Borders of identity and language in Haifa

Borders of identity and language in Haifa are all delineated and defined by the compounded topography of this unique city. So – in theory, one out of every five people walking the streets is Arab (because we do constitute 20% of the population, according to official statistics). The way people perceive you on the street in fact depends on your exact location at that moment. Sometimes all the difference is one street corner. At other times, the transition is more fluid, with no clear boundaries.

When you’re up on the mountain, let’s say Carmel Center, and you say either your name or something in Arabic, there’s always that one person at least (usually a guy) who tilts his head slightly, gives you a conspicuous sideways glance. When you notice him, an awkward moment follows. The air between you is pulled tighter on its string. A few moments later, the string loosens up, but just so, followed by a silent, invisible bonding. It is not clear what the bonding is about – language, skin colour, roots? Such arbitrariness. He is startled to discover you there, in that public space that doesn’t wholly belong to you, but which essentially does. Because this part of Haifa has been long ago marked as the territory of the Jews. Your territory, where you can speak Arabic with abandon, is down there, below. Not up here, not on top of this occupied mountain. Down there, that’s where you officially belong. The encounter ends with a barely detectable nod, or a shadow of a smile – for a flicker of a moment, and then it’s gone.    

(c) khulud khamis, 2015

Interviewer trying to impose a religion on me

A telephone survey on the theme of Haifa city:

Interviewer: Are you from a Jewish, Muslim, or Christian family?
Me: Atheist
Interviewer: You have to choose from the three categories: Jewish, Muslim, or Christian?
Me: I already answered you. I’m from an atheist family.
Interviewer: But I have to indicate... ok, what’s your ethnic group? (she uses the word eda in Hebrew, which can also connote religious affiliation).
Me: Palestinian.
Interviewer: And the family background? Muslim or Christian?
Me: You can’t force a religion on me. I already answered your question.
Interviewer: But I have to indicate one of the three options. Jewish, Muslim or Christian?
Me: Listen, lady. I already responded to your question several times.
Interviewer: Your family. What background? Muslim or Christian?

At this point I informed her I was not interested in continuing the survey. I totally understand the need for categorization, especially if the survey’s goal is, for example, about mapping the needs of different groups in Haifa. But religious categorization doesn’t add any value. Yes, I would like to see the results of a survey with division according to Jews and Palestinians, as the needs of the Jewish society would be different than those of the Palestinian society in Haifa. But to do the division according to religion doesn’t contribute anything. It is another attempt at dividing the Palestinian society, nothing more than that. A gender categorization, for example, would be much more important, as the needs of women are unique and different than those of men. And with the current categorization they are forgetting that Haifa has more groups than the three offered. Have they forgotten that Haifa has a not so insignificant number of Bahai? What about those belonging to the Druze religion? Would she also try to force a Muslim/Christian choice upon them?

erasing my language, silencing my voice, erasing my smile. But I rise and smile

You try to scare me. Make me shrink. Further.

Make me walk the streets of my city

My city

Trying to take up less space.

For two whole weeks that I’ve been avoiding public transportation. And when I had to take the train, and wanted to take my laptop out to work, I remembered it had stickers in Arabic on it, saying: “my right to live, to chose, to be.”

So the laptop remained in my backpack. Along with my language.

When my friend called during that same train ride, I mumbled quietly, “aha, hmmm, yeah, ok, bye.”

Before riding the train back home, I had on a shirt with the writing: “the personal is political” in Arabic and Hebrew. My friend asked me if I was sure I wanted to wear this shirt on the train. I looked down at the shirt, and again, packed my language inside my backpack.

For two whole weeks, they have succeeded in crushing me, in erasing my language, silencing my very voice, even my smile. The feeling was one of complete paralysis.

