In this book of approximately 80 photographs made mostly between 2008 and 2010, I concentrate on conditions—and popular struggles to change those unjust and inhumane conditions. With special focus and dedication to youth, infant to young adult. It’s available in different formats and eventually an ebook. You can preview and purchase the book here.
For community access TV stations and others who might wish to download our new movie and broadcast it—other distributors and venues as well. You can now download the movie at no charge thru PEG Media. (However, you must be registered.) Please consider forwarding this to your local station.
In Eyewitness Gaza, Skip conveys his personal observations on events in Gaza, the complexities and consequences of action and reaction at the military and governmental level and its affects on real people. The video graphically depicts the emotional as well as physical affects of violence and offers hope in statements from young people about their commitment to non-violence. Sadly, it also describes how opponents of a peaceful approach discourage such actions. It is a compelling insight into the situation in Gaza.
—Joan Raducha, American Friends Service Committee, Madison Wisconsin
Detail For Show: Eyewitness Gaza
Description:
Eyewitness Gaza shows an accurate view of current life in Gaza, through the lens of photographer Skip Schiel. His photographs and reflections on many trips to Gaza show the unique position Gazans are in: under siege, under occupation, constantly threatened by attacks from Israel and their own political factions, with little awareness or concern by the rest of the world.
Central to “Eyewitness Gaza” are Gazan youth. How do they survive a siege and marginalizing by the world community? Through events in Palestine such as the Gaza Youth Break Out movement, and to the most recent manifestations of violent and nonviolent transformation of “Arab Spring”, Schiel and his camera chronicle a community trying to rebuild itself.
Type of Show: Specials
Target Viewing Market: National (US)
State of Production and/or Target State or Province: New Hampshire
PegMedia.org is a media transfer site for PEG (Public, Education, Government) community television stations and producers of media for these stations. This site is an easy way for producers to make their programming known and available to many stations simultaneously and, at the same time, to give stations a wide variety of programming from which to choose.
The stations who use PegMedia for content cover tens of millions of cabled homes and represent more than 50% of the total cable viewership in the US, giving producers a very large potential audience.
We welcome producers who are PEG stations, independent producers, musicians, and documentary and film makers, in a wide variety of genre.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
—Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr
Last night’s Iowa caucus was one for the ages. Mitt Romney edged out the surging Rick Santorum by only 8 votes. 8 freaking votes. That margin of victory is normally reserved for small town council races or student elections, not for Presidential nominating contests. The muddled results from last night don’t alter the fundamental element of this years nominating contest: It’s still Mitt Romney vs. everyone, and he will still prevail. His path to the nomination got a little bumpier though. Lets take a look at what last night’s results mean and where we go from here….
Photo by Jim Wilson, courtesy of the New York Times
If the New Hampshire primary goes as widely expected, Mitt Romney should emerge the winner among the candidates for the Republican presidential nomination. For weeks, polls in the state have shown him with a commanding lead.
This is election season. Iowa held the first presidential caucus recently; New Hampshire holds its today, January 10, 2012. As expected, the media covers the campaign extensively, I’d say obsessively. Yes, elections reveal national moods, but are they any more significant than the moods of sports fans, who roots for which team? One might compare enthusiasm for elections with enthusiasm for sports. Who wins becomes the main question—how they win, the process, statistics, ratings, polls, statements, interpretations, and predictions all endlessly fascinate a wide population. Is this another form “opiate of the people” that Karl Marx claimed religion to be?
Extreme coverage of election campaigns masks a broader question: what is the system the elections are embedded in? The birthday of Martin Luther King Jr will arrive soon, and in the context of King’s work and thinking we might ask, why so much media attention to the election campaigns, do they really warrant such minute scrutiny? Yes, the freedom movement King and others led often centered on voting rights, and yes, the right to vote is crucial, but now that those rights are more widespread (altho under constant attack), the questions of governance system, power structure, and actual sources of influence are critical. Rather than relentlessly examining campaigns, strategies, scandals, and voting results the media could investigate the larger system, the system of corporate dominance, congressional corruption, money in politics, and the iron grip militarism has on our country—MLK’s triplet of militarism, consumerism, and racism.
We must rapidly begin the shift from a ‘thing-oriented’ society to a ‘person-oriented’ society. When machines and computers, profit motives, and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.
—Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
King with President LB Johnson, signing the Voting Rights’ Act, 1965
In the Dexter Avenue King Baptist Church, Montgomery Alabama,
photo by Skip Schiel, 1998
I believe the Occupy Movement is struggling with the issue of systems, as are some of the Arab uprisings, especially Egypt. The dictator Mubarak is gone, yet the old military system survives and apparently controls the country. Egypt is undergoing its second phase of revolution where the controlling personalities are often identifiable, cloaked, but identifiable. In the United States those personalities are less apparent. During the reign of Bush the Junior, Bush, Chaney, Pearle, Wolfowitz, and the neo cons and others of the administration and congress consort with corporations, most notably the energy, financial, and military industries. Under Obama the personalities and links are less clear. However, to assay the influence and control trail, trace the money. Contrary to myth, the major money sources of Obama’s presidential campaign were not the little person like me but the big guys, financial, pharmaceutical, energy, and military. Looks like the same pattern will prevail in this year’s election.
Consider the Israel Lobby. If we were to peel back the layers of campaign activities to the money core, we would have a fairly clear explanation of why the US congress and administration unequivocally, slavishly, shamefully support Israel. Who wins a particular election matters less than how that campaign was financed and which lobbyists were heard.
President Obama at AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee
I call on the media to shift a large share of its attention from the minutia of the campaigns to the panorama of the system: campaign financing, corporate power, lobbying, vested interests, and perhaps even turn an eye on itself: corporate-controlled media.
Recently Occupy Boston held a forum on campaign finance reform with special attention to the Citizens United decision which grants person status to corporations. The movement to produce a constitutional amendment to overturn this insane and noxious Supreme Court decision is underway. Yes, to popular resistance! How often does commercial media cover this topic, compared to its coverage of the campaigns themselves?
Occupy Portland calls for a day of non-violent direct action to reclaim our voices and challenge our society’s obsession with profit and greed by shutting down the corporations. We are rejecting a society that does not allow us control of our future. We will reclaim our ability to shape our world in a democratic, cooperative, just and sustainable direction.
We call on the Occupy Movement and everyone seeking freedom and justice to join us in this day of action.
There has been a theft by the 1% of our democratic ability to shape and form the society in which we live and our society is steered toward the destructive pursuit of consumption, profit and greed at the expense of all else.
We call on people to target corporations that are part of the American Legislative Exchange Council which is a prime example of the way corporations buy off legislators and craft legislation that serves the interests of corporations and not people. They used it to create the anti-labor legislation in Wisconsin and the racist bill SB 1070 in Arizona among so many others. They use ALEC to spread these corporate laws around the country.
In doing this we begin to recreate our democracy. In doing this we begin to create a society that is organized to meet human needs and sustain life.
On February 29th, we will reclaim our future from the 1%. We will shut down the corporations and recreate our democracy.Join us! Leap into action! Reclaim our future! Shut down the corporations!
*This action received unanimous consensus from the Portland General Assembly on Sunday January 1st, 2012.
Titled Eyewitness Gaza, like our movie and my latest slide show, I will publish this book via Blurb.com. Here is a foretaste. Publication date is January 5, 2012.
(My special thanks to Maria Termini who helped inspire and edit this book, offering numerous suggestions; thanks also to my daughter Joey who led the way by publishing her own Blurb books.)
Dedicated to the youth of Gaza, infants to young adults.
I’m the Palestinian child,
I carried the grief early,
All the world forgot me,
They closed their eyes to my oppression,
I’m steadfast,
I’m steadfast.
