Kangsen Feka Wakai interviews Hadeel Assali, a Palestinian-American cultural activist and founder of the Houston Palestinian Film Festival.
KFW: You were very involved in initiating the Houston Palestine Film Festival, which offers an American/non-Palestinian audience a glimpse of the Palestinian experience from a creative point of view. How would you assess its impact so far, and to what extent can art play a role in articulating the aspirations of the Palestinian people?
HA: Palestine has been a taboo “controversial” topic for far too long, including in the arts/culural realm. When I was a university student about 10 years ago, it was considered offensive to even utter the word “Palestine.” It was almost considered a threat; we were expected to refer instead to the “Palestinian territories” – this is what happened with Palestinian director Hany Abu-Assad’s film “Paradise Now” just a few years ago.
It was the first Palestinian film to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, but could not be submitted under “Palestine” (and was instead submitted under “Palestinian Territories”).
Also, it used to be nearly impossible to organize anything on campus about anything Palestinian – even a cultural event – without it being imposed on us to “offer both sides” as if Palestinians cannot exist without Israel.
However, we have come a long way in recent years. This is why it is so important for us to emphasize that this is the Houston PALESTINE (as opposed to Palestinian) Film Festival. It is another way of asserting our presence, showing that we are a nation of people with a unique culture, and normalizing the use of “Palestine” while presenting our stories through the art of cinema.
The response in Houston alone has been astounding. In fact, this year, which is our third year, we won the Houston Press Award for “Best Film Festival in 2009.” During the first year of the festival, I remember walking into the hall on the opening night and expecting a turnout of maybe 50 people. Instead we found an audience of nearly 300, and it was an audience that kept returning and growing. Clearly there was a need for us to continue with this work.
The arts have been a very powerful yet organic tool for re-educating the general public about who we are, and it allows us to do it on our terms – with our creative direction. The Houston Palestine Film Festival (along with Chicago, Boston, Toronto, London, Sydney, and several other cities) provides a venue for Palestinian directors who face extra challenges because of the supposed 'controversial' content of the films.
Now we are seeing more and more mainstream venues opening up and embracing Palestinian voices – Sundance, Tribeca, Cannes and several other major film festivals are featuring more Palestinian films. I may be giving too much credit to the mainstream, but it seems this is their way of beginning to acknowledge that something bad and unjust has been happening for far too long and they are ready to challenge the stigma placed on anyone who even entertains the Palestinian perspective.
Perhaps another way to answer your question is to share what an elder and supporter in the Palestinian community told the organizers of HPFF:
“We thought the younger generation would forget. But we can see now that you have not forgotten, and we are so proud of you. You give us hope.”
KFW: Last year, we mourned the passing of Mahmoud Darwish, the much revered Palestinian poet. How would you sum up his role, and now his absence, in the Palestinian struggle?
HA
This is such a melancholic subject to talk or even think about, especially at a time when it seems we Palestinians are losing so much. In addition be being denied a state [our right to self determination and a return to our homeland]; we lost Yassir Arafat (no matter what his flaws, he was a symbol for the Palestinian people), Edward Said, and now Mahmoud Darwish - considered by many the national poet of Palestine.
In fact, Darwish lived through many of the most defining Palestinian experiences of the 20th century– displacement and the destruction of his village in 1948, life in exile, first as a refugee, then as a 'present absentee' in Israel, prison, exile once again, the repeated Israeli attempts to militarily crush the Palestinian movement, denial of his right to enter his home village.
He wrote about these all experiences in a way that resonated in the hearts of Palestinians, many of us grateful for someone able to eloquently express the pain, longing, anger, and other emotions we often find ourselves feeling.
How can you capture the feeling of being denied a homeland, even having your very existence denied?
This is what Darwish did for the Palestinian people. One of his earliest poems still resonates today “Identity Card”:
(excerpt)
Write down!
I am an Arab
I have a name without a title
Patient in a country
Where people are enraged
My roots
Were entrenched before the birth of time
And before the opening of the eras
Before the pines, and the olive trees
And before the grass grew
This poem is so timeless; here we are today in a world where “Arab” is a dirty word and Arabs are racially profiled not only by Israel but by the entire western world. However, Darwish was tormented with being pigeon-holed as only a political poet for Palestine. In his later years, he refused to read “Identity Card” and became frustrated with constant requests for him to recite it despite his later works and growth as a more sophisticated poet. He wrote about the human experience and its emotions – love, fear of death, nature – the subjects most poets would be free to write about without feeling a looming expectation to write only political poetry. This is an important lesson for all Palestinians to learn; sometimes the best form of resistance is to live life to its fullest.
I once had the honor to meet Darwish and asked him what we – the next generation of Palestinians – should be doing. He responded “Simply to succeed. Whatever it is you do, be the best.” It took a long time for me to digest what seemed then like a simplistic approach to our struggle. Now, years later, I realize the power of those words and hold them dearly as a reminder for keeping on the right path.
I do not know that it is accurate to say that he is absent. He left behind such a legacy and so many rich works with layers and layers of meanings that will continue to serve an important role in the struggle for Palestine. His words are equally as relevant for all peoples struggling for dignity. I only wish he could have been alive to see Palestine liberated.
