Adila Laïdi:
First I would like to say that we would like to thank Mr. Brock for
telling us about the great hardships that he suffered as a child and as
a teenager and I am sure many people here have experienced similar
hardships either personally or through their families. But I think I
speak for many here in saying, that many of us here were shocked by the
patronizing tone of the intervention. I think that Palestinians have no
lessons to receive from anybody, especially about how to live their
predicament. Every suffering, every predicament is subjective, is
unique. In that light I would like to address three points, first
of all the issue of victims and martyrs. Palestinians don’t go around
the streets looking to be martyrs or looking to be victims. On the
contrary, all of our enterprise in life is to try to live a dignified,
normal life, not to be a victim, not to be a martyr. People just want
to be free and to live a normal, ordinary, simple, life. Nobody wants
to be a hero, nobody wants to be a martyr. But there is a difference in
how refugees are being treated. If you are historically a refugee and
you live in a political entity that accepts you, that gives you
political rights, that gives you economic rights, then – by all means –
you have no excuse to victimize yourself and to exploit politically
your victimization. However if your opportunities in life are limited,
yours and those of your children, and if you are parked in human
“concentration camps”, like José Saramago called them – and I am not
talking of course about the German concentration camps which were death
camps, but here we are talking about life camps where Palestinians are
parked for decades and decades and decades in self-perpetuating poverty
such as in Gaza and Lebanon then it is a different case. Whereas if
Palestinians are treated just like any other human beings, not better,
not worse, like in Jordan, like in Kuwait, like in the Gulf, like in
the American Diaspora, these Palestinians, despite being refugees and
despite having lost everything they strive to achieve an build their
lives. For example since you were talking about the arts – many
Palestinians have been at the forefront of the Arab arts and Arab
literature and they are emblematic figures in Arab culture. But here we
did not talk about them because we are not here to propagandize
Palestinian culture, we are here this morning to analyze it and to
criticize it. So we are not going to talk about all the people
who built Kuwait and who built Qatar. So of course – but maybe, I am
sure you can look in the internet and you will find information about
these people. We are not asking for handouts. Palestinians have pulled
themselves by their bootstraps and they have not victimized themselves.
It is only people who live in perpetual poverty and have their rights,
their political rights taken away in perpetuity that end up resisting.
The last thing is regarding the war and about the objective reasons of
the war, not withstanding the religious differences, and the ethnic
differences between us and the Israelis: The Palestinian-Israeli
conflict is not a cultural problem, it is not a religious problem, it
is not an ethnic conflict, it is not a mafia conflict. It is a conflict
about land, it is a conflict about something very objective. It is
about people who came and who stole another people’s land. It is just
as simple as that.
Professor from Al-Quds University:
I would like to ask Mr. Bazon: Are you aware that the victims of the
Nazis of Germany are today’s Nazis of Palestine, are you aware of that?
It seems that your long journey through Russia and Germany did not give
you a chance to experience or learn about them. In fact they are the
real murderers who ouested me from my house, killed my brothers and
sisters as they did your family, and they continue to kill me and
kill my brothers. My family lives about 20 or 40 kilometers from here
and for the last five years I have not been able to see my mother. Can
you imagine that? I am a foreigner in my own country, due to the
Israeli war. So how can I live with a beast? You know, I am telling him
“come dear, you are a nice guy”, and he wants to eat me. They are just
beasts, they want to kill me, they are not going to come up for a
cultural life with me. Secondly, how can you be sure, even if I
renounce violence, even if I offer them everything good in life that I
am going to be accepted by Bush and Sharon and the killer and liar of
Britain and all the same kind of leaders that I am not a terrorist.
They don't accept me. Even if I put my neck under a knife, they will
say “you are the terrorist”. If they see my blood pouring to the
ground, I am the terrorist and they are the freedom fighters. How can I
accept that?
