A Boxing Tournament Episode#2
Between David and My Eyes… There Is a Riffle
When I was a sophomore in college studying sociology and philosophy, I took a class on research methodology. On the first day, our professor started reading a text from one of Max Weber’s essays where he tried to define sociology. Our professor chose one phrase to summarize the whole essay: “Sociology is the science that questions the obvious.”
Having spent the first nine years of my life in an apartment that happened to be in a building on a main road, play time on the street was very rare. In addition, being an only child, made group activities outside school less often. However, I had my own group activity.. It has always been Sarah, my voice and the surroundings. And even as a little girl, I was able to separate my conscious from my subconscious and incredibly watch my reactions to my environment. I managed to speak to myself as if I were an independent being from that inner me, and I managed to do what Weber was talking about in that essay: I questioned; endlessly…Years passed, I moved to tens of other places and no longer was had the “Me time” I used to have and managed to became one of the loudest, most adventurous and outgoing people ever that sometimes I can’t even hear my own voice let alone my surrounding’s. Yet, I still maintained my hobby from time to time; I questioned the obviousJ
Most of the time, the obvious can easily be taken for granted. Most of the time, people are more comfortable taking their surroundings for granted, and even when they can’t, they would fake it, till they make it. But some people can’t.. Some people question the obvious and start drawing lines for what they can and cannot take. But even then, What is it that makes a person question, draw a line, pick a cause and stand for it? I know that most of you would probably answer that question with abstract vocabulary like: passion, faith, love, strength…etc. And yes, this might be true, but wait a minute! Are all those who fight for causes the same? Don’t you think that some chose and some simply found themselves in the middle of that and who knows if they would have chosen to become activists had they had a choice?
Some of us cannot have a different reality than the one they have; they are not able to adapt with what they have grew to see as “Unfair” so their only way to manage the only life they’ve got is to become activists. Yet, some people have other options in life where, as individuals, they can live in complete happiness, but CHOSE to be where the “Unfair” provoked them.
Moriel Rothman is an American Israeli leftist
activist who is currently a full time field activist working to end the Israeli
occupation and stop the settlements expansion. Moriel’s blog: http://thelefternwall.com/2012/06/27/on-torture-a-street-theatre-protest-and-reflections-after/
yesterday made me wonder even more: Is a person, who is trying to live with an “Unfair”
life style through becoming an “Activist” while waiting for the slightest opportunity
to escape to a different place is the same as a fortunate person who chooses a life less comfortable to
support the less fortunate?
In his blog, Moriel describes how he participated in an act of protest and street theatre, in Jerusalem’s gaudy Mamila Mall as part of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel‘s campaign to raise awareness as part of the International Day in Solidarity with Victims of Torture. In the video he attached, and there is more on his blog describing its details and the translation to what was said in it, Moriel lives and teaches others what he wrote about later saying: “I was, of course, deeply opposed to torture before this action (part of why I took part), but something about this hour, about trying to feel a tiny, imaginary sliver of the humiliation, raw fear, thirst, anger, panic and confusion of torture drove the empathy into a much deeper place, and I think that it will be much harder for me, now, to brush off a story of a human being- especially a child- being tortured, as in the case I wrote about in Silwan last month, of a fourteen year-old boy being tortured in an Israeli detention center.”
In the end, I can only recall Mahmoud Darwish’s line from “Rita”:
Between Rita and My Eyes.. there is a riffle.. Many of us grew up singing that line with a joyful/painful rush, but the XX chromosomes in me cannot help but wonder, would that line be sung with the same equal amount of joy and pain if it were altered to: Between David and My Eyes .. there is a riffle?
Good Night ;)
Sarah Jamal,
June 28, 2012
In his blog, Moriel describes how he participated in an act of protest and street theatre, in Jerusalem’s gaudy Mamila Mall as part of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel‘s campaign to raise awareness as part of the International Day in Solidarity with Victims of Torture. In the video he attached, and there is more on his blog describing its details and the translation to what was said in it, Moriel lives and teaches others what he wrote about later saying: “I was, of course, deeply opposed to torture before this action (part of why I took part), but something about this hour, about trying to feel a tiny, imaginary sliver of the humiliation, raw fear, thirst, anger, panic and confusion of torture drove the empathy into a much deeper place, and I think that it will be much harder for me, now, to brush off a story of a human being- especially a child- being tortured, as in the case I wrote about in Silwan last month, of a fourteen year-old boy being tortured in an Israeli detention center.”
In the end, I can only recall Mahmoud Darwish’s line from “Rita”:
Between Rita and My Eyes.. there is a riffle.. Many of us grew up singing that line with a joyful/painful rush, but the XX chromosomes in me cannot help but wonder, would that line be sung with the same equal amount of joy and pain if it were altered to: Between David and My Eyes .. there is a riffle?
Good Night ;)
Sarah Jamal,
June 28, 2012
11:40 p.m
Wow. I'm intrigued by your re-post, and think the question of "Is a person, who is trying to live with an “Unfair” life style through becoming an “Activist” while waiting for the slightest opportunity to escape to a different place is the same as a fortunate person who chooses a life less comfortable to support the less fortunate?" is a really great one, and touches on all of the complex issues of circumstance, privilege and, in a broader way, meaning. Thanks, Sarah, for making me think and for continuing the discussion here. Hooray for internet ;)
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