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A very warm welcome to all of you for a very timely and
important discussion, which is not taken seriously by most
people in power, about the role of art and culture in a time of conflict.
I’m absolutely to have Rawand Arqawi here from Palestine, and
we’ll be hearing from you very shortly.
So, just a few contextual remarks from me and then we’ll get on to the conversation.
And please be thinking about your questions and observations,
because we want this to be a conversation as much as us sitting
on a stage, although Rawand going to walk around as she talks
anyway, so there’s a slight bit of performance there.
I’ve been asked to say a little bit about me, I’m going to be very brief.
I, I’ve worked mainly in, in museums and visual arts, so being
in a performing arts context is great because I love crossing boundaries.
I’m a cultural broker based in London, and for the last five
years been working with the City of Derry, Londonderry, in
Northern Ireland as it takes baby steps towards eventual peace,
which has been the most rewarding and amazing experience to see
how people can begin to work culturally in what is arguably a, a
post-conflict situation, and have become truly passionate about
the role that culture does play in all contexts of difficulty, including war.
I chaired the first post-war arts and cultural symposium in
Northern Iraq, Iraqi Kurdistan, a couple of years ago, which
just began to plant some seeds of new ideas about what culture
might mean in that region, and more recently this year set up
with some good friends an agency called Culture in Conflict,
which intends to do what it says on the tin, to ask these
questions about where, where we might go.
And of course, conflict is one of the perennial problems of the
modern age and, and throughout history, and alongside global
warming and the exploding population growth and the scarcity of
resources needed for human life often caused by conflict, and
the irreversible pressures of globalisation, conflict and
conflict resolution is one of the greatest and most intractable
issues we as humans must tackle.
And all of us who are in this room are, have, have a role to
play and that, and in a decibel gathering more generally, and
it’s a big question for the Arts Council and for all other
agencies that work with ourselves.
Of course, conflict, we recall most daily with Afghanistan and
Iraq and Korea and the list goes on and on, and in this country
the rioting in England, and including in this city, reminds us
of conflict being absolutely everywhere in our homes, in our
streets, in our communities, in our heads.
And more positively, we look to the Arab Spring and the
extraordinary courage and kind of interest in bigger than self
issues that people across Middle East and North Africa have
shown in what is now the Arab Summer and now set to be the Arab Autumn.
And let, it just puts paid to the lie given that many of those
people were very young people, including children, that young
people are feral, immoral, irresponsible and not interested in
bigger than self issues.
It’s a lie and we know it.
Young people have so much to give to making our futures, and
that includes through culture, as we’re about to hear.
So we have yet to understand the role of culture in the Arab
Spring, but we know that a stage was put up in Tahrir Square,
Cairo, within five days of the uprising starting.
That, that stage was curated with poetry and theatre and many other forms.
We know about the role of graffiti and street art, or we’re
beginning to, in challenging through image.
We know about informal performances that were not captured on
camera, that, that challenge.
So we’ve got a lot to unpack from that, and of course the, the
power of the Internet and social networking was, was huge as well.
So we are left, in this moment, and today we’re planting a seed
and, not least on behalf of the amazing Freedom Theatre, which
you’re going to hear about and I hope you will feel inspired to support.
A global hotspot of answers to some of these questions.
But just a few questions in planting the seed.
How can art and culture challenge, if not break, the cycles of
conflict that trap so many on a daily basis in situations of great peril?
Can art, culture and creativity really and truly, can it really
and truly play a part in the prevention, management, or even
resolution of conflict, or even play a purposeful role in peacemaking?
Can art be a negative rather than a positive force in certain conflict contexts?
What is it specifically?
What is it in its essence about art that makes a difference?
What can art make possible that other efforts, processes,
energies and ideas cannot?
We don’t know the answer to that.
Is too much expected of the emerging of the artist in conflict
contexts, and how should institutions respond?
Must the artist, practitioner or activist attempt to maintain
objectivity or non-alignment, or a subjectivity and openly
taking sides as an appropriate or legitimate to take.
Well, certainly we’ll be covering that one when Rawand speaks.
And when peace is eventually reached, if it ever is, what role does art take then?
And how does art itself, and practice, change once peace is reached?
Is there a difference, and what is that?
And we know in Palestine we’re a long way off.
And most of all how can art and culture be part of the
conversation at the tables of power, where currently there isn’t
even a seat and there really should be, and whether politicians have failed us.
So, Rawand it’s absolutely brilliant that you’re here.
Some of you may already know about the Freedom Theatre, but if
you don’t you surely must.
It, it is doing extraordinary things with hardly anything in a
situation of daily danger and, well basically horror, I would say.
So, as we’re going to move on to freedom and the Freedom
Theatre, and we’re just going to show a little, a little movie
to kick-start things off, which is called...
[inaudible] And introduce yourself.
Hello everyone hears me.
Okay, first of all I am glad to say thank you for everyone who
come to, to know about the Freedom Theatre.
My name’s Rawand Arqawi and I live in Jenin, but I work in the
Freedom Theatre in Jenin camp as a coordinator of acting to
school, and I joined this theatre before, four months, four
years, sorry, and to help the young people who had trauma
because of the occupation, because all of us we go under the
occupation and everyone had a painful story from the occupation.
