MIDEAST: Culture Rises Above Security Walls

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Walid Batrawi

RAMALLAH, Apr 20 2004 (IPS) - Waiting in the queue to buy tickets for the opening ceremony of the European Film Festival in the West Bank city of Ramallah, one cannot help but listen to the stories people exchange about the Israeli incursion into the city just hours before the show.

Waiting in the queue to buy tickets for the opening ceremony of the European Film Festival in the West Bank city of Ramallah, one cannot help but listen to the stories people exchange about the Israeli incursion into the city just hours before the show.

The city that was under curfew in the afternoon is back to normal life in the evening, with dozens of people gathered outside Al-Kasaba Theatre and Cinematheque waiting to watch the ‘The Kite’, a Lebanese/French film. The film is playing among 28 European movies from Germany, the Netherlands, France, Belgium, Finland, Greece, Britain and Austria.

The festival comes “despite the ongoing siege and despite the apartheid wall that the Israelis are building to isolate Palestinian villages and cities,” Petra Barghouthi, the festival’s press coordinator told IPS.

The European Film Festival is part of wide-range activities Palestinian cultural institutions are organising in an attempt to revive cultural life that has been deeply affected by the eruption of the Palestinian Intifadah in September 2000.

Palestinian cities and villages, where missiles fall and bullets fly, may not seem the right place for cultural development especially when struggle against occupation is top priority.

The Israeli-imposed measures cut almost three million Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip from all aspects of normal living, says festival coordinator Khalid Elyyan.

“With this festival we are trying to overcome all Israeli roadblocks and checkpoints in order to convey the message that if they build a concrete wall, we build a culture that is much stronger and higher than the wall,” Elyyan told IPS. “By bringing Europe into Ramallah we prove that we can cross over the wall.”

The political instability in Palestine, and the restriction of movement between villages and cities have all contributed to a decline of Palestinian cultural life, says minister for culture Yehya Yakhluf.

“The Israeli occupation is the main basic obstacle in the way of development, education, knowledge and all aspects of life,” Yakhluf says. “The Israelis are deliberately destroying the cultural life in Palestine.”

Cultural centres have been closed “as part of the collective punishment policy, and therefore cultural events assure that life goes on in spite of all ill procedures imposed and conducted by the occupation authorities,” he says.

Events such as this festival, he says “enlighten a space of hope in our depths, the hope which we miss in the darkness and gloominess of Israeli aggression and occupation.”

Supported by the European Union, the film festival opens a platform for cultural exchange, says Alfonso Garrigosa, second secretary at the European Commission technical assistance office to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

“The European Commission has always been and is encouraging cultural dialogue between different civilisations and promoting cooperation between the European Union and its Mediterranean partners, and therefore we supported this film festival as part of this policy and to introduce European culture and cinema to the Palestinian audience trying to revive the cultural life in Palestine.”

Palestinian determination to overcome difficulties resulting from the conflict with Israel is also reflected in their willingness to continue their struggle for a better cultural life.

Cultural activities are not limited to theatre and the cinema. “All cultural and art institutions organise free mass activities for children, for example, as a form of therapy,” says Adila Al-Aidi, director of the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Centre in Ramallah. “Public attendance for all these activities has not decreased, except for the absence of out-of-towners in the audience due to the Israeli closures on Palestinian cities,” she says.

“There is a consensus among Palestinian artists and cultural centres that all the art centres are going back to work,” says Ibrahim Muzain, director of Feckra Art Institute in Gaza. “At this stage many but not all events reflect the daily Palestinian life and are related to the Intifadah.”

Cultural events are normally based on pure artistic considerations, says George Ibrahim, but “here in Palestine considerations of existence and politics determine a basic and important ambition in organising artistic activities, especially because we live under occupation. It is needless to say that by using humour against pain and using art to fight occupation we are no less than the fighters who chose the armed struggle.”