—poem by Lutfi Lassini, recited by Mona Samouni in
Where Should the Birds Fly?, a movie by Fida Qishta on Blip.TV
Mona Samouni shows the identity photos of her late mother and father, photo courtesy of Adie Mormech
A BRIEF OUTLINE OF THE SITUATION & STRUGGLES
BY SKIP SCHIEL
At the moment, in short, the situation is dismal, perhaps the worst in decades—but with strong determination on the part of many Gazans to end the siege, end the occupation, end the entrapment, end the injustice, and breathe free. “Worse than a prison,” as my friend Husam stated a few years ago before conditions worsened, “now a graveyard.”
Husam may have anticipated Operation Cast Lead, the vicious Israeli assault on Gaza for 22 days which began on December 27, 2008. According to B’Tselem, The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, the Israeli military killed 1,389 human beings, including 248 police officers (civilians) and 320 children under the age of 16 and injured more than 5,300 more, up to two-thirds civilian. The Israelis destroyed thousands of homes, factories, and agricultural zones, rendering many homeless and jobless. Three Israeli civilians died during this period, all from rocket attacks, and ten military died, four of them by friendly fire. When I was last in Gaza in late 2010 more than 200 families still lived in tents.
For some recent history: in 2007 Hamas militarily ousted its main political rival Fatah and gained full control of the Strip. In 2006 Hamas won an open, free, fair, well-monitored Palestine-wide legislative election, trouncing Fatah. In response, Israel and many other governments, including the United States, began a siege lasting to this day. And in 2010 Israel loosened the siege very slightly after the Mavi Marmara incident when Israel attacked an international humanitarian aid convoy and killed seven Turkish civilians.
Any accountability here? Any complaints from the US or other governmental supporters of Israel? Barely.
However, the rise of the international court system offers good prospects. The UN Human Rights Council commissioned an investigation into Operation Cast Lead, the so-called Goldstone Report, which in fact was co-written by three other people. Despite retraction by the lead author, the eminent South African jurist, Richard Goldstone, of portions of the report which claimed Israel deliberately targeted civilians, the other authors and Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International corroborated the findings.
My experience on the ground—five visits since 2004—inspires me. I have noticed much sumud (steadfastness), better use of media, the rise of the youth movement which is coincident with the Arab Spring, and expanded international awareness. The Boycott, Divest, and Sanction Movement confirms my hope of eventual resolution.
My message is to show as much love as you can to your parents, because I lost my parents and I am not able to care for them anymore.
—Mona Samouni, age 11 years
MY PERSONAL STORY
I began this multi-year photo project after I’d grown successively and painfully aware of the conflicts in Palestine/Israel. My first trip with a delegation in 2003 confirmed my decision to photograph with an open heart the situation and struggles for justice, peace, and security in the Levant. Growing up Catholic seeded my desire to travel to the Holy Land and “walk in the footsteps of Jesus.” My work in South Africa during the final phase of apartheid illustrated the many parallels between apartheid there and injustice in the Levant. My escalating awareness stirred me to take some sort of action to at least quell my outrage. And that first trip brought me face to face with the Mediterranean light which continues to challenge me as an artist and human being. Also, personal connections with so many Palestinians and Israelis working for justice with peace—risking their lives—encourage me to continue.
The situation is both complex in how we tell the story and parade the justifications and yet simple on the level of injustice, impunity, the violation of international law, and the denial of basic human rights. I hope at the very least to open a few windows and doors for others who may seek comprehension and action.
I am able to enter Gaza because I volunteer with the American Friends Service Committee. I teach photography to young adults thru the AFSC’s exemplary Quaker Palestine Youth Program. I photograph their operations—much else as well, often volunteering my photographic skills to other Gazan (and Israeli and West Bank) organizations.
During Operation Cast Lead I learned about the brutal assault on the extended Samouni family and neighborhood in the Zeitoun section of Gaza City. The Israeli military rounded up one group and forced them into one building which the military pledged would be safe. Then the army wantonly and without warning attacked that building. In this single incident, early thirty people died. A total of forty-eight people were killed and twenty-seven homes, a mosque and a number of farms were destroyed. To my eyes, this was a clear massacre. I was horrified and never expected to meet the survivors. Thanks to the International Solidarity Movement who had raised money to buy winter clothing for the children, I accompanied the volunteers and was able to meet, interview, and photograph this extraordinary extended family.
Fatah and Hamas are political rivals, splintering the Palestinian freedom movement. Fatah rules in the West Bank, Hamas in Gaza, and altho they signed a reconciliation document in early 2011, nothing tangible has changed. During the inter-factional violence of 2007 my dear friend and AFSC staff member, Ibrahem Shatali, was injured while he and others tried to stop the fighting. For the movie, also titled Eyewitness Gaza, I interviewed him at the shooting site.
Sderot is an Israeli town of nearly 30,000 citizens less than one mile from Gaza. Thus it suffers the brunt of rocket and mortar attacks from Gazan militants. Israel uses the rocket attacks to justify the continuing siege and violence against Gaza, a ploy that might mask deeper intentions—forced removal. Yet the trauma is real, in Sderot and most of Israel. On a different scale than in Palestine but pivotal in many Israeli lives. I wanted to visit Sderot to experience and understand the trauma, share its story, and support Sderot residents who challenge Israeli policies when they cause more suffering to all parties and do not resolve the crisis.
Possibly among the most useful services I’ve provided in Gaza are the photo exhibits I help coordinate with my workshop students. They are highly motivated and do excellent work, learn how to depict what they face to a wider world, and experience achievement when they mount their exhibitions in Gaza. One of my hopes is to bring their photos to an international audience.
The photos in this book were mostly made in 2008-2010 and many appear in the movie by Tom Jackson, Eyewitness Gaza.
I conclude with gratitude to:
Amal Sabawi, Ibrahem Shatali, Mosab Abu Dagga, Adham Khalil, Islam Modhoun, Kanaan Samouni, Raghda El Jedali, Quaker Palestine Youth Program in Gaza, Patricia Sellick, Tom Jackson, American Friends Service Committee, Friends Meeting at Cambridge, Ken Barney, Josephine Schiele, Maria Termini, Katy Downey, Salem Quarter Quaker Funds, my support committee, & many others.
Middle East Children’s Alliance Maia water project in Afaq Jadeeda
Rafah sewage lagoon, 2006
A dialog between Susan Koppelman of LifeSource & Skip Schiel. We try to clarify the water rights issue in Palestine & Israel based on our many experiences there. Missing from this exchange are Israeli voices. I invite them to join us. This post is dedicated to Fadia Daibes Murad (with special thanks to Cliff Bennett for inspiring it).
Although [increasing] by the day, the water crisis in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) is less and less visible in the daily Palestinian discourse. The more contentious issues like the refugees, Jerusalem borders and security are occupying the minds of at least the Palestinian policy and decision makers. Interestingly enough, and contrary to what prevails in the OPT, many Israeli water advocates are grasping the opportunity of intentional neglect to the water problem in the OPT to serve their national purpose for confirming the status quo with regard to water. They are more consistent than ever in reiterating that there is a water crisis in Israel and that their proposals concerning desalinated water and the import of water from Turkey to solve the Palestinian water problem are feasible.
(continuing the dialog between Susan Koppelman and me)
Hi Skip,
Thank you for this opportunity to go more deeply into the question of what can Palestinians, and those in solidarity with the Palestinian people, do to improve the water and sanitation situation on the ground within the current reality of the Israeli Occupation and colonization of Palestinian territory and resources. For sure, we agree with the principle that ‘the fact of occupation does not absolve Palestinians of their responsibility’ – to the Palestinian people and to the ecosystem – to minimize harm, to protect water resources and to promote access to safe drinking water – to the extent that to do so is within their means.
I am particularly interested in having this conversation with you because you have spent a lot of time in Palestine meeting with Palestinians and local experts to better understand the water and sanitation situation. You are aware of the disaster that happened in Beit Lahia, Gaza in 2007 when the sewage lagoons overflowed and five residents of the village Um An-Nasser were drowned to death in sewage. You have seen the above ground river of sewage from two illegal Israeli settlements – Ariel Industrial Zone and Barkan Industrial Zone – which flows through Sulfit in a parallel line to the properly submerged sewage network disposing of waste from the Palestinian municipality of Sulfit – it is amazing to see the kilometers of manholes to the proper Palestinian sewage network running just 20 meters parallel to the sewage stream of toxic waste from the illegal Israeli industrial zones/colonies. For the sake of this discussion let’s focus on these two examples, although I’m very happy to discuss others as well, if you would like.
