] show in Shepherds Bush, "London sure is bland." It sucks all life out of you, or rather, it sucks the part of me that can be bothered to comment on it. There's just nothing worth saying anymore, nothing that can't be said by someone else and better. As I said before [2], there is nothing of the marvellous in this town... And I think too, seeing how completely fucked the Palestinians are silenced me a bit. What's worth saying when you've seen lives like that? (Which reminds me to say that I'm finding Banksy [3] more and more amusing [4] as time goes on.) Go read what the Bethlehem Bloggers [5] have to say, or shit, go read about Iraq [6], but me, I've got nothing much to say really, except that I'm just keepin' on, keepin' on... And life's great, don't ya know? I have a nice home with nice neighbours, a job I like in a bicycle shop, a sweet, sweet, deranged loon of a boy and I'm still enjoying school, although it turns out that I am absolutely shite at Persian / Farsi. I'm planning escape routes by the dozen and have moved on from a PhD in Berkeley because I don't think I want to go back to the US anymore. I'm now pretending I am doing an MA in Medieval Studies and I'm focusing on Islamic Spain and then I am moving to Andalucia and getting a job as a tour guide at the Alhambra [7] Palace [8]. Or something. Maybe then I'll start talking again. I guess I feel kinda pessimistic about the world. I think it was, for a million reasons, a really bad idea to kill Saddam Hussein and I am afraid of the repercussions. ETA [9] have started up again and what's going on in Thailand [10]..? Yeah, I feel kinda pessimistic about the world, but optimistic for my life, because even in the darkness, I'm generally lucky. (I'm also generally cold, but that's an entirely different matter.) My boy bought me yellow tires [11] for my yellow bike [12], and I like it when he rides behind me and pushes me up hills at night when we've had a bit to drink - it makes me go "weeeee!" and laugh a lot. Nimbus [13] didn't have cancer after all, Steph sent me a dope t-shirt [14], I'm utterly fucked financially, I spent Boxing Day in hospital (much better now though), and the boy was so nice to me that the nurses gave him tea and mince pies for his kindness. I also just re-read Suskind's Perfume [15] in anticipation for seeing the movie [16] and my, is that a good book. And just because I read this article [17] today: the niqab is a statement of separation - that is its point, one of movable seclusion. Another point is, so what? We don't have to join in, play the game, intermingle. And actually, another point of the many sided star that is our stupid world, is that we don't intermingle, regardless of dress, even when we pretend we do. You're just miffed that she rejects you and your stupid world, rejects the way you stream "freedom", rejects your beady eye on her bare skin. Well check it, the flipside to "freedom" is not homogeneity, it is a whole bunch of things that scare you, threaten you and make you feel insecure. That's the terrible, terrifying, beautiful truth to letting us be ourselves. We're all ugly in our own little ways, we all stink that courier stank, we all offend one another to a greater and lesser degree. Get with it, get over it, and let her wear her stupid veil if she thinks it's really that necessary - you can fix your gaze on one of the myriad young ladies that are screaming for the "pleasure" outside your front door... And there she blows. And that's me, that's all, that's everything I guess. Happy new year children, happy days ladies and gents. I wish you all the best of everything and may the world smell to you like the boy does to Naima [18], which, for the record, is like some overly fragrant, intensely potent, XXX version of catnip. Kisses. (PS: Yes, I do know half this site is broken, including the fauxtoe section. No, I don't intend to fix it, sorry.) (PPS: I got a new project - how i read the news [19]...) [1] http://www.theroots.com [2] http://proliferations.tankgreen.com/2005/809/blogging-britain-a-lack-of-the-marvelousness-and-extra-happiness/ [3] http://www.banksy.co.uk [4] http://www.banksy.co.uk/images/bethlehembgrd.jpg [5] http://bethlehemghetto.blogspot.com [6] http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com [7] http://www.alhambra.org/eng/ [8] http://www.alhambradegranada.org/default_en.asp [9] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6219431.stm [10] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6221177.stm [11] http://www.conti-tyres.co.uk/conticycle/ti%20grand%20prix%204000.shtml [12] http://fauxtoes.tankgreen.com/gfx/conquest_bike.jpg [13] http://fauxtoes.tankgreen.com/data/media/8/nimbusbelly.jpg [14] http://www.seriesoffallopiantubes.com [15] http://www.amazon.co.uk/Perfume-Story-Murderer-International-Writers/dp/0140120831 [16] http://www.perfumemovie.com [17] http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,24390-2404281,00.html [18] http://fauxtoes.tankgreen.com/data/media/7/maskednaima.jpg [19] http://www.tankgreen.com/collage/ http://proliferations.tankgreen.com/2006/859/adieu-006/ And so, the time has come to close out my feelings about my Israel / Palestine trip. I thought six entries for the six people in my travelling group was an appropriate place to stop, and to try to lighten the load I shall fill this with random memories of why, no matter how difficult and intense the trip was, I still wouldn't change it for the world. I learnt a lot, just not what I expected. This is an entry for the fun and the laughter that we held onto, no matter what. Up until we went to the Dead Sea, I was convinced I would never step foot in that country again, but that day was such a pleasurable mix of emotions that I felt my stubborn head be swayed. We started the day at Qumran and then walked for what felt like hours in the searing 40/45 degree heat to a resort. I learnt then that hijab makes a lot of sense, because those scarves, coupled with a bottle of water, meant the walk was actually pleasurable. The air is thick there (it's the lowest point on earth after all) and there is no humidity, so your only real foe is the potential for burning if your skin is not fully covered. Frankly, the woman that ran the resort that we got access to the Dead Sea via, was an inhuman monster. On the upside she served great Moroccan food. On the pinnacle of that upside - floating in the Dead Sea has to be one of the funnest of fun things I have ever done! There was so much joy in that day that I don't know where to start for fear of recounting every little detail and boring you. But let me say that having mud fights and covering yourself head to toe in that glorious brown goop, baking yourself dry in the searing heat, and then floating as you wash the mud off you is more fun than I could ever convey. Also, something that will forever make me smile, is the juxtaposition of me in my bikini and ink, and H & L in full hijab. All of us laughing and mud bathing and floating together. It can work, you know? Night had fallen by the time we had walked to the bus stop and I sat by myself on the kerb, enjoying the stillness and warmth of the night after such a wonderful day. Occasionally cars and trucks would speed by and somehow they fit into the haunting, soothing, melancholy that was the night. Suddenly I saw something white, almost glo-in-the-dark, scuttling around insect-like on the road and got as close as I dared before calling J over to investigate with me. It turns out it was a scorpion which elicited much screaming and giggling and the leaping of most of the party onto the plastic seats of the bus stop. A little while later H's arm, complete with extended forefinger, suddenly appeared over my shoulder, "iiiiiiiiiit's baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!" she intoned, as if she were the voice for some horror movie. And this time I leapt a mile into the air and screamed like the little baby I am. Another high was our evening in Tel Aviv. We walked from the bus station into Jaffa, and strangely, on that small walk, Tel Aviv reminded me of seedy, down-town LA - just a safe version of it. There are too many guns in Israel for you to be afraid, if that makes any sense. We ate at a restaurant in Jaffa overlooking the sea, and walked back along the beach into Tel Aviv. The inky, black, night-time Mediterranean was still so warm and the breeze so embracing that I felt to throw myself into it. There it made sense, if only for a moment, it made sense. Then we looked up and on the other side of the promenade was Mike's Place, the bar the British suicide bomber targeted a couple of years ago, and suddenly the world stopped making sense again. Several times in the new city of Jerusalem we saw a fantastically mad woman shouting that she was the King of Kings and that Israel was a whore who would be saved by a woman. She had on white flowing robes and a staff which she rapped on the floor for emphasis. Clearly she was suffering from Jerusalem Syndrome and for some reason, my desire to follow her around for shits and giggles resulted in J and L deciding that I was The Light. Well, that and the strange things that kept happening to my camera when I would try to take pictures of Jesus stuff. It started with a spinning light, in the shape of a halo, above the mausoleum inside the Church of the Sepulchre that marks the site Jesus is supposed to have been crucified. At first I thought I was going crazy, so I asked L if she could see it, to which she responded that I was being called by God. I rolled my eyes and noticed instead how satanic sounding Greek Orthodox services are. Later, when we were in Bethlehem, L decided to anoint me from the holy water in the Church of the Nativity. She then promptly anointed herself and declared herself my first follower. I tried to punch her as we ran out into Manger Square laughing. And so what is it, this trip that seemed so long and made everything seem so different when I got back home? This trip that I still can't call good, but only intense. What is that time that seems so long ago now? What