Identity in Crisis

“Crisis of Identity” – we Palestinian citizens of Israel supposedly suffer from this disease. I’ve heard this term hurled at me in accusing anger, in psychological diagnosis, in pity, in sarcasm. It’s always been a statement – nobody ever bothered even to ask my opinion or if I feel I suffer from this disease. We Palestinian citizens of Israel suffer from an extremely severe and incurable “Crisis of Identity.” We are split between “loyalty” to the state of Israel and belonging to our people.

Well, dear accusers:

I’ve got some news for you. I DO NOT – repeat: I DO NOT – suffer from any crisis of identity. I know who I am, and I surely know where my loyalties are. My loyalties are first and foremost to my values and to justice.

And if you think you will read here any “justifications” – you can stop reading right now. I don’t need to justify myself or my values to anybody.

Some facts:

I am a Palestinian. I live in my own homeland, which happens to be under the official name of Israel in the present. I carry an Israeli citizenship and an Israeli passport. I am institutionally discriminated against as part of a national minority. I stand up for my rights. I fight for my rights. I have no inferiority complex. I have no identity crisis.

Some thoughts on identity:

My own identity is made up of a plethora of aspects. To constrict me to my national identity is not only not right, but it is untrue. I am made of a multitude of identities, which are liquid, flowing and flexible. And never fixed. They are all temporary. How boring it must be to get stuck in one identity your whole life!

(c) khulud kh, June 2012

Women with Disabilities - more thoughts

What is disability? Let me start with this question. Is it only something physical and visible to the eye? And do you have to have some kind of an official document confirming your disability? Can you be disabled without being diagnosed as such by a medical body? What about the non-visible disabilities? How much do they count? And where do we draw the line between what is perceived to be a “normal” state and a “disabled” state of being?

I am starting off tabula rasa. Except for the one process-oriented group of women with and without disabilities, and the fact that my own mother has been disabled for the past three and a half years, I haven’t dipped into this area. Before reading any articles, I want to explore this on my own first. To get down my thoughts and form them into some coherent sentences. I’m well aware of the fact that I’m not going to reinvent the wheel, but still – there is something about the raw and intuitive writing before rushing to drink up already confirmed knowledge or reading about what feminists in other parts of the world are doing on this issue.

So here we go: intuitively, and from my experience with my mom and the group, women with disabilities are treated differently. Their disability serves as a marker of their “otherness,” situating them outside of the “normal us.” The disability is also a clear mark of inferiority – intellectual, emotional, and physical.

In the public sphere, we become intolerable to any inconveniences caused by the disability of a woman (or a man for that matter). We prefer to exclude her from any kind of action/activity if her inclusion means we have to compromise or adapt to her needs. Their disability slows us down, diverts us from our real purpose; in short, it gets in our way in a most annoying and inconvenient way. Why can’t they just stay home and remain invisible?!

Why, indeed? Because they are us and we are them. They are not inferior to us and we are not superior to them – in any way! They are us and the we (them and us) have equal rights. To be, to live, to act in the public sphere. And if that means we have to adapt ourselves, our architecture, our fast pace, our language, our mode of existence – then that’s the way it will be. Just as we adapt and change to make room in the public sphere to other “others,” so it should be with women with disabilities – be they confirmed by an official body or not.

But what am I talking about? Our society is a very long way from recognizing the legitimacy of any “others” in the public sphere. Any “other” who inconveniences us is shunned to the margins.

In some more traditional communities, women with disabilities are shoved away, hidden in a dark corner of the house. Some, who are young and have a “light” disability, become the servants of the family.

Enough writing for one day. It is not an easy subject to write about. More later. Still don’t know what form this is taking. For now, I am posting as I write – unedited.

(c) khulud kh, June 2012

Women with disabilities – thoughts

Emilia, my mother in an improvisation workshop. May 2012. photo by khulud kh (c)

I recently participated in a group of women with and without disabilities. It’s funny that I have a disabled mother – three and a half years passed since her CVA, yet until I participated in this group, I never made any connections.