Bazon Brock:
Of course it is quite understandable what you said in general about war
and suffering and dehumanization. But this is not a conference about
general experiences in times of war. What I want to tell you is how one
from the attitude or standpoint of art and sciences could from the
experiences we had in Europe look upon these generalized experiences of
war and suffering. Otherwise this would just be a conference on the
cruelty of war or on the going-ons in war and injustice and
dehumanization. But the point of view is arts and science or art
sciences and the phenomenon of war, what normally would be looked upon
being the phenomenon of war. And from this point I said, arts developed
like science in a historical époque of the fourteenth and fifteenth
century to generate other aspects on the going-ons in the world than
those of culturalism. Others – that means those criteria which come
from out the difference of cultures of the different opinions and
meanings because it is just a structural problem. Everybody is looking
upon himself as a victim, in any culture, everywhere, even the Israelis
of course, and they had good reasons to look upon them. But when they
took another standpoint they stopped looking upon themselves as
victims, they shifted to a completely different attitude. Of course the
attitude is in many cases one which you can only accept when being an
artist or a scientist and beyond this you are a member of a culture. If
I would speak as a member of my culture I would say exactly the same
like you or the young lady there, exactly the same thing. I would
repeat every word of what you said when speaking as a member of my
culture. But as an artist or a scientist I am not speaking as a member
of my culture. I am speaking as someone who is confronted with the fact
that there are many cultures, so many parties or victims and many
attitudes of gaining back ones country and so on. We had to stop
fighting back, gaining back our countries, we were driven from our
homes, too. But Europe developed because we did not go on with
fighting. Now with the Russians, the Polish and so on, it was the
opposite: we said, okay, we accept what has become the result of this
history and now we try to bind ourselves as former victims and winners
on a completely different level. The different level is the level of
arts and sciences or – in older terms – humanity and internationality.
And the socialist system was nothing else but a universal humanitarian
system which covered all cultures. So as a member of a culture, I
repeat, I would say exactly the same things that you just commented on
about the going-ons here. Everyone in his culture placed in such a
position like yours or mine would say the same thing and you can prove
it in historical documents. There are documents since 2.500 years ago
where you can find exactly this kind of reaction and everybody says
“okay, as a member of his culture he is right, because we have had the
same experience”. That is quite common to cultures. But being aware of
the fact that there are many cultures we cannot stick just to the
definitions, the identities of our proper heritage and culture, because
we logically have to ask ourselves how to deal with the fact that there
are many cultures like us, many groups of suffering people and so
on. Therefore we have to ask where does the criteria come from to
speak about this relationship between the cultures and this cannot be
cultural or culturalistic again. Otherwise it would be just unfair to
speak about other cultures in terms of your own culture, for then you
do not accept others. That is what I understood was our job over here,
to look upon the situation from 2.000 years of experiences with
cultural identities and 600 years of experiences of overcoming this
natural fighting and confrontation of cultures, “this we and them"– I
think in Europe for example of the antagonism of France and Germany.
You cannot believe what kind of confrontation up until the 1950's
exisisted the German-French cultural opposition was dedicated to. It
was horrible, slaughtering, looking upon each other as being apes,
louses and so on. That is quite common to cultures, every culture has a
kind of ability to classify the others as being animals. And we stopped
this kind of culturalism between Germany and France, between Poland and
Germany or the Czechs and the Germans, because there were people of an
understanding who said, “okay, we have to stick to our culture of
course, because every man is culturally fine, but then we have to
accept another system out of the fact that we belong to different
cultures”. And this is a point of art and this is a point of science,
and especially in art sciences one could combine both attitudes, both
methods of how to bridge. For instance in the fields of art history it
is of greatest importance to find out in which way masters of these and
those regions or époques differ, how they differ, not how they agree.
