I read the last few pages of Aldous Huxley's
ISLAND, a spiritual community enhanced by
the "moshka medicine". The outsider
discovers a world beyond materialistic,
political systems, a type of spiritual
anarchistic utopia. Taking the "moshka", he
has visions of heaven and hell, the shit and
the sugar, the two sides, two worlds of light
and darkness. He then transcends, from
separation, from anger, resentment and hate.
In his heart, as he looks at another, he only
feels love. I live in a world controlled and
manipulated by physcopathic force. A dark
soul projecting itself on what Golda Meir
called "life", in order to feel cleansed and free
of its own dark nature. Continued broken
promises, a concentration camp mentality to
make us suffer, but wandering through the
rooms and corridors that make up the
compound in which I live I make contact with
the Palestinian soldiers who the world sees
as "terrorists".
Everyone smiles to me, greets me in Arabic,
and asks how I am. Laughter, compensation,
love. Most wear green with Kalashnikovs
slung casually over their shoulders, many
observing the activities outside through
narrow gaps at the bottom of metal shutters
covering the windows. They watch the
activities of the Israeli soldiers 25 metres and
more from the window. Barbed wire
separates us; they watch as a tank swings its
canon, or drives about. A bulldozer comes in
to view in the car park, and begins to flip over
cars and crush them, taking them to make a
barrier - to keep us in and keep others out.
The cars have already been looted. The
soldiers watch this with incomprehension,
then they chuckle at the farce. The delinquent
behaviour of the 5th largest army in the world.
"Why do they do this? They must have dark
souls, I think." They watch us sing peace
songs on the front steps and then the Israelis
throw sound bombs at us while we do so. "Go
inside," they say. "Go home," we say in
response, or we just ignore them. But they
must have control. They have to show their
'power', their 'superiority', their 'right' to be
here to watch and be complicit in the
suffering of others. They rarely smile. The film
rolls and the cameras click, like we are zoo
animals or people from another planet. "We
don't understand them. What do they want?
They try and destroy us, but don't they realise
they can never destroy the Palestinian
people? Sharon must be crazy!"
Timbo just walked through the doorway.
"Peter, Peter", thumb goes up and a smiling
face. An Arabic nickname, as he drinks loads
of Pepsi, outside that is. He doesn't speak any
English. Bearded and now wearing green, we
slap hands, hug, and he sits down to see if I
can remember how to count to 10 in Arabic. I
can't. He laughs when I get it wrong, and even
when I get it right, he just laughs at the way I
say the numbers and at my hopeless memory.
"Oh Peter, Peter" and some comments in
Arabic I can't understand. He talks to me in
Arabic, and we both laugh that I don't
understand him, and off he goes out the door.
Ghassan is a calm, softly spoken and warm
man. He holds a Kalashnikov in one hand and
a pen in the other. "The pen is much more
powerful than the gun," he told me. He has
studied journalism and hasn't seen his family
for several months. He misses his wife and
his 3 children and wonders when he will see
them again.
'Issa', one of the injured men, was shot many
times and suffers much pain. I see him every
day, trying to teach him to manage the pain.
He has two caring friends, soldiers, who look
after him 24 hours a day, rolling him over and
bathing him, giving him food. He smiles when I
come and he holds my hand. He offers me
everything he has. If he smokes, he makes
me smoke; if he has tea he makes me drink; if
he has food he makes me eat. All the soldiers
are like this. Always offering and sharing the
little that they have. We look outside again to
that other civilised world, as the delinquents
get to work looting an ambulance and trying to
sledgehammer their way through the bullet
proof jeeps' windows without success. A few
days later they tried to bulldoze it to pulp,
again without success. Palestinians look on.
"And we are the terrorists?" One is from
Jenin and he told me he knows a woman who
lost her husband and her 6 children in the
recent massacre. He just doesn't understand.
Another man, who is not a soldier but works
for the PA, says "all I want is for my family to
be here [refugees in Jordan from the '67 war]
to have a flat, go to work at 8 and leave at 4.
To grow onions, tomatoes, cucumbers and
other things, and to be able to move freely
without checkpoints. Thirty five years is a long
time. How long do we have to wait?" He tells
me he would like to visit his Israeli friends, of
which he has many. "No-one wants peace
more than the Palestinians. No one. We have
suffered enough."
Today we are bombarded by news that
President Arafat is free, the siege over. The
Israeli propaganda machine is in full swing as
they play their twisted games and not allow
UN fact-finding team into Jenin. Promising
food, promising withdrawal, they invade more
towns, confiscate land and destroy olive
groves. "Security" and "war on terror". All
here know the lie and hope the outside world
knows too. But just as the frustration begins
to rise, many soldiers enter the room. It is a
soldier's birthday. They come to dance and
sing, using the table for drums and clap, smile
and laugh. "They will never destroy us." We
have transcended the madness, the games,
and now in this room, as the Israeli army
continues to wreak its trail of destruction, we
are free, freer than our captors, and more
powerful than their tanks, their M16's they
love to point at us, their bulldozers and the
sadistic games they play.
The outsider cannot go back for he has found
amongst the debris of the abyss a key
opening a door to freedom; freedom from
without, and also from within.