ELECTION DAY

By Toine van Teeffelen

Taking small steps we walk along the University Road to reach the voting station at the Arab Women's Union. It is cold but sunny weather. Imm Hannah, Mary's mother, walks slowly due to a stroke years ago, while Tamer has his own reasons not to keep pace. At the station the atmosphere is quiet and relatively orderly; even gay since people are meeting and talking with each other surrounded by flags and helpful officials. Mary and her sister Janet vote, but Imm Hannah not. Some months ago Janet had taken her mother's ID to register her, but without her physical presence registration turned out to be not possible. Then there was the promise or the rumor that officials would pass by at Imm Hannah's house, which never happened. Officials in the voting station now explain that she can vote in another quarter, but she finds that too far, and she is anyway not that much motivated. After the voting, Mahed [Manger] TV, one of the local Bethlehem TV stations, interviews Janet and her mother about what they expect their candidate to do. Solving the Palestine question and bringing peace, says Janet plainly, also on behalf of her mother. Much of the family sees them on TV later on.

Tamer is not interested in the TV but is rather fascinated by the ink that has been put on Mary's and Janet's thumbs. He also wants to vote and get a mark of that beautiful ink. It is supposed to be indelible ink to prevent people voting twice. I urge Mary to check it out since in other countries, like Afghanistan, such ink was easily faded out. During the day we hear reports from the campaign headquarters of the candidate Mustapha Bargouthi that in several villages in the West Bank not indelible but normal ink was provided that was easily removed with saliva or acetone. Mary tries acetone on her thumb, but that doesn't work. However, our neighbour has a strong American chemical substance that removes dirty spots from clothes. It works quickly indeed. But who can obtain something special like that, asks Mary. 

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The elections create some new life in the community, if only by the ubiquitous presence of posters, some of them on billboards of huge size. Our gate is full of posters of an Islamic candidate. Of course, the people have been talking about the pros and cons of the various candidates. One supermarket owner said he refused to vote; another thought it unbelievable that people could vote for Abu Mazen: "Then you just keep the corruption." Since many years, Mary cannot bring herself to be enthusiastic about politics anymore, but she decides, after first thinking not to vote at all, to vote for "Mustapha," as the independent democratic candidate Mustapha Bargouthi is called in the ordinary conversations between people and even in the media. A niece is upset after tactfully inquiring with Jara about Mary's vote. "I will teach her a lesson," she says with a wink of the eye. And an aunt is painfully hurt: "Eeeeehh, how can she do that." A colleague at work cannot believe that Mary, a Christian, can vote for Mustapha since he might plan to cancel the quota system in Bethlehem that guarantees that some Christians are elected in the Legislative Council. At least it is being rumoured. But remember that Mustapha, a Moslem, is married with a Christian and that he did not ask her to convert to Islam, I say.

Mary is fully supported by Jara. She says that Abou Mazen is rich, and she does not like rich people. But Mustapha is also not poor, says Mary, but Jara clicks with her tongue and throws her head backwards to express the certainty of an independent judgement. Tamer also knows what he wants and is of course in support of Abu Mazen as he wants to distinguish himself from Mary and Jara. We watch various TV news stations every hour. "Why don't they give any attention to candidates other than Abu Mazen and Mustapha?" says Mary. Jara sings "Ana bahibbak ya Mustapha" ["I love you, oh Mustapha"}, a well-known traditional schlager which I even know in its Dutch version. The other day we heard groups of youngsters singing the song but it was unclear whether they supported or opposed Mustapha.

In the evening we hear the celebrations of the Fatah shabaab [youngsters]. They drive by in cars honking, singing, shouting and even shooting. Mary doesn't think that they all admire Abou Mazen as a person but that they are mainly happy that their party won. Maybe they also like to celebrate because there is in general so little to celebrate, I think. The reason that Abou Mazen won, Mary says, is that people are longing for a quick peace, "they think it comes next month!" and because Abu Mazen is liked by the Americans and the Israelis. The people have had enough, "they are fed up," as the often used expression goes. But meanwhile the situation on the ground does not change much, in fact deteriorates, with the building of the Wall and the consolidation of the many settlements and bypass roads around Bethlehem. I remember reading, perhaps two months ago, an article in Haaretz that stated that during election day the army would lift most of the West Bank checkpoints and blockades. It even speculated that it would not be possible for the army to reinstall such checkpoints after the people had tasted their bit of freedom. The truth is that none of the regular checkpoints were removed during election day, and that it was simply easier for some people to pass. Now, the morning after, everything is normal, that is abnormal, again. Two people are passing by our house this morning, one asking for work, another for money to pay a health bill.

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Jara says that only in heaven there are no checkpoints. On his part, Tamer has for such a long time insisted to have a gun to fight the jaysh [army] that Mary finally bought him a plastic one. However, his interest to dissect machines wins it from his urge to fight. After one day the pieces of the gun are irreparably spread out across the tapestry, ready to be thrown into the trash.