is that place where peaceful rooftops are irreconcilable with the human life in the streets below? What is that country that I barely know but felt so deeply when I was there? I can't answer any of my own questions, but one thing I can say is that the alley cats were friendly, even if no humans were, and a Crazy Cat Lady is glad for that. http://proliferations.tankgreen.com/2006/858/six-entries-for-six-people-israel-part-6/ I recently came across a book I had to have. (I'm always coming across a book I "had to have." I recently quit a job at a bookshop for a few reasons, but a factor was that I didn't make any money: all my wages went back to him because of books I "had to have.") It is called "The Palestinians" and is a beautiful cloth bound book from the late 70's with words by Jonathan Dimbleby and photographs by Donald McCullin. In the introduction, Dimbleby talks of how in simply formulating things as "the Palestinian problem" we reflect our own bias and prejudice about the conflict. And so, whilst I also believe that we see what we want to (which is why the world exists in multiples) I truly think there is an Israel problem which manifests itself quite peculiarly in a nations inability to view anyone as human, each other included. There is such an overwhelmingly obvious self-fulfilling prophesy going on: you hate us, and we hate you for hating us, so we will abuse you before you can do so to us. This seeps over into the way they deal with each other since I am aware that a lot of the bad treatment we received wasn't actually personal, it's just the way they are. Yet imagine you have forced someone to watch whilst you hack up their children into small pieces, fry them in butter and then pop them in a bagel with some cream cheese for a swift lunch time munch. Imagine too that when you are bought to trial you are acquitted and allowed to walk free because fate is just like that sometimes. Imagine then that instead of leaving the area, you stay in town and perform the same crime, with the same outcome, again and again and again until you have eaten 85% of everyone's children. And to add insult to injury, imagine that you manage to get a restraining order on the whole town, so they can stare in hatred, but they cannot touch. I say this because I am certain this person must exist and that I must look the double of them, since this is exactly how people looked at me when I was en vacance. Mostly the feedback I have had to these missives has been really positive; people have thanked me and asserted their desire to go and see for themselves. That's all I want. But one response, from someone calling themselves a "real Zionist", was to agree that there was no Palestine, that there never was and never will be. They also said that all "Nazi Arab Scum" should die. That's a paraphrase of course, because it was a comment on an IMC site where these words have been posted, and from which I navigated away immediately, flinching, and when I went back a few hours later, the comment had been deleted. But it did remind me of the graffiti near the Jaffa Gate, on the way into the new city of Jerusalem: "Death to Arabs" scrawled over and over. And it did prompt me to write this entry. Until then I had been unsure if I wanted to say what I say here, if it needed to be said, but they ensured that it did. So from that graffiti memory I am reminded of the guy that called us terrorists. And from there, I remember us walking home, laughing and happy after a nice meal, and a man started shouting at us in Hebrew, finally resorting to English with the proclamation that we would be dead by morning. Then I remember the guy that spat at us as we sat eating our falafel. The one that shouted and spat at me after I made the stupid mistake of saying thank you in Arabic and not Hebrew. (I was in the Christian Quarter and so hazarded a guess incorrectly.) The ones that spat at us as we simply walked by. And all the other people who never did anything with their mouths, except to silently twist them, and merely sent an overwhelming amount of hatred our way. There was so much hatred constantly levelled at us that when someone was merely rude, I was delighted. I can't imagine how difficult it is to constantly live with that much atmospheric oppression, but suddenly it makes perfect sense that the fantastically beautiful (Christian Palestinian) man who worked at the hostel, with the big, oceanic, blinking eyes and wide, wide smile, never left it. Yad Vashem [1] (the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem) is an amazing place and I would urge all to go. You zigzag from room to room through a long, thin building and at the end, with your heart full of all the pain that we inflicted, the building opens up into a terrace overlooking a great valley. Very literally the walls of the building open out like a funnel and you feel a huge release of emotion as you follow the lines of the building to allow it to channel out all of the awful sadness you picked up inside the museum. Afterwards, you feel so fragile