WATANI International
26 December 2010
Where would we be without joy to the world and goodwill to all mankind? Oh. Well, let##s agree the quintessential Christmas message remains timeless, even when actual joy and goodwill are thin on the ground. For the past five years, I##ve spent half my life in Bethlehem working on a documentary with my wife, the director Leila Sansour. As we finish the final edit, Bethlehem council is slinging its ragbag of festive decorations across Star Street. A giant inflatable Santa Claus has appeared outside the pirate DVD shop. It seems a good time to ask if the world##s Christmas Town has anything special to tell us about peace on Earth.
Bethlehem is Leila##s home town and her film, The Road To Bethlehem, is the story of a journey back home. For her. For me, it##s the story of visiting a foreign town and staying for a really long time. Leila is from a Christian family and while only around 1% of Palestinians are Christians, almost all live in Bethlehem. Not that they form a cohesive group. They include Orthodox, Catholics and Melkites, as well as Syriacs, Lutherans, Armenians and a sprinkling of Protestant Evangelicals. For a town that supposedly stands for goodwill among men, Bethlehem is remarkably factious. Think of it like a puddle in the Amazon rainforest: small but jam-packed with micro-climates. The array of Christian sects is only a part of this biodiversity.
Nothing embodies Bethlehem##s diversity like the story of the Syriacs. This small community lives between two narrow flights of steps in Bethlehem##s souk quarter. The health of their elderly priest is a cause for concern, though he boasts he is “nuclear-powered”. His cassock hangs square from his box-like frame and skims the floor. If he is not nuclear-powered, he may possibly be on wheels. He is a gregarious man with a prodigious memory, which he claims holds 2,000 hymns. Standing propped against his pulpit, he launches into a rising drone that, at last, I recognise as God Save The Queen. Father Yacoub claims the British borrowed the song from Syriacs they met in India in the 17th century. The words to the Syriac version are different, of course, but all words are different in the Syriac church: they speak Aramaic, the language of Christ.
With the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in the first world war, the Armenians and Syriacs were the first 20th-century refugees to reach Bethlehem. In 1948, they were joined by Palestinians driven from the newly declared state of Israel. The Christians found shelter in the many convents around town. Muslims were housed in three tent cities that have now evolved into improvised townships, the newest parts of Bethlehem##s ecosystem.
As Father Yacoub serenades me, his scout band kicks up in a courtyard above. It##s a fine show of life, if not musicality. The Armenians and Syriacs have flourished in Palestine. The last ambassador to Paris, Hind Khoury, is a local Syriac; the current ambassador to Britain, Manuel Hassassian, is a Bethlehemite Armenian. Yet among the longer-established Christian families, there is a deep sense of foreboding. Historically, the Christians have formed an ascendancy in Bethlehem, but it is increasingly artificial. The mayor of Bethlehem is Christian, but only because of a special decree by the president. The favoured treatment ought to reassure the Christians, but instead leaves them feeling like giant pandas monitored by a concerned world for signs of decline. These are families – Handal, Dahbdoub, Hazboun – whose names appear in the earliest 19th-century Baedeker guidebooks as innkeepers and mother-of-pearl carvers. Most still work in the tourism industry but the past decade has shown how fragile their trade is. A series of Israeli invasions between November 2001 and summer 2002 led to a dramatic eight-year collapse of tourism. In 2006, unemployment hit 60% in Bethlehem, compared with 25% across the rest of Palestine. Almost all my neighbours were out of work. Many are still deeply in debt.
The first Sunday in December brings a unique tradition, the passing over of the Christmas pudding. It##s quite a localised tradition, involving only me and the next-door neighbours. Christmas pudding is made entirely of stuff we grow in our gardens in Bethlehem, all the delicacies discovered by the Crusaders, such as raisins, candied peel and almonds. I wonder, do my neighbours have a secret plan to repatriate the ingredients, one pudding at a time? They give their usual answer: it##s a Christmas tradition.
Why complain about the government? Moments after my arrival, we have a good reason. The next-door mosque begins the call for prayer and the noise is so intense, we can no longer hear ourselves tell offensive jokes about Hebronites. The story of how we got the world##s loudest mosque goes back to the invasions of 2001, when an Israeli F-16 bombed the offices opposite our house. The bomb shattered all our windows, and flattened a small mosque. There was nothing for it: a new one had to be built. How the mosque mutated into a multistorey affair, on our side of the street, is a mystery. The minaret bristles with loudspeakers cranked to maximum. The muezzin has a voice only a banshee could love, and only if she was the fond mother banshee of a tone-deaf baby banshee. Jordan has imposed a single, synchronised prayer call on all its mosques and the Palestinian Authority says it intends to do the same. Nobody believes it.
These annoyances can be multiplied a hundredfold, and Bethlehemites are happy to single out every one and have a good moan.
Bethlehem is changing rapidly. Since Oslo, it is all but impossible to visit Jerusalem. The enforced separation has turned East Jerusalem into a ghost town and profoundly changed Bethlehem, which has been thrust into a new role as a regional hub. On weekdays, the town is packed with farmers who can no longer use Jerusalem##s markets. On holidays, Manger Square is filled with people praying because they cannot visit al-Aqsa mosque. The city feels overcrowded, and the situation is getting worse. As the settlements expand, they force the farmers off their land and into Bethlehem, where they hope to find work.
The city of Bethlehem is home to so many people and, with a weak central government, we spend our time arguing, jostling and negotiating for space. What saves the city is the fact that no one can claim absolutely primacy. No one ever doubts their neighbours have just as much right to be here, no matter whether they are refugees, Bedouins, farmers, tourist shop-owners, Armenians or, even, English. We all belong to Bethlehem.
Bethlehem is different. Peace, goodwill and joy to all mankind? Why not? The past five years have convinced me that Bethlehem is special. The quality that helped this city to welcome refugees is the same quality that has kept it alive though a torrid 4,000-year history. May it survive for ever
____________________________
The Guardian (abridged)