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International
Conference
Shaping Communities in
Times of Crisis
Narratives of Land, Peoples and Identities
6-12 November 2005
After fourteen months of
planning, our international
conference has begun!
The conference continues
at the ICB revealing and discussing vital issues about Land, Peoples and
Identities. On Wednesday, November 9, 2005, there were
three prevailing subjects: the first one discussed the idea of
WE/OTHERS, the second one was about the Palestinian discourse regarding
these issues, and the third one was about the realities of the
indigenous people of America.
Previous Events of the
Conference:
Article By Phil Haslanger
about the Palestinian Panel/Wednesday.
Bernard Sabella is now a
prominent sociologist at Bethlehem University, a leader in the Middle
East Council of Churches. But as a boy, he had the experience of so many
Palestinians who live in this region. His family was displaced from
their home as Israel was created as a homeland for Jewish people in
1948.
His family moved from Bethlehem to the Old City in Jerusalem, with 8 to
10 people crammed into one room. He remembers when they got their first
electricity, when they got their refrigerator, he remembers his mother
on her deathbed asking about her home, whether she could ever return.
Sabella was one of four people on a panel Wednesday at the conference on
Land, Peoples and Identity at the International Center of Bethlehem.
They spoke in very personal terms about how the crisis in their land has
affected their identity.
Faida Daibes-Murad is a generation younger than Sabella. She is an
environmentalist who has been deeply involved in negotiating water
rights for the Palestinians and this year won a Swedish environmental
prize for her work on international water policy. But her life, too, was
shaped by dislocation.
She was only 7 months old in 1967 when the Six Day War raged through the
area between Jerusalem and the West Bank. A bomb landed near her family
home in the area of the Mount of Olives and her mother fled in panic,
momentarily leaving behind her baby daughter, before racing back to get
her. Her sense of Palestinian identity was strengthened by the story of
what her family experienced and she says her work on water issues is the
way she remains attached to the land.
Nihab Boqai is a Palestinian from Israel, an economist, sociologist and
anthropologist. In the 1967 war, his family only moved 5 kilometers from
their home of origin, yet he was always fascinated by where is was and
wanted to go back to visit. When he was 16, he asked his father why he
never went to visit and asked if he could go. His father told him no.
"My father did not want to see the destruction of the houses," he said.
"He wanted to keep the picture of the village when he left."
Fr. Naim Ateek, the founder of the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology
Center, was born and raised in a section of Palestine that later became
Israel. He holds Israeli citizenship, but he said that for him and other
Palestinians in Israel, that in some ways has made it much harder to
retain his identity.
"The word 'Palestinian' became taboo," he said. "We were forbidden to
use the word Palestinian. We were to call ourselves to Arab Israelis."
Now Palestinians in Israel have started to call themselves Palestinians
again in an attempt to reassert their identity. He said he thought the
Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank had a stronger sense of identity
because of the daily oppression they face from the Israeli government.
Sabella cautioned that even though Palestinians have much to be angry
about, it important that their identity not be that of victims.
"I want to live in dignity," he said. "I want my children to live in
dignity. I don't want your pity. I want my people to let go of the
victim mentality."
Daibes-Murad agreed that it is not good to adopt a victim mentality, but
observed that she has inherited her parents' pain. "Even though we do
not want to be victims, our children can see our pain and it shapes
their identity," she said.
The residue of that pain was evident as Sabella ended his comments."It's
holy ground when you talk about the hurt and pain of your parents," he
said as his voice started to break.
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