But today I rise, and I smile. Because erasing my smile would mean they have succeeded in their mission of crushing me. And today I raise my voice and say: with all the devastation around us, with over 1,400 dead women, girls, boys, and men in Gaza, with the all permeating sense of helplessness, and the crushing sense of hopelessness, we will not give you the satisfaction of yielding. We will not be crushed. Our smiles will not be erased, no matter how hard you try! No matter how hard you try to erase my language, silence my voice, I raise my voice for justice. And I refuse to lose hope, and I refuse to give up on my smile. Because we, sir, teach life! In spite and despite all your attempts to crush the life out of us. We rise, we smile, and we teach the world life!

khulud, 1 August 2014

Haifa

Pogrom Documentation in Haifa 19/ July 2014

On Saturday evening, 19 July, 2014, some dozen Haifa feminist activists gathered in the Haifa Women’s Coalition house to prepare signs for the protest march scheduled to take place at 21:30 in Carmel Center, Haifa. The atmosphere was positive, there was a sense that we are doing something, raising our voice, refusing to be silenced. We took photographs of ourselves with the signs and with the word ENOUGH written on our palms in Arabic (خلص), Hebrew (די), and English. At around 21:00 we headed towards Carmel Center, to join the march, organized by the Hadash Arab-Jewish party.

As soon as we arrived, we were completely taken aback by the scene. At least 2,000 extreme right-wing protesters were gathered at the point from which our march was to begin. We were moved to a different nearby location. We were few. Some accounts say we were several hundreds, but I don’t think there was more than 250 of us. Maybe even 200.

We could not march. The extreme right-wing protesters kept coming in, and were spread over on the other side of the main street, mainly chanting “death to Arabs” and “death to leftists.” I felt fear rise in my throat. I began taking pictures. At one point, I realized that when the protest is over, it will be very dangerous to disperse. I searched for our international intern and made sure that she doesn’t leave alone. Then I asked three of my friends – separately – if I can join them in their car and if they can drive me home. Three, because I wanted to make sure that if I lose sight of any of them, I have alternatives.

The protest came to an end when the last of the protestors who came out of Haifa got on the bus and left. Or so we thought. This was just the beginning. At this point, we remained about 50 protestors – mainly from Haifa, who came on foot or by car. Our intention was to disperse and go home. The police began dispersing as well. But the extreme right-wing protestors didn’t show any signs of dispersing. On the contrary, they just kept multiplying. Not only that, we soon realized that they were spread in groups in all they alleys surrounding us, behind bushes at the entrances to buildings, everywhere. Ambushing protestors trying to leave. My friends and I (at this point we were 6 or 7) tried to leave through the back yard of one of the buildings, and soon were chased back by angry protestors who were ambushing us with the aim of attacking us physically.

Back with the group of 50 protestors, we found ourselves moving slowly down the street, with no clear plan of what or how. At one point, my 5 friends somehow succeeded to break away and leave. Later I learned that two of them were beaten, one ended up in the hospital for concussion.

I remained with the 50 last protestors, and we came to a corner and stopped there. The scene in front of us was terrifying. In my estimation, there were about 1,500 of them. Surrounding us, approaching us, chanting death to Arabs. I looked at the street, and saw maybe 15 regular, unarmed policemen where half an hour before where hundreds of policemen, some on horseback.

We shrank back. A young teenage girl began crying behind me. An older woman said let’s go into one of the apartments. I screamed at one of the policemen: get us a bus! Then at one of the organizers the same thing. It was so easy at this point to just call a bus and get the hell out of there. We found ourselves posting statuses on Facebook that we are surrounded, we began calling 100 (police hotline). At this point, stones began flying at us. Large. One of them hit my friend in the side of her head. We were now crouching, our hands over our heads. I could smell the fear among us.

To me, this seemed to go on forever. It went on maybe for an hour. Later I learned that from my friends who saw our calls for help on Facebook that many of them called 100. The police, realizing it’s getting worse, at this point brought in the water cannon and armed police. Still, the water cannon didn’t help disperse the angry crowd.

Finally, after what seemed an eternity, the police decided to start moving us alongside the sidewalk. We begin walking, chased by the angry mob. As we walk, they pop up from everywhere: from alleys, entrances to houses. Stones keep flying in our direction. We keep moving through the alleyways. I have a feeling the police has no plan, no idea of what to do with us. We walk for about one kilometre. We stop at a roundabout. Now the police officers are arguing about what to do with us. I try again: “bring us a bus!” About 15-20 minutes later, a bus drives past, one of the night lines. The police stops the bus, gets the passengers off, and we get on.