The feminist movement I am familiar with has not made any major steps to include women with disabilities in its activities or even in its discourse. Only recently we initiated some discourse in Isha L’Isha about it, and held the first group of women with and without disabilities.

It’s strange, since in feminism, we advocate for the full and equal rights of marginalized and invisible groups. Women with disabilities have never taken any space in my life. Not until my mother suffered her CVA. But even then, it was something very personal. I had to deal with a completely new reality all of a sudden, in addition to reversal of roles in the family. I guess I was so busy in daily coping with this that I didn’t have time to connect it to something broader.

But now I’m glad I’m beginning to make the connections. The group process is now over, but the themes brought up, and the women who until then were invisible even to me – are taking up space in my thinking process.

It’s clear to me that this is only the beginning. Recently I’ve taken interest in photography, and since it coincided with the disabilities issue, it’s naturally pulling me in that direction. I volunteered to help in the PhotoVoice part of the research that Isha L’Isha is planning with group participants, and I’m looking forward to it. I’m also thinking of doing some small project with my mom with PhotoVoice. So far, disabilities have not appeared in my writing, but I know they will. It’s a process – I can’t rush it and can’t force myself to it. There’s no need. There is a time for it to happen naturally. And I know it will. In what form – fiction, poetry, or non-fiction, it doesn’t matter. It will come out in its own form.

And finally, I hope that the action initiated by Isha L’Isha will bear fruit and that through our awareness-raising activities, more feminist and other social change organizations will start working on issues of women with disabilities.

(c) khulud kh, June 2012

My Topographies of un-deletion

(The beginning of a new writing piece, exploring the connections between topographies, belonging, and fears):

“It’s the TOPOGRAPHY” my brain screamed down my stomach, the word punching me hard right downhill, more precisely on the right-winding curb between Golomb and Arlozorov, on my monthly way to the local Haifa story writers’ group meeting.

This urgent need for belonging to a physical place – all these years – it’s all been nothing more than an artificial illusion.

In the middle of it – I dream of Andalucía.

In the beginning of it – the feelings of the extinction danger – the deletion.

But in the end – it all collapsed downhill, on that hot-morning Huzairan on that curb where Golomb stops being and Arlozorov appears, peaking at me from the right.

It all collapsed into Haifa’s topography.

(more to come soon)

(c) khulud kh, June 2012

Excluded from Women's World Boxing Championship

This is the kind of news that makes me angry. The cover news of the local Friday paper features a picture of a young woman boxer, with the headline “7,000 shekel, baby.” It caught my attention, partly because of the all too common chauvinistic culture-made connection between the words and the image of the woman. If it were a man boxer, the word “baby” would never have been used. But this is just an aside comment.

The young woman is Yelena Shelkovin (ילנה שלקובין), three times Israel champion in boxing (in three different weights). She’s been qualified to participate in the 2012 Women’s World Boxing Championship in Qinhuangdao, China, to take place in May. However, Yelena will probably not make it. Why? She can’t afford to pay the 7,000 NIS (about $1,900 or 1,400 EUR) for the round-trip ticket and accommodation. In her interview, Yelena says that Sports Associations around the world usually fund participations of athletes in world championships. Of course, she received a letter from the Israeli Boxing Association that she will participate in the world championship, but that she has to fund her own ticket and accommodation. The interviewer quotes the response of William Shehada, chair and general director of the Israeli Boxing Association: “No need to make a big tragedy. This is a very expensive championship and the Association cannot fund it. She’s not someone who’s going to take the world championship, she’s not ready for it and she’s not worth the money, so she’s not going. She’s only Israel champion.”

I was quite surprised to read his response. She’s been Israel champion three years in a row. How can he say that she’s not ready? And what’s this “she’s not worth the money?”

