Years ago I left my country to study and sea the world. Somehow, I ended up  arriving in NY days before 911.

Maybe it was then that I started to care so much about the middle east. First because of the absurd that was happening in the US. Later because my path would lead me to meet people from these areas.

Years ago I started to read about the Question of Palestine. Then eventually I was there. Breaking all the prejudices I had learned through my path. Some of you here in this list remember when I was in front of the separation wall between Palestine and Israel. How much I cried that day, not fully understanding because by then I had friends in both sides of the wall that in any other world could have been friends.

Here in Brazil my own family gets startled by the fact that I care so much about a place that is so far away. They do not understand I was treated like I was home everywhere there. They took care of me. In both sides, they really took care of me.

I was there when both Vittorio Arrigoni and Juliano Mer were killed.  And I am so thankful to so many people in both sides of the wall that  I decided to write this simple message. It is not because of the profound pain I feel…. The human pain for humanity, it is because of the sadness, the loss of hope, and because I read today what Sayed Kashua had written for the Guardian.

I had read soo much of what he has written through these years. Which is always painful and sarcastic. I had seen a whole documentary  about his life. A Palestinian writer that wrote in Hebrew. But today, I write because his voice went to the depth of my soul.  Sayed Kashua who had already spoken of always being scared was now leaving Israel.

Together with Sayed, I also heard the voices of many Israelis who were not the most left wing people also planning to go away.  I heard the voice of one of the people I most trust in this world feeling tired, scared, disappointed and somehow hopeless.  But who, am I? to say anything? So I will copy and paste… the voice, of the Palestinian who writes in Hebrew… this time, in English. His words say more than mine..

•  Sunday 20 July 2014

Sayed Kashua: why I have to leave Israel

The Arab-Israeli author moved to Jerusalem as a child and has devoted his life to telling Israelis the Palestinian story. But last week he decided to emigrate with his family to the US

Sayed Kashua in Jerusalem. ‘I wanted to tell the Israelis a story, the Palestinian story. Surely when they read it they will understand.’

Quite soon I am going away from here. In a few days we’ll be leaving Jerusalem, leaving the country. Yesterday we bought little suitcases for the kids. No need to take a lot of clothes, we’ll leave our winter clothes; in any event they won’t be warm enough given the cold of southern Illinois, USA. We’ll just need a few things until we get settled. Perhaps the kids should take some books, two or three in Arabic, and another few in Hebrew, so they don’t forget the languages. But I’m already not sure what I want my kids to remember of this place, so beloved and so cursed.

The original plan was to leave in a month for a year’s sabbatical. But last week I understood that I can’t stay here any longer, and I asked the travel agent to get us out of here as fast as possible, “and please make them one-way tickets”. In a few days we’ll land in Chicago, and I don’t even know where we’ll be for the first month, but we’ll figure it out.

I have three children, a daughter who is already 14 years old, and two sons, aged nine and three. We live in West Jerusalem. We are the only Arab family living in our neighbourhood, to which we moved six years ago. “You can choose two toys,” we said this week in Hebrew to our little boy who stood in his room gazing at boxes of his toys, and he started to cry despite our promises that we will buy him anything he wants when we get there.

I also have to decide what to take. I can choose only two books, I said to myself standing in front of shelves of books in my study. Other than a book of poetry by Mahmoud Darwish and another story collection by Jubran Khalil, all of my books are in Hebrew. Since the age of 14 I have barely read a book in Arabic.

When I was 14 I saw a library for the first time. Twenty-five years ago my maths teacher in the village of Tira, where I was born, came to my parents’ home and told them that next year the Jews would be opening a school for gifted students in Jerusalem. He said to my father that he thought I should apply. “It will be better for him there,” I remember the teacher telling my parents. I got in, and when I was the age of my daughter I left my home to go to a Jewish boarding school in Jerusalem. It was so difficult, almost cruel. I cried when my father hugged me and left me at the entrance of the grand new school, nothing like I had ever seen in Tira.