So I see a young girl who wants to hope that the young people
and the girls, and to find a new resistance and cultural
resistance, so I enjoyed this theatre, and also to help the
girls to be on the stage and to help the girls who live in the,
also under conservative society for the girls can’t express
about themselves, to be on the stage so they can to give her the
voice to express and to say what she wants.
And then, after the film I will talk about our work in Jenin.
Thank you.
Film
You can have this, so you want to walk around.
I like to walk when I explain anyway, sorry!
So now I would like to give you more information about our
work, what we give for the children, what we give for the
children and the young people in Jenin camp, so the background
about the Freedom Theatre.
So the Freedom Theatre has last since 2006. It’s a continuation of the Stone Theatre.
The Stone Theatre was set up by a Jewish woman who came during
the first intifada in nineteen eight-six, seven, sorry.
I’m not good in the number!
Who came during the first intifada to help the Palestinian
people, because of all the school closed due to curfews and
Israeli soldiers arrested a lot of teachers and students and put
them in jail, so the people left without education.
So she felt that the Palestinian people had the right to continue their education.
She opened, she came with a small materials in the camp, to the
camp and like pens, paper, paints, to, to give the children alternative education.
According to her work she get a prize in Sweden alternative
Nobel prize, and from this prize she opened a small theatre
called the Stone Theatre, regarding to the first intifada.
And she took the group to grow from the camp to work with
children to give them the main aim for this Stone Theatre, to
give them the space express about their fear, about their anger,
about their depression.
So she worked then with these children, with these children,
and give them space, and she succeeded with them, and her, her
son Juliano joined her and he was the director of this group, so
he always used his camera to film their [hairstyles] and their
performances for these children, and he documented their work
and their, documentary film, and a children film.
This film tells a story about this group of, this group of
theatre, so then you can see in this, the, the film when they
were child and they, they were performing, acting, and they had
fun in this place, and also he continued this film in the second
intifada, so also you can see to tell the story about the real
things of this group, because most of them were killed during
the invasion, and just one, who’s still alive, his name Zakaria
Zubeidi, and also he became leader of political party Al-Aqsa.
So this group had dream to be actors and to be famous, but the
invasion killed their dreams, and all of them now became under the ground.
And so, Juliano came back to the, to the, to Jenin Camp to look
after, to look for his group and he shocked that all the group were killed.
So they were killed in the invasion in 2002, so in 2002 about
sixty civilians were killed, about six, four hundred and fifty were injured.
Israeli soldiers surrounded whole of the camp on all sides so
the people in that, in that time, they lived in miserable situation.
Israeli cut all the, they didn’t allow for the ambulance to go to take the injured.
Israeli soldiers cut the electricity, the water, the food, so
the people they lived thirteen, this is the, this operation
continued three, thirteen days.
So thirteen days, the people they had no life.
Just killing, helicopters, bulldozers and tanks.
This is the life for, for everyone in Jenin and Jenin Camp.
Just when you open the door you don’t feel like nice view, you
see tanks, and you open like to look what is happening then the
Israeli soldiers quickly shoot them.
They killed a lot of people, civilians, women and elder, old
men, and they didn’t care about who is inside the camp.
Also they destroyed the houses while the people inside the
homes, so the people in that way, they lived in tents because
the, this operation left them homeless people.
For the children it was very hard to accept what is happening here.
So they, their children like six years old to see his father
killed in front of him, to see his mother killed in front of him.
So how is their life for the everyone. It’s like blood.
So this is the, the idea of the children and this is affected
on after this operation end.
So this, the result for the children, they had bed wetting,
they had nightmares, they had aggressive behaviours because
they, this is for them this is the only one, and so also the
young people had traumas because everyone what we saw is
unbelievable, it’s a war.
And so then Juliano came back with another guy from Israel and
also he’s Jewish, so then opened the Freedom Theatre to help
these people, maybe to, we can make something for them, and we
started for with them to give them psychodrama and drama therapy
to remove their inner conflict. To deal with their problems.
And also we expand our work so we started to give them a
photography workshop and for also for their for the children and
the young people, to tell the story about Palestine and then
they go to checkpoints, they take photos about their society,
from their society, and in the end they create books, or they
have exhibition to show the, the people what we have in
Palestine and also we have a cinema workshop so also the, the
students learn, they create the films by themselves, so they
learn in the theatre, editing, writing the scripts, and filming, and directing.
So they bring this story and they put, and they found at, and they showed the people.
Every, to show the people what we need to change in our life.
What we have inside, inside our society.
Especially we are in conservative society so some girls
can’t, can’t say anything to their families that what we would like to change.
But they can, they can on the film, the book, their stories.
We had many problems to, to take the stories from the women
inside the society, but in the end the woman want to speak.
They want to show the people how we would like to change.
And also we have journalism and creative writing, also to give
the chance for the, the student, for the children and for the
young people to write what they want also.
And they, and to put their articles to they can express about
also what’s inside them, and in the end they create, they create
magazine called Voices to give voice for all the Palestinian
young people who has no voice.
