The power of culture over the culture of power in Palestine

The 2009 Palestine Festival of Literature (Palfest) overcame Israeli attempts to shut it down when writers and artists from around the world came to perform for Palestinian audiences.

The artists were first hand witnesses to the inhuman treatment of Palestinians under Israeli occupation and were profoundly inspired by the dignity and courage of the people, who told them, "We don't have the luxury of despair." We have printed below extracts from some of the artists' blogs. Visit the Palfest website for more details, reports, pictures and video.

Deborah Moggach's festival diary

Police shut down first night

I'm still recovering from a tumultuous week in Palestine. Between 23 and 28 May, 16 writers from around the world took part in the Palestine Festival of Literature (Palfest). "It was started last year by Ahdaf Soueif as a way of bringing poets, journalists, publishers and novelists to the occupied territories to celebrate, in Edward Said's words, "the power of culture over the culture of power.

There's nothing else quite like it: due to the restrictions on movement, it is we, the visitors, who bring the mountain to Muhammad, travelling around in a bus visiting towns in the West Bank to do readings with Palestinian writers, stage music and poetry events, conduct workshops with students and visit refugee camps. This year's group included Michael Palin, Henning Mankell, Claire Messud, Jamal Mahjoub, Abdulrazak Gurnah and the dazzling poet/performer Suheir Hammad.

May 23: Jerusalem Ahdaf Soueif

I heard someone say quietly “They’ve come.”
“Who?” Looking around – and there they were; the men in the dark blue fatigues, with pack-type things strapped to their backs and machine-guns cradled in their arms. I had a moment of unbelief. Surely, even if they were coming to note everything we said and to make a show of strength they still wouldn’t come with their weapons at the ready like this? But then there were more of them, and more.
“They’re going to close us down.”
“No!”
“Yes. They have. They’ve closed us down. Look!”
Some people were already in the auditorium. The Theatre manager was telling them they had to leave. People – our audience, our writers – were surging backwards and forwards:
“Let’s go into the auditorium...”
“Let them carry us out each one...”
“If they get you inside the auditorium they’ll close the doors and beat the hell out of you...”
“Let’s go outside and start the event on the street..."
“What’s happening? What’s happening?"

May 24: Ramallah Suheir Hammad

in ramallah i get to see many friends who come out for the festival’s evening event. i ask them each, how has the year been, and the answers are the same, and in an order. first they respond, “alhumdilallah” or something like it, meaning “thank god/all good”. then they ask how i am.

then i ask again and the answer is something along the lines of “not bad”. ask again, and the truth comes, and the truth here, now, is beautiful and hard, like the land we walked.

there is a wall.
here is a land.
now is the time.
the people are here.
still

May 25: Jenin Henning Mankell

What culture means when we talk about the final fall of the ugly, racist system of apartheid, can never be exaggerated. And this will once be true even for the Palestinian people, today suffering under occupation, repression and – apartheid! True culture will always be part of the resistance here in Palestine.

What I saw in Jenin and the Freedom Theatre brings hope. What we must do is listen to the Palestinian stories and then we will understand that one day the oppression of the Palestinian people will go the same way as the wall through Berlin, and the apartheid system in South-Africa.

Nothing is too late. Everything is still possible!

Michael Palin at Freedom Theatre

May 26: Bethlehem Michael Palin

The quality of the participants – from Jeremy Harding to Henning Mankell and from Deborah Moggach to Claire Messud and Carmen Callil and all of those that have taken part has made me quite poignantly aware of what the occupation means to people and of their determination to speak up for the writers and musicians who feel that the occupation has taken their voice away.

It’s been an eye-opening experience for me, and I feel proud of my fellow writers and travellers who have shared it with me. And proud too, of the Palestinians we’ve met, who care so much and work so hard to keep Palestine alive.

May 27: al-Khalil/Hebron Carmen Callil

We arrived here knowing so little! After 5 days we´ve seen sights unimaginable, learned astonishing facts and indeed, seen evil in action.

Yesterday we were in Bethlehem, we saw the wall Israel has constructed to imprison and to spy upon the Palestinians of the occupied territory: Watchtowers stud hideous cement panels interlocked, stretching and winding for mile upon mile. Cameras, CCTVs watch every move in the towns, refugee camps and land the wall encircles.