How they differ, they differ in their ability to propose, to confront
us with problems, artistic ones – of course artistically formulated –
which just could not be swept away by the next one who said “okay, I am
the master, you are just a slave, your work is gone because I am now
the master” and then the next one comes and he says “no, you are gone
now, I am the master, simply because I am fifty years younger than
you”. It is a community – the field of arts, the field of science – of
those who contribute to the management of the principle of unsolvable
problems. If you become a scientist or an artist you will be an expert,
being dedicated and orientated to a specialized question, for instance
aesthetic ones or whatever. The more you are specialized as every
experienced scientist the more you are astonished about the fact that
you do not understand anything, because as you proceed with your expert
studies you create more problems. The more you are an expert the more
problems you can contribute to the community of scientists or artists.
So everyone from Einstein onwards makes an experience, we dedicate
ourselves as specialists to a problem, then we start creating more
problems. And even in technology or every day’s life problems can only
be solved by creating new problems. And there are some rules on how to
manage them. If for instance you lack electricity or energy you might
for example build atomic plants. But the question whether you want to
suffer under the lack of electricity now or will you have a future
confrontation with the problems atomic plants confront you with – so we
want to solve problems of the lack of electricity and energy and then
we build up this technology and suddenly we find out that this
technology as a problem solving system is presenting more problems to
us than the original ones were which we tried to solve. Those are the
special aspects, the special matters, the special attitudes. As members
of a culture you are quite right, and everybody as a member of a
culture would exactly say the same thing. I would say it as a German
exactly in the same way. We knew what it meant to say this to a French
man and what came out of that. Therefore, thankfully, the French and
the Polish and the Czechs and others prepared themselves to start a new
relationship, especially with Germans, but not as Germans but as
representatives of a greater unit, let’s say Europeans or members of
the worldwide community of civilized states. So Germany came back into
the family of civilized societies, not culturalized but civilized. And
that is the reason why Europe developed in the way it did. Nearly all
over the world people are keen to know and understand what went on
there, because we had this conflict in Europe in many époques in many
relations in the same radical way as it was over here. Taking the land,
taking the houses, killing the members of family, even children – I
lost my younger sister and my younger brother. That is quite common to
cultures and the fighting of cultures. Should we go on for ever and
ever with this kind of naturalism in our cultural evolution? No! Since
2.500 years the Buddhist influence, the philosophical influence, the
scientific influence and of course even the Muslim influence as a
development of the seventh century tried to give an idea of what it
meant to build up this general universal unit of mankind. The general
name for this is civilization. And if we would look properly at the
contribution of Mohammed then we would say, the working out of the idea
is the contribution of the Muslims in the building up of a worldwide
civilization. And that makes the difference: it is the difference of
speaking upon these affairs in terms of culture or speaking in
attitudes of a universal civilization.
Carl Hegemann:
Maybe one question is necessary. Who decides about the higher
level? Who establishes the standards of civilization which are higher
levels How can you dismiss the suspicion that the standards of
civilization you mentioned are only standards of Western civilization
which occupied the whole world?
Bazon Brock:
I know this argument about Eurocentrism. The answer is quite easy: In
Europe itself this idea had to be fought out with millions of death
with millions of starving laboring men. The unions for instance, the
representatives of the laborers in the European countries, though they
were dominated nationalistically and culturally they fought for 150
years for the idea of minimum pay for everybody regardless of his
abilities. Minimum pay for everybody which everybody should earn, this
was fought out against European ideas of national cultures. So it is
the result of a 150 year fight. And look upon those who want to have
these things clash. The guys who try to make us believe that the
economy would develop much better if there were no rights, no social
security, no minimum wage. They want to keep the evolution of an
international civilization that is being developed by the European
labor unions and they want to destroy the results. So the answer is:
Nobody does, it comes out of the fight and from the inside of
people who are in the problems which come out of the fighting. No-one
taught the labor representatives to fight for European centralism by
asking for minimum insurance, social insurance and health insurance for
workers. How stupid it would have been to say “this is a Eurocentric
idea to ask for health insurance”. This is how it developed in Europe.