And also we have acting the school, so acting school they
performed many performances.
The first one was Animal Farm by George Orwell.
And after this, after we performed this play, so some unknown,
a guy attacked the theatre and burned the theatre, and, but even
that we continued, because it’s like a critical for that
corruption of the authority, but even that we continued so then
we produced, we have the second performance was Fragments of Palestine.
The students gathered the story from their society because
everyone has a story from the occupation, so this is performance
tells the story about, about catastrophe, about occupation, and
also about forbidden love and our society.
And also we had a performance where the men and their son, an
adaptation by a Palestinian writer [Sam Kenasani – inaudible] of
Tolstoy about the refugees when they, when they dispersed from
48 lands and when they brought the camp, when they started to
live in the camp and they moved to Kuwait and Imarat to find
money to help their families.
And we had also Alice in Wonderland.
This is the last production for our director.
And Alice in Wonderland tells a story about, about a girl, and
this is the big challenge and this person’s like, we had a big
challenge, and tells the story about the girl.
Her family forced her to marry her cousin but she refused.
She went to Wonderland, she liberate Wonderland and also she
liberate herself from this marriage.
The main aim for this acting school and for this theatre to
give, to find a new way for resistance instead of to go for the,
just to go to the checkpoints, to shoot, to kill.
Maybe the people don’t know what will happen for that’s, like,
for to carry the weapon and to go to shoot, and so he will die
and no one will hear what is happening in Palestine.
So this is a kind of new resistance, to find a new challenge
and to, to find new way to deal with our problems.
To show other people what we have in Palestine, how we can deal
with our problems, and also to show, to share all outside that
look, who are terrorists.
It’s not the Palestinian people, as all the people know there.
To send message about that we want to change also the conservative society.
It’s a resistance for against the occupation and also against
our culture, because we would like, like a girl, so we had very
difficult to bring girl to put her on the stage.
It’s like the hardest thing.
And for the first girl who was on the stage, all the people
when she was walking like attacked her and said bad words to
her, but even, because she had a dream to be an actress and she succeeded in the end.
This is the challenge for the Freedom Theatre, to find a new way to, to fight.
To find a new way to resist.After Alice in Wonderland and we had 30 shows and we
succeeded, we brought a lot of people who came to the theatre to see this play.
And we had successful play.
And after this successful work we had nightmare when our
director was assassinated in 4th of April so he was, he killed,
he was killed in front of the theatre, and so in brutal way, he
was killing his child while he was in his way to the home, and
some, someone, a known person, he killed him.
So all of us like, we had like very bad situation.
We, we didn’t close anyone, we lost Juliano who opened this
theatre for us, who changed our life, and who, who taught us to
find a new way for resistance, who did a lot for the Palestinian people.
Juliano changed our life from down to the top and, like me to
be here, it’s because of him, because all the time taught to
deal, how to, to have a challenge.
It’s, so that I started to, to okay, I don’t care, okay I want
to continue, I want to help the girls to be on the stage, I want
to find a new ways for the girls to be, to find a, to find a new life for, for us.
So, and after also assassination we had leaflets against the
work of the theatre, and they, they said in the leaflets
everyone from the theatre will be killed if you stay open this theatre.
And also the people they said many rumours against the people in the theatre.
They, we had very miserable situation.
It’s like we, we got to the theatre every day we are afraid maybe the killer follow us.
Maybe who killed Julian, we don’t know. So what will the next for that.
And then Israeli soldiers attacked the, the theatre many times.
They arrested three of our colleagues, my colleagues, and they
broke the windows and in the brutal way also, and they want okay
to investigate about Julian.
We would like them to investigate, but not to destroy, because
everyone start to afraid.This is dangerous place.
Assassination, leaflets and Israeli soldiers, and what’s
happening in this place, but why we continue, because everyone has a story from Juliano.
Everyone liked Juliano. So for us it’s not easy also for the people who Juliano support
us to kill him for the second time.
So even all the difficulties, even all of the obstacles, but we
are, we continue, and also after the, this, after this
assassination, we show the people that we are here, so we, we
had protection after his killing, we had protection.
It’s... what else. It’s also the students, the theme of nearly the same of
Fragments of Palestine, also the students they gather the story,
they say let’s talk about internal fight, about Palestinian society in general.
And this is area just to prove for everyone that we are here,
maybe or to show the killer okay, you killed Juliano but you didn’t kill his people.
You didn’t kill his thinking. You didn’t kill his idea.
Because what we have now I am here to show the people also what
we have in the theatre, and what we have challenge, and how we
want to continue, and also the, the, the ...
sorry, I didn’t mention that we have two groups in the acting
school, so this is the first group after Juliano’s killing, they
had protection, what else, and this especially group for
Juliano, they now, they today will perform Waiting for Godot.
It’s like to, this is the gift for his spirit, that to show the
people okay, we lost Juliano but okay we want to continue in his
way, so this is in general about our work.
[applause] Thank you so much.
We, we need 75 days not 75 minutes to have this conversation,
but we’ve not long, so we’ll move on.
