Where's the Revolution? Report 4, June 2005.
I was standing
in the noon-time sun with what I discovered is a self-proclaimed revolutionary
fighter. He wants to liberate Palestine, perhaps one of the few people who thinks
he can, or that this is somehow still possible. Another man standing near us
made his way into the conversation and brought up the impotence of the United
Nations. If ithe UN not able to force Israel to relinquish land, how will an
armed revolution materialize in anything more? I asked the young revolutionary
what he thought. He stood silently. I thought perhaps he did not understand
my question, my accent, maybe he needed time to reflect. I asked again. No answer.
I asked specifically a third time what he thought of two particular UN resolutions.
Resolutions 242
and 338. I thought we (Palestinians) all knew them by heart. Are they not the
only covenant we have left? Somehow they dictate our rights in the international
community, even if they amount to numbered documents that no one enforces or
follows. Numbers and phrases that we hold on to dearly... 242, 1967, Six-Day
war: "Withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the
recent conflict..." An upheaval was made about the language, the leniency
of the terms, the openess of interpretation, the PLO rejected it... 338: "just
and durable peace"... the refugees' right of return... aren't all of these
part of some Palestinian mandate?! The young man stood silently. Instead I got
a lecture about weapons and security forces. I gave up, and decided to focus
my attention elsewhere.
The next day,
as I was sitting in an office waiting for an appointment, I heard some far away
gun shots. They grew more and more intense. Everyone in the office ran to the
window (we had a 7th floor view) and started pushing buttons on their cell phones.
Different rumors circulated. "The Israelis shot him." Why, where,
how, no one knew. "The security forces were shooting at each other again."
It turned out that the young man had shot himself while cleaning his machine
gun. I couldn't help but feel in a small way that perhaps it was a lesson he
may have deserved - not that anyone should die at the hands of stupidity...
There are two
major problems in Palestinian life today. One is external and has everything
to do with the political situation, the occupation, and everything that ensues
from that. The list is endless, and I shall leave it for another time. The other
is internal. Internal to society as a whole or internal to each individual -
I'm not sure, it's more difficult to draw such a boundary. One example of this
internal problem is the rise of these young men with guns with little awareness
of their history. Rebels without a cause, perhaps we could call them.
They all suffer
from a sense of extreme machoism. Standing on street corners or leaning out
of the Jeeps with their machine guns and military or police clothes. Of course
it doesn't help that there is more variety in security forces in the Territories
than anything else; if I tried to name them all I would not be able to. Suffice
it to say that there are many forces and a growing number of young men hired
within them. They stare the young women down with lecherous looks. Their ogles
towards men are not so different, perhaps less sexual, but nonetheless filled
with way too much testosterone to let them be with weapons.
They shoot at
each other. They shoot themselves. The majority of them have no education beyond
highschool. Many of them used to be "shabab" type fighters in one
of the Intifadas. Practically all of them have spent time in jail. There's rumors
that some of them are making a habit of groping young women in the evening;
or harassing their boyfriends. How are you going to argue with a man with a
gun afterall? The Israelis figured that one out: give a teenage Israeli a gun
and a Palestinian will obey.
Speak to them
and they share the same dream as many Palestinians do. Or at the least once
did. Dreams of a revolution. But the revolution of the 1960s and 70s is nothing
like the one today. The fedayeen of those years were admired by most Palestinians,
anit-imperialists, anti-colonialists, struggling for freedom and rights in a
world rife with third world revolutions. Even the first uprising of the late
1980s has almost nothing left in common with today's. The older generation admired
the Algerian fighters, the Vietnamese, later the South Africans. They led themselves
to believe that the struggle for independence was the same, against a foreign
oppressor... Until today they can recite the poetry, the songs, the slogans.
They all have "war stories" to share with us today, even those who
gave up their Marxist or Socialist ideologies and today support Hamas. But the
young revolutionaries today know nothing of the UN resolutions, let alone anything
of Frantz Fanon, C. L. R. James, Aimé Césaire, Jose Mariategui,
Amilcar Cabral, or Malcolm X... (Maybe el Che, but only as a t-shirt logo).
It's as if the Palestinian revolution from within is being run by a bunch of
goons with guns and no brains...
Perhaps we have
to dream it up the revolution from scratch all over again, recognize that anti-oppression
in the 21st century takes on a different form all-together. And here we come
back to the external problem Palestinians face: an Israel that is recognized
and supported the world over, one for whom UN Resolutions are nothing more than
a couple of insults thrown at its face that it can just brush away. And if you
don't like it, keep in mind there are just as many brazen young goons on that
side to contend with.
funeral for a security officer who shot himself and political posters.