And we had in 1820 in Wuppertal the idea of health insurance, the idea
of social insurance. The father of Engels was a Wuppertalian
entrepreneur, and he told Marx about this idea and then Marx said: “Oh,
that is very interesting, what are you doing there?” And then he said:
“Okay, in Wuppertal we now all have a minimum wage .” And then he said:
“Okay, this is not patriotic, this is not a good idea for our nation
because if we want to compete with the French and the British who are
more developed, we should stop this nonsense of paying the minimum
wage. The French don’t pay, the English don’t pay, so why should we
pay, this is not nationalistic? And they said: “No, because our
competition would be much easier with this system when we pay
minimum wages, when we ensure everybody in health insurance and so on.
So Bismarck as a real guy of might and power decided to guarantee
everybody health insurance, social insurance and a minimum wage. How
stupid it would be to say this is Eurocentric and therefore in India or
Africa nobody should ask for health insurance, for minimum wages and
social insurance, it is stupid. The argument is clearly answered: The
answer is, nobody defines what is the universal standard. It comes as a
result of fighting. If you keep people from fighting like now in the
era of Globalization. You see they want them to stay away from the
fighting from which forth the standards of universal civilization. Of
course you contribute to completely the opposite side of what I
think with your idea.
[further arguing on Khaled Hourani]
I would like to comment, because 35 years ago, we dedicated the
documenta no. 5 exactly to this problem. And I am proud that you 35
years later by your own way of arguing discovered this very point. It
is no longer the war, the paintings or the pictures of war, it is just
the war of pictures, and that is what everybody in these fields is
interested in. They don’t care for the paintings of the war, they don’t
care for any picture of suffering people, they don’t care, they just
use the paintings.
Romuald Karmakar:
I just want to interfere before we change the theme. Adila, I first met
Bazon Brock last Saturday and we had a little argument on Sunday at the
conference in Tel Aviv, because he was teaching the Israelis. So this
is a habit – and I hope that Bazon will not be too angery with me – it
is his habit to preach and to say words like “this may teach you
something”. That is his way of thinking, that is his way of being. What
strikes me most is his rhetoric, because first of all he describes to
us – and also to me – that he is a child of a fugitive family and that
his destiny is part of the destiny of twelve million people from mostly
East European countries that were integrated into Germany. Then he
continues saying, that he himself never saw himself as a victim. This
is a very interesting and strange point of view for me. Maybe it is for
him, for Bazon, for his way of life and for his career – because he is
a professor. In Germany the twelve million fugitives we had always saw
themselves as victims and also the Germans saw themselves as victims
and it took German society until 1982 in the mid-eighties, to accept
the broad part of German society that the most important crime that the
Germans committed was the crime against the Jews. And it is only a few
years ago that the destiny of the fugitives was accepted among the
broader German public and it was initiated by left-wing intellectuals
like Bazon Brock. So it is not true that the issue of the destiny of
the fugitives was never an issue in German society. Secondly it is very
strange that you start from this point of view, for he is giving you a
lesson about how strong his character is, how he survived the problems.
And it is a big problem and it is also was a big achievement of German
society after the war to include twelve million people in German
society and to construct a democratic society. The second thing that is
absolutely wrong is his way of seeing the National Socialism, because
he uses words like “the National Socialism didn’t have an idea about
what they were doing” and then in term of the Holocaust you talked
about it that it was “just stupidity”. Maybe to us it feels like
it was just stupidity, but it won’t help one understand how such a
small country such as Germany conquered the whole of Europe if there
were only idiots doing the job. There was an ideology behind it, but it
was not a homogeneous ideology how to conquer Europe, there was not
even a homogeneous approach on how to occupy France, Poland or Denmark.
There were always numerous and different ways of occupation. There was
not a single program of what we call National Socialism, but there was
something like “Weltanschauung” which means “world view” and this drove
them and the majority of German society to follow the leaders for
more than twelve years, especially in the time of war. So when you come
here to Ramallah and tell the people that they shouldn’t look for a
solution and all these things, it sounds very strange from somebody who
comes from Germany to say this to the people here, because the Germans
and especially German society is only back in the game, because all the
other countries who were conquered by Germany offered them their hand
and gave them the chance to participate in Europe, in the UN for
example. So it is very strange how you appear. And now the last thing I
want to say is: There were intellectuals in the SS and they defined
themselves as the elite – because you were talking about the
Reichsicherheitshauptamt – this was the terror center of the Nazi
Germany. And there were intellectuals in there, they were developing
plans to conquer Europe and other races by saying “we have nothing
against other races, we have nothing against the Jews but we have to
kill them, because they are a threat to our society”. So I just want to
say that you are very close to this way of thinking as a German who got
a second chance to be like that.