If you can be thinking about a question we’ll come back to you
very shortly, but to begin with Rawand, I salute your courage
for continuing and, and not giving up.
And I know we discussed earlier your parents have also supported you in that...
Yes. ..and the first reaction would be, given Juliano’s
assassination on the fourth of April this year and there have
been these continuing attacks on the theatre and people have
been disappeared by those who took them.
Both members of the board and members of the company have been
taken away, your first reaction would be to, to run, but, but you haven’t.
And Juliano, who, he was extraordinary wasn’t he, he was just a
force of nature, envisioned the Freedom Theatre as the third
intifada, which he said was a, a cultural uprising with poetry,
plays, theatre, cameras and magazines used to fight back against the violence.
A third intifada.
Why is it you believe in this, in what you’re doing?
What is it that, that makes you carry on day by day despite everything?
I believe that, okay, because in, in art it’s like this is
the best way to deal with our problems.
Because I, I believe in, in acting, I believe in that, in when
we make like performance to show the performance to show the
people what we have, this is like big resistance, and also
instead, like, as I mentioned before, it’s like to carry weapons
and to go no one will know about us but we can share all the
people what we, what we are doing, and also to help like a, I am
get, to help myself to take my rights and to, can express about
myself and to help the, to remove also the suppression, because,
because you know it’s like we live in, under occupation, so all
the people like, they have nothing to do in, in their lives,
just like some people they steal and they, they fight with each other.
So on the stage, by cameras, they can, they can show the
people, it’s not only about occupation but also about what we
would like to change in society, what we have problems.
Doesn’t mean, also, all the problems is from occupation, but
also we have from, problems from, from community.
So this is the, this is the cultural, the way that, cultural
intifada to deal with our problems, to support the poor people,
to help the Palestinian people to express about themselves.
Thank you.
Has anyone got a question they’d like to ask or, brief question?
Yes.
[inaudible] [Pet – inaudible], I’m a visual artist and writer.
It’s very stilling listening to your tale because you know
about this but you don’t know about it. You don’t experience anything of it.
But there’s so much in there about vision and resistance, but
also about risk and how do the girls, for example, balance that.
That they are stepping outside of what’s allowable?
The girls, how do they manage to get what you’ve obviously
brought to them, this focus on the vision and, but there’s risk for them in that.
It seems there’s risk for you and all of you.
How do they, the children, the young people, manage that?
They have, it’s a big risk for the girls.
Do you want to help [Peter]? Yes. How, how do the girls.
I mean, they’re in the theatre, this one place, but they go
home or in wider society, it’s difficult for them to do this? Yes.
Yes, it’s, in the beginning when we like, we started to spread
the idea of acting, so it’s, we would like to be a theatre and
we need girls for this theatre, so for the first girl it was very hard to, to bring her.
And so also she faced problems with her family.
How you can go to the theatre?
How you can to, to be an actor, it’s scandal for us, it’s not good.
Yes, because the people live in the camp and also in, in Jenin,
so it’s like especially camp, it’s isolated camp.
It’s like the people don’t know what’s entertainment, and so
they just live under occupation, checkpoints, assassination, so
this is the life, they is what they know about, about it.
And for the girls like, because all the people after the
assassinations, they started to be more conservative for the
girls here, because they afraid from the soldiers, the afraid
from what maybe they, the soldiers will, with something wrong for her.
So this is the idea for everyone, like fathers the, the
mothers, for everyone in the same thing.
And to, to be actress wow, it’s like a big deal, how!
And also to work in theatre, it’s like you are corrupt this society.
This is what the people think of me, yes, you are very bad girl, you are very bad, yes.
And also in the beginning, my family, in, in the beginning
thought also how you can go to the theatre, it’s like a scandal,
you want to make a scandal for, in, for us.
What will your family relatives say, what your neighbours say
so, but, but we, because everyone like the girls, because we, we also have dreams.
We have right to continue. We have to, to be, to express about things for they get to be,
to be an actor to achieve her, so shall she go outside to study
acting, so this is what we try to convey in the family.
Okay, come see the work, and come to see what, what is happening in the theatre.
How the theatre deal with the girls.
And in the beginning, yes, it was very, very, very hard until
we started to recruit more and more and more and more girls.
Yes, we took long time to, to spread out, to aware the people what is acting.
Thank you so much for that very deep description.
I feel like I understand. I was wondering, you know the society before the occupation,
did, did they have theatre and it’s not part of the culture at all...
No, no. ...at all?
So now that they have theatre under occupation, is there like
any kind of international route out to show the people
externally what’s happening, you know, via something like this?
I mean, I know you’re here and it’s really great to hear your voice.
Is there a route out of Jenin to, for the, the group, to show people outside?
So we had Fragments of Palestine in two thousand, two
thousand eight, they performed in Germany.
And it’s like the route was like just some organisations and
invitation for us, official invitation that they want to brought
this group, Palestinian group, outside, so we can go.
It’s an event for the organisations outside, because we, for
us, we would like to show the people, to perform outside, but
it, for us, like Palestinian people, we can’t, because it’s like
we can’t move from city to city, so how to, to travel outside.
