The Na'vi in the West Bank
Feb. 23rd, 2010 04:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ajnabiehI'm certain everyone and their mother has heard about Bil'in's Avatar-themed protest by now. It got coverage in the LA Times; for the geek community, it was posted on io9; for the Middle Eastern studies blogosphere, Ted Swedenburg posted on it. In other words, it's been talked about.
The event had a strange set of resonances for me. The first is that Adalah-NY, one of the groups that I'm doing fieldwork with right now, is closely involved in support for the village of Bil'in, which has been home to a long-running series of protests against the Israeli separation wall/separation barrier/apartheid wall (naming the object is highly contested--those are the three most common).
The second resonance is that I actually participated in a demonstration in Bil'in when I was in Palestine and Israel in 2005 for the International Conference of the Women in Black. Here, have some of my photos:
Click through to see them larger, in more detail.
Whenever I see video of Bil'in, I'm immediately thrown back to that day--to the sense of routine that accompanied the demonstration, to the energy of the activists gradually ebbing away as we realized that there wasn't going to be a big symbolic event, to the American Jewish women arguing with the Israeli soldiers, to the dramatic ripping away of the barbed wire, to remembering my promise to my wife not to get teargassed (I'm asthmatic), so making sure to stay towards the back as villagers and IDF soliders began to play the eternal game of chicken that, I'm sure, ends most protests. It's a vivid set of memories, and I'm glad I have them. Plus, now, if anyone asks, yes, I got teargassed in the West Bank. (I was way far away. It still hurt.)
The third resonance is that, as those who know me outside of of theajnabieh context know, when I'm not being passionate about the Middle East, political theory, or feminist politics, I'm being passionate about fandom. (Everyone needs a hobby. Especially when writing a dissertation.) This was one of those awesome collisions of my interests: you got your fandom in my Palestine activism! You got your Palestine activism in my fandom! In particular, what I like about this is how it uses the metaphor from a fictional text to make a non-fictional point. I made a similar point about the Tigh/Roslin '08 campaign in this essay for a special issue of FlowTV on Sarah Palin; when fictional media are complex enough to carry political resonances, we can use them to make arguments about our world, and do so in a way that's going to get attention and attract people who wouldn't otherwise care about what we're saying. Pop culture is a way for activism to bridge worlds, to communicate outside of its neck of the woods. Of course, this is what Adalah-NY does in its protests; if you're singing Beyonce, someone might listen to hear what you're saying about apartheid.
In any case, I'm not overly hopeful that this protest will be the crucial one that changes Bil'in's situation, but I'm very glad to see them getting press, and, at least, they'll never be bored.
The event had a strange set of resonances for me. The first is that Adalah-NY, one of the groups that I'm doing fieldwork with right now, is closely involved in support for the village of Bil'in, which has been home to a long-running series of protests against the Israeli separation wall/separation barrier/apartheid wall (naming the object is highly contested--those are the three most common).
The second resonance is that I actually participated in a demonstration in Bil'in when I was in Palestine and Israel in 2005 for the International Conference of the Women in Black. Here, have some of my photos:
Click through to see them larger, in more detail.
Whenever I see video of Bil'in, I'm immediately thrown back to that day--to the sense of routine that accompanied the demonstration, to the energy of the activists gradually ebbing away as we realized that there wasn't going to be a big symbolic event, to the American Jewish women arguing with the Israeli soldiers, to the dramatic ripping away of the barbed wire, to remembering my promise to my wife not to get teargassed (I'm asthmatic), so making sure to stay towards the back as villagers and IDF soliders began to play the eternal game of chicken that, I'm sure, ends most protests. It's a vivid set of memories, and I'm glad I have them. Plus, now, if anyone asks, yes, I got teargassed in the West Bank. (I was way far away. It still hurt.)
The third resonance is that, as those who know me outside of of the
ajnabieh context know, when I'm not being passionate about the Middle East, political theory, or feminist politics, I'm being passionate about fandom. (Everyone needs a hobby. Especially when writing a dissertation.) This was one of those awesome collisions of my interests: you got your fandom in my Palestine activism! You got your Palestine activism in my fandom! In particular, what I like about this is how it uses the metaphor from a fictional text to make a non-fictional point. I made a similar point about the Tigh/Roslin '08 campaign in this essay for a special issue of FlowTV on Sarah Palin; when fictional media are complex enough to carry political resonances, we can use them to make arguments about our world, and do so in a way that's going to get attention and attract people who wouldn't otherwise care about what we're saying. Pop culture is a way for activism to bridge worlds, to communicate outside of its neck of the woods. Of course, this is what Adalah-NY does in its protests; if you're singing Beyonce, someone might listen to hear what you're saying about apartheid.In any case, I'm not overly hopeful that this protest will be the crucial one that changes Bil'in's situation, but I'm very glad to see them getting press, and, at least, they'll never be bored.