Bazon Brock:
He said, the Germans looked upon themselves as being victims for
instance as represented by institutions who pretended to be the
speakers of the Silesians, of the Pomeranians, the East Russians who
had to flee to the western part of Germany. Of course the functionaries
of these groups wanted to have an influence and they always said “we
are speaking for these twelve millions and therefore we should never go
into any negotiation with Poland about the lost areas”, the “occupied
areas” as we called it. We called all the territories which were taken
by Poland after 1945 the “occupied territories”. These functionaries
said: “We should never start negotiations with Poland. We should keep
the situation brutal and aggressive in preparation of the next
war, so we do not integrate these refugees.” The functionaries who by
their will of having the political power said “we are not going to
integrate the refugees, because then we have dynamics of re-asking the
Polish whether you give it back or not, and if you don’t want to give
it back we start a war again”. And of course, as you know, they had no
influence in the Western German politics, these functionaries never had
any meaning. The refugees were integrated. We did not ask to get back
the occupied territories back. By three contracts now everyone in
Germany – nearly everyone – without, let’s say, 10 percent of people
like everywhere, even here, 10 percent or whatever never, never would
agree to any logical idea, but all the rest accepts that we do not ask
for the occupied territories back, even now when people privately start
to ask for their homes back, their villas. It is common sense now in
Germany from the government down to the average man that they say
that “this is not the official political idea, this is
private, as a private person you can do whatever you want, ask
the court marshal or whatever to give you by a sentence of the court
back your villa in Posen but this is not official politics”. So we
integrated the refugees. We gave up the occupied territories. We did
not ask to go on in terms of our cultural rights any longer.
The second: When America went into the recent War in Iraq it was
exactly the same as with Hitler. Of course he had the power to send in
marching machinery units of men to go to Poland and Russia. And
then what happens? Exactly the same as now – what does it mean to
conquer Iraq? Nothing, nothing, nothing at all. If there would not have
been thoe stupid idiots in charge in Washington everybody could have
said “oh, let’s pretend we will win the war”. And then what? What is
the aim of this war? What do you want there? They never asked this. And
this is the sense in which I meant “they had no idea”. The Americans
did not have any idea what to do after the invasion of Iraq, and Hitler
didn’t have the slightest idea what to do after conquering Russia. That
is what I call political stupidity and this is irrationalism.
Fareed Majari:
I would like to intervene at this point. I think I am very grateful to
both – Bazon’s contribution and also to your interventions and
reactions. I do feel that this brings us to the very point of this
conference. It goes deep to the roots of the question of the existence
of an artist and his role and how he perceives his role. Is it
detaching yourself from all points of references, of political
references, of cultural references or do you contribute, do you want to
be part of the political processes and claim to be able to be part of
political solutions. I definitely do not have any answer to this
question, but I think it is a worldwide question.