So, so to move from a like Jenin to Nablus, one hour.
Took us, sometimes it takes two hours or three hours it depends
on the soldiers, so we have to live what they will [inaudible].
So yes, so we would like to show the people but we need, like,
official invitation and also the, one of the our students, and
this is the big problem, so he was wanted guy in the intifada,
in the second intifada, and he found a new resistance when he
joined this theatre, and he liked to, this new resistance, but
unfortunately they didn’t allow to him to travel to Amman, so
all the time, yes, because you were, you were wanted guy, so
until then, but he found a new, new, because he wants to, to
find a new life, he wants, it’s his right to show the people his work, but he can’t.
So also to go to, it’s, he wants to get a visa to America, so
he had to go to Jerusalem, but he can’t also bus Jerusalem
without permission, so then he, he was refused by Israeli to, to enter Jerusalem.
And then okay, so we tried to find a new way, okay, go to
Jordan and then, okay, he was also refused to pass Jordan, so
it’s, like, he was so crazy. It’s impossible to...
So why? Yes. The difficulty in mobility, isn’t it? You were saying earlier that...
So if you have the fee, the cost, so okay you were, you were wanted, you have to, to die.
We take it for granted that we, we can jump on a Ryanair and
Easyjet, and you were saying earlier that to go from, from
Palestine to Jordan it can, you go at seven in the morning, you go through...
Yes....the Palestine border, then the Israeli border and then the
Jordanian border, maybe get there by 4pm, and, and that’s just going that short distance.
So Europe closing its borders increasingly is just more and
more difficult, so as you say, it’s great Rawand’s here, and I
hope from this and other things that are happening this week...
And also.. ...we can raise attention. Yes.
And also sometimes the Israeli side, okay, we want to cross the
border now, so suddenly they close and you stuck between, you
know, so sometimes the people have to, to stay on the border to, to, to sleep there.
Please. You have obstacles that I can’t even fathom between your work
and, and what you’re trying to achieve.
What I would really like to know is what do you think the arts
movement in the UK and artists and individuals in the UK can do to support you?
Is there something tangible and something real that we can be
doing over here that can actually have a positive impact and
support you in the work that you’re doing? It depends on the person.
You know, it’s, acting school and a cinema it depends on volunteers from outside.
But after the assassination a lot of volunteers afraid to come to support the acting school.
Yes, because assassination, the killer is free and also many
threats for the, the volunteers who come to help the, the theatre.
So the people ran away all of them, you know.
I can’t blame them, it’s like hard situation, yes.
But we would like for, from all sides the support, because we
would like to continue to help the children and to help the, the
young people to like, to continue our cultural intifada.
We’ll come back to your question just before we finish. I’m Rani Moorthy from Rasa.
I’m going to try and do this without breaking down, because so
much of what you said affects me on so many levels and I can identify with it so much.
I’m Sri Lankan Tamil and in 2003 a work that I created here was
taken out into the, to the war zone to, to, to tour places of my
ancestor’s land that I would never have visited as a tourist,
but I visited as an artist, and met young people there who had only known war.
And the play that I was doing was about this whole idea of
being a woman in a culture that doesn’t honour women.
It should honour women philosophically, but in practice doesn’t.
So it was quite a challenging play anyway.
So I learned so much from just having an audience that
understood, but it was palatable because it came from a familiar
stranger, if you see what I mean.
I was not one of them, as it were, although I was, you know, so
I was still foreign enough to be distanced from it, so my
question to you is how your audience accepts these stories.
I’ve been working with Tamil refugees here in Manchester and so
much of their stories will going to be, is going to remain
buried, because they, in order to survive, need to forget.
And I’m struggling with the idea of how to create work that
will inform people who don’t know what it is, apart from it
being in a documentary – The Killing Fields of Sri Lanka, for
example – it’s very difficult to watch.
And how to make it, how to make that art accessible to my
people too, so that something will strike a chord so that the stories don’t get lost.
How do I do that? And how do you do that?
How do, how does your audience deal with Fragments from Palestine, for example?
So, Fragments of Palestine, it’s, it was wonderful. It was wonderful.
I wish I could, can show you like a small clip about it.
So, all the people when, in, in the opening, when they saw this
show, all the people started to cry.
You know why, because the, the, it’s, why because the students,
every one brought his story, so he could to affect about the
people, he could to touch the, the people. Yes.
And because, like, like some people lost their, their fathers,
who lost their brothers, who lost here, so they gathered the
story and put it, and also one talks about catastrophe, when the
people were kicked out from forty-eight lands, and so the
people, all of them were crying, and wanted to support this theatre.
This theatre could give us what we want.
It’s like, give, touch our feeling. This makes sense?
It does, and it’s interesting when you say that Animal Farm,
you end up with the theatre being burned afterwards, which
sounds a most kind of normal thing, and Julian [Schnabel], a
week after Juliano’s assassination, wrote a really beautiful piece.
You can search online. An appreciation of him. And he said that in one year,
with Alice in Wonderland, Johnny Depp reached millions and millions around the world as a piece of entertainment.
In, Juliano said, in, in Jenin refugee camp Alice in Wonderland was a dangerous piece to do.