Photo byBshar Ashour of the Palestine Hydrology Group (PHG)
Um An-Nasser, photo by Ehab Zaheem
In the case of the overflow of the sewage lagoons at the Beit Lahia Waste Water Treatment Plant in the north of Gaza in 2007, it is fine to ask the question: What could Palestinians have done with materials and resources found in Gaza in order to avert this catastrophe? Honestly, I am not certain as to the answer to this question. I’ve always understood this case to be a simple issue of access to materials, but I’ll look into it! Do you know? What I do know is that for years, Israel prevented the Gazan Coastal Municipalities Water Utility (CMWU) from importing materials needed to finish constructing the emergency phase of this treatment facility, and to this day Israel is obstructing the import of materials and spare parts needed for day-to-day functioning of the plant, as well as materials needed to construct the next phase of the project that would allow CMWU to go beyond basic treatment and treat the waste water to the quality that it can be used to recharge the depleted aquifer in Gaza. In fact, the emergency phase of the Beit Lahia Treatment Plant was only completed after the 2007 catastrophe, at which point Tony Blair finally and famously intervened to pressure Israel to allow in the necessary materials.
Graffiti says, “young girl drowned here”
I am very familiar with calls before this crisis from CMWU – supported by the UN – urging Israel to do the right thing and allow entry of the materials needed to support the banks of the lagoon so that they wouldn’t collapse. As you may know, LifeSource, the Palestinian water rights organization that I work with, is a member of EWASH, a coalition organization of groups working in the water and sanitation sector in occupied Palestinian territory which includes some UN agencies (UNICEF, UN Development Program, and the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA). I remember both EWASH and the UN circulating a press release from CMWU calling for pressure on Israel to allow materials entry to prevent the collapse of the embankment of the lagoon. I am unfamiliar with any suggestion from any UN worker that CMWU had the means to otherwise prop up the overstressed banks of the lagoon. I’m interested to learn if you know of other options that Palestinians had at that time, given that materials entry through the humanitarian crossings with Israel was being prevented.
The film Gaza is Floating produced by LifeSource looks at the sewage situation in Gaza and includes an interview with the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Coordinator for the UN in Gaza that may be interesting to you. The 9 minute version of the film is online at www.lifesource.ps/gazafloating.
By the way, there is a 15 minute version of the film that goes more into some development and engineering questions particular to the sanitation situation in Khan Younis and surrounding villages, and I think is relevant to contextualizing your statement that new lagoons have been blocked by local Palestinians crying NIMBY (not-in-my-backyard): new basic emergency lagoons create more problems, they can be very unsafe, and they are not a solution to Israel’s blockade of humanitarian materials or a substitute for proper sewage treatment facilities. What is needed is the development of sophisticated facilities that fully treat the sewage, not more lagoons for storing it. I too have traveled Gaza touring the water and sanitation situation, and Gazans are eager for proper treatment facilities in my experience. I welcome questions or comments arising from my comments here or from the film, regarding options for Palestinians in Gaza to treat wastewater.
Unknown health affects, Beit Lahiya, Um An-Hasser
It is also a good question I agree to ask what can Palestinians in the West Bank due to treat wastewater given Israeli restrictions on sanitation development. I am sure we both agree that Israel is responsible for the obstruction over a nearly 15-year period of multiple large-scale waste water treatment plants in the West Bank – the World Bank even stated this bluntly in their 2009 report Assessment of Restrictions on Palestinian Water Sector Development. What then can Palestinians do more locally to treat wastewater or to reuse gray water at the household level is a fine question, as long as it doesn’t absolve Israel from recognizing Palestinians’ human right to water and sanitation and from allowing large-scale wastewater treatment facilities to treat municipality sewage in an efficient way. The reality is that wastewater treatment is very expensive, it is 3 times more expensive I have heard to build a sewage network than a water network. Smaller units for treating wastewater at the household level are unaffordable for most families and for the government to invest in. The fact is that many families are already reusing gray water out of necessity. Families are using the same water they use to wash their clothes to wash the floor, etc. Water conservationists around the world have a lot to learn from Palestinians and others surviving on very little water each day, day after day, out of necessity.
You are right that it is not only the illegal Israeli settlements, but many Palestinian municipalities as well that are dumping untreated wastewater into wadis. Given that Israel has prevented the development of proper treatment facilities, what can Palestinians do with their waste water? In the West Bank, only 31% of Palestinian households are connected to a sewage network, the rest use cesspits and septic tanks. Sulfit is one of the lucky municipalities that has been able to implement construction of a sewage network, but after the sewage is carried away from the residential areas of the municipality there is not a completed treatment facility to treat this waste water. There aren’t proper facilities for dealing with wastewater from cesspits and septic tanks, again because of Israeli obstruction. So, yes, here, mechanisms for treating wastewater that are low-cost, local AND DO NOT REQUIRE ISRAELI PERMISSION could be very useful in allowing Palestinians to finally be able to treat their waste water in an acceptable way as they’ve been struggling to do since before Oslo. Keep in mind non-local options, like reed treatment, are not possible because land that isn’t built up has been claimed by Israel. Bacterial treatment could be an option in the near future if/when the price comes down.
Smelter dumping toxins from the Israeli West Bank industrial settlement of Barkan
Raw sewage from Barkan industrial park
Retaining wall built by Denmark to confine Israeli sewage flowing thru Salfit region
We can go one step further and look at compost toilets as a solution. Surely this is not an option in the refugee camps and other overcrowded areas. I can say from experience that there is a lot of resistance to compost toilets in Palestine. There is a lot of resistance in the US and other parts of the world as well. Are Palestinians who are dealing with the gruesome reality of Israeli occupation to blame if they flush their toilets while Israel obstructs creation of a treatment facility to treat the sewage they flush? Should Palestinians, given the reality of Israeli obstruction of Palestinian sanitation development, be held to a different standard and be blamed for not shitting into a bucket to fertilize their fruit trees?
Trash collection in my experience is such an anomaly. I can understand your tendency to link trash collection with sewage treatment, but, in fact, I think they are unrelated. It is very important to Palestinians to treat sewage and to keep it away from their water supply, for many reasons, including religious reasons. The motivation, determination and perseverance of Palestinians to address this problem is well documented. It is disappointing that trash collection has not been approached in a similar way. I’ve wondered for some time if this has to do with Palestinians’ reactions to Israelis viewing Palestinians as trash and trash collectors. A friend of mine suggested to a Palestinian permaculturist that he organize children in his village to clean up the trash in the streets and he was offended. ‘My people are not trash collectors!’ he asserted. I agree with you that there is value in Palestinians taking responsibility for their trash. Also, it is really frustrating to study the water and sanitation situation, to spend so much energy and resources in supporting Palestinians to come up with creative solutions for having their basic right to water and sanitation, and to see that beyond compost toilets, there seem to be few options for Palestinians to make much observable impact on the ground. If new technology can change this and support Palestinians’ rights to water and sanitation and to self-determination, this would be fantastic!
Middle East Children’s Alliance Maia water project
Me:
susan,
excellent response, very well-informed and decidedly compassionate, to me and others. i wish i could answer the questions you put to me, i’ll ponder them. i wish i could go to someone like the late water expert, fadia daibes murad, for her intelligent answers and attitudes. (i do plan to briefly quote her in my blog), i’ll think about who else i might contact, someone from phg in gaza for instance who toured me around the beit lahiya spill or fareed in the wb who you might know, not exactly a water expert but knowledgeable about many topics. as you know, reaching people thru the long arm of the internet can be vexing, even when they’re down the street.
i’ll read your letter more carefully tomorrow, may shorten it and other entries of yours and mine, and probably post the blog tomorrow. we can always add to it later, esp if others join in the conversation.
there are many intelligent and creative folks working on these issues! i knew fadia, yes i know fareed, i’ve worked with phg [palestine hydrology group] in ramallah and had contact with phg in gaza. i know many others as well. clemens messershmidt is a geo-hydrologist who’s been living in the west bank for more than 15 years. my colleague recently attended a talk of his in ramallah where he stated the top 3 priorities for palestinian water development: 1. to drill new wells. 2. to drill new wells. 3. to drill new wells. he was very succinct. yes, my response was long indeed!
