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July 2012
Bethlehem

Together with a visiting Dutch musician, Fedde, I explore the Wall around Aida camp and Rachel’s Tomb to look for opportunities to fix a series of new Wall posters organized by AEI. The posters carry people’s stories which express both suffering and resilience or sumud. Some areas are totally desolate, bordering on uncultivated gardens or an old industrial site.

At one point we notice two tunnels under the Wall. The two of us crawl through them only to be blocked by an iron fence at the other side. Still a strange experience, to move under the Wall. Johnny Cash’s lyrics come to mind: “The Walls of a prison will never hold me,” about a prisoner digging a tunnel under the prison wall. One of the older story posters on the Wall relates the account of a Palestinian man who went to his work through a sewage pipe, to circumvent a checkpoint. That poster should hang here too, clearly. Perhaps we can do some drama here to bring sumud alive.

Not all the new posters will be stories. Some will be old photos of Rachel’s Tomb, that site in north Bethlehem which is now beyond reach and view of local Palestinians. We will attach the old photos in such a way as if you look through windows in the Wall. In fact, as if you look through the Wall into the silent past – with photos of Rachel’s Tomb as it was in Turkish, British, Jordanian times, and of course during the Israeli occupation.

Also, not all posters will be attached to the Wall. Some future posters with land expropriation stories will be put on barbed wire; for instance near the Bethlehem checkpoint where such barbed wire surrounds the land of the 182 landowners who have been notified last year that their land has become “absentee” property.

Fedde’s profession is to investigate the role of sound for the purpose of making soundscapes. His main work for today is finding sounds for a Christmas DVD in which women and children perform the Biblical story around the birth of Jesus set “between the walls.” However, he also explores the possible role of sound in the wall poster museum. During the early morning he registers the oppressive sounds of the checkpoint where hundreds of laborers wait – the squeaks of the revolving doors, the loudspeaker’s sounds, the intimidating atmosphere – but at other moments he registers the lively sounds of the markets, the church bells, the muezzin from the mosques – even the ubiquitous cricket sound (tazziz).

Some sounds can become “liberating” as he is able to use his software to transform them. The tazziz orchestra can be manipulated to reach higher tones or get more volume and rhythm. Isn’t it possible to hear the singing birds flying up or to hear a human voice moving in the air up as if crossing the wall, carried by the wind?

In fact, the bird should find a place in the museum. One new story poster is about a child’s dream to fly over the borders, and another is about a girl telling the story of a bird which takes over the dream of a martyred boy and flies away to spread the message. Recently, my brother Paul worked with some women of the Sumud Story House near the Wall. They created bird nests with stone eggs – symbols of life - set against a background of red crosses painted on the Wall – symbols of suffering.

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