And so even the most innocuous sounding things, what, what can
you say about Alice in Wonderland, we all love it, especially in
3D in the Johnny Depp version! It is dangerous.
And so, I think in this there’s a level of metaphor that is
applied to these contexts where you, you, you take one thing and
it has a completely different meaning in a different context,
which is the beauty of all art, that it can suggest new
possibilities, even though it may seem not.
John O’Donoghue, I’m here with Disability Arts Online.
I was very struck by what you said about a Jewish woman and her
son being so important in the history of Stone Theatre and Freedom Theatre.
Does, does the wider Israeli artistic community support you at all?
It’s, in the beginning, in the beginning when we, when
Juliano came and, so all the people, because he, he’s half Jewish and he’s half Palestinian.
His father is Palestinian and his mother Jewish.
But the people, you know, thought okay he’s Jewish, so because
the people were very sad of, of the invasion, so they attacked
the theatre many times, and they were against Juliano.
And so that, all the people from Israel, they afraid to come.
This is man who left, left Haifa, it’s like, easy life, to come
to, to be on camp, it’s like difficult life, and how.
So what all of, all of the people are, the people in, who would
like to support us, you can find some people from, Israeli
people, would like to support the Freedom Theatre, but they can’t.
They afraid. This is dangerous camp, yes.
So they can’t come to, is not all of them Juliano, yes.
But Juliano stayed, yes, and, and he had many problems, he
suffered from the people, but also he, also he was killed in the camp.
But it would, by an unknown person.
But also we, we accept like to deal with, with Jewish people,
because we are not against Jewish, we are against army.
I’m against the soldiers who put the checkpoint on my way,
I’m against the soldier who killed my brother, and I’m against
the soldiers who come to attacked our homes, but none, not, I’m
not against the, the Jewish people who don’t have anything to do.
So yes, the, like, we have some people who come, Jewish people,
who come from outside, but from Israel no, they afraid.
And at Juliano’s funeral, his daughter said – which seems
something that you’ve repeated all the time – that I’m a hundred
percent Jewish and a hundred percent Palestinian, and how that
makes him two hundred percent, and he certainly was!
Sorry, you had a question here. Sorry.
Yes, I’ve got two quick questions, if that’s alright.
And the first one would be, you’ve, you talked about like your
work being a kind of third intifada and that being, you know,
the like, kind of cultural resistance as opposed to, if you
like, a more traditionally political slash military resistance to occupation.
And the first question would be, do you think that there’s a
way in which those two forms of resistance relate to each other?
Is there a level on which the, they, they kind of, they can come together?
And the second part of the question would be, is it easier,
seeing as you’re, if you like, you’re fighting on two fronts –
on the one hand against, like, conservative aspects within,
like, Palestinian and Arab culture and on the other hand the
occupation and so on – is it easier to fight on those two fronts
since the events in March in Tunisia over the last year, you
know what I mean, since the kind of so-called Arab Spring or
Springtime of the Peoples, or whatever?
What is it, what impact has the Arab Spring had on your thinking?
What impact has the Arab Spring had on how you feel about... About?
The Freedom Theatre and Palestine.
I misunderstand, sorry.
Is that what you’re asking?
Yes, yes, and to fight on those two fronts is it easy in terms of the Arab Spring?
Yes.
I haven’t... With, with the uprisings in other areas of the Middle East,
have things become easier or has it inspired you? At present, or the...
Yes, across the Middle East, yes. Yes, because it’s easy, no.
Not easy, but has it changed your thinking? Yes, for sure.
But, I’m sorry it’s just like, if you repeat it shortly, and to answer, but I can’t understand, sorry.
Yes, I suppose what I’m driving at is like, I, I have like,
family connections to the Middle East, to Iran, and like, over
the past twenty, thirty years, certain, since the Iranian
revolution, like, a certain kind of religious politics has come
to dominate the Middle East to an extent, and so my question is,
is it easier to, to fight the occupation as well as, if you
like, conservative aspects of culture, since the examples of
Egypt and Tunisia and Bahrain and Syria? No, no!
[laughter] It’s, in Palestine everything is, is really difficult.
You can’t, it’s like I said, we have two occupations, and
occupation – Israeli occupation and cultural occupation – so
it’s not easy for, for, for us to deal with. You can’t, you can’t fight two, like, two sides.
Israelis and your conservative society. So, but, we, at least we could to change something.
It’s not like okay, we can’t deal with the problems outside but
we can be patient, step by step. In the beginning we had no [gear], but we have now four.
In the beginning also, all the people attack, we couldn’t
bring, like, audience to come to see the plays, but in, now we can. In, in Alice we had thirty shows.
We could to bring people from Ecker, from Haifa, from Nazareth,
and this is the first time also from, the first time that people came to see, to see the, the shows.
So we, we can, like, how to see, to, to make something, but we need time.
So in the beginning, before assassination, we reached the huge number of the people.
We could to make, like, unbelievable situation, unbelievable,
wonderful work, but what the, what destroyed the, the, our work, it’s like nothing destination.