The late Fadia Daibes Murad was a world-recognized Palestinian water expert, young, vibrant, articulate, with a recent PhD in hydrology. She published a tome about Palestine water rights and won an Edberg Award in 2005 for contribution to peace in the Middle East through her work on water rights law. She emphasized using water rights as a catalyst for peace in the Middle East. She had embarked on a path to bring the water rights’ issue to world attention thru the international court system. She told me, I’m beyond writing about the conditions. I want solutions, and I feel the main route to solutions is thru adjudication by international bodies. We intended to work together, me supplying photos and she the analysis.
—From my journal about Fadia
A dialog between Susan Koppelman of LifeSource & Skip Schiel. We try to clarify the water rights issue in Palestine & Israel based on our many experiences there. Missing from this exchange are Israeli voices. I invite them to join us. This post is dedicated to Fadia Daibes Murad (with special thanks to Cliff Bennett for inspiring it).
I thought you may be interested in this article about Israeli Water Tech.
Salaam/Shalom,
Cliff
School in Gaza
cliff,
the obvious omission, the grand ocean in the room so to speak, is the hydrological injustice heaped (or deluged) upon the palestinians. i’m sure you noticed this. regardless, the pals might emulate some of what israel’s water technology is doing—and the pals are, slowly, more in water harvesting (from greenhouse roofs for instance) but not yet water disposal (a very curious omission which i hope soon changes).
i could stand correction if any on this list have any to make. i’d like to be up to date.
Harvesting rain water from a rooftop in the West Bank
Skip,
I’m interested in why you think that Palestinians are “slowly, more in water harvesting”? Water harvesting is an ancient technique and practice in Palestine, perhaps inherited by the Romans. Solomon’s pools are still the largest reservoirs in the West Bank. Canals feeding the pools, however, were systematically destroyed by the Israeli army.
Today Israel destroys Palestinian water infrastructure, including rainwater harvesting cisterns, citing permitting infractions. International law is clear that this is a violation of human rights. In fact, one of the cisterns destroyed by the Israeli army this year in Susya was built during Roman times!, while according to official Israeli policy, anything built before Oslo is grandfathered in.
In regards to wastewater treatment, Israel blocked the construction of wastewater treatment facilities for Palestinians for years. The only completed project was built after Oslo but before the Joint Water Committee was established. For 15 years! Palestinian engineers jumped through hoop after hoop following every Israeli requirement that was communicated one by one as to what was necessary for more than 5 different plants to be approved, and only after 15 years with international pressure were they approved. The proposed plant in Sulfit in fact was approved earlier by the Joint Water Council, it was not vetoed by the Israeli water commissioner, it was approved by 12 Israeli ministries, and then after it was licensed for construction and tendered, in the first month of construction the Israeli army shut it down, declaring the site a closed military zone and required that the location be moved!
The water injustice deluged upon Palestinians is not one of technology but one of Israel’s egregious violations of international law and human rights. Human rights conventions ratified by the state of Israel are clear that ‘state parties must not interfere directly or indirectly with the enjoyment of a right’. I support Israel being commended for its advances in technology, some of these are truly a marvel. However, as long as Israel is committing such flagrant violations of Palestinians human right to water, it is important that global citizens and institutions take every measure to hold Israel accountable to international law and to protect the human rights of all the region’s inhabitants. This may mean even boycotting this very technology that could bring improved standards of living to certain regions of the world, until Israel simply lifts its ban on water development for the Palestinian people. Would Israel stop violating Palestinians’ human right to water and sanitation for 2 billion dollars a year? What if countries promised to use Israeli technology after Palestinians were allowed all of their rights, thus expanding this market further? What should the cost to Israel be for these human rights violations?
Thanks for your thoughtful views. You are one of the leading experts on water rights in Palestine/Israel, no doubt. I value your contribution.
We have no essential disagreement. I understand the gross hydro injustice perpetrated by Israel upon the Palestinians, and I like your idea of boycotting Israeli technology until they end the injustice. I am aware of the situation in Salfit; I photographed the area including the newly constructed piping that has not to this day been used. I’ve seen and photographed numerous sites, like Wadi Fukin, where Israeli settlements wantonly dumped sewage into Palestinian water resources. I realize the Gazan water authority for years has held volumes of raw sewage in lagoons in Beit Lahiya, awaiting Israeli permission to construct new facilities. I’ve visited most of the Gaza water sites, spoken with engineers, and contributed to a UN report about that situation. No argument with you there.
Betar Illit, illegal Israeli settlement overlooking Wadi Fukin and allegedly dumping raw sewage down the hillside
My quote, extended a bit, was the pals might emulate some of what Israel’s water technology is doing—and the pals are, slowly, more in water harvesting (from greenhouse roofs for instance) but not yet water disposal (a very curious omission which i hope soon changes). By which I meant, yes, the Palestinians have developed their water resources as you so cogently point out, but my impression based on my study, discussions, and observation is that both water authorities in the West Bank and Gaza tend to emphasize water input rather than water output.
The Jordan River valley from Beit Shanean
These observations are shared with the late Palestinian hydrologist Fadia Daibes Murad, who I worked closely with, and I believe the water expert Robin Twite of the Israel Palestine Center for Research and Information, IPCRI. Unfortunately I’ve not been able to document this. But here are a few examples:
That sewerage complex in Beit Lahiya. The UN for years had warned the Gaza authorities of the dangerous condition the lagoons are in, urging them to at least strength them. Not done, resulting in a major burst a few years ago. One might argue that the governing party, Hamas, did not have the funding—or the decision makers might have prioritized other aspects of the system. In addition, that authority has attempted digging new lagoons, but these are often blocked not by Israelis but by Gazans who do not want them in their neighborhoods.
Sewage lagoons in Beit Lahiya—click image to enlarge
Further, some years ago the UN offered training and equipment for garbage disposal in Ramallah. For a short period the streets and vacant lots were cleaned. The program ended. And the areas were once again strewn with rubbish, often burning rubbish which is toxic and demoralizing. Not the Israeli’s fault, maybe the UN could have assured more continuity, I’m not sure, but probably indicative of attitude. And the Kidron River running near Bethlehem thru the Judean wilderness desert. A few years ago I trekked across this region, needed to cross the river, and our guide explained that settlements—and Palestinian villages—both dump raw sewage in it.
Detritus of effluent onto Gaza City shore
Netting fish near a raw sewage outflow, Gaza City, Mediterranean coast
In short, and this is my main point, when assessing responsibility for injustice we must be careful to not pin everything on the bad guys, in this case the Israelis. I call for shared responsibility. When it is up to the Palestinians, then we make that call. The fact of occupation, horrendous as it is, can not universally be used to absolve Palestinians of their responsibility.
I’m curious what you think of this argument and value our conversation.
Another iteration of Occupy Boston yesterday [October 15, 2011], my third. The main camp remains. With some reported violence last week the police had dismantled the second camp along the Greenway. Yesterday all seemed calm, even when the peace march reached Verizon and stopped to chant slogans, and later outside the Bank of America, a hated symbol of corporate greed and congressional and administration malfeasance. At this second site, I stationed myself between marchers and the bank, joining a surprisingly small phalanx of bicycle cops to stand between institution and opposition. Speeches, chants, waving fists, and the march continued. I filmed and photographed, prepared at any minute for violence. This reminded me of clashes in Israel-Palestine at spots like Bil’in, the Palestinian village which for more than 5 years has resisted the separation barrier, where one could not predict outcomes. The power of a crowd, a mass, a mob is not easily directed. Or might be effectively directed by the likes of Samuel Adams. Oh Sam, where are you now?