I once wrote that the first week in Jerusalem was the hardest week of my life. I was different, other; my clothes were different, as was my language. All of the classes were in Hebrew – science, bible, literature. I sat there not understanding one word. When I tried to speak everyone would laugh at me. I so much wanted to run back home, to my family, to the village and friends, to the Arabic language. I cried on the phone to my father that he should come and get me, and he said that only the beginnings are hard, that in a few months I would speak Hebrew better than they do.

I remember the first week, our literature teacher asked us to read The Catcher in the Rye by Salinger. It was the first novel I ever read. It took me several weeks to read it, and when I finished I understood two things that changed my life. The first was that I could read a book in Hebrew, and the second was the deep understanding that I loved books.

Very quickly my Hebrew became nearly perfect. The boarding school library only had books in Hebrew, so I began to read Israeli authors. I read Agnon, Meir Shalev, Amos Oz and I started to read about Zionism, about Judaism and the building of the homeland.

During these years I also began to understand my own story, and without planning to do so I began to write about Arabs who live in an Israeli boarding school, in the western city, in a Jewish country. I began to write, believing that all I had to do to change things would be to write the other side, to tell the stories that I heard from my grandmother. To write how my grandfather was killed in the battle over Tira in 1948, how my grandmother lost all of our land, how she raised my father while she supported them as a fruit picker paid by the Jews.

I wanted to tell, in Hebrew, about my father who sat in jail for long years, with no trial, for his political ideas. I wanted to tell the Israelis a story, the Palestinian story. Surely when they read it they will understand, when they read it they will change, all I have to do is write and the Occupation will end. I just have to be a good writer and I will free my people from the ghettos they live in, tell good stories in Hebrew and I will be safe, another book, another movie, another newspaper column and another script for television and my children will have a better future. Thanks to my stories one day we will turn into equal citizens, almost like the Jews.

Twenty-five years of writing in Hebrew, and nothing has changed. Twenty-five years clutching at the hope, believing it is not possible that people can be so blind. Twenty-five years during which I had few reasons to be optimistic but continued to believe that one day this place in which both Jews and Arabs live together would be the one story where the story of the other is not denied. That one day the Israelis would stop denying the Nakba, the Occupation, and the suffering of the Palestinian people. That one day the Palestinians would be willing to forgive and together we would build a place that was worth living in.

Twenty-five years that I am writing and knowing bitter criticism from both sides, but last week I gave up. Last week something inside of me broke. When Jewish youth parade through the city shouting “Death to the Arabs,” and attack Arabs only because they are Arabs, I understood that I had lost my little war.

I listened to the politicians and the media and I know that they are differentiating between blood and blood, between peoples. Those who have become the powers that be say expressly what most Israelis think, “We are a better people than the Arabs.” On panels that I participated in, it was said that Jews are a superior people, more entitled to life. I despair to know that an absolute majority in the country does not recognise the rights of an Arab to live.

After my last columns some readers beseeched that I be exiled to Gaza, threatened to break my legs, to kidnap my children. I live in Jerusalem, and I have some wonderful Jewish neighbours, and friends, but I still cannot take my children to day camps or to parks with their Jewish friends. My daughter protested furiously and said no one would know she is an Arab because of her perfect Hebrew but I would not listen. She shut herself in her room and wept.

Now I am standing in front of my bookshelves, Salinger in hand, the one I read 14 years ago. I don’t want to take any books, I decided, I have to concentrate on my new language. I know how hard it is, almost impossible, but I must find another language to write in, my children will have to find another language to live in.

“Don’t come in,” my daughter shouted angrily when I knocked on her door. I went in anyway. I sat down next to her on the bed and despite her back turned to me I knew she was listening. You hear, I said, before I repeated to her exactly the same sentence my father said to me 25 years ago. “Remember, whatever you do in life, for them you will always, but always, be an Arab. Do you understand?”

“I understand,” my daughter said, hugging me tightly. “Dad, I knew that a long time ago.”