The leaflets, the, the soldiers they attack, so this is, but
also we, even that, we opened this theatre, we didn’t close one day, yes.
To continue, like, okay we want to be patient, step by step,
step by step, we could make, for sure, we will make war!
And looking to the future, Rawand, just imagine this is all gone.
What will the theatre do then, if, if the occupation was over?
You know, if there was so-called normal life...
We would like kill each other! ...what would you do?
We will make a resistance between the people!
Yes, we would be, it’s like, it’s amazing, if the occupation leave.
But maybe it’s like after, after the people, all the Palestinian people will be killed.
This is normal. But it, it takes a long, I mean, these are long memories aren’t they.
I remember the, the...Yes, but we will, we will continue to spread out.
Look what we did in, under occupation. And to like, to, to give the new generations the, our idea, our
thinking, our, what, how they can also to change their future.
This is in the future. If the soldiers win. That, that future will come.
It’s just, we don’t know when. One last question, if we may. How do...
Last question.
Yes, how does, do the people of, of Palestine from your
knowledge, how do they feel about art that might be being
created with the awareness of the struggle of Palestine outside of Palestine and around the world.
So, various art movements that, that are taking place.
How do the people, how do they feel about that?
Do they hear about it and how does that kind of inspire them or
does it, is, you know, is there some kind of, does it, does it help?
And secondly, what... Could we just stop there and...
Yes. To do that one. Yes, okay. It’s about how people in Palestine feel about their story
being outside in the rest of the world. Yes.
Is that important? Yes, it’s very important.
Some people were against us in, in the beginning. A lot of people.
Against us, against the theatre, against the acting.
But when they, they learnt in the newspaper about how much the
people affected of the Palestinian stories, and how the acting,
our performances, when, when was out in, in Germany, so many
people, many volunteers came to, to not only the theatre but
also for all an institution in Jenin, to help the Palestinian people.
So some people realised yes, this is the good way to spread,
yes, the idea of the, the suffering of the Palestinian people.
What I want to know as well is, the art that’s being created
around the world, say in the UK or the USA, you know, with, you
know, the likes of, for example, Loki, you know, the MC who,
whose lyrics you might hear of being, you know, kind of raising
awareness, how do the people of Palestine kind of respond, and
what advice would there be from, from yourselves, for example,
of what artists from around the globe could do with their art,
and does it inspire the people, how does it make the people
feel, how do you feel, and the people you work with, when they hear?
Your young people, for example. How, do they hear about the, the arts from around the world of
people who are in support of the intifada and the people, and
the struggles of the people of Palestine? Yes.
For example, there’s somebody who might well be making art in
this country or in other areas of the world about Palestine and
the situation there and, and, and do people in Palestine hear of
that work from the rest of the world or is it... Yes.
..does it come back in, and is, is that important. Yes, yes.
This is what the people started to, to aware the people.
Okay, look for these people outside and what they are doing.
How, how they support the Palestinian people.
But you can see, you can’t say that all of the people in
Palestine, they so interested, you know.
It’s like the people, you know, it’s like okay, just I want to
live, I want to, to find my, to bring money for my children, to bring money.
Yes, this is because all, all of them, you know, it’s like hard to life.
Hard, very hard life. So I don’t care about who want support us, who want, like,
because the arts, most of them lost their two or three sons,
this is them, so they don’t care about when someone lose, loses
life, dearest person to him, so they took, like, who is go
there, because they lost, like, lost dearest person, so I don’t
care about, I don’t care about what is happening outside, I don’t care about here.
But some people now started like, okay, it’s good that the people outside support us.
It means that we are alive. It means that we are human being, because in the beginning
that’s like, oh the people outside don’t care about us, yes,
because they support the, the Israeli side. This is the idea in the beginning.
But when the volunteers started to come, to support so we have
many solidarity from the outside, this is that people start yes, we are here.
That’s also people now started to realise what is the life in Palestine.
I’ve just had the five from Hassan, so we’re going to go
back up to the one very last question, please.
Yes I, I just wondered, do you work with people with
disabilities, and what, what’s the status of people with disabilities in Palestine now?
People with disabilities in Palestine, people with physical
problems or other issues they face in their lives, do you work
with people with disabilities in the theatre? Yes. Yes.
And, and what is their role in broader Palestinian society?
Are they, have many difficulties? I can’t sorry.
Yes, let’s start with the first one, about people with disabilities in the theatre.
Do they work with you? Disabilities. What’s the word?
Like, they may have, not be able to move very easily, or they
are in a wheelchair, or they may not hear or see. Ah, sorry. No, we don’t work with...
we don’t have this targeted group in the theatre. But we would like, you know, it’s like.
I remember one girl who also, she’s handicapped, she wanted to
come to The Freedom Theatre and she wanted, she’s a play writer, and she wanted to, to join the theatre.
But what’s the problem, it’s also the people surrounding, yes
don’t come, maybe they, this is dangerous people, and don’t come.
But unfortunately we don’t have this targeted group because,
you know, it’s like we, they, if they want to use camera they
have to go to the border, so they have to go to, to go to the
wall, and also on the stage, they have to move all the time,
it’s like to, like in Alice we had a lot of movement.