We start moving. To me, it seemed we were driving in circles, as the angry mob was still chasing us in their cars. To me, it seemed that the ride was taking forever. We didn’t know where the bus is taking us. Finally, we arrive at Maxim restaurant by the beach. The place is full of police, and the water cannon. We get off the bus, and there seems to be no extremists in sight. It seems that everything is behind us. We get on another bus that’s waiting there. We have no idea where this bus will take us. Yet there’s a feeling of relief. We all get on the bus, and the bus starts pulling away.

All of a sudden, and out of nowhere, rocks fly at the bus. Moments of terror. The side windows are broken and there is glass everywhere. We scream at the driver to keep driving, as the police has finally left us and we are on our own.

The bus arrives at the German Colony, an Arab neighbourhood. We disembark. At last, a feeling of some sort of safety. Still, I find myself looking around me. Some of us, who live nearby, disperse. The rest, about 25 or so, head to the headquarters of the Hadash party. I’m shaking. Three of my friends come and pick me up in their car.

During all this, about ten women friends of mine stayed close to their phones and Facebook, calling, sending messages, asking what can we do, how can we help, calling the police. They wanted to come and pick us up, but there was no way. There were literally thousands of these extremists spread out all over the Carmel Center.

My friends drive me home, and during the drive, we keep watching cars passing us by, making sure we are not followed. When we reach my neighbourhood, a Jewish one, we stay in the car for several minutes to make sure nobody is around. Then, my friend walks me home. In the safety of my home, suddenly, I fell exposed, unsafe. The cat’s movement causes me to jump. An hour later, a friend calls to bring me something. I walk outside to meet her, and she puts her finger to her mouth, indicating we should not speak in Arabic. We stand in the street, speaking Hebrew.

I sit at my computer and write a short description of my experience, and as I write, I realize that what went on there was a pogrom. I realize that it could have ended not with people injured, but with people dead. I shiver as I recall the eyes full of murder. People who actually wanted me dead. For being an Arab. Not for any other reason.

This is my personal account of what happened on Saturday night. I’ve heard similar experiences from other activists who were with us. For me, it is becoming scary just to walk down the street or ride the bus. I have explicitly told my daughter not to talk in Arabic in public spaces. I myself am afraid to answer calls from Arab friends while on the bus for fear of being attacked.

This is Haifa 2014.  

khulud khamis

Haifa 22 July, 2014

On the same day, before the protest, I wrote a poem called "war is not my language" 

http://haifafieldnotes.blogspot.co.il/2014/07/war-is-not-my-language.html

Link to photo album of the "war is not my language photos:

https://www.facebook.com/asmahan.shalimar/media_set?set=a.797591380291110.1073741865.100001207677585&type=1

link to photos from the demonstration:

https://www.facebook.com/asmahan.shalimar/media_set?set=a.797540690296179.1073741864.100001207677585&type=3

Haifa fieldnotes - Wadi Nisnas souk

He walked into the tumultuous souk with abandon, his mind a blank, treading on unfamiliar ground. His was the clean supermarket, lit with sharp blinding neon lights, where every product had a label on it: where it was produced, by whom it was imported, who the distributor was, number of calories, the vitamins and minerals it contained, colour additives and other chemicals. They came in a variety of shapes, sizes, colours. Plastic, glass, tin, cardboard. In bags, bottles, and boxes. Smiling faces of young beautiful women and children (all light skinned with blue or hazel eyes, but of course) peeked from every shelf, winking at him, promising a better something. He did his shopping automatically, grabbing the cheaper product rather than the one that promised it had no artificial flavours added. But here, in this haphazard souk, with its own chaotic order, he felt out of sync. Olive oil was sold in plastic bottles which originally held bubbly drinks that tickle your tongue just so swiftly, flying through the nose like tiny dust particles that attach themselves forcefully to every in-breath. Ziyad couldn’t tell which olive oil came from the Triangle area and which from the North. To him, the bottles all looked the same – the only difference their single eyes – the plastic caps screwed in place. These came in reds, blues, grays, and greens. 