“Quite soon we’ll be leaving here,” as I messed up her hair, just as she hates. “Meanwhile, read this,” I said and gave her The Catcher in the Rye.

Sayed Kashua is a Palestinian writer whose novels have been translated into 15 languages. The film Dancing Arabs, based on his first novel, opened the 2014 Jerusalem international film festival. His most recent novel, Exposure, was published by Chatto & Windus. Translated by Deborah Harris

Article in the Guardian here:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/20/sayed-kashua-why-i-have-to-leave-israel?CMP=fb_gu

I was not going to write anymore about the world cup, but since so many people have written me to ask what I think about what happened, and I actually have explained to some here it goes.

I think it was a mystery that Brazil could go as far as it did. Short of mind-boggling. No, not them loosing, but them reaching as far as they did with a team that was not very strong. Even more amazing was to see the population go from apathy to total fury because of the 7-1 yesterday in the game between Germany and Brazil.

Seriously, how could anyone actually  have expected that Brazil would beat Germany?When most of their team play together in Bayern München and have so much experience playing together.  Germany has been a great team for such a long time now.

Today Argentina will play Holland.  And many Brazilians are supporting Argentina. Intriguing isn’t it?  Some rationalise it, that they want the  cup to remain in this continent. Other’s like me really admire Messi. Could Argentina win in one player only? Who knows? Holland should definitely be taken seriously, yet, to be quite honest they have played so violently so many times.. that it is hard to invoke the admiration to the old dutch team in our memories.

The reason I write today about this, is because, in fact I was quite appalled by the reaction Brazilians (who first did not want Brazil to win) had. Flags were burned, bussed were burned, foreigners were harmed. And that is definitely shameful.

I remembered Darcy Ribeiro, the anthropologist and writer who ran away from hospital to write the book called “O Povo Brazileiro” ( the Brazilian people). There he argues that Brazilians were not Africans, nor Indigenous, nor Europeans. He claims that because of the mix ( true love and rape etc) these mixed children were rejected by all. They were Brazilian. I would add that it goes way further than this beginning of interaction. Brazilians learned to accept all that came in their path.

Till very recently our main Cathedral in Sāo Paulo held Jewish, Christian and Islamic events when Mosques and Synagogues did not exist here. Everything else was integrated…. from Asia to middle eastern cultures. Everything was incorporated, in a symbolic system that in Brazil antagonism did not really matter. That is not the same to say that in Brazil there is no violence, no inequality. It is to say that they received Jews and Nazis, Japanese and Chinese, Sirian and Lebanese. And that they have learned to incorporate their beliefs with indigenous and Africans.

That is why, it was so embarrassing to hear people were attacking property and people for something that till a couple weeks ago they did not want.

But today, when the day had risen I went to the buss station to exchange my tickets since I have a cold and as I entered the bus station, after having read so much crap in the internet I saw hundreds of Argentinians in Sao Paulo singing. It was actually quite beautiful. It was even more beautiful to see that Brazilians filmed it. Watched it and did not start a fight. It was the same in the tube, and even close to my house. There were dozens of Argentinians singing.

It made me happy.  At least the usual respect for the outside remained here, even when their arch-rival was singing in our lands.

Who knows… maybe Messi can win alone 🙂 And if they don’t, a game between a non motivated Brazilian team and Argentina should definitely  text how strong is “o povo Brasileiro”.

PS: After the game: I supported Argentina the whole time! And Messi did not win alone. Mascherano was amazing! In fact both teams played really well.  But Romeno is way better keeper than the Dutch guy.  I am happy they won. I am happy that all their joy I had seen yesterday all over Sao Paulo had result. How could one not admire those who came in every single way here,  knowing their economy is collapsed to support their team. It was really beautiful!  Congratulations!

