info no4 from jenin
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after a noisy night with shootings and tanks roaring for some 2 hours through the streets in jenin, amazingly my art-workshop with youngsters from jenin started yesterday. as planned we met at the municipalities metall-workshop. everybody was present, the kidz, hassan our local scout, samir, to whom I got introduced to and who will be my technician and welder for the next weeks... we just had to get our tools, an angle grinder, extension lead and a generator and drive with a lorry to the destroyed "mukatta" to start with our work.
as you will know most of the buildings of the palestinian authorities and security ("mukatta") got smashed and litterally pulled down by israeli forces during last years incursion. my plan is: to take steel rods from the rubble of the mukatta and use them in the art-project. the message is simple: they might be able to destroy the buildings and signs of a palestinian state but the people will rebuild their society, their life and culture.
hassan managed (after long sessions of conversations over the last days) to get the okay from the palestinian side to take out some of the metal rods. beeing on the site, a huge pile of rubble... the concrete walls and ceilings flattened like a house of cards, bent and broken steel wires show in all directions, silence but the chirping of the locusts over the whole place until we start our generator and angle-grinder to cut the rods and wire and bring it to the lorry...
sun burned like crazzy - no shadow, but we were happy to get the workshop running and to make first experiences with each other. 4 kidz where from the town, three from the refugee camp. the difference is obvious, those from the camp were much more cheeky, tough, direct, no formal well behaviour... the others better dressed, more disciplined, partly cautious. good to have them both and together at any one time.
after two hours at the mukatta, we went to a scrap yard near-by collecting metal scrap from old cars (to be the surface of the horse). at the end sandwiches and drinks could be enjoyed and one of the guys from the camp (sorry forgot his name) provoked a friendly scrap / row with me. trying out the limits.
the collected scrap was brought to the municipality workshop (where the horse will be built over the next weeks) and unloaded. everybody was quite exhausted - at least me. a great day.
in the evening in my local grocery 'abu amar' (arafat) was live - an interview - on tv, everybody was listening, - he criticized the akaba declaration as too vague and insisted (as far as i got it with help of a by-stander who translated) on the 67 borders, the right to return for the palestinian refugees and east jerusalem... the new prime minister, abu mazen is not very much trusted here from people on the streets. everybody seems to be very critical / sceptical if not rejective towards bush's (and abu mazen's acting on the) "roadmap" for a palestinian state. watching at sharon's "offers" (of a cantonized and partitioned westbank of three seperated districts... far away from the 67 borders) this is more than understandable.
so far.
best wishes
thomas
ps: in the "perlentaucher.de" i found this:
"Jeder kennt heute die Gruende fuer das Scheitern von Oslo. Die 'Road Map' wiederholt die Fehler. ... das Verschieben der wirklichen Probleme auf 'spaeter' ist die exakte Wiederholung des Oslo-Konzeptes. Jerusalem, die Rueckkehr der palaestinensischen Fluechtlinge, die Siedlungsfrage - all diese heiklen Punkte werden nicht sofort in Angriff genommen, weil man wieder erst einmal 'vertrauensbildende Massnahmen' schaffen will. Dabei koennte nur die Loesung der Kernfragen Vertrauen schaffen." Richard Chaim Schneider, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, 06.06.2003
"everybody knows the reasons why 'oslo" failed. the 'road map' repeats the mistakes. ... the delaying of the real problems is the exact repetition of the oslo-concept. jerusalem, the return of the refugees, the settlements... all these sensitive issues are not addressed because they first want to establish confidencial measures. but only the solution of the main issues can develop confidence." (my rough translation) Richard Chaim Schneider, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, 06.06.2003
Note: Text by Thomas Kilpper, Jenin