Ziyad puts two boxes with the same winking blue-eyed kid in his cart. Never mind that he doesn’t usually eat this cereal; it’s buy one get the second for half price. He can’t pass the deal. He pushes the creeping fact that the company has been suspected of trafficking in child labour out of the left corner of his mind. It has nothing to do with him. Those children don’t belong to his neat world. And anyway, if he didn’t get this brand, chances are the next one was produced in an illegal settlement or by women under inhumane employment conditions. So he clears his muddled conscience, shaking the grey specks like dust swept off old furniture. There was no way around it. 

The souk wasn’t free of child labour, either. But it was a different kind of child labour. The red, green and yellow apples still bore the fresh prints of children’s laughter inscribed into their skin. Sisters, brothers and cousins would chase one another around the family orchid, now getting tangled up in a grandmother’s wrinkled skirts, now passing under a ladder, picking up an apple here, stealing a hand-stitched scarf from a young cousin over there, running wildly, turning over a tank of lukewarm water. Chased by an uncle’s stick. The apples in the crates in the souk held on to these memories, to release the faint laughter of those children when sliced sharply by a knife to be served at the salu of another family. Ziyad didn’t know these secrets yet. The apples winked at him mischievously, teasing his taste-buds with their smooth colours like the waves tempting the rocks with their foam.

He stops at the first vegetable stall, where an ancient woman sits on the bare cream-coloured floor stacking up grape-leaves in neat little bundles. “Assalamu Alaikum, khalty,” he says after a moment’s hesitation. “Wa Alaikum Assalam, son,” she looks up with her dim eyes, wrinkled fingers resting on the stack she had just finished. He’s stuck. He was waiting for her to offer him today’s deal, or to tell him how delicious her apples were, but she remains silent. “Uhm… can you tell me where can I find Um Muhammad?”

“Um Muhammad,” the ancient woman rakes her memory, pausing to consult a dark, unswept corner of her mind. “The third stall on your left. I bet your mother sent you to her for oranges. She’s got the best ones, Allah be my witness.”

He thanked her, feeling awkward because she didn’t try to persuade him to buy anything from her. Later on, when he would frequent the souk several times a week, he would learn the ways things worked here. That you never try to buy a customer. Things are done ever so subtly at the souk.

***

He walks down the souk, passing an improvised stand with a boy of about fifteen selling freshly squeezed rumman juice. His face is dark from the sizzling Middle Eastern sun, his light brown eyes shimmering, catching the blood red of the fruit. His stark white tank-top in gleaming contrast to his olive skin, jeans smeared with thin strikes and dapples of various shades of rumman colour – some fresh, others old – like the cloth a painter cleans a brush on before dipping it into another colour.

Ziyad pauses at the side of the stand, watching a woman in her late thirties bargaining the price of a cup of the paradise drink. The young boy smiles politely, refusing to lower the already cheap price. The woman gets upset, her brow creasing, but she buys the drink anyway, not wanting to appear stingy. She walks away triumphantly, holding on to her trophy, sipping it ever so slowly. "A cold rumman drink to start the day with, muallem? Only five shekels for a taste of paradise.” The boy is already squeezing a fresh fruit into a tin cup with one hand, holding a sieve over it with the other so that the juice dripping into the cup is pure. “But you sold it for ten to that woman,” Ziyad says in confusion. “Ahlan wasahlan to the souk! So you’re new here?”

“How did you know?”

“Nobody asks a question like that. Ya’ani, nobody who knows how things work here,” the boy snickers, then continues in a more hushed tone, as if sharing a newly discovered conspiracy, “For everything in the souk, there are two prices. One for our brothers and sisters, and one for the Yahud. Don’t tell me you didn’t know this, muallem.”

Yes, of course. Ziyad remembers this traditional practice, though in mixed cities it also leads to some confusion or uncomfortable instances, usually when young Arab women are mistaken for Jewish. Most often, these misunderstandings end with laughter and an instant reduction of the price. He sipped his sublime clear juice, remembering the reason he was here.

- khulud, deleted from Haifa Fragments, forthcoming by Spinifex Press, 2014