On Saturday we joined villagers from Sarra on a demonstration against a roadblock that prevents them accessing the road that connects them to surrounding towns. The roadblock means that for those working or studying outside of the village, simple journeys they have to make every day have become long and unpredictable. To travel eastwards they must now go to the opposite end of the village, travel for several miles in the wrong direction and negotiate numerous checkpoints. Furthermore, villagers have been unable to access their land as the Israelis have built a highway around the village (on village land) that can only be used by Israelis so Palestinians cannot even cross the road to reach the trees that lie beyond it.When the demonstration reached the roadblock which is basically an earth mound, we climbed on top of it and faced the army jeep that was waiting for us. In quick succession another 5 army vehicles arrived including 2 armoured personnel carriers.
There was a very positive energy in the protest as the Palestinians chanted resistance songs, waved their national flag and some young boys held a banner stating that what is going on in Palestine is Apartheid. After just 2 or 3 minutes this atmosphere was crushed as a soldier threw a sound bomb which landed directly in front of the children holding the banner. Instantly there was panic and people began to flee.
After several minutes people regrouped and slowly retuned to the earth mound. This time a group of boys dressed in traditional costumes climbed over the mound, went down to the army vehicles and began dancing the Dabka, the national dance of Palestine. The crowd clapped the boys on and it was a special moment watching them dancing in front of soldiers who really didn’t know what to do. Some turned their backs, others stood rigid determined not to be distracted, while the demonstrators cheered, clapped and waved the Palestinian flags.
After a few minutes the soldiers told us we would have to leave and they began to close in on us with snipers taking their positions on the hills above us. I wondered who the snipers had their rifles trained on, was it the children holding their flags, the boys dressed in their dance costumes, the teachers, students or engineers committed to non-violent resistance against this brutal occupation?
As the soldiers moved in, the demonstrators retreated and began to head back to the village. As we did so the soldiers fired the first rounds of tear gas which sent people scrambling backwards into the tiny bottleneck that led to the road block. It was a miracle that nobody was injured in the stampede. As people tried to get away, the soldiers continued to fire more tear gas at us again and again until the road was empty. The demonstration was over but the image of the Palestinians performing their national dance in front of the soldiers was a powerful act of resistance that I will not forget.
1 comment:
I found this account very moving particularly the account of the boys dancing. It raises the question of what those soldiers think. Some have clearly hardened their hearts (if they ever had any) but perhaps some are fighting hard not to be affected by what they see. I was reminded of a poem I read by Hanan Mikha’il ‘Ashrawi who is quite a well-known Palestinian poet. She wrote a poem in English called Night Patrol which are the imagined words of an Israeli soldier on the West Bank. This is just two extracts:
It’s not the sudden hail
Of stones or the mocking of
Their jeers, but this deliberate
Quiet in their eyes that
Threatens to wrap itself
Around my well-armed uniformed
Presence and drag me into
Depths of confrontation I
Never dared to probe……..
If I should once, just
Once, grasp the elusive
End of the thread which
Ties my being here with
Their being there, I
Could unravel the beginning…no,
No, it was not an act
Of will that brought me
Here, and I shall wrap myself in
Fabric woven by hands
Other than mine, perhaps
Lie down and take a nap.
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