I think there is exclusion and marginalization here on several layers: first, she’s a woman. So of course “she’s not worth the money.” Then, she’s a Russian immigrant, and she comes from a low socio-economic background. Yelena has made it on hew own. She immigrated to Israel all by herself at the age of 19, leaving her family behind. During the day, she cleans hotel rooms. She practices boxing after work.

I bet that if she were a man, there would be no funding issues. I bet that if she were born in Israel to Ashkenazi parents, there would be no funding issues. This is just another “small” example of the inequalities in Israel, and the rift between the different groups – women and men, ethnic groups, national groups, immigrants and those who were born here, different socio-economic backgrounds, etc.

No. There are no equal opportunities in Israel. Not if you don’t belong to the elite hegemony.

reason, will and desire

This is not a "serious" blog-post. Just playing around tonight.

Can't really do any "serious" writing with all the noise outside. Anyway...

According to Plato, the human mind is composed of REASON, WILL, and DESIRE.

This sentence caught me by surprise. Surprise about how simple and logical this is.

Although I do think there are other components to the human mind, like memories and madness, but that's another point.

Anyhow. Since I decided to study jewelry designing, I really can't wait to start, so I've been playing around with the primitive materials we have at home, and this ring is what I came up with. I think I like it - it's quite rough, asymmetrical, but still. I made it, using those parts of the mind labelled by Plato as "will" and "desire."

Yes, I believe that if you have the WILL and the DESIRE to achieve something, I mean if you TRULY desire it, there's nothing that can stop you from achieving it.

the memory of you

The connection to the body.

Writing a script onto the body.

Although in pencil, it will not be erased.

To remember always… all that was.

The pain, the grief, the agony of you.

I feel you walking inside my body, just right here, underneath the skin.

Slowly.

Mocking me.

And I demand my memories back.

To reverse the flow of my blood.

To retrace my steps to before…

Before the pain, the grief, the agony.

To a time when sunflowers made me shiver.

To a time when butterflies landed in my palms.

And you were there to cup them in your hands.

If I try hard enough, I can still remember

The gentle brush of the butterfly’s wings on my arms.

And that’s the memory of you –

I am taking

To the grave.

(c) khulud kh (2012)

Give a Stranger a Smile – Small Acts of Kindness (or: on becoming a runner)

She didn’t really mean to do it. All she was after was some paper for the printer. She had to buy some today because she needed to print the manuscript and otherwise she’d be stuck without paper for the whole weekend. So after she got her paper (just the regular kind, as the small store didn’t have any recycled paper), she wandered to the newly opened bookstore nearby. Instinctively she walked over to the English fiction section, her eyes swiftly sweeping the titles, all the way to the letter M. She didn’t anticipate it. She’s been waiting for this book for over a year, searching for it on every occasion. But some books just don’t make it here that fast. She’d all but forgotten about it. And now, on this day, there it was. And in hardcover! Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84. All three books. Almost a thousand pages of magic realism. Her favorite author and her favorite genre. Ecstatic, elated, she immediately picked it up, and as an afterthought grabbed also the very thin paperback What I Talk about when I Talk about Running, a Memoir, also by Murakami.

At the counter, one of the young saleswomen exclaimed: “What beautiful earring you have!” Without thinking, her left hand went up to her left ear to feel the earring. She remembered vaguely slipping it on in the morning. Her very first wire-wrapped earring she made, just two days before. Right after arranging a little mini-studio for jewelry designing in one corner of her apartment. After she decided to study jewelry designing. It was a primitively made earring, with no skill whatsoever. She just wanted to see if she has any potential. If she had any creativity potential, that is. And also to explore if the process of working with her hands gave her any delight. It did. The feeling after completing that one, single earring was similar to the feeling she got after completing a good session of writing. In a much smaller intensity, but it was there. She could sense its essence.

