Saturday, August 30, 2008

Middle East News Digest

In the Middle East, there is a lot of talk of peace and war. War is always a possibility, peacemaking is laboriously frustrating. Living in Israel, I live in a semi-state of denial, knowing that catastrophe is always both a minute and an eternity from the present. There is simply no knowing what will be the breaking point or the turning point and for the media, every day is a heyday to rile up the public around one glaring issue or another -- Iran's nuclear tests, Bedouin youth convicted of Al-Qaeda connections, Israeli soldier shoots rubber bullets at blind-folded Palestinian at close range, for example.

Acts of aggression that could lead to escalation in the conflict are public information, always. Acts of reconciliation, however, are hard to find and take up little space in newspapers and mainstream websites, if reported on at all.

The irony in the whole situation is that while the newspapers are plastered with foreboding news of destruction, corruption, deficit and injustice, making it seem as though that is all that goes on around here, I have absolutely no personal encounter with any of these things.

If I were to write my own weekly digest, the headlines would include: "Attended Peace Cafe to Brainstorm Online Facilitated Dialogue Opportunities Between Israelis, Palestinians and Internationals." Another one would read: "Participated in Women Only Yoga Class at the Sulha Peace Gathering."

The content of this digest would be filled with pleasant interactions and exciting connections between myself and other people who are hoping for a better future for the people of Israel and Palestine.

I would include another section, a weekly column: The Office in East Jerusalem. This week's title would read, "Date Juice and Damascus Shawarma, Hummus Next Week."

The inches of this publication's columns would be replete with reports on the myriad peace organizations each vying for dates on calendars to promote demonstrations, lectures, commemorations, movie screenings, how to apply for a visa from the West Bank successfully, and various other opportunities for recognizing the innumerable ways in which alleged enemies already do coexist, and the efforts to draw more and more people into that reality.

Some of the serious issues that I would report include the language barrier, getting Israelis to learn more Arabic and English, and more Palestinians and Arabs to learn more Hebrew or English. Additionally, I would include ongoing abuse at checkpoints, discrimination against Ethiopian Jews in Israeli schools, Holocaust survivors starving and struggling in their old age because the government has broken its promise time and again to provide a stipend to these people. However, at the end of these dismal reports, I would list the MANY organizations advocating for these marginalized groups and individuals, listing how it is that you can help in the efforts to improve the situation. And just for encouragement, I would include a list of goals achieved by each of these organizations.

The thing that I'm getting at is how media, popular, mainstream media really works to make the population hopeless and paralyzed. And if I can't speak for the population, then I can at least speak for myself.

For the past three weeks, I have been receiving the International Herald Tribune and Haaretz (in English) at my doorstep each morning. For the ten minutes I walk to the bus, I read the paper -- trying not to step on steaming piles of dog shit or bump into the elderly couple I pass by each morning, or the street sweeper who has also become familiar. While waiting for my Cafe Aroma, I sit down, in hopes that the sweat will stop rolling of my back and behind my legs and read the paper, I continue this while on the 15 minute bus ride en route to Tel Aviv University. I arrive at Hebrew class, tuck the paper away into my bag, and try to pull myself out of the rage, sadness, disbelief and fear that I voluntary expose myself to during the hour or so morning commute. True, after that hour every morning I am a more informed citizen both internationally and domestically, but I am also a more apathetic citizen who can only shrug her shoulders and make snide remarks about the end of the world and its impending arrival.

Thankfully however, I counterbalance this reading business with a little bit of activism. I practice yoga under the guidance of my newest teacher, the wise and real Ernessa. I learn a little bit of Kabbalah (yes the Madonna kind) and I attend these peace gatherings. At the end of the day, the end of the week, I realize that there is a bigger picture of the world that is painted as catastrophic, myopic, a ticking bomb with a detonator held in the hands of many -- speculators, dictators, typhoons and hurricanes, to name but a few.

But I am beginning to ask myself how I can let that dictated reality be so much stronger that the reality that I experience through touch, taste, smell, sight and hearing every day? How can I feel that the world is coming to an end when I somehow manage to find myself surrounded by people engaged in dialogue, arguing productively, creating art, music, dance and prayer, willing to share with me their personal life stories and struggles, to listen to those of my own? The last thing I would want to do is dishonor or undermine the significance and the progress and the unending dedication to these causes that people self and soulfully give to each other and their efforts. Yet I do that day after day after day.

As a planet full of people, our actions and their repercussions generate so much power, so much energy. We are pulled into our dramas, our successes, our failures, our hopes, our disappointments. Atoms and electricity flying every which way. We create such a hum, buzz and bang with nearly every move we make, each of which emit different qualities and flavors -- creating, destroying, sustaining, to broadly categorize (thank you to Shiva, Brahma and Vishnu for the vocabulary to explain this thought). And then, we have a choice about what to do with these outcomes, these facts on the ground. Sometimes I choose apathy and I feel like I am waiting out the end. Sometimes I choose joy and I radiate light to my friends and loved ones, instilling hope and rejuvenation in my surroundings. Sometimes my vision narrows and I find myself contributing more to the darkness that seems to always loom over the future.

In this moment of clear seeing, I am relieved to recognize these tendencies, to see them for what they are. Unfortunately, I cannot ignore the injustices, the murders, the hatred, the bigotry, the racism, the hunger, the suffering, and I find that these aspects of existence cast a very tall, long and wide shadow over the predominantly beautiful, effortless world that I inhabit day-to-day. But if I cannot make space for recognizing the good as well as the bad and the ugly, then I find that I am not much use to anyone at all. And that would be one of the greatest tragedies ever to befall humankind. I am not exaggerating my own importance, as it is equally shared by every other being on the planet.

As Nelson Mandela shared in his 1994 inaugural speech, words written by author Marianne Williamson, "...as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

I would like to be liberated from my own fears that the world cannot change, that people cannot recognize their power to light up the darkness in the world. At least for now, and if only for this second and a few after that, my eyes are open to those who know their power and use it for the purpose of bringing light.