Alia Arasoughly:
Before going to the next presentation by Vera Tamari and Nahed Awwad, I
have a comment on Khaled Hourani’s presentation. I think that there is
a big difference between somebody who is covering war as a news person
whose profession it is to go from one place to another to cover war or
someone whose profession it is to look at war in a which it will sell
the evening news. War then becomes a commodity regardless of the
degree that they may personally get involved in the different contexts
of war. And I think there is a marked difference between the news
person who covers war – and that is, I think, the example that Khaled
Hourani talked to us about – and between filmmakers who live in
communities that are experiencing war, and speak of their
lived experience. And I highlight this difference only because of what
it implies and the possible implications it has. I think that someone
who covers war as a profession that is feed into hundreds and thousands
of TV-screens internationally every night and is a product, this person
is not interestd in the resolution of war. This person’s mother and
father and sisters are not in that war. Most of the time they
also lift themselves out of the war, there is of course a high casualty
rate, as some very tough jobs have high casualty rates, and they are
paid the rates and insurance that go with risk. I think independent
filmmakers – and I mention specifically Palestinian women and men
filmmakers – who make independent films go into contexts where most of
us don’t have any kind of insurance, don’t have any kind of bulletproof
vests, don’t have bulletproof cars, we go out into very dangerous
circumstances with only our jackets while the international crews
have their protection. What drives us to do this and to get those
images at a very high price for us is, I think fundamentally, we want
to show what war is like so that we can contribute to the ending
of war so that we and our communities and our families don’t have to
experience war again. I think this is really for me as a
filmmaker the mark difference between news and independent filmmaking
in war.
– Comment by Khaled Hourani in Arabic –
بفكر طبعاً الصورة اللي بقصدها هي الصورة اللي بالفلم السينمائي أو الصورة
اللي في الأخبار (النيوز) أو في اللوحة اللي في المتحف الصورة بشكل عام (
آز أن إيميج ) مش الصورة الإعلامية فقط، مع أنه ما يحكم الآن هي الصورة
بشكل أو بآخر الصورة الفوتوغرافية.
اللي حاولت أقوله بخصوص سطوة الصورة المفبركة أو سطوة الصورة المنتجة
بنوايا هي موضوع تغلب حتى على الفن، الإنسانية منذ أن رسمت على جدران
الكهوف وحتى الوقت الحاضر لم تستطع الحؤول دون هذا الموت العبثي اللي
بتعيشه الكرة الأرضية، للأسف الفن وُظِّف أكثر مما وَظَّف نفسه لمنع الحرب.
الأوروبيين بعد تجربة الحرب العالمية الثانية واللي عاشوا فيها ويلات
كبيرة، مقولة ثقافية العامة للموضوع والرغبة في تجاوز ويلات الحرب أنتجت
مفاهيم الشعوب والناس تلقوا هذا المعطى كأنه أدركت الإنسانية عبث الحروب
ومأساتها وبالتالي الفكر الإنساني والفن كشف وفضح هذه البشاعة اللي في
الحرب وإنو الإنسانية رايحة تعيش في تبات ونبات. للأسف في العشر سنوات
الأخيرة هالتطور التكنولوجي اللي مفروض نكون مسرورين عليه وهو لازم يتجند
لمواجهة المرض والجوع ننتج غذاء أكثر ننتج غذاء بجودة أعلى نتغلب على
مشاكل الطبيعة والزلازل وما إلى ذلك، إنو هاي التكنولوجيا وُظفت أخيراً في
حروب غير مبررة، بالقطع لا يعني أحد إذا الحرب تبعت شارون أو تبعت بوش غير
مفيدة ولن تنجز شيء، أنا أعتقد أنو هم ضحايا أيضاً، مشني الحروب نفسهم
وهذا لا يغير في الحقيقة شيء إنو الحرب شيء بشع، الحرب المفروض الفن يدينه
بشكل مطلق.
