An Interview with Palestinian Author, Journalist and Scholar Ramzy Baroud
Human Liberation: What does human liberation mean to you? What are its main elements?
Ramzy Baroud: Human liberation obviously refers to the state of physical, moral and spiritual emancipation of the individual as well as of the collective. To be understood within a practical context, it must be examined against the backdrop of its opposite: slavery. I don't mean slavery exclusively as an historic nor a theological construct, but slavery in its most relevant and contemporary political meanings. To make this more relevant, I think that many nations around the world are in dire need of freedom and I don't exclusively refer to the Palestinian people and their definite need for such a quality. I have toured many countries in the Middle East, with flags, national anthems and national soccer teams who lack the most basic elements of human liberation, the right to live in freedom, to express one opinion, to challenge the mainstream concepts of politics, religion or social norms. But it's important to note that human liberation, or the lack thereof, is not entirely a Third World or a Middle Eastern reality, but a global struggle. In the United States for example, I dare say there is a decades-long process of indoctrination where the media shapes public opinion, perception and life style on about everything. There is near consent on many issues, as long as there is a mirroring consent in the media regarding those same issues. The ability to break away from those preset standards shall contribute to liberate the human mind to think freely and to act according to her/his own consciousness, not on the often deceptive and commercially-motivated interpretation of the media.
HL: What does human liberation mean in the context of Palestine? What are the major social forces preventing human liberation in Palestine? How can these forces be overcome?
RB: With regard to Palestine, the Palestinian people inside the Occupied Territories are denied the most basic elements of freedom and liberty. I recall as a child living in a refugee camp, it was illegal to carry a Palestinian flag, to even inscribe the letters of Palestine anywhere, otherwise there is a heavy fine or imprisonment by the Israeli Military Administration. Needless to say that the freedom to work, to study, to travel, to express one's opinion to a neighbor, much less publicly, were confined and required an Israeli army permit. Nothing has changed today, despite over a decade of a "peace process"; Palestinians are still denied the most basic rights. Tens of thousands of West Bank farmers must apply for an Israeli permit to water or harvest their crops; Palestinian school children must wait in line before an Israeli gate (Qalqiliya is a good example) to be allowed to cross to school. The Israeli Separation Wall built illegally on Palestinian land in the West Bank is the greatest attestation to the confinement of human liberation on a physical level. But there is no denial that physical incarceration and collective imprisonment often fail to detain the human will, a person's ability to be defiant, creative, challenging, thus attain mental growth and survival. If you compare Palestinians living inside the Occupied Territories to supposedly sovereign neighboring countries, you would be stunned to see that Palestinians are much more tolerant and progressive free-thinkers. We insist on carrying the Palestinian flag, writing love poetry and inscribing the letters of Palestine in every language on the walls of our prisons. If you read the graffiti written on the Palestinian side of the Israeli wall, you'll be amazed at the audacity and valor of Palestinians. Maybe they have been somewhat subdued and imprisoned physically, but they have never been morally defeated or detained.
HL: What role can university campuses play in the struggle for human liberation?
RB: University campuses are essential in the struggle for human liberation. True, we earn degrees in part to find good jobs, but also because we value learning and education as concepts. Education and learning are without value if they are not a direct expression of freedoms on social, political and even cultural levels. If a university campus fails to play its role as an edifice of enlightenment and the extension of constructive social and political values all around it, it's frankly meaningless; more of a job training facility than a university. I must admit that despite all attempts, our universities in the United States host some of the most progressive social and political groups all around. It's a comforting notion, considering the sharp decline in our political progression and the uncontested hegemony of the right wing over the decision making on the national level.
HL: In an age when the mainstream news media present images of human tragedy side-by-side with celebrity gossip, is it still possible to foster moral empathy and indignation in the public? If so, how?
RB: This goes back to my earlier claim regarding the media and its setting of social and political agendas. In fact, agenda setting is one of mass communication's most lively and relevant theories. However, I do believe that it's still possible to foster moral empathy in our communities. We must continue to support and strive to create alternative mechanisms to combat the prevailing apathy fostered by the buck-seeking media. We must take every opportunity to balance social and political deterioration infesting our societies, through embracing positive platforms: alternative and progressive media, social justice groups, churches, mosques, synagogues and temples scattered all around the United States are all platforms that must be exploited to learn and teach about social justice and human liberation.
HL: Your book Searching Jenin documents the atrocities committed by the Israeli army in the Jenin refugee camp in 2002. How would you respond to criticisms that qualitative research (in this case, the use of eyewitness accounts) is biased, subjective, and therefore "politicized"?
RB: There is no such thing as objective media. It never was and never will be. Thus, despite the fact that I did do my best to remain objective in my presentation of my qualitative research in my book Searching Jenin, I don't claim that I succeeded in completely separating my own bias from the subject at hand. However, I wish to differentiate between bias and mere forgery, intentional and purposeful imbalance. While the first is an imperative human nature, the latter is deceptive and simply unreliable. No matter how personally involved I am in an issue or cause, I try no to allow misinformation, political propaganda or subjective analysis to hamper the usefulness of my final product. I feel very strongly about that.