In front of the Bank of America
In front of Verizon
I believe the march had been planned by the Boston branch of the United National Antiwar Committee before Occupy Boston started, as a demand to end US wars. It turned into a march that also supported Occupied Boston. Because of the multivalent nature of the march young people were not the usual high proportion.
Guarding the Army recruitment center
Wishing to not bore myself or any possible audience I strove for unusual photos. One might be at the Army recruitment center, the march reflected in the glass wall with its Army signs. Another might be the low camera angles. Another might be faces. I tried.
A travel and couple dream. With others we rode in a bus thru the night, arrived in Cambridge after one leg of a longer trip. We all helped the driver remove the folding chairs serving as seats so the bus could be cleaned. I’d acquired 2 large loaves of crumbly bread, one I dropped on the ground but retrieved to eat later. I wished to save both loaves for the rest of my journey.
A young man and young woman who’d also ridden on the bus intended to go further. They needed to catch their next bus somewhere in East Cambridge. I directed them thru Central Sq, confident I knew the way. By now I might have been on a bike. I looked longingly at them, this newly forming couple and thought fondly of when I was in a similar stage of life with P. I felt grateful that P and I had met and loved and married and had children, all when young, and by recalling our history I felt less old, less left out. I kept all this meditation to myself.
In a hotel I found for my overnight stay, I showered by turning the entire bathroom into a shower, spewing water all over walls and floor. I did this wantonly but with permission.
October 18, 2011, Tuesday, home in Cambridge
Australian Delegation Visits Cluster-Bombed Areas of Lebanon, Calls for Ban
I see a connection, albeit a slender one, between our Quaker meeting’s monthly prayerful witness at Textron Industries in Wilmington Massachusetts,manufacturer of cluster bombs, and the popular movements now erupting internationally. Some 85 of us “occupied” a conspicuous space in front of the building, held it for one hour as a multitude of people rode by, prayed for peace or whatever we felt impelled to do during our “occupation,” and created a visible and irrefutable sign and question about the meaning of this building—what Textron made, how it profited, and who lost limbs, sanity, and lives because of its product. One year earlier I’m not sure we’d have found many from Friends Meeting at Cambridge willing to sit in prayer in front of Textron. Or if we had that we’d have so many participants. Our visits to Textron date back nearly 2 years when John Bach—love that man!—initiated nearly single-handedly a monthly series to Textron. I joined early, regularly participate, and for this recent manifestation, contributed a display about the company and its nefarious work.
John Bach, founder of the Textron Industries monthly prayer sessions
October 20, 2011, Thursday, home in Cambridge
Cool and wet, after a day of rain, heavy at times, mid 50s, overcast, calm.
Photographing the tents at Occupy Boston reminded me of the Simplex Tent City set up in 1987 to contest MIT’s take over of residential property between Central Sq and the university. So I investigated my archive. The negatives must be at P’s and so for now remain unavailable. In my basement I found a few prints, and then I remembered that I have photocopied sets of many of my earlier photos on the shelf above my computer. So I dragged a bunch of notebooks down and perused them. I found only a few from that tent city, and they were not very inspiring. I found other photos from various political projects. I’d assess them as of mixed value. Juvenilia perhaps. One or two images might warrant inclusion in a retrospective. (Will I ever reach such a point? Hang up my cameras, get out my archives, make a selection for a retrospective?)
1970 MIT Tech File Photo
1987
1997 Agnes Borszeki — The MIT Tech
The important point is precedent. Simplex Tent City is one small but important local precedent, as is the wave of factory takeovers during the labor movement, and after that the lunch counter sit in’s and the freedom bus rides. And obviously the much more recent uprisings and revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Israel, to a limited extent Palestine, and extending to Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, and Kansas. (Before that, Serbia and the downfall of the dictator Milosevic and the “Battle of Seattle” in 1999 and other revolts against dictators and world domination by corporate and financial institution powers like the World Bank and IMF.) Each of these was a takeover or occupation of territory and with that, the claim to human rights.
Textron is one immediate local manifestation that’s affected me powerfully. Another is the recent temporary occupation of the Israeli Consulate in Boston. Tomorrow’s rally [November 9, 2011] to sustain Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security in the face of pending cuts might be joined by Occupy Boston. Across the country such occupations supply an often eager cadre of marchers, ralliers, and occupiers for a variety of issues. I hope the list lengthens. Occupy is an infectious model, a template for building awareness and expediting action. It is curiously and perhaps unconsciously reminiscent of occupation—the occupation of Iraq, the occupation of Palestine. Whether this is a productive reference or one that is self-defeating is yet unknown.
Another unknown of the movement is the meaning of declining public support, or so suggest some polls. Currently it’s something like 45% oppose, 35% support. However I suppose this is true of all movements and actions. None garnered widespread support thruout their entire duration. I know many people opposed the Freedom Bus Rides, and later the Poor People’s Campaign organized by Martin Luther King Jr shortly before his assassination. Certainly his stand against the Vietnam War was unpopular among many supporters and might have been one factor that led to his murder. This is simply part of the dynamic. We now laud at least the Freedom Bus Riders, and many of us view the Poor People’s Campaign as a paradigm for wide-spread action. One works to increase support but lack of support does not necessarily point to failure.
OK, the dream: about X for a change. She agreed to help me conduct a photo workshop about rivers or some other element of the environment. The assignment was vast and challenging. I asked her to do lots of background reading. She was taking time off from her studies which were about law (the professions of medicine and law eliding together in my dream). I looked forward to working with her. She was to share a house with me and others.
Around this time, D came to visit. She brought lots of her stuff and we couldn’t manage to find a space to store it that wouldn’t interfere with X’s stuff. While trying to sort out space I introduced D to X. At that very moment X was on the computer and D recognized the program X was using. It was about international law. They immediately connected. I felt good about this.
The phone rang, one of many mobile phones, it belonged to X, I answered. It was Amory. I think I knew that he was X’s lover or boy friend. I answered, hello, this is Skip answering for X. I then announced the call to X who seemed overjoyed to receive it. I was jealous. Dream ended.
Oh, yes, Occupy Boston! A grand event, modeled after Occupy Wall Street (OWS) which has been running for 3 weeks [as of October 31, 2011], spawning local variants around the world. Boston began about 1 week ago, taking over, with municipal participation and approval, Dewey Square which is opposite South Station and at the end of the Kennedy Greenway. I dropped by yesterday on my way to M’s, emailing her to join me or at least to accept my tardiness. Some 100 tents were implanted side by side, a blazing variety of tent gear, many with signs, some showing solidarity with labor organizations. Tents for food, clothing, medical assistance, legal assistance, media, coordination, etc. And a nightly round of General Assemblies at 7 pm, which is a meeting to discuss plans, using the consensus model, but bending this to agree to a plurality. So far the police have been mostly cooperative. As far as I know, no large-scale civil disobedience is planned. This information comes mainly from one young man who’s been volunteering for the past 3 days.
I arrived around 3 pm, as Cornell West, the preeminent scholar, university professor, author, rapper, preacher, and activist co-led a large contingent of nurses in a small march around the square. Even tho I was aware of his key role in supporting the Occupy movement, I’d not expected him here. There is a very powerful YouTube video showing him leading chants for the occupiers on Wall Street. Yesterday many gathered around him, hugged and kissed him, called him a hero. He looked embarrassed by this attention, joyfully hugged and kissed in return. I did my best to show this energy and chemistry, accidentally in a position within brushing distance.
Needless to confess: I am ecstatic about this popular movement, how rapidly it’s spreading across the country, based on the simple call of We are the 99%, that is the 99% of the population who are not rich and dominant. The unifying call is against corporate greed, and spreads out from there to oppose war, advocate for better health coverage and education, and regulations of commerce, especially the financial industry. One young man tried to gain support for marihuana legalization. He began imperiously: the single most important issue is the marihuana laws. Change them. Are you with me? People booed. He moderated his call, but only a handful of supporters cheered him on. This reminded me of a poetry slam or a film festival when the audience votes for their favorite movie. At Occupied Boston, by popular assent, perhaps, the participants may clarify their platform.