التعليق اللي كنت بدي أقوله أنا - قبل مل تحكي عليا- بخصوص(يعني) فكرة
الفلسطينيين عن الفن والحرب، إحنا كشعب عشنا الحرب في تقديري كمفعول به
غالباً (يعني)عنا طبعاً رأي إلى حد ما في الفنون اللي بننتجها واقع
تحت ردة الفعل أكثر منه رأي في الحرب بشكل مطلق. على سبيل المثال أنا ما
شفت أي معنى للي قدمتو تينا بخصوص (اللاند سكايب) في فلسطين ولا علاقة
بموضوع الفن والحرب أبداً.وخشيتي إنو ليس فقط الصورة التي يريد من يُحَارب
أن ينتجها عن الآخر هي التي تُوظَّف ضده، إنو الصورة اللي بنتجها من
سَيُحَارب عن نفسه بين الحرب وأخرى. الفلسطينيين أنتجوا صور خلال هاي
الإنتفاضة أفلام وغيره عن ذاتهم، طبعاً للأسف اللي بحكم مش الصورة
اللي بنتجها الشخص عن نفسه اللي بحكم الصورة اللي بتنتجها المؤسسة الأقوى
عن من تريد، الصورة اللي بنتجوها الفلسطينيين إذا ما تيسر لنا محاسبتها أو
مراقبتها فهي صورة بائسة: صورة صراخ، صورة ضحايا أيضاً، صورة أبطال
وهميين. الفلسطينيين في الأربع سنوات الأخيرة اللي هي سنوات الإنتفاضة
إحتفوا بصورتين تنتين، والصورة هي ليس فقط إذا بنصورها وبنضبها في البيت
بتصير صورة، بتصير صورة إذا بتنتج تعرف تُسمى تنشر في وسائل الإعلام، صورة
محمد الدرة كضحية وصورة فارس عودة كبطل وهدول الصورتين و ليس بينهما ثالث
هم أكثر الصور اللي تم الإحتفاء فيهم للتعبير عن حجم الضحية اللي فينا وعن
حجم البطل اللي فينا، وفي الحقيقة هذا غيّب الصورة الثالثة صورة اللابطل
واللاضحية.
باعتقادي إنو الحوار اللي كان ممكن تروحلو ندوة من هذا النوع الفن والحرب
كموضوع هام ليس فقط في فلسطين فقط وإنما في العالم، لو من جانب المنظمين
اللي هم معهد جوته مشكورين على هذا التنظيم لو تيسر لهم الإتصال بعدد أكثر
من الفسطينيين ذو الخبرة ويستطيعوا يدلوا بدلوهم في هذا الموضوع، حتى نكون
نحكي في الدايرة، يعني انا لاحظت معظم العناوين اللي فيها مداخلات
الفلسطينيين بتنفع تكون في أي موضوع آخر، كان في مرة ندوة في بير زيت عن
(اللاند سكيب) كان ممكن تنفع محاضرة تينا فيها، ما إلو علاقة هادا، مفروض
يكون في دقة، باعتقد إنو بالثقافة الفسطينية وبالناس العايشين في البلاد
هادي مين بقدر يدلي دلوه في المواضيع هاي وشكراً.
– Contribution by Vera Tamari, introduced by Alia Arasoughly –
Vera Tamari:
Initially I was supposed to be preparing a paper for this colloquium
but then I was supposed to be away and couldn’t prepare anything, so we
decided to show a film that Nahed Awwad did – a short video about 15
minutes – about an installation I did in 2002 called “Going for a
ride”.
– Film screening –
Vera Tamari:
I would like to thank Nahed Awwad for following every detail of the
installation-making right from the beginning, because it is the only
record practically that we have of that installation since the army
came into the site again with their tanks and re-destroyed the
installation. I would also like to thank Penny Johnson who wrote an
article that was distributed amongst you, it is called “Ramallah Dada –
the reality of the absurd”. Penny wrote this article describing the
car-installation “Going for a Ride” as well as another exhibition
called 'Eyewitness' that took place at the same time in Ramallah in the
municipality building which was also about the destroyed personal
objects of people. The article was published in the Jerusalem Palestine
Studies last year. I hope that you will be able to read this article;
it is quite informative and thought provoking.
I have a few comments on my installation “Going for a Ride”.