As she felt the earring at the bookstore, her fingers – on their own – took the earring off her ear, a shy smile slipped on and, handing the earring to the young woman, she said: “Do you like it? Here, it’s yours. Sorry I only have one.”

The Young woman was speechless. She held the earring in her open palm, looked at her disbelievingly, then at the saleswoman standing next to her, and said: “She gave me an earring!” There was great happiness in that small sentence. A gratitude.

She said, “Enjoy the earring,” smiled, and walked out of the bookstore with her 1Q84 and What I Talk about when I Talk about Running. Yes, got potential there. Very first earring and already given away, a small act of kindness.

That evening, after reading the first two chapters of What I Talk about When I Talk about Running, she decided to become a runner too. An extremely good day it was. The small act of kindness did her good. She made a stranger smile. For free. She got stronger motivation about her choice to study jewelry design, and decided to become a runner. All in one day. A good day, indeed.

new beginnings

Meet Maria, a spicy and fresh new character of my new novel in progress. Just a short fragment, the very beginning of the unraveling of her identity:

“Maria,” I pronounce my name in a casual way, having the privilege for a moment there to play with my identity. I never carry my I.D card with me on these trips. Because it gives me away. Only my driving license. My fair looks don’t betray it either. Only the accent. So I try to keep my mouth shut as much as I can – sometimes. When the soldier begins suspecting, he asks me what holidays we celebrate at home. But I got that down too. We don’t. I like playing these games with them. Today the checkpoint is quite crowded, and there’s a long line. I look at the side of the road and see the old woman at her usual spot with her shai. I throw a glance around – the soldiers are all out of earshot. I walk in her direction, she is bent down, her head low, stirring the na’ana into the shai. “Marhaba sitti,” she looks up, no surprise in her eyes. “Ahlan wasahlan, binti,” her voice is scratchy but clear. She smiles at me and pours some shai into a metal cup and hands it to me.

Layal’s family moved to Ramallah last year. It took baba a whole month before he allowed me to go and visit. I refused to do my homework, I refused to eat, I threatened to drop out of school. Until he gave in. He’s such a coward. Listens to the news and shakes his head. Ammo Hilal had to come all the way from Ramallah to pick me up. Baba didn’t even let me ride the bus to Jerusalem. “Too dangerous for a 19 year old girl.”

The language here is so different. No hybrid sentences. I have to watch myself when I’m out with Layal. My sentences get always mixed up with Hebrew. It’s a constant effort to search the brain for the right words in Arabic. And they always come out awkward. Like foreign words. Hasub instead of computer. I wonder how Layal changed her dictionary so fast.

At the checkpoint, it’s the other way around. I try to hide my language. In Ramallah, I try too hard to make it clear.

(c) khulud kh (2012)

Decluttering (reclaiming 730 hours a year)

Wake up in the morning, put water to boil. Meanwhile, turn on the computer. Pour a cup of coffee. Take it to the computer. Open the inbox. You do vaguely remember cleaning out your inbox before going to bed last night, but while you slept, it filled up again. Best case, twenty emails. On an average morning, thirty emails. Your brain still clogged up, you begin browsing through them – first, deleting all the newsletters you didn’t even know you subscribed to. Then, you skim to see if there’s any urgent matters that need to be taken care of. After that, you start going through emails from friends – photos, funny videos, links to important news. Demands for help. Calls for demonstrations. Important petitions to sign. Another cup of coffee. Waiting for the water heater can take an hour on a winter’s morning. And thus, you begin the day with one hour less.

An hour spent passively responding, reacting.

While showering, you try to remember what in the world you did during this one hour only five, six years ago. When you were lucky to get one email a week. On a good week, maybe two. Aaah, yes, you would wake up, make a cup of coffee, and grab the novel from your bedside table and read another chapter. Or a book of poetry. Or, take your notebook and write.

An hour spent actively feeding your mind. An hour spent creating. You begin your day with one hour gained.