October 12, 2011
I’ve minimally edited and posted a 2.5 minute movie about the Occupy Boston march on Monday, Indigenous Rights Day, altho I spotted few indigenous people and no indigenous organizations. Estimates were as high as 10,000 marchers—I guessed 3,000 when pressed by Rachel and Abby. Lots. And mostly young, I’d estimate mostly students. Most white, most looked middle class. Which might be one key weakness in this movement. R pressed me to join the support group on Monday night that would try to block the police from removing the occupiers who by then had expanded their zone past Dewey Sq. to another nearby site along the Greenway. Police justified this removal by stating that the Greenway had been recently improved there and would be ruined if occupiers used it.
Park Street Station & Boston Common
Guarding the Army recruitment center
In front of the Bank of America
In front of Verizon
By some accounts the removal was violent. I’ve seen several photo sets and movies which have not clearly demonstrated this quality. In fact, in most of the media I viewed the police did not wear riot gear. Reportedly the Veterans for Peace group stood between police and occupiers to “protect the kids,” and the police handled the vets roughly.
I declined R’s invitation on the grounds that 1. It would be late and dark and so it would be nearly impossible to photograph, 2. I’d already been on the job for the afternoon with lots of photos, 3. I’m not too interested in photographing yet another confrontational scene, and 4. My role is primarily a photographer, not activist.
There seemed to be confusion about leadership and communication during the march. Who is leading? Periodically everyone sat down and the “peoples’ mike” was brought out: this is a novel technique for amplifying voice. For instance, I might speak, using short phrases, as if expecting translation. The crowd nearest me repeats my phrase, thus amplifies it. Anyone can call for the mike. At the Charlestown Bridge, the projected end of the march, chosen because it represented how money could be better spent on infrastructure rather than bank bailouts and Wall St. support, blocked by police (with the justification that the bridge would not support so many people), once again the peoples’ mike was put into use. Several groups shouted out their requests: one to stay at the bridge and one to return to the campsite to protect it. The former were mostly the anarchists, most of them wearing black and covering their faces with bandanas. They suddenly and inexplicably ran down a side street.
I asked one young man wearing a bandana, why the bandana? For the gas, he replied. Really? I said, quizzical. And might have asked, what gas? The police give no sign of shooting tear gas. I suspect the mask is primarily to prohibit identification in case the group decided to attack property. And also as a fashion statement and a way to identify one’s politics. However, for many viewers it might signal terrorist, criminal, someone with something to hide. Not a very positive statement.
In photographing the march I searched for high places, like the parking garage, for an overall view. For the climactic photo of the series I anticipated they’d cross the bridge and rather than photograph them from a first person viewpoint, in the march itself, I cleverly chose a different position—from the waterfront near the Charlestown locks so I could show them streaming across the bridge. I anticipated this position from prior experience. So I sat awhile, took the opportunity to pee into the water, waited and waited—no marchers. No signs of marchers. A helicopter hovered overhead so I knew they were still nearby. Had the police blocked them? Probably. Wouldn’t surprise me. I phoned R, he’d left the march (Wimp! And then he berated me for not showing up for the nighttime confrontation.) Reluctantly I left my treasured position, abandoned the final dramatic view, and found the marchers stalled by the police.
Providentially the Program on Negotiation and the Harvard Law Documentary Studio at Harvard Law School had scheduled a screening of the new movie last evening about Gene Sharp, How to Start a Revolution. Sharp, the movie director, and the deputy head of the Albert Einstein Institution which is Sharp’s main vehicle for disseminating his ideas about nonviolent change, were present. During the discussion following the screening and talk I asked Gene, how can a leaderless movement like the Occupy movement formulate the detailed strategy that you call for? He answered humbly, I don’t know. I have my doubts that they can.
Had I the opportunity I might have asked a second question: some, like Grace Lee Boggs, Martin Luther King Jr, Vincent Harding, and Joanna Macy, suggest that the revolution should be about values rather than regimes. Since your methods seem most useful for regime change, as with Serbia, Egypt, Ukraine, and other nonviolent eruptions, how can we adapt your principles to this shift in focus? One of his latest writings, Self Liberation contains the phrase “and other oppressions” to suggest the methods can be translated to this new orientation. I should read the booklet. All his writings are downloadable from the Einstein Institution website below.
His lessons, effectively portrayed in the movie, suggest careful attention to detailed planning: know one’s adversaries, prepare for different contingencies, be resilient, etc.
On a personal note, the film and Gene himself resonate with me in at least 2 ways. Like Gene and the movie, someone made a movie that features me, Eyewitness Gaza. And like Gene I find myself in a mentorship role, sometimes with very attractive young women. In Gene’s case it is Jamila, head of the A Einstein Institute, a refugee from Iran, extremely beautiful and youthful, devoted to him as a daughter might be to a father. He is in his 90s, I have no idea about his interests in her, whether they range further than mentoree or father-daughter. Perhaps at one time they did. Now he looks feeble. Might I be him in 20 years (if I survive that long)?
The various manifestations of the Arab Spring bring needed attention to Gene Sharp, nonviolence, and the movie. I wish all well.
I should apply his techniques to my own life, at least my life as an artist and activist: what are my goals (to open eyes, doors, and hearts to new realities, so that my deeper goals of enlightening myself and others and ending suffering can be realized), what is my strategy (make evocative media, true to my heart, prepare for harsh criticism and much avoidance), who are my adversaries (“good liberals,” pro-Israel folks, many Jews, some Quakers coming from a misguided culture of peace, etc), how to deal with them (by truly working from an open heart as I attempt to practice with Sderot, the Israeli town frequently attacked by rockets from Gaza), and who are my allies (such as Jewish Voice for Peace, the American Friends Service Committee, some Quakers, some Israel-Palestine activists), etc.
One major recalled dream from last night: I was on a hiking or camping trip with a large group and I knew no one. First we were to climb down a long ladder and then swim. I’d brought only my mobile phone, camera, and wallet, but, altho I knew we’d be immersed, I’d forgotten to bring plastic bags. Following an older woman who needed help climbing down the stairs, we reached a respite spot. It was connected with a Protestant church and featured a bar filled with liquor. I wanted some. But I wanted plastic bags more so I surreptitiously scouted the kitchen and toilet. I finally found a few bags that I believed might protect my gear.
As central as the bags were, even more central was my need to shit. Where would I do it and when? Somehow the toilet exploration didn’t figure into my calculation. Seemingly a non sequitur, when I emerged from the bar—happily with my plastic bags but still needing to shit—I walked thru a porch on which a young black boy was getting a haircut.
We came together about 8 years ago thru a shared passion: justice in Palestine/Israel. You do good work, I try as well. We supported each other. We confided details of our personal lives. You listened well, I tried to listen. We suggested new paths to each other. I value our rich interchange. Your work is about the Jewish-Nazi holocaust and the Zionist narrative. You study the issue thoroughly to see how the holocaust permeates the rise to power of the Israeli state. I make photographs.
Gaza, Occupied Palestine
Then we smacked into an impasse. You judged my photo presentations as lacking political analysis. You tried many times to convince me to add more context, more history, more about the development of Zionism. You feel this is vital because of the general ignorance of western populations who are swamped by the Zionist narrative. You believe this narrative—based largely on the image of Jewish victimization and suffering, which in turn stems from overemphasis, in your view, of the holocaust—then leads to Israeli impunity. I understand this. Here’s how you put that criticism:
[I] believe in dealing with historical, structural, and political realities—and I look for evidence of understanding of these dimensions all the time. In this sense, I view your presentations and communications as seriously constricted and static—tolerant of Zionism and the Diaspora Jewish Sacred Victim identity that is tied into it.