Excerpts from Searching Jenin: Eyewitness Accounts of the Israeli Invasion
by Ramzy Baroud
by Ramzy Baroud
From "Introduction":
The Jenin refugee camp is a focal point in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The plight of this small camp with its impovershed refugees is representative of Israeli occupation and of Palestinian resistance. It reflects the victimization of the Palestinian people and also demonstrates their determination to use armed struggle to defy occupation...These testimonies recount Palestinian losses. Yet they also remind the world that the Palestinian voice has not been silenced and continues to long for freedom. (p. 32)
From the testimony of Rund al-Shalabi, a Jenin fifth grader:
I had a great father. No other father was like him. He was a member of the resistance. He defended his land and his children. My father was a very good man. He always murmured Quran and religious sayings. The last time he came to the house, he came to take some clothes to the resistance fighters. That was during the last invasion. He left and came back again to get a lantern. He often came back to the house during the battle to wash and pray. The last time he came, he stayed for a long time. He had us all sit down around him, and he ate with us. On that same day he was killed. He was killed on a Friday, a day that is blessed for Muslims...
[On the eleventh day] the Israeli army moved into our house. They broke the door and stormed in shouting dirty words. We had been sleeping, but we immediately jumped out of our beds. My brothers were not very scared, but my mom and I were terrified. I was shivering from fear.
The soldiers filled the courtyard, they had all kinds of equipment with them. They shot and killed our sheep. They had a man from the neighborhood who knew some Hebrew translate. Then they used us as shields.
They broke our cupboards, our beds, and a coat tree. I was scared but I didn't cry... The Israeli soldiers made my mom sit on her knees and they pointed a gun to her head, and asked "Where are the shebab [resistance fighters]?" They had a female soldier search my mother. She also beat my mom up and took her money.
"God is stronger than you," my mom told them.
The soldiers laughed and asked, "Where is your husband?"
"My husband is dead," she replied.
"No, my father is a martyr!" shouted my brother.
"Your father is a son of a bitch!" shouted the soldiers.
Once they knew that my father was a martyr, they kept coming back to our house, they used the area in front of our house as a base for their tanks. One of the soldiers took his clothes off and started dancing as another took our drum and started playing music. We sat in the corner, they wouldn't let us move for five hours. They wouldn't allow us to drink either.
They came and they asked my mother, "Where are the weapons?"
"We have no weapons," she said. "You should be ashamed of yourselves! You call us terrorists, and you and your Sharon are the real terrorists. You come to our refugee camp, and you destroy it. What crime did our sheep commit to be killed?"
"Shut up!" shouted the soldiers back.
Two soldiers grabbed some sticks and pretended that they were having a sword fight. The soldiers said, "Look at us, we are better than the Arabs at this!"
"You are cowards!" said my brother in a loud voice.
The soldier laughed and hit my brother very hard in the face. My brother did not cry...
They destroyed whatever they hadn't broken already. They stayed until sunset. My mother kept telling them, "What are me and my children doing to you? Don't you have hearts? You are terrifying my children." My mother finally started to weep. "Do whatever you want," she said. "Kill us all if you want, if we die, we will go to Paradise. But what will happen to you when you die?"
"This is the last time I am going to tell you to shut up!" screamed a soldier after running up and putting a gun to my mother's head. They stayed for a few more hours. They would go to the kitchen and would use our pots and pans as a toilet, they cut up our mattresses with knives. They tore up our schoolbooks and they burned our school bags. They got very mad when they saw a picture of a Palestinian flag in one of the books...
When I grow up, I want to be a doctor, to treat the wounded with the will of God. My brother wants to be a teacher, and my older brother also wants to be a doctor. My father was poor, but he would take us to the market and say, "Choose whatever you want." During the invasion, he told us that he was going to build us a swing set and a garden and a special room to do our homework. He used to say, "You will get the chance to play with all the children in the neighborhood." But unfortunately God has chosen him to be a martyr. We are now on our summer vacation, although all of our schools were destroyed by the army.
From the testimony of Trevor Baumgartner, a New York special-education teacher who traveled to Jenin as part of the International Solidarity Movement:
A grandmother in a white head scarf and an elegantly embroidered turquoise gown clutches a case of water and crawls up and over slabs of cinder block and stucco. She's trying to find a place to store this water, supplied by local relief organizations. As she shoves them through a prison bar mesh of snarled rebar, I'm struck by her resolve. Her trembling but unbroken spirit. Her steadfast human will drives her body and keeps her in her home, Palestine...
When the wind picks up just right and washes over my face, I find myself engulfed by the scent of dead bodies. I've never tasted this smell before, but somehow I know. There's nothing like the smell of a rotting heart. Nothing...
This is not simply about counting the dead and displaced. It's about respect for human life. Whereas the US immediately rallied support for a war around the world, as well as a full-scale relief effort in New York, here a piddly UN "fact-finding" team can't even worm their way into this refugee camp, let alone use any machinery to uncover those men, women, and children buried alive. What "facts" they'd be trying to find is another bewildering matter altogether, as everybody?everybody?knows who did what to whom. The treatment of the refugees in Jenin is pathological and utterly despicable. And we all bear some responsibility for it. They've been refugees for over fifty years, and many of them are now doubly displaced. Yet most of us look away in silence...
These are not a pitiable people. They've spent their years building a fierce and proud community. In the face of intense and forced isolation...
The stories of the strength of Mukhayim ("camp" in Arabic) Jenin are gaining legendary status. "The soldiers cry when they come to Jenin," many folks are proud to say. They are clear about making distinctions between resisting outside aggression/occupation and general terrorism. They are equally clear that everyday they survive terrorism from a state with nuclear capabilities.
Jenin will flower again, Shadi says, because "everybody here has the same goal." What is that goal, I ask.
"Hurriya." It means freedom.
Ramzy Baroud teaches Mass Communication at Australia's Curtin University of Technology. He is the editor-in-chief of the Palestine Chronicle and author of the forthcoming book, A Force to be Reckoned With: Writings on the Second Palestinian Uprising, to be published by Pluto Press, London. His email address is editor@palestinechronicle.com.