Nostalgia? No, it doesn’t have to be. You decide you want to reclaim that one hour in the morning, and another one in the evening. So much can be achieved in 730 hours a year, which amount to one whole month of reclaimed time!

(c) khulud kh, 2012

Security measures: guns vs. locks (contemplation about Oslo, part 1)

We get out of the airport and into the biting cold of Oslo. It’s almost midnight but I feel fresh. People with suitcases, business men, tourists with backpacks. Norwegians. Bus drivers. Several buses are lined up and people find their way to the bus that will take them to their destination. Some walk in confidence towards this or that bus. Others ask around about a destination. We walk towards a bus randomly, and it happens to be the Airport Express Bus that we need to take to get to the center. 350 meters from our hotel. The bus ride takes about 45 minutes, and when we get off, the bus driver gets off the bus with us, helps us with our suitcases, and even walks with us to the corner of the street to show us a shortcut to the hotel. We are amazed at his kindness and helpfulness. It could never happen in Israel – I can’t imagine a bus driver actually leaving the bus and walking with us to show us directions.

I slept good the first night. There was some kind of a calmness accompanying me all the way from the airport to the hotel, which I was able to pinpoint on the following day. There were no weapons anywhere to be seen! No 18-year old kids walking around with sub-machine guns! No armed security guards to the entrance of hotels, public places, not even to the entrance of the Parliament! Guns have, unfortunately, become a “natural” part of our public sphere in Israel. Such a “natural” part, that most people have become blind to them. And it does strike you odd when you travel abroad to see gun-free public spaces.

However, it doesn’t mean that Oslo public spaces are “open.” Pretty fast, I realized that security measures are taken to such degrees so as to lock people out of their own offices, with no way in, and no way out.

We were accompanied by an organization representative to a meeting in their offices. She unlocked the front door with the help of an electronic card attached to her clothes. We walked up a flight of stairs and she used the same electronic card to open the door to the offices. But the card didn’t work. She tried several times. Giving up, she had to bang on the door, looking through the glass window. From the inside of the offices, a man approached and tried to open the door with his electronic card, also attached to his clothes. He, too, failed. So we were locked out, he was trapped in. Embarrassed smiles passed between the two. So we walked up another flight of stairs, and entered through the door – needless to say, with the help of the magic electronic card. We entered the offices and walked down from some internal flight of stairs to the floor below. We were inside.

After a briefing meeting, we were interviewed for the organization’s website, and then asked to walk outside to the roof to be photographed in daylight. Again, we had to go through several locked doors. When the photographer finished, I wanted to stay on the roof for several more minutes to smoke a cigarette, but was told that I couldn’t, as I don’t have an electronic key, and you need this key to open the door of the roof to get inside!

The next day, the same offices, between two meetings: I ask where the toilet is, but am told that I can’t go by myself, as there are several locked doors on the way, and obviously, being a visitor, I didn’t own any electronic key attached to my clothes! The representative had to accompany me and wait for me on the inside door to the toilet, as that was locked too – from both sides! This is when I began to feel like a prisoner. When I asked about these security measures – I didn’t get any clear answer. After all, the front door is locked. The locks are on all doors – whether it makes sense or not.

This seems to be the norm in

Oslo – at the hotel, you need your hotel key card to be able to use the elevator, and to open the door to the stairway.

Yes, extreme security measures are taken in Oslo. The only difference between Oslo’s security and ours is the fact that in Oslo technological means are being used, while here in Israel military means – weapons. The security in Oslo can – in the worst case – lock you out on the balcony or lock you in the toilet, while in Israel it threatens our very lives, and can often end in firing a gun at an innocent person, ending her life.

(c) khulud kh

photo: inside of the Opera House. Surprisingly, it was wide open. photo by Hannah Safran.