This is not the year 2001. It is 2011. Lots of us have moved quite a ways, coming to an understanding of Zionism and then an absolute intolerance of it and its destruction of Palestine. I don’t see evidence of this kind of movement in your presentations or communications.
Gaza City
Outside Bethlehem
Inspired by your criticism, I once tried inserting into my Gaza slide show a long section about Zionism and the context of the current troubles. Viewing it a few times, I concluded that the new section would distract from portraying my experiences—in the manner of “eyewitness” and “thru my lens.” I removed it. Perhaps in one of my other shows, maybe The Matrix of Control and How to Dismantle It, or Tracing the Jordan River, I can, thru astute photo selection and sequencing, develop more context. You urge me to speak or write over visuals. I resist that, adhering to the traditional goal of photojournalists to make photographs which portray with minimal use of text.
Ibrahem El-Shatali, Gaza
A secondary complaint you make against me is that I “bend over backwards” to appeal to Israeli positions, to show that all sides suffer. You call this extreme “anti-anti-Semiticism.” In part, you might be referring to my inclusion of the Israeli town near Gaza, Sderot, in my most recent slide show, Eyewitness Gaza. By visiting Sderot twice in the last 2 years, developing friendships with a few of the residents critical of Israeli policies, I have tried to understand the trauma suffered during regular rocket attacks from Gaza, support dissidents among the Israeli Jewish population, and demonstrate that I am able to acknowledge and portray the suffering of parties other than the Palestinians. Thru this inclusion I hope to demonstrate compassion for relatively innocent human beings and broaden my audience.
Further, you feel that I’ve not sufficiently portrayed the vast disproportionality between the suffering of Israelis and Palestinians. Perhaps my charts and words do not carry the message powerfully enough. I’ll review the show with this in mind.
Rocket shelter, Sderot, Israel
A close friend wrote when I asked her views of my draft:
There’s an even more important reason (than you give here) not to close one’s heart to any suffering, no matter how polluted with destructiveness. If the suffering of the “victim identity” can’t heal, it will continue to perpetrate further suffering on others. I see a real problem in absolute intolerance of [anything—view, person, approach, narrative, or justification—] in that when we do not open our hearts to the suffering of perpetrators, we do not contribute to their healing.
Nomika Zion. Sderot, Israel
The main point however is that I am a photographer, not an analyst, historian, or scholar. As much as I study and when appropriate offer context and analysis, this hasn’t satisfied you. My plea that I wish to restrict what I show to what I can photograph, with limited use of photos made by others, apparently does not persuade you. I have chosen to confine my analysis to discussions after my slide shows and in my blog, and hope that a form of context is in my photographic editing.
I chose to leave the hard analysis to experts like Jeff Halper, Ali Abuminah, Ilan Pappe, Edward Said, Uri Avnery, Hanan Ashwari, Amira Hass—all whom I read regularly—and others more versed in the subject, skilled in the methodology, and concentrated on the topic. I try to emulate the photographic work of Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, Dorothea Lange, W. Eugene Smith, Margaret Bourke Smith, James Nachtwey, Mary Ellen Mark, Sabastio Salgado and numerous others whose images powerfully portray without text. Altho much of their work was initially contextualized, interpreted, and placed in a historical frame—usually by text and visual sequence—their photos are now often shown independently of context.
The Migrant Mother, photo by Dorothea Lange
Refugee camp, photo by Sabastio Salgado
Pieta, from Minimata, by W.Eugene Smith & Aileen M. Smith
Gold miners, Johannesburg, South Africa, photo by Margaret Bourke Smith
West Bank, 2000 – Palestinians fighting the Israeli army, photo by James Nachtwey
I suspect one difference in approach between us is your reliance on argument and mine on emotion. I’m sure both are useful. As someone remarked recently about the recent success of the US Army’s abandonment of its “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy concerning gays, it was the many diverse approaches that won the campaign, not any single approach.
I admit that I’ve caused you pain. Perhaps I’ve been myopic and overly stubborn, arrogant even in pursuing the path I think is correct for me. I suspect I’ve been sloppy in explaining some of my positions. I’ve probably also been ignorant of your feelings. For all this I apologize.
Over the past year or so we’ve grown slowly apart, you exacerbated by what you felt were my blocked ears and missed opportunities. During the summer you broke off from me, not wishing for further engagement, argument, or discussion about our controversy.
I drew two tentative conclusions: our friendship was shallower than I thought, and we’ve experienced a split in solidarity for a just cause. I’m sure both dynamics pervade many movements. Lost friendship might increase despair and fractured solidarity weakens a movement.
These two tendencies seem endemic in political movements. During the Civil Rights Movement (more accurately termed The Freedom Movement) for the rights of black people in the USA, Martin and Malcolm were adversaries, perhaps more in the media than in reality. And the movements they headed, nonviolent desegregation and black power, contended against each other for attention. In a famous but not often publicized photo, Martin and Malcolm glowingly smile at each other while they shake hands. They appear to be unifying. Which may have been one key reason for their assassinations: power in unity. Likewise, at Pine Ridge reservation, the site of the Wounded Knee Massacre, during the 1970’s, traditional people aided by the American Indian Movement clashed with the reigning political party at that time, diminishing the effects of both.
Malcolm X & Dr. Martin Luther King Jr
Wounded Knee Occupation, 1972
Pine Ridge flag
Perhaps we reflect the schisms in the Middle East, not only the historic divisions between Israel and Palestine, but the internal divisions—in Israel between the settler movement and most other Israelis and in Palestine most famously between Hamas and Fatah. Are we infected with the toxic schism phenomena suffocating the region of our concentration?
The Palestinian Prisoners’ Document calls us …To denounce all forms of split that can lead to internal conflicts… (the National Conciliation Document of the Prisoners. May 11, 2006, which in turn quotes the Holy Quran, In the name of God, the Compassionate and the Merciful, Abide by the decree of God and never disperse.)
Just a few days ago you phoned to suggest a conversation. You appeared to set us on the path toward reconciliation. A small trickle in a larger stream that I prayed would water the movement for Palestinian freedom and a truly just Israeli nation. Harsh words between us and then: boom, crash, end of conversation.
So goodbye Mr. M, for now.
I hope you continue your good work. I expect to do my best at mine. I am grateful for our good efforts together and the help you’ve given me. May we both find our ways—separately and together—thru the tumult of these times.
I have been a witness, and these pictures are my testimony. The events I have recorded should not be forgotten and must not be repeated.
Riverfront, Renaissance Center, world headquarters of General Motors
In photography, creation is a quick business — an instant, a gush, a response — putting the camera up to the eye’s line of fire, snatching with that economical little box whatever it was that surprised you, catching it in midair, without tricks, without letting it get away. You make a painting at the same time that you take a photo.
Excerpts from my journal while on the road for 3 weeks to the hinterland of the USA during summer 2011, with photos to show and photos to make.
June 28, 2011, Tuesday, Detroit, Karen’s house
Mild, lower 70s, partly cloudy with alto cumulus, breezy. After last evening’s strong easterly wind.
Learning yesterday morning [June 27, 2011] about the fireworks along the river last night, how late before they began, I changed plans. I’d intended to bike the riverfront anyway, now was the moment. Hastily I emailed K to invite her to join me, maybe an early evening dinner at the Cass Café. She declined—other things to do. Just as well. I biked in around 3 pm against a very strong head wind from the east. Then, as expected (I’d also mentioned my plan to G when I bumped into her as I set off. This gave me the opportunity to invite myself over this morning to try the internet and to photograph her, the latter request already broached by K in a previous phone conversation with G). I hit the even stronger head wind of a crowd. Couldn’t bike immediately in front of (or is it behind) the Renaissance Center so I scooted further north where I could enter. Barely because of the throng.
Biking nearly to the north end of the riverfront park, admiring the landscaping and view, the public access, I explored various clusters of mostly black families setting up for picnic, chat, play, and eventual fireworks viewing—hours later. It was now around 5 pm, fireworks at 10:08. What a torture: to have to wait that long. Unless with one’s most beloved family, or most beloved lover. Not for me. After sighting a silhouetted line of people on top of a hill, city in the background, I biked toward the city center, thinking I’d skirt past the police line and make it to the park’s other end, south. No luck—too crowded.