Everywhere there are checkpoints and Israeli soldiers, many of them young women, young girls really, all of them draped in weapons, smoking in our faces as they grudgingly allow our bus of writers to proceed from A to B. Our slow progress through Palestine is nothing compared to that of the men, women and children of the occupied territory who wait for hours to cross the thousands – to me there seem to be millions – of checkpoints that close them in and cut them off from family, school, work, medical help.

The stories we hear from the Palestinians we meet pile horror upon horror. Everywhere we see Jewish Settlements crowding out the old Palestinian towns. They are everywhere. There are new settlements and the beginnings of hundreds more. Curfews, roads blocked, areas where only Israelis can go. Towns and villages closed off and hacked to pieces by road blocks, checkpoints and walls. Labels, tickets, permissions, queries, intermittent water, constant harassment and constant questioning. Where have I read all this before ?: in the 10 years I spent researching and writing about the persecution of the Jews of France and their transportation to the death camps during the Second World War.

So much is the same. But! So much is different – the Palestinians we meet are remarkable people, they laugh, they sing, they charm – cannot fail to charm – all of us. Everywhere we go we meet such courage, such determination, such will to survive. They cannot destroy us, we hear again and again, no matter how hard they try.

Outside Palestine, we in the west know so little. You have to come here to see the evil and brutality of the Israeli state. We could see it all on Television of course: but try to get a camera near these camps, these settlements, these guns! And our media are hounded with that word which sings of injustice: Balance.

Two things are clear to me. First, Israel has become a rogue state and the Jewish people I have known, loved, and whose history I have studied, are betrayed by, and in thrall to, this rogue state.

Secondly. What I have seen is the terrifying intimidation, imprisonment and humiliation of the people of Palestine. But the truth of it is that it is the people of Israel who live in chains and who have no hope while their government inflicts these evils.

We are always being told that there are two stories, two sides to the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. Indeed there are but there is only one injustice, and that is the state of the Palestinian people imprisoned and tormented, as they are today, by the state of Israel.

May 28: Jerusalem Claire Messud

The plan was to visit the Al Aqsa mosque. At first, things seemed to be fine, with our guide, Mahmoud, we passed halfway through the checkpoint... the guards at the checkpoint took a closer, and more sceptical, look at our group... They called us back past the barriers. They took our passports and scrutinized them. They radioed to superiors, they conferred, they frowned. And it became clear that they could not let us through. No way.

Some strange dementia is afoot in Israel. This is the only thing I can conclude. European diplomats suggest it is licensed by the extremism of the new government. This may be. But it is hard to square our experiences today with those of a democracy. Our group is diverse in many ways – ethnically, nationally, religiously, temperamentally, and so on – but we are all literary people, on a cultural mission and we are all lovers and promoters of peace. On this day, in that place, we were not artists, even, but pilgrims and tourists hoping to see one of the world’s most significant religious sites. All of us had come many thousands of miles in hope of this visit, and yet it was denied us.

Of how little significance is our thwarted visit next to what thousands of Palestinians endure every day?

They, too, wonder if it is their jewellery, or their conversation, or their hairdo, or their socks that might deny them access to one site or one city or another, and they’ll never know the answer. Adolescent soldiers decide their fates on a whim. It is, until you see it, or experience even a tiny fraction of it, very hard to understand what it is like; and it’s impossible, really, to understand why it is like this.

We did not see the mosque. But nor can thousands of Palestinians for whom it is the most holy of pilgrimages. Most often, like today, we won’t know the reason. But each arbitrary rebuff inflicts a wound, and each closing of a gate involves a small death, a spiritual loss on both sides. It is, surely, the opposite of what religions intend; and in this sense is as much a betrayal of faith as of humanity.

Deborah Moggach's festival diary

Our last visit was to Hebron, an ancient and beautiful town where Jewish settlers have moved into the centre, taking over the upper floors of the buildings above the bazaar, which over the past few years has been throttled by intimidation and lack of access. Outside the mosque only two Palestinian shops remain. In one, the old man burst into tears when talking to us. "I shall never leave," he said, while the settler centre opposite blared out Zionist songs, drowning out the call to prayer from the mosque. The only people who can walk freely are the settlers, who have four security guards to every person and who stroll around with large dogs. When we returned to East Jerusalem for our final event we found the theatre closed again.

See also:

• Humanitarian disaster in the West Bank worsens
• Suheir Hammad: Palestinian-American poet, author, activist