20 years ago today is a day we will always remember: the anniversary of Tiananmen Square. 10 years ago today is a day I will never forget, the 10th anniversary of the massacre. I was in China. We had just been released from the month long house arrest and tensions were still high. For that one day, the government cut off our Internet and satellite service. It was my last month of my two-year stay in China. It was oddly quiet and no one was saying anything.
Oddly enough it is many ways that experience led me to Palestine or at least prepared me for Palestine. Day after day I am reminded of my life in China and my experiences here while going through life here in Nablus.
Besides the extreme obvious that China lead to my interest in worker rights which lead to my job at a fair trade non-profit which carried products from Palestine which lead to my interest in Palestine and moving here. China taught me how to live in the third world. I leaned how to deal with my incredible anger that rises when I get frustrated. How instead of blowing up, I take deep breaths and try to look at the situation from a different point of view. I learned how to live in a political and military state while under siege. I don’t get as freaked out as I once would if I heard gun shots while sitting down to dinner nightly or being round so many AK-47’s.
About 10 days ago my passport was taken away to Tel Aviv, to get my yearlong visa processed. It should in theory only take two weeks but it could take a few months to get it back. Mean while I am stuck in the west bank pleading with Israeli soldiers at the checkpoints to let me through.
This past week has been a bit chaotic here, besides dealing with the new teachers coming and trying to explain to them why I can’t meet them at the airport or even in Jerusalem, there has been quite a bit of violence right out side the checkpoint we usually go through with the settlers and farmers. It makes the road between here and Ramallah a bit dangerous and the checkpoint tougher than ever to penetrate. Where I usually could get away with using a photocopy of my passport, I don’t know they will be as tolerant of that right now.
For the past ten days I have been almost Internet free at home (inshallah this will change in the next few days). What we do have for right now is satellite TV. This past week the only English news channel we could get was Press TV, an Iranian English news channel. Last night an IT savvy friend came over and reprogrammed the receiver to get more channels. We now have Aljezerra, CNN, BBC and Press TV. All morning I have been watching coverage of both Obama’s visit to Cairo and the anniversary coverage of Tiananmen. And my mind they are so related to different parts of my life.
For most of my time in China people would ask me my opinion about what had happened 10 years before. They would never say what it was and actually it took them asking me several times before I figured out what they were talking about. I was always asked about this in a public form where I knew government people were watching to see if I would trip up and say something controversial. I would usually pretend not to know what they were talking about or say something rather draft about it and change the subject. From what I could tell people were getting ready to do something about it and there was a huge feeling of discontent amongst the people of China. However as many of you know, the month before the anniversary almost to the day, a US plane bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade killing two women. (While Clinton, not Bush was in office) My life in China changed that day. We were under house arrest for a month and somewhat afraid for the first few days. The US embassy in Beijing kept in phone contact with us trying to decide if we needed to extracted. The Chinese government capitalized on the catastrophe and convinced the people that this was done because the world didn’t respect them. That they only way to gain respect is to rise up as a united country and to fight the world at large by becoming everything that they have become today. Suddenly the two years worth of discontent and memories of the massacre were forgotten. People turned on us and started (if they hadn’t already) viewing us as the enemy.
Here I am ten years later in another country torn apart. No matter which side of the wall I am on people want to know which side I agree with. And again I have draft answers or flat out lie about where I stand on most everything. It is hard to explain to the new teachers who are arriving why it is so important to lie. Why we can almost never be completely honest with anyone here. I hate it. I am usually overly honest. I am not good at spinning lies.. (I know some of you might argue with this).
Obama is in Cairo and could drop a verbal bomb on us at any point. Everyone here is watching to see what he will say. I honestly have no idea what he could say to smooth things out with the Moslem world with out offending the Israeli world. I need both sides to be equally pacified.
So again I sit and wait to see what the government involved does to my life here. And unlike while I was in Korea, I don’t feel like the average person on the street will hold me completely personally responsible for the whole mess of the world.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
and the teachers start coming in from all directions
The teachers are pouring in from all directions….
It started two weeks ago, at first a trickle and now pouring in… By Sunday there will be 11 of us here for the summer. The three teachers that I worked with the past two months are going home in the next few days. And only Sean is coming back next year. It is strange and good to have new blood here. Strange that I am the holder of the knowledge when really I don’t know much of anything about life here.