People take me not to bet from Brazil all the time.  And that has nothing to do with the fact that now it is the world cup. It happened before too. Maybe the only places people took me to be from there were Italy, France, Turkey, and Israel.  It is funny, but apparently the amount of time that I have spent abroad has changed the way I structure my sentences. I wish it was only that, apparently it has also changed my mind 🙂

It is the world cup here  as you might know. Yes I am in Brazil.  And first people wrote me to ask how excited I was about it, and then  they wrote to ask whether I am safe. I must say that nothing has really changed in my life, apart from the bars that I like being more crowded by foreigners grabbing me. You know Brazil… where most football fans imagine Brazilian women are all sluts!

People usually also asked me from abroad whether Brazilians were excited about the world cup. And I remember Brazil being stopped in the middle of the night to see the world cup in Asia. I remember the excitation all had about every single cup. But this time it has been different.

It is really the beginning of it, but I must say that before this week most people were furious. I read somewhere that the last world cup costed 4 billion dollars, and this one 11 billion. Brazilians in spite of all their love for football were furious. Money that was not spent in education, health, welfare  system was spent to build stadiums in the middle of nowhere, and of course who knows where else. So there were protest against it all. No tube, no busses people in the street. On the other hand TV tried to get people to be very excited about football for months. And I heard from rich and poor that they would rather have Brazil loose games immediately so that the people could wake up for the disparity, the corruption that has been part of Brazilian culture for centuries.

And then the world cup started, and little by little you started to see Brazilian flags in cars, and houses. I must say there are not that many. Still it felt somehow poignant  that people could not resist. They cheered.

I must say I usually like football but I did not see a single game so far. And I started to pay attention to something I thought was rather more interesting than the football itself. And that was the amount of foreigners in Sao Paulo, and Brazilians who started to go out to meet them.

Brazilians are in general very friendly people. The women were dazzled by these people some have never met before. Most of them have never been abroad. But also even men were taking care of foreigners around. When  a total asswhole came to disturb me in a bar where I know everybody…. And I was polite to him till he told me Palestine did not exist, a guy came to check on him. They were not friends, he was a Brazilian man that came to check whether he was well.  He asked the guy ” are you ok?”

How could I be a threat to an Israeli soldier? He told the guy I was actually very interesting and tried to  hold me several times. I dismissed it and went to dance with the waiter who is my friend. See this is Brazil. Even the waiter stops sometimes to have fun.

I met another Israeli and told him about that guy. He was appalled  and embarrassed. I told him he did not have to explain any of that to me. Yet the reason I write about this is because in any country there are amazing people, and stupid people. We should not generalise a whole population by what we have heard from someone, or from one encounter.  My Israeli, and Palestinian friends know this. They know I have been to both sides of the wall, that I have friends there and that I inherently trust people.

What is quite amazing about not seeing the world cup that is taking place here. Is to see people who have never met foreigners and who would like to know them. They come to meet them. They take pictures, have brief encounters etc. Obviously there are exponentially more men than women who come from abroad to see the world cup. And that is funny too. Brazilians pretend to be foreigners to attract their own fellow citizens.

We hosted 2 Mexicans here. And we taught how to get by in Brazil, basics of Portuguese. Today when I passed by the lady where we practiced putting credit in a phone she asked me. ” Where are you from? You speak portuguese quite well!”

I explained  her I am from here. Actually from the street around the corner but as I walked I realised she is write I am not from here. I have spent too much time everywhere to be from somewhere. I asked the doorman where he thought I was from. He knows I am from here. I explained him  the story and he said ” Maybe, they think you are not from here because you speak very fast!”

And as I stopped here to write I realised it is true. I am not from here.  I am so scattered, there are so many parts of me in so many places, the people that I trust and love are not simply in different cities, they are in different countries, they are in different continents. My language has been so cut in so many ways, the philosophies and religions that have penetrated my mind come from so many different places, that it does not even surprise me that my brain has stopped sometimes either going too fast or too slow.

I stopped to think about the door man and he is write “it is because I speak too fast”. More than that I live too fast, too intensively.