So, but we didn’t like this, we welcome if anyone would like to
join The Freedom Theatre, but the only one who wanted to join
the theatre, but unfortunately she couldn’t because of her society.
Okay, thank you very much. You’re welcome.
I’d just like to answer the question about how
to support, and it’s been really frustrating, because we
seriously could be here for days, and this is a very complex and
ambiguous story, and the inspirations that come out of, of The
Freedom Theatre are many and do, if you get the chance, look at
some of the films which are on YouTube and available via the
website for The Freedom Theatre.
Just to cover very immediate things, tomorrow evening I know
you’re here, but in, in London at the Free Word Centre, we have
another colleague of yours who I’ve just told Rawand got married
just a week ago, you didn’t know about this!
Ahmad Araj, he’s going to be showing some of the short films
and the amazing film Arna’s Children tomorrow evening, hosted by
the new director of, of Free Word, Rose Fenton, who many of you
know is the co-founder and co-director of LIFT a while back.
And Madani Younis from Bradford, from the Freedom Studios Bradford.
Good afternoon everyone, my name is Madani Younis and I’m the
artistic director of Freedom Studios, based in Bradford.
In March of this year, when we heard the news of Juliano, we
heard the news of what had happened at Freedom Theatre, we immediately felt a huge empathy.
I think the ripple of that reality really struck us, as it has
this morning as Rawand has shared that story with us.
So thank you, firstly, to Rawand, thank you to Peter.
As the artistic director of Freedom Studios, I felt it was
really powerful Rawand being here, but how could we as a company respond to this moment?
And I feel in this week we have that opportunity.
On Friday evening at seven o’clock at Contact Theatre there
will be a moment where all the delegates here at decibel will be
invited to come together for a final moment, and with the
support of decibel, we have been able to organise an event that
will allow us to raise money to support what is happening in
Palestine and Freedom Theatre, and to use that as an opportunity
to show love from all of the artists here in the UK to those
artists in Palestine, and hopefully through some of this
resource, the work of Rawand, Juliano and his legacy will
continue to grow and continue to have the impact it does.
I hope all of you here, if you are staying, will come and join
us, and if you are unable to attend please share it with the
other delegates and please do, it’s a public event, so any
contacts you may have within the region, please do share it with those as well.
Just to end with, they have come all the way from Palestine so I want to share these with you.
Rawand has brought these t-shirts with her, a selection of
t-shirts, that the money raised from these t-shirts will go back again to Freedom Theatre in Palestine.
Each t-shirt we are selling for fifteen pounds each.
We will be selling them today and again on Friday.
We welcome the delegates joining us on Friday and that is really an open invitation to everyone.
Again, thank you to Rawand and Peter and thank you everyone. Thank you very much.
I’d like to close with just a very, very brief poem. A piece of art.
This is what it’s about as well. This is a poem by Seamus Heaney, the Nobel Prize winner, Peace
Prize winner, who comes from Derry, Londonderry, and one of two
in the city to win peace prizes, the other being John Hulme.
And this is about hope, and it’s from The Cure at Troy, which
was written during the, during the so-called troubles that are continuing, as the UK’s live conflict site.
Derry, Londonderry, becomes the UK’s, the first UK city of culture in 2013.
It’s the four hundredth anniversary of London going to Northern
Ireland under the instructions of James the First and forming
the plantations or occupation, depending on which point of view
you take it, and that’s the four hundred years ago is where
these troubles began, not, not in human rights marches of the, of the early seventies.
So here from The Cure at Troy, about hope, and I think it’s really important for where you are.
Human beings suffer, they torture one another, they get hurt and get hard.
No poem or play or song can fully right a wrong inflicted or endured.
The innocent in jails beat on their bars together, a hunger
striker’s father stands in the graveyard dumb, the police widow in veils faints at the funeral home.
History says, don’t hope on this side of the grave, but then,
once in a lifetime, the longed for tidal wave of justice can rise up and hope and history rhyme.
So hope for a great sea change on the far side of revenge.
Believe that a further shore is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles and cures and healing wells.
And I really hope for Rawand and The Freedom Theatre, and the
people of Jenin, that a further shore is reachable and, and that
the, that we’re on the far side of revenge, and I really wish,
as I know we all do, a really positive future in a, in a difficult situation.
So thank you from me too for this really timely conversation.
And please do, all of you, reflect on your role in what you do,
because clearly it could be so much broader than what – I know
you’re here because you’re the converted – but theatre more
broadly, this is not theatre we’re talking about, it’s something much larger. What, what you can do.
And not just to support The Freedom Theatre, as I hope you
will, but to think about what you can do in conflict, in conflict areas in your communities.
And so we do call for a third intifada, a cultural intifada,
not just in Palestine but here in the UK as well.
It’s long overdue and there’s so much more in terms of cultural resistance that we can do.
So take our love back with you, won’t you, when you, when you go.
But you are around all week, so do, there’s much more you can
have in more intimate conversations.
Juliano used to say sometimes that the revolution must
continue, and I, I always say the revolution and cultural intifada must continue.
Thank you very much.