Last week I moved with the new teachers into a new house on the same end of town as the school but in one of the richest neighborhoods. It is a nice apartment, three bedrooms and two baths. This place is totally modern, western and comfortable. The best part, is that it has it’s own large private garden/patio which is completely private. It is amazing to have outdoor time to relax and still be at home. Over all I feel like I have stepped up in the world.
The only thing is that it is really dusty from people not living here for a few years and there are strange things left around, like slippers, shoes and toothbrushes. It is all so half hazard… that it feels like the people who were here before us fled which makes sense since they left to years ago or so and that is when the Nablus civil war happened.
On Tuesday I gave the teachers two and a half days off to go to Jerusalem to do some sightseeing. It was a bit of a selfish request so that I could have a few days to myself to rest and recover from the school year before jumping into the summer session.
I got several frantic emails from the teachers yesterday telling me that while they were going over the checkpoint from Nablus the person (Palestinian) in front of them in line stabbed an Israeli soldier causing the whole checkpoint to close… and I am sure all kinds of military chaos. When they get back later today I am sure I find out more details but it sounds like they had to take a taxi or a shared mini van through the town to a few checkpoints to find one that was open and then drive all the way around the back roads to get to Ramallah to get to Jerusalem. Not only are they a bit scared about coming back through that checkpoint but naturally they are afraid to take the bus from Ramallah to Nablus (I am equally if not more freaked out about doing it myself with my photoed copied passport… another story)
This pass week there has been fighting between the Palestinian farmers and Israeli settlers right out side the Nablus city limits along the road to Ramallah. The settlers are attacking the busses that we take back and forth… to be honest I haven’t had internet access for about 10 days now, so I am not sure the exact details of what is going on. I need to really sit and read several newspapers on line from several sources and points of view to try and figure out what is going on. The past week the only English news channel we had was “Press TV”, an Iranian English News Channel which has been interesting but I am pretty sure a bit one sided. It makes Aljeezera seem overly pro-western.
A good source of news for what is going on here in English is: www.Maannews.net
It started two weeks ago, at first a trickle and now pouring in… By Sunday there will be 11 of us here for the summer. The three teachers that I worked with the past two months are going home in the next few days. And only Sean is coming back next year. It is strange and good to have new blood here. Strange that I am the holder of the knowledge when really I don’t know much of anything about life here.
Last week I moved with the new teachers into a new house on the same end of town as the school but in one of the richest neighborhoods. It is a nice apartment, three bedrooms and two baths. This place is totally modern, western and comfortable. The best part, is that it has it’s own large private garden/patio which is completely private. It is amazing to have outdoor time to relax and still be at home. Over all I feel like I have stepped up in the world.
The only thing is that it is really dusty from people not living here for a few years and there are strange things left around, like slippers, shoes and toothbrushes. It is all so half hazard… that it feels like the people who were here before us fled which makes sense since they left to years ago or so and that is when the Nablus civil war happened.
On Tuesday I gave the teachers two and a half days off to go to Jerusalem to do some sightseeing. It was a bit of a selfish request so that I could have a few days to myself to rest and recover from the school year before jumping into the summer session.
I got several frantic emails from the teachers yesterday telling me that while they were going over the checkpoint from Nablus the person (Palestinian) in front of them in line stabbed an Israeli soldier causing the whole checkpoint to close… and I am sure all kinds of military chaos. When they get back later today I am sure I find out more details but it sounds like they had to take a taxi or a shared mini van through the town to a few checkpoints to find one that was open and then drive all the way around the back roads to get to Ramallah to get to Jerusalem. Not only are they a bit scared about coming back through that checkpoint but naturally they are afraid to take the bus from Ramallah to Nablus (I am equally if not more freaked out about doing it myself with my photoed copied passport… another story)
This pass week there has been fighting between the Palestinian farmers and Israeli settlers right out side the Nablus city limits along the road to Ramallah. The settlers are attacking the busses that we take back and forth… to be honest I haven’t had internet access for about 10 days now, so I am not sure the exact details of what is going on. I need to really sit and read several newspapers on line from several sources and points of view to try and figure out what is going on. The past week the only English news channel we had was “Press TV”, an Iranian English News Channel which has been interesting but I am pretty sure a bit one sided. It makes Aljeezera seem overly pro-western.
A good source of news for what is going on here in English is: www.Maannews.net
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