I don’t care about the world cup. Not sure for how long Brazilians will also not care.  We all know it is panis et circenses. But there is some beauty in seeing their smiles back in their faces. Nothing has changed. All the structural problems are here. Yet they still smile.  I have written about this before… maybe this is the most powerful form of protest and resilience there is! It is to simply not allow all of the absurdity that goes on to go inside one’s soul. They stand up, they see the unfairness for what it is,   they find and know it is absurd and then they still dance and smile. There is no greatest strength than this one.

I have encountered in my life many refugees, many of which who had been kept as hostages. I have been to enough places to know that some people speak with fear and in almost silent words in front of me. Others speak casually about it all. I have learned through the path to recognise someone in pain. Nothing special about me, it is something that some people just also feel.

Today I was sent  an article to read about the life of a hostage who was kept in Iran for a long time. Nowadays , I choose carefully what I read. Yet I read it. And it moved me so much. It was a letter. I wondered how many people could actually identify with these words. I did.

I thought so much about it. I have never been kept as a hostage, nor have I ever been tortured why was it that I knew that, how was it that those words made so much sense to me?

There is something intriguing about reading it.  I did not laugh like someone told me, would have been the most compassionate way to read it. I could not possibly laugh at it. I did once see an Iraqi speak in a conference ” laughter is the easiest way to cope with something that is so painful that you can’t deal with.” I was impressed that day. He was Iraqi, ironically at the time ( the time of the Iraqi war) he had studied public health in Syria. Then he became a student at Harvard. I was an undergrad at the time, but because I was always so interested in the Middle East I was introduced to him by my professor. This was NY, a couple years after 911.

As I read it today, many years after. Having met so many people who are from countries that were, or are in a war now, those images lingered in my  mind.  Somehow I definitely could understand a student from Harvard, a doctor writing about laughter when his country was being bombed. He was a doctor.  But I can not laugh.

I read the article again and wondered why was it? And that are some thoughts there which are so powerful.  Shane bauer, the hostage, and journalist, in some part of his page says he never thought prisons in the US could be worse than in Iran.

But the reason I went to his page was to see who he was. More importantly because I was very intrigued by something in that article. And that is such a non popular notion but I really understood it.

Somehow he said it that being freed was harder than to be a hostage. If you are to say that to anyone. They would invoke the “Stocholm syndrom”. Yet this is not really why I thought it was so powerful. It is something else. The return to freedom, in a world where suddenly you can realise the superficiality of it all. The invoked tones.  The questions.  All of this is unbearable.

This is not even knew. I guess in manufacturing consent it is quite clear.  But the idea of the whole west being addicted to pleasures, chemical releases…. Addiction to Freedom, is always hard to tell people.

How many steps further you have to go to understand that a total search for “that” freedom cannot be disentangled from total abandonment of responsibility to the world where you live in. Where you actions do matter!

And so I go back to my love of Mountains, the admiration of those who do not need to conquer them for the chemical release that comes from that. They were born there.

In my mind I go back to Tibetan  lamas who are capable to be in silence, self-contained,  and are able to control brain chemistry through meditation.

In my mind I go back to the indigenous I have met in South America, who tell you all over to not take away a person from a hole. Let them lay there.  I used to find it cruel. Yet, it is not. It comes from an awareness of discovering  self resilience, strength, and the value of one’s own life.

I doubt any Tulku, or Shaman abandons anyone. They are there in silence.

So when I read Shane Bauer I can but think, that I understand he found his strength his value. And was almost convinced he was freed. Only to realise that Freedom is internal, to be externally Free in a world where  most people have not found their own strength leads you to feel completely lonely. Free in a world of disconnection, oppression done under your name.

It is painful to see around you all of those addicted to something vaguely related to Freedom. It almost makes you hate freedom. It almost makes you want to be trapped so that you can at least know who your enemy is. But, in the end, we must realise that this is not  freedom. Freedom is inside.

The article by Shane Bauer is here

“You’ll Need to Relearn How to Be a Person”: A Letter to Bowe Bergdahl From a Fellow Former Hostage