from it all, you feel such a great surge of empathy for one of the greatest tragedies of modern history. But then you look up and notice that one of the soldiers over there has his hand on his gun, much like some men grab their penis for support, and he is looking at you like he wants you to die. Suddenly everything is gone. J said that Israelis don't want my sympathy. The Israeli mindset, according to J, is that they can live alone. That they can be completely independent, which is, of course, a false idea. No one can be entirely independent, and if an individual can not, how on earth can a nation? Especially not an industrialised one; for starters, where do they get their oil? But then too, they have the "invisible" support of the Americans which makes it easier to believe they can wall themselves in and stand alone. J says there has been a massive investment in the "New Jew", that they wanted to get away from the idea of Jews as being somehow weak. This over-identification with military thinking is something Yitzhak Laor articulates wonderfully [2] in a recent LRB. The problem is that if you don't invite someone to care about you, which is what treating everyone really badly means, you lose friends and make enemies. Or, at best, you lose friends and make people entirely indifferent to your cause. A part of me used to be troubled by my inability to be able to support the Israeli cause. An angry ex once screamed at me that I always champion the underdog, which whilst being a fair comment, is not the reason why I have always had Palestinian sympathies. The other night L cooked a thank you meal for J and we all gave her gifts and later, when just the three of us remained, we got into yet another discussion about it all. I suddenly realised why her justifications and reasoning were familiar - it's the rhetoric of colonialism with an extra helping of "Manifest Destiny" for the overly acrid taste. I realised I can't support Israel because Israel is the last overt remnant of colonialism. I either have to say I think it is okay to invade another people's land and establish a new country, or I have to say that it isn't. It isn't. And I don't care if there was not an actual land called Palestine nor people called Palestinians. What there was was a land, full of people, who had lived there for generations. That Native Americans didn't "own" the land in a European sense doesn't mean they didn't live there, didn't belong, didn't exist. That South Africa is a modern, European invention doesn't mean that it hasn't been occupied since the dawn of time, long before Europeans ever came across it. I don't care if the Palestinians were serfs exploited by rich overlords, the point is that they were there and they were living and they are bound by their own history to that land. It is theirs by way of actual lived experience, because those bleached white mountains contain the bones of their immediate ancestors and there is no thousand year gap between the dates on the graves. They have lived and died there for a very long time, and that is enough. (Although it shouldn't be necessary to say this, I feel obliged to emphasise that I am not arguing against the creation of a space for Jews; what I am arguing against is the way it was created, and the way it has behaved ever since.) A few months back I got into an enormous argument with an Islamic Fundamentalist that goes to my school. I will eternally thank her because she unintentionally helped me to draw the line where liberal, cultural relativism absolutely must stop. Some things are just wrong, regardless of how they are couched and justified with the "culture" argument. And so if I am to continue to condemn the persecution of religious minorities by Muslim states, how am I not to do that to Israel? And so if I think that Iranian Jews should be given equal rights in their country, how am I not to feel the same way for the religious minorities that exist in Israel and the lands it occupies? Either I find something to be true or I do not. An Israeli reader of my recent journey said it is naive to hope for one [3] state [4] in which Jews, Muslims, Christians, Druze and so on live together in equal status. That may be the case, but the creation of Israel was also naive. He said, "You can't just stick people together and hope for the best." But what was the creation of Israel if not that? I'll take a tenuous, naive hope over an oppressive nightmare, however real and more eternally likely the latter might be. And I know the Israelis don't want my pity, but let me tell you that you don't have to live in such an abyss of hatred. Remind yourselves that you concocted that reality, and in remembrance of that construction, try for a better one. It is possible. [1] http://www.yadvashem.org [2] http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n16/laor01_.html [3] http://www.lrb.co.uk/v25/n21/till01_.html [4] http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/766045.html http://proliferations.tankgreen.com/2006/857/the-israel-problem-israel-part-5/