Translated by Charles K.
The map reader
Greetings to my map
To your potent femininity
Even in the realm of the men!
My map brims,
Laden with pictures, with metaphors…
My shows an inlet, a woman gathering salt on the shore,
A foetus stuck in her womb,
And a man, erect, fearing the oncoming wind…
Yasmin Dahar
This Zarkor is dedicated to the Palestinian women who pass by us at the checkpoints and sometimes even stop to tell us what they’re feeling. Most haven’t learned the occupiers’ language, and too few among us speak their language. It is dedicated to the women whose culture and customs are strange to us, foreign, who don’t view us as partners nor share with us their worldview; who are the backbone of their families, who constantly worry what the day will bring, who don’t have the time or the habit to deal with public affairs, who have been accustomed to refrain from challenging those who are stronger, the rulers, not to rebel against authority, to bow their head and allow events to run their course.
Our hearts go out to these women whom we watch with awe and wonder whence they draw the strength latent in their gestures, their few words, the infrequent occasions on which they reveal some of what their souls conceal, transcend for a moment the drabness of their lives and their spirits rise higher than anyone could expect.
From the reports:
1.
An old woman leaning on a cane, coming from Jabel Mukaber. It’s hard for her to walk along the fenced corridor through the revolving gates
. They offer her an easier route and she replies, proudly, “I don’t want it!.” For full report press here.
2.
…But the women couldn’t avoid muddying the hems of their dresses trailing on the ground as they hurried to collect those parcels that hadn’t yet fallen and become filthy. For full report press here.
3.
The mothers had a serious look on their faces, an accommodating look. As if it was normal for soldiers and security personnel to be almost an integral part of their lives, of their daily routine. Their behavior exhibited great strength, great determination not to break down! To remember she must give her full attention to the soldier and the guard as her son was being transferred from one ambulance to the other.
What do they feel? We’ll never know. We won’t hear about their shame. The insults, the harassments, the invasions of the privacy of their bodies and their souls will not be reported. We’ll learn about them only by chance. They conceal these things, and go on.
4.
…The women feel particularly offended when they’re asked to get undressed in the inspection rooms. For full report press here.
5. …The head of the committee told us that two days ago the security company
was replaced, and a guard “came on” to one of the girls from the village.
6.
…While he was interrogating her, he began telling A. dirty stories, full of sexual inuendos: how good he was in bed, the many women he has access to, suggesting she come with him to a hotel. Her husband, after all, is away in the hospital, and whatever they do will remain a secret between the two of them; her husband will never hear about it…After this extremely offensive verbal sexual harassment had ended, A. was released. For full report press here.
A Palestinian woman’s place is the space which is “private”: hidden at home, pushed into the background. Her role is a traditional one. Outbursts are rare. Only when the layers of humiliation inside her grow too great to bear do her resentment and anger well up from the depths.
7.
…Anger building until it’s ready to explode. It was like watching a volcano on the verge of eruption. Suddenly we heard shouts…A woman who’d waited more than an hour at one of the other passageways decide to try her luck in the short line, but when she discovered she wouldn’t be able to go through something in her broke. She stood before one of the closed-circuit TV cameras and spat at it in a symbolic act of defying the soldiers. And then she began shouting that people who treat Palestinians the way the Israelis do, deserve what Hitler did to them. The shouting went on and on…
When the individual becomes part of something greater than herself, when a woman comes together with her friends, they form a cohesive group whose members’ shared hardships recharge their batteries, giving them the strength to cry out, expressing together each individual’s despair.
8.
…It was fascinating to watch the women who weren’t allowed to cross because of their age, fascinating to see how they defied the soldiers standing behind the concrete barriers blocking their way…A 25-year-old Palestinian woman arrived from Tulkarm. Maybe a miracle will happen. But there was no miracle. Her friends say, “You’ve got another twenty years…” She says, “I’ll wait here twenty years.”
9.
…The Palestinian women told each other that only God can help, because only God is more powerful than the Israeli occupier; the day will come, you’ll see – a hundred years? Forty-three have gone by already… For full report press here
10.
…Women whose view of the world stems neither from feminism nor from Marxism. Non-political, unaware of human rights. Almost all of them come from a conservative, religious background – trained to be obedient, not raised to make waves but to carry their share of the burden, accept their everyday hardships, regretfully submit to their lot.
But there comes a moment when the collective overcomes the conventions in which its individual members have been raised, in which the members of the collective become as one. The moment when this comforting support becomes a mighty instrument - glorious, proud, determined.
And when they had finished their prayers they continued to press against one another, crowding together, singing the songs of their homeland, crying out angrily, furiously in the face of the occupier (and us) at the injustice they’ve suffered. For full report press here.
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By: Tamar Fleischman
Photographs: Nurit Yarden