KFW: In your opinion, what is [or what should be] the next phase in the Palestinian struggle within the context of the election of Barack Obama. How has this change of leadership in Washington impacted the struggle? Do you have any suggestions on approach and method?
HA
I do not really have much to say about Obama and the Palestinian struggle. I feel that many of us placed a lot of hope in him and have been left disappointed. Hopefully we will be pleasantly surprised, but we should continue to work as if there has been no change in administration. History has proven that policy does not really change no matter who is in office. Howard Zinn says something along the lines of, 'its not important who sits in the White House, but who sits on the streets,' and I think that is how we need to approach things: remaining dedicated to our principles and building our cause, not relying on one party or individual to bring us salvation, but building wider and wider circles of people who are organized in a conscious movement and who won't take no for an answer. This is the only way to put an end to US support for Israel's ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
My personal opinion is that we who are not living under curfews, closures, checkpoints, etc should bear more of the responsibility to keep the struggle alive. I also believe that American public opinion is key for any potential change in policy. This is one of the main goals of the Houston Palestine Film Festival – to re-educate the American public.
I am completely bewildered by the fact that we are in a recession with broken health care and education systems, with high poverty and unemployment rates, and with so many issues to focus on right here, yet the government continues to send billions of dollars to Israel every year. Forget about helping the Palestinians; in the words of one of my mentors “we do not want charity, we want solidarity.” Just stop sending money to Israel – invest it here where it is needed rather than funding ethnic cleansing. Seems simple enough, no?
KFW: The media has played a significant role in creating different perceptions about the Palestinian struggle. Do you think that the US media has evolved with the struggle, or specifically, what role could a fair [if they is any thing as such] media play in reporting Palestine.
HA
The mainstream media in this country is so despicable and in my opinion guilty of inciting wars and support for oppressive regimes. Perhaps the best example was during the lead up to the war on Iraq – the media was treating it like Monday Night Football and they were the cheerleaders. There is no such thing as analysis (based on facts and history, instead of pundits and their baseless hot air), nearly no slots for Palestinian voices, and at a time when it is easy and popular to demonize Arabs and Muslims, the media has jumped on the bandwagon over and over again. I would almost prefer the media to be completely silent on the issue rather than spinning stories that continue to create fear and contribute to a xenophobic climate.
What the media should be doing is educating the population on the history and contemporary reality of the situation in Palestine, which even UN agencies have acknowledged is a system of oppression that combines colonization, apartheid and belligerent occupation. Despite this issue being on the news so frequently, most Americans have no clue what the story really is. It is perceived as this complicated, age-old conflict as opposed to a classic case of western colonialism and racial apartheid. If the media were doing its job, I believe most Americans would be angry to know what our tax dollars are funding.
Hopefully, the decline of mainstream media and the rise of alternative media can redress some of these deficiencies. After all, it is not just Palestinians who are victims of bad media coverage: women, poor people and people of color always get a bad rap too. We need a new kind of media that represents people’s needs, not a media representing corporate or imperial interests with is accompanying racism, sexism, orientalism etc.
KFW: Are there any lessons other ‘exile’ communities can learn from the triumphs and shortcomings of the Palestinian Diaspora, which is unquestionably one of the oldest exile communities?
HA
For the past few years, many of us have been feeling quite hopeless about the future due to the lack of any inspiring signs of positive progress. Many of our leaders have been assassinated, exiled and jailed over the years. Also, falling victim to the divisions that have been instigated and the infighting the ensued was especially humiliating and debilitating. It also does help to witness our people in Gaza massacred by Israel with impunity as the world did very little to stop it.
However, we Palestinians are very hard on ourselves. I think it is commendable that we have kept the issue alive despite the forces against us. This is the lesson that I feel is important for others to learn – just to keep it alive.
I often joke that the founders of Zionism picked the wrong place to occupy. Perhaps they thought/hoped we would tuck tail and disappear, but we fought and we continue to fight despite the attempts to discredit us as terrorists who are trying to push the Jews into the sea. I am not just talking about armed resistance; the generations that follow those who suffered through the Nakba (‘catastrophe’) of 1948 will not let the issue rest until Palestine is free. Many of my generation have never even set foot in Palestine, but we are a nation of people who have been conditioned to speak out against injustice everywhere.
It also might be worth pointing out that building solidarity for a struggle like the Palestinian one, while in exile, means we don’t operate in isolation from the issues in our communities in the US. This means we have to consciously build on two fronts -strengthening the core of Palestinian activism, while keeping our eye towards the development of a more progressive political culture overall in the US. Without the latter, we are doomed to isolation in a Palestinian ghetto in exile. We need to work to build progressive movements here as well and make the connections between oppression here and oppression at back home in Palestine.
The lesson I hope WE learn is not to let what happened to the Jews happen to us. Here they have become the classic case of the oppressed becomes the oppressor. I truly hope that when we are free that we continue to champion human rights, justice and freedom.
Hadeel Assali is a Palestinian-American cultural activist and founder of the Houston Palestine Film Festival.
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