Palestine’s voice
A comprehensive view of the history and the present state of cultural resistance in the occupied West Bank.
R
ESISTANCE through art is the leitmotif of this remarkable book that offers a detailed documentation of the first decade of a heroic experiment that has come to be known as The Freedom Theatre (TFT) in Jenin in the occupied West Bank area of Palestine. This is also the first time, as one of its editors Johanna Wallin writes, when those involved in the TFT have themselves told their story in their “own words” while earlier others did all the telling and interpreting. She says that along with this thick book, a companion volume titled Rehearsing Freedom: The Story of a Theatre in Palestine was also prepared to offer a “visual representation” of the TFT’S first decade. Leftword Books published this volume, too, and the entire process of preparing the twin volumes took a year and a half.
To offer a comprehensive view of the history and the present state of the cultural resistance that has found its unique expression in the Tft—and also a few hints about the future that awaits it—the book has been divided into five sections: 1. The Beginning, Arna, and Juliano Mer Khamis; 2. Cultural Resistance; 3. Performing Arts; 4. International Per1917, spectives; and 5. The Future. The editors have added an informative and useful introduction to the compilation to give the reader some indication of the road that lies ahead.
To understand the nature of any resistance— political or cultural—one has to understand the nature of the entity that is being resisted. In this case, the entity is those who have perpetrated and perpetuated the tragedy that befell the Palestinian people— predominantly Muslim but also Christian as well as Jew—in 1948, the tragedy whose roots went back to the late 19th century when Jews began to flock to Palestine to escape the anti-semitism in Russia and central Europe. In the British captured Palestine from the Ottomans and promised the Jews a “national home”. There was a great Arab revolt in Palestine during 1936-39, which the British brutally crushed.
Finally, in pursuance of a United Nations resolution, Israel was created as the Jewish homeland on May 14, 1948, and Palestine was partitioned between the newly created Jewish state and Arab states with the West Bank, including east Jerusalem,
A STREET THEATRE
going to Jordan and Gaza Strip to Egypt.
This provoked an eight-month-long war with the Arab states. The Israeli forces razed more than 470 Palestinian villages, forcing nearly 800,000 Palestinians to flee to the West Bank, Gaza and the neighbouring Arab states. Israelis began to colonise Palestinian lands and the process continues to this day. In the Six-day War in June 1967, Israel defeated a united front of Arab states and occupied the