Palestinian children grow up with the conflict as though it were a bitter parent – ever present from birth, it offers them harsh lessons on ‘the way life is’, and shows them over and again that they are what they are – people without prospects, rights or security - and they will stay that way.
Middle East Nonviolence and Democracy, or MEND, is an organisation which aims to sever the stranglehold of the conflict and its mindset over the youth, and help them to remain open to new and creative ways of solving their many problems.
Difficult questions
When I was volunteering with MEND this summer, a group of eight 17 year olds from Ramallah were being trained up to travel to Germany to meet with a delegation of German youth, for cultural exchange and dialogue. As an exercise, the group leader asked the young people to imagine the questions which would most embarrass them if they were asked by their German counterparts. The responses were swift and amazingly honest – ‘Do you have Israeli friends?’ ‘If you say you are peaceful people, why do you do suicide bombings?’ – the list went on and on.
They were then asked to split into two groups – Palestinians and ‘Germans’. After four unwilling parties were persuaded to be ‘German’ – each of them had wanted a chance to defend the Palestinian cause – they were asked to address one of these questions in a dialogue, and chose, ‘Are you proud of being Palestinian?’
They tried hard; with low voices, intense expressions, the Palestinian group tried to explain their attachment to their land, family, and culture. The ‘Germans’, however, were having none of it, and brought them down at every opportunity. Within a couple of minutes, the subject of the dialogue was forgotten and the two groups began to dig up the past, back through the Oslo agreements to the time of the British mandate, with the ‘Germans’ accusing the Palestinians of constant ingratitude and selfishness and the Palestinians crying out against the unrelenting hostility and hypocrisy of the world as a whole. Both groups rose up onto their feet. After five minutes the quieter members of the group seemed to disappear, and it was just a finger-pointing argument between the boy and girl with the loudest voices – ‘And you started World War Two, so there!’. The leader finally called a halt.
The group were upset and disappointed with themselves. How had it ended like that? They came together again to discuss the problem.
A German member of staff, who had been following the proceedings in bemusement, spoke up. The German kids would not behave like the ‘German’ group had, he said. For one thing, they know nothing about the history of the Middle East. You’d be lucky if they could find it on a map. Anyway, why would they invite you to Germany just to shout at you?
Watching MTV
The group refused this suggestion outright. They knew, they said, that the media portrayed them as terrorists and had done all along. How should the Germans know any different? The explanation - that German teenagers generally used the television for watching MTV rather than the news - they met with disbelief. The idea that a whole population of young people had no use for the news bowled them over. It seemed outrageous – frivolity in a world where everything was going to pieces! It even looked for a moment as though a couple of the young people no longer wanted to travel.
Starting from common ground
One of the quiet boys finally spoke up, saying that he thought in this case ignorance was a good thing. It meant that the two groups would not be able to dig up the twists and turns of the bitter past as the adults had been doing for so long. They were forced to start from common ground – with no preconceptions, just as young people, talking together. And who knew what they might find out? After all, how much did they know about the Germans?
There was a pause, then one said, ‘Mercedes’. That was it.
Their curiosity awakened, they tried again.
It would be wrong to say that the second session was devoid of the problems which had characterised the first; and again, the dialogue ended with the same two assertive characters bulldozing the theme. However, this time the group dissolved into laughter as the pointing fingers jabbed the air, and the belligerents gave up. The leader called a halt again; as they left for home, the group began to talk excitedly of the journey ahead of them.
Jenny Steel