So, giving up my plan of a full circuit of the park and watching the fireworks, I stopped to simply view people filing past me. A colorful parade of black people, the large majority young, often traveling in clumps, males only, females only, as if on the promenade to see and be seen. And to find one’s mate for life. To express this momentous event, pre July 4th, 2011, I put my Canon video mode camera on the ground, aimed it at a small family sitting on the opposite bench (both parents obese, a young man who I presumed to be the son sitting between them, seemingly with an affliction, maybe mental), turned it on, let it roll. I don’t believe anyone noticed. So, emboldened, I tried again, tilting the camera up slightly to show more faces. And then, fully practiced in this art of subterfuge, I strung the camera around my neck, aimed, and turned on, viewing in video mode one side and then the other of the passing parade.
I thank the muses for any success here. I’d not intended to be where I was nor do what I did. It surprised me as much as it might surprise an audience.
I then biked home, now with a strong tail wind—the wind blew me home. Many people waited at bus stops for that bus that so infrequently comes. Sometimes I feel embarrassed to experience such privilege: my bike. To shower, eat the delicious bean casserole I’d made all day (pinto with onions, garlic, dill, carrots on slow simmer to release the odors and scent the house), read, bed myself early, greatly fatigued.
G is amenable to photography. I’d discussed this with K, the idea of a neighborhood portrait series, first J, then G, then take leads from them. K called yesterday while I was home. A long chat. She seems to love these. They cost me 10 cents per minute, quite expensive when the minutes go into half hours. We discussed domestic matters, the house in particular, M and his perhaps demand to pick up the bike before I leave (She claims he’s insane.), and then the Allied Media Conference (AMC) which she was very interested in hearing about. Also about LH, whom she met last Sunday during the 75th anniversary of Ann Arbor Friends Meeting. K agreed with me that LH is wacky, talks too often and too much, with so little to say, a very needy and pained soul.
Gloria Milligan
Johnny
A few catch up items from earlier days:
I noticed at the AMC what might be an excessive absorption in social network news. Not only news on the grand scale, like an earthquake killing thousands, but more likely on a small scale, someone going for a walk, making a drink—the tweets and twits of life. (I am myself guilty of this, receiving and transmitting what might be trivia to many.)
On tour with the US Social Forum, 2010
There exists a plethora of communication channels: twitter mania, how valuable is this new media and what are its consequences? To be so connected thru social media and at the same time to be so disconnected. If lack of call back and follow thru are indications, the social media do not help bridge the gap between intent and fact. Between X’s declaration to me that “I hope we stay in touch forever” and her utter silence. Yes, we are connected via Linked In; yes, I have her old Cambridge phone number in my mobile directory and theoretically, if she still uses that number, can phone her at any moment from most any point with coverage; yes, I know her email address; yes, I have her address in Canada and found her house on Google Earth; and yes, she is on my Levant list. But where and what she is remain complete mysteries.
Grace Lee Boggs
I believe it was Grace Lee Boggs who observed that there is now a greater gap between generations than previously, maybe than ever in USA society. We laud the youngers and ship out elders. Is this gap changing? If the AMC was any indication, matters are changing for the better. I feel it. They’d organized a special van for elders to tour the city. The last event featured 2 special elders, Grace Lee Boggs and Vincent Harding. I felt more appreciated than the year before.
One of the AMC tour guides told us about the importance of babies’ shoesin black families. When her family migrated north, one of their first purchases was baby shoes. Why baby shoes? the guide asked rhetorically. Because poor black folks vowed, once they lived in the north, they’d afford shoes for their babies. No longer would such young children have to walk around shoeless. Does this motivate the strong attention black youth now place on footwear? Case in point: sneakers and sandals. I make a study of this in my riverfront video.
Dreamt: I rode with Gary Snyder to his ranch or home in upstate Michigan, in the winter, in his small rickety truck, with several others, including a young girl. Gary smoked, or at least left a burnt out cigarette dangling from his lips. We stopped and climbed over slippery rocks. Either rain fell or had just fallen. The young girl climbing in front of me stopped, unable to step over a rock ledge that a slightly older girl had transcended, that adults would have the leg reach to easily surmount. I helped her, first asking if she were scared (yes). At some point in this story I viewed a map of Michigan to learn exactly where Gary’s house was. While in the truck I was tempted to tell him how much I appreciated his poetry. That I remembered his appearance in Boston at the Arlington St church with Paul Winter’s consort, many decades ago. I told him that I enjoyed his poems even more than Winter’s music that night. But either I was too shy to say this or we didn’t have the opening.
Where are my dreams of phantom lovers? Why no such dreams recently? I am missing much. Why, if dreams represent desires, have the dreams avoided me? No more such desires? Would be a great relief, however much I might miss them. Concerning love, this is a dry season—in dreams, in real life.
June 29, 2011, Wednesday, Detroit, Karen’s house
Chilly, upper 50s, clear, slight breeze, after a very windy day and evening, wind from the west.
Not only have I found nearby Internet access at G’s across the street, but I get to know her better. Among other details: her husband, a cop, died 13 years ago while off duty but while performing some sort of cop duty. He loved adventure, risk, effort. He once requested that his son provide him with the gear from the Navy required to build a strap-on rocket so he could lift off. (I’m not too sure about this story, did I get it right, was joking intended?) She’s lived in the house since the early 1980s. It once belonged to her mother-in-law. G raised her son and daughter there. Her son is US Navy, reaching Chief, in for more than 20 years. She cares for her grand daughter, J, every day while her daughter is at work.
G, probably in her late 50s, is fairly attractive and slightly overweight. Judging from photos around her home—I complimented her on her home’s elegance, it is very precisely composed—she was once slender and a true beauty. Can I show who she is now, also her history and her destiny, in a photo? I tried, and believe I failed. I’ve not been able to transcend thru her smile, her tendency to laugh and make light of most any situation. Perhaps I will try again.
At K’s urging I might request that Johnny and G set up photo sessions with other neighbors for a portrait series. What might be ideal is a July 4th block party. Then all would assemble and me making portraits would not seem so strange.
Yesterday was not only cool but very windy, from the west, unrelenting. One of the features of this flat land is strong wind. A grind biking against it. So yesterday I skipped long distance biking, except during the evening for a short ride to the other side of Grand River Ave where I’d not yet explored. And then the market, Grand Price. I bumped into a white employee, he seemed friendly, I complimented him on the store and then launched into some questions. To learn: indeed the store is owned by Arabs, but, he pointed out with some emphasis, the family was not Arab American, but Catholic American, from Iraq, Chaldean. They’ve owned the store for 9 years, bought it from someone else of the same background, and have recently upgraded it with new lighting, counters, and stock, and plan to expand the market if granted permission by the city. It was once a car dealership. They have, he claimed, good relations with local residents. His name is Omar and he concluded with a handshake and the words, if there is anything I can do for you please ask.
So I was partially correct in my surmise a few days ago: owner is Arab (despite his qualification). And also I was wrong: they’ve owned it for some years. I was misled by the recent improvements. Whether relations are good between local people and owners is yet to be determined.
Riverfront security 2 days ago for the fireworks event was huge—more cops of all stripes in one narrow strip than I’ve seen in years. State cops, local cops, various private security organizations, all with different uniforms, some armed, some not, all with radios. I felt extraordinarily well protected, equally well circumscribed—my biking from instance. This clashes with police presence generally in the city: minimal. I rarely see a cop, the highways, streets, neighborhoods, sidewalks.
My neighbor J’s turned off electricity now seems turned on. Not sure why or what happened. K mentioned he has a $3,700 electrical bill. Lights glow at night, including the post lamp which K asked me to observe. More than lanterns light that man’s inner life.
I learned from M that Grand River Ave runs thru the state, a long long distance. This also could become a photo theme.
