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Away, near a manger By Philip Whitfield December 25, 2004 |
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More and more, she, a Palestinian Christian, said, we are being asked to hope for less and less. It seemed to sum up better than a visitor could, what it is to be caged; to be fenced in behind a concrete and wire barrier, penetrable by only a few such as I whom the Israelis don’t care to upset. We’d come to the city of Jesus’ birth to be inquisitive, to share Christmas with the first Christians, and to find a meaning in our lives for the biblical message “and the word became flesh”. What we found surprised us. First, you tend to forget how cold it can be in Bethlehem and Jerusalem at this time of the year. They’re built on mountains and the clouds precipitate drizzle that threatens snow. People go about hurriedly, moving from shop to shop quickly, picking up the best lamb they can afford and fresh vegetables off the pavement stalls that women set up after lugging in the potatoes, carrots and cauliflowers from the fields. There are almonds, as well, from Lebanon, some dates, nice thick flat bread, local olive oil, sweet coconut-covered slabs, pink and white. The day-to-day ordinariness of it all is charming. For most of the past three years, there’ve been Israeli soldiers on the streets, arrogant, pushy, prodding and searching; driving menacingly, arresting anyone they seemed to dislike. It makes you nervous when you have to skirt past a patrol of young men carrying weapons almost that hang from their shoulders to their knees. You notice they keep a finger on the trigger. That many speak Russian is surprising, too. Yet, this year, we had to get accustomed to Manger Square and the narrow streets off it without the soldiers and without the bullies pushing us around. What’s also missing, though, are Christians. The few in number remaining are down to 10,000. I ask how many left during the year and am told probably a thousand. Then I’m told once gone, they never return. The other missing Christians are pilgrims. A Franciscan friar managing a hotel says we are the first he’s seen since October, and then there were only a handful. We drop our bags in our rooms at a guesthouse that shares a roof with The Manger and absorb how close we are to the birth of a new order. Our meal is beautifully prepared, hot tasty vegetable soup, pasta and some fruit. All that anyone would need after 20 hours on the road. In the morning, I hear a bell, something I never hear in the Muslim world I live in. I’m prompted to dress hastily and to walk towards the chime. A few paces only and I duck into the Church of the Nativity where a Cantor takes over the call in my ear. I am drawn past the altar and down some narrow stone worn stairs, deep into the bowels. There’s an elderly priest and a group of five, assembled before a cross. They’re familiar with one another. The cantor pauses and a woman, with a voice so sweet, intercedes. She is a mother, her head covered, the black linen reaching down below her waist. The voice is perfect pitch, harmonic, magical. I sit next to a man on a makeshift bench. His hands are a workman’s, tough, thick nails; stocky fingers of muscle not fat; palms deeply lined. His turns them over as he does at this pre-dawn hour every morning: to accept a piece of bread. It’s not a crumb. It’s a mouthful and more and I realise the priest is handing out breakfast at this Eucharist. Another tall, younger priest, black from head to toe, recites a prayer and we pull our coats around us to go to work, or to fix the kids breakfast, though, first, polythene bags are offered for more bread. Later I turn up, unannounced at a friends’ work. She says it’s O.K. to talk for a few minutes and we end up talking for an hour or so. She has a different view than the teacher who said the Palestinians are being diminished by the war. It is, she says, an opportunity to look within themselves, holistically. I know this woman to be a radical in most western eyes. She is a professional, trained some years back in America, to communicate well. And she does. The world’s concentration on Arafat’s death and succession “minimizes” the Palestinians, she says. It ignores the complexity of their ideals and aspirations by embodying a so-called ‘solution’ in the election and elevation of one person. She’s never been much of a fan of Arafat anyway, she says, for a variety of reasons. Mostly, I think, because she abhors violence. Her point is that Palestinians have to learn to live with the hand they are dealt. That’s neither to accept the prison the Israelis have built for them, nor is it to “make the prison more inhabitable” as she puts it. It is to shake off the affliction that has overshadowed their being for so many decades, even centuries. If we see ourselves as victims all the time, we believe we are being victimised all the time, I write down. I consider that in the context of living in a neighbouring country, Egypt. The Arab states construct an image of victims without associating themselves with the oppression. Yet, time and again they’ve opted for pragmatism or skulked away from a skirmish. It’s no wonder that this woman, nursing a cup of coffee, says Palestinians of her younger age, have little faith in would-be outside rescue. She scorns the Oslo solution for playing into Israel’s hands. It justified stealing land that doesn’t belong to them, she says. We make some plans and with the disarming hospitality you encounter almost everywhere hereabouts, makes certain I’ll be well-looked after on Christmas Eve. There’s a recital of Bach’s Oratorio and a sumptuous five-course gourmet banquet that she says I must experience. It seems incongruous at first, but it is the reality of a people who have learned to come to terms with their life. I take a couple of guys, somewhat wide-eyed on their first visit, to Jerusalem, just down the road on a number 31 bus. We don’t even consider the risks, noting that every bus we catch now has at least half a dozen Israeli soldiers spaced out by each door. Ben Yehuda Street has returned to business, the shoppers, still subdued, look more relaxed. But the Old City is quiet. At The Tomb, we’re almost alone, the Church of The Holy Sepulchre mostly deserted. I’ve never been able to fathom out these shrines and today is no exception. If that’s the actual casket, why, in my child daughter’s words of 30 years ago, don’t they take a peek? Yet, the peacefulness is what I need and I take time to pray weaving in and out the names of all of those who have assisted me on my journey. For a moment or two, each is with me, at the fount of Christian belief. I picture them doing their pre-Christmas preparation, think of their families, of their faithfulness, and thank God for them. An Orthodox says it’s time to move along and we do so, catching a ride back to Bethlehem in time for the concert, given by the London Choir and the London Symphony. The joy of these musicians to be here washes over us and later we drink beer together over supper in a café and they talk about how their lives are being changed to be among such resilience. They sense, as I do, the vigour surfacing. Our hosts are not downtrodden. The next day I discover a part of why. At Bethlehem University I pick up the fact that 70 per cent of the students, who number 2,100, are women, 30 per cent Christian. In an Arab society this is an aberration. Later I hear the same from Hebron, though no Christians, other than volunteers, live there. I am struck by the story the news media are missing. Women have come to the fore. They are earning degrees, finding worthwhile jobs in the hospitals, schools, research institutes, NGOs; wherever a good brain, discipline and knowledge are respected and rewarded. I look around again and realise that the Palestinian culture is changed. In a local election, there were more women candidates than men. They won, too. History repeats itself. Try as you will, you will find almost nothing in the New Testament, about Joseph. It’s Mary we recall. My informant earlier had talked about different change elements, the tools for giving form to hope. Now I understand whose hands are guiding the palpable change in Palestine, the hands that rock the cradle.
Phil Whitfield can be reached at pjwcairo@yahoo.com
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