Culture
And Dissent
By Am Johal
23 September, 2004
Countercurrents.org
About
a fifteen minute walk from the street vendors and businesses of the
downtown Palestinian cultural capital of Ramallah, is a dangerous subversive
place according to the Israeli authorities. So much so that they in
fact in 2002 raided the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center and according
to the Miami Herald "seized a computer and a cellphone, broke dozens
of windows, swept books off shelves, peppered walls with shrapnel and
bullets, spit pumpkin seeds on the floor and allegedly stole 3,700 shekels."
The Georgetown educated
Director Adila Laidi said at the time, "It was just vandalism,
part of a conscious desire to ruin everything Palestinian. Once youdecide
to do that, you go and methodically destroy every institution. Subconsciously,
they are dreaming about shoving the whole Palestinian people out of
existence."
In Occupied Palestine,
it is as if you live a dehumanized existence from the day you're born.
You are uneqal. You feel it everyday in how power is exercised. That
relationship is rarely altered. You are second class and relegated to
a Bantustan-like existence. When the people in power talk peace, you
see the situation deteriorate. You see loved ones die, killed off by
security forces. You face the Separation Wall and are denied entry into
Israel to see family members. You learn to hate because you're isolated
and you know nothing else.
Today you can still
see the broken glass of the picture, the bullet holes and a broken door
left in the board room, curated like an art exhibit. The Sakakini Center
has at different times received funding from the Japanese Government,
the United Nations Development Program, the Ford Foundation, the European
Union and Dutch benefactors - hardly radical organizations in the grand
scheme of things.
Director Adila Laidi
tells me that the role of culture evolves over time and raises to the
public questions like the normalcy of the Israeli Occupation. If Edward
Said and Noam Chomsky argue that the role of the intellectual is to
speak truth to power and Bill Moyers says the same of journalism, then
what Laidi is arguing is much the same for art and culture in the Occupied
Palestinian Territories.
In the office next
door, the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, known as the conscience
of his people, is working on his literary review, Al Karmel, as he has
since he used to edit it in Lebanon.
Laidi says that
since the outbreak of the Second Intifada in 2000, there has been no
normal life. And that as the role of art and culture develop as a means
of expression in the context of the Occupation and the current Intifada,
the Sakakini Cultural Center has a duty to reach beyond the middle,
educated classes.
Her view is that
music, culture, art and literature still has the power to lift people
up to dream and imagine when their humanity has been reduced to an identity
card. And by giving people access to these forms of expression, it can
also reduce the gaps between those who are here and isolated with those
who are in the Palestinian diaspora and the outside world. She sees
it as a place where people can channel their anger and creativity.
Laidi sees the Khalil
Sakakini Cultural Center as a place to nurture Palestinian visual artists.
She was also involved with curating the controversial 100 Shaheeds exhibit
which memorialized the first 100 Palestinians which died in the Second
Intifada.
In the introduction
to the book, Laidi as the Editor writes, "one of the project's
goals was to give back to each shaheed (martyr) his or her individuality...[hence]
each [was given] his or her own personal space, featuring his or her
name, photograph and personal object. The Shuhada [are] also presented
in order of age. The objects and photographs ... speak for themselves,
on their own terms, going beyond death to recreate a life without the
clutter of text or obtrusive display devices." The exhibit has
gone abroad to several countries and generated much discussion.
For now, the Sakakini
Cultural Center is limited in their ability to go beyond Ramallah, hampered
by the same security restrictions as everyone else.
Adila Laidi says,
"We need to have more rooting in the community that does not currently
consume culture, and have more popular forms which they can affiliate
with."