Israel's Citizenship Law

Sometimes we need a little (or big) nudge from reality to get back to our activism. And so my “indefinite leave from the conflict” has come to an end with the outrageous citizenship law, just ratified by the High Court. The law is not new, but the very recent decision of the High Court that the law is constitutional has left no legal channels open to act against it. Following the last post which includes a letter from my activist friend Dr. Hannah Safran, I am joining several women friends from Isha L’Isha this coming Thursday to visit Taiseer and his family in Akka. We wish to hear directly from Lana, his wife, about her life and the reality she deals with on a daily basis. Yes, this is my small contribution. I feel that I have to be out there. Listen to what Lana has to say first hand. And then do something with it. Write about it. Get her voice out there. Please follow up on this here soon.

Israel's Citizenship Law - Families not Able to Live Together

I am copying here an email sent out by my activist friend Hannah Safran.

I must say that I am as outraged as she is by this reality.

Dear Friends,

This is a plea for help from Mr. Taiseer Khatib and his wife Lana from Acca in Israel. Taiseer is a Ph.D student in Anthropology at the University of Haifa, a teacher at the Western Galilee College, and a conductor of creative writing workshops for young adults in the Freedom Theatre at the Jenin Refugee Camp. The story of the plight of the Khatib family (as you may see from the attached material) was all over the media when the high court decision accepted recently the "citizenship law" of 2003.

Lana Khatib is a Palestinian woman from Jenin in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (oPt), she has a diploma in economics from Al-Najah University in Nablus, she has moved to Israel in 2005 to live with her husband in his home town Acca. They have 2 children (4 and 3 years) but her residency here is totally depended on yearly extensions of her permission to stay within Israel of the 1967 borders. She has no legal rights, social rights, health insurance and security. She is not allowed neither to drive nor to hold a job and is thus dependent totally on her husband Taiseer. This situation creates lots of frustration for Lana who used to be independent and worked for about 4 years in the health ministry in Jenin city. One could only imagine who deprived her life is.

With the recent High Court decision she can never dream to achieve a status of a citizen, and not even a permanent resident. In the best case, she might get a renewal of the permission that enables her only to stay with her family, if she is lucky, and won't lose the mere permission to live in Acca. This is the horrific reality of almost 25,000 families in Israel.

Moreover, the Khatib's cannot choose to live in Nablus as Mr. Khatib is an Israeli citizen and according to the laws introduced after the Oslo agreement, Israeli citizens are not allowed to live in Palestinian cities which are within the "A" sections of the divided pTo. If one examine the “citizenship law” carefully its only aim is to create a “pure” Jewish state, empty from Palestinians.

If this situation reminds you of dark times in recent Jewish history please take action.

As someone who is outraged by this latest Israeli High Court decision I am sending you this personal story of the Khatib's family and urge you to protest in any way possible, to the press, to the UN, to the Israeli Embassy in your city/country and to Mr. Obama himself.

If you have more ideas or would like to help create an internation campaign please write back to Mr. Khatib or to me [hsafran10@hotmail.com]. To contact Mr Khatib please write to: taiseerk@gmail.com or become a friend on facebook: Taiseer Khatib.

With outrage and thanks,

Hannah

new initiatives

I don't know why, but I feel like there's a whole bunch of ants swarming inside my brain. I feel I want to start something new and fresh. Of course something to do with writing - how can it be otherwise? Playing around with ideas in my head at the moment. I don't mean starting a new novel, no. I mean something in a more creative way. Something collage-like, that I can play with and mold it in different ways. Well, what I actually need is a subject matter, or an issue. Maybe if I have the issue then I can think of the form that suits it best. Maybe some kind of a "need" out there - naturally, I'd like it to be an issue related to women. If anyone out there has any ideas for me, please send them my way through comments below this post.

thanks!

khulud

the Creating Safe Spaces Writing Project - ONLINE

we have an Internet platform!

Safe Spaces Writing Project

Please share, and send your stories.

The invitation appears both on the project's website, as well as here

we also have a facebook page so please help spread the word!

the first two stories are already online! read, share, tweet, comment, and send your stories.