Down and Out in Bil’in and Nazareth (Homage to George Orwell)
A commune straight out of my hippie heartland surrounded by settlements
and lights where there were never lights for the 100 years of living there
in caves and tents without lights but with family and land.
Daher Nassar grew up in the cave in the darkness with God and singing hymns
and today “…we have internet in the caves!” and visitors from around the world,
defending the land with the dogs barking and trees racing bulldozers for the last word.
Tent of Nations, outside Bethlehem.
A notebook left behind creates a need for international diplomacy,
accidentally abandoned by an unsuspecting delegate on the “wrong side”
of the wall.
The rendezvous between renegade guides and drivers in a comic, tragic,
and bizarre cycle of checkpoints, interrogations, and shifting ground is still unfulfilled
with rumors of plainclothes Ministry of Tourism officers lurking.
Nazareth, Zone A, West Bank.
From Bil’in to Los Angeles and back, the most famous documentarian
farmers/resisters
celebrate their childrens’ birthdays with us, a pack of starstruck strangers
kicking spent teargas canisters [Made in Pennsylvania] down the dirt road
while teenage helmeted heads poke out over the wall to watch and warn.
When Emad came to attend the Oscars, at which he was nominated, he had to
call in Michael Moore for backup, lest security at LAX believe a Palestinian
could be nominated for such a prestigious prize. Bil’in village [5 Broken Cameras].
Here there are many laws and little order as the laws change depending upon
who you are, where you are, and what day of the week it is. According to the initiated, it
becomes less baffling as time goes on, which is the most baffling aspect of all.
The “greenest” country on earth, measured in terms of trees planted, is planting forests in order to lay claim to land and displace undesirables.
Forests sponsored by friendly countries without the whole story, and by the
ideological interests driving expansion of the State. Visit God TV Forest,
coming soon to the Promised Land.
Pay for the 51st demolition of your family home rebuilt.
Seek refuge and find a jail cell waiting past the border instead.
Create safety through ethnic cleansing.
Be Jewish during the census, and back to non-white Other when the hard labor needs to be done.
In the land of contradictions, the truth is stranger than rumor or fiction, and far more complicated to experience and grasp.
“War is Peace, Ignorance is Strength, Freedom is Slavery” –1984, George Orwell
Sheila
Ahh yes, internet in the caves…. i remember something similar in Jordan Valley as well. Yes, the truth is more and more absurd there….. the laws are at the whim of whoever is in charge… the wildwest, it is called there. hoping the notebook is found and the intl. diplomacy works.
hugs,
sheila