Boris Moscowitz:
I am also one of the guests, coming from Germany, Boris Moscowitz. I am
a publisher of an arts and culture magazine which is called “Berliner”,
referring to the city at the same time. It is about an attitude, it is
about being in a city where a system collapsed and another system had
to realize that the values of the other may have not been the best, but
that one's own are not the best either. This is why we call ourselves
“Berliner”. I have a question to you and also to the other filmmaker,
because basically both of you had a great education, you are privileged
in some sense. The pictures you are presenting are the reality of here
and this is not to be questioned. Is it your reality, which is to be
asked, and how can you comment on this? And tell me, what we see, isn’t
it in a way – and this is not judgmental – isn’t it kitsch to victimize
yourself, to bring up emotions? We see children, we see destruction, we
don’t see the longing for normality. Also every culture, every person
wants security, wants safety, wants a family, has a longing. I walked
through the streets – and it is my first time in Ramallah, I have to
admit – and I was amazed because there are things I have not seen and I
could not imagine. I knew about the destruction and I am not
questioning it, I know about the dead children and about the dead
people and I am not questioning it, I am not questioning history. I
just wonder why this longing for normality which we see in the streets
and in the stores, why isn’t that communicated as a contradiction, not
as a solution. This is, I think, also picking up what Bazon was saying
it’s not about solutions, it’s about realizing contradictions and
dealing with these contradictions. I had a cab-ride here. And I know it
is not symptomatic, please don’t get me wrong. I had a cab-ride and the
driver did not speak anything but Arabic, but however he was able to
communicate that “America is bad, Bush is an animal, Sharon is an
animal, Germany is good, France is good, Hitler is very good, Bin Laden
super good, […] good, Heil Hitler” and he took my arm, he tried to
raise my arm. Yes, this is just one person out of many and we have
right-wing people, difficult people in Germany as well as in
England and in the States. It’s everywhere, you have people who will
have this attitude. But isn’t it the role – and I think Mahmoud tried
to say this – it’s about being self reflective, self-critical and this
is what I miss in the work of these two filmmakers. It is an important
contribution, but you two are privileged. You show your homes, and then
show the streets, show the contradictions of your lives. Make your
contradiction basically, through this contradiction we will understand
what you want, what you live and what you have to deal with. But
otherwise it is just a cliché and it’s kitsch. And at some point
you are just emphasizing one side. I am not sure that if what I am
saying is really helping and I am not sure if this is the practice of
the artists. Artists should –again: I am not teaching – I am just
saying these are just some ideas that I have these are just some things
I have seen and that I basically want to contribute and I leave it up
to you to discuss these issues from all sides. And also of course there
is a contradiction in German society, of course what Bazon says is one
and what Romuald says is something else and Carl would say something
else. But these people are able to sit down at a table and discuss and
accept each other’s difference. And I have a feeling that t the way
Bazon was presenting his ideas and this is his style– well maybe it
encouraged us to stop listening to what he was saying and so we
miss the essence of what he was saying which again is a question about
form. And this is where now we come back to the topic “Art and War”, it
is all about form, it is all about context. It depends: do you present
it in a way where he said “photography is a media that is relevant” and
landscape painting well we cannot relate to it anymore, it doesn’t
carry the message anymore. And if you do political art – it’s fine. But
somebody said: “Oh, how can I do something else?” Do something else,
you cannot be a political but you can make pictures of the landscapes.
These landscapes will carry the message in a way by what they are
showing and what they are not showing. And this conflict you have is
also on the other side of the wall, there is conflict on every side. Of
course, when we met the Israelis – I guess a part of our role is to be
the link. Unfortunately not all of you can travel, except for the
privileged who then again choose not to be the link. Whoever has the
chance to be the link has to communicate in both ways. Who has the
capacity to reflect, the intellectual has the knowledge to reflect and
not abuse it, to create images that again create a judgmental
prejudice. This is what I have to contribute to the films I have
seen. I don’t question their content, don’t get me wrong. I absolutely
understand the cause, but I absolutely don’t understand the way you
work, I am sorry.
Alia Arasoughly:
Let me be as blunt as you. And I think when we were talking over lunch
that when the conversation got interesting in the morning, we stopped
for lunch and then we didn’t carry some of those threads that were
brought up as to why we make the images we make. I think that you
presume to know me and you presume to know my work. All you have seen
of my work is maybe three minutes all together. In, “This is not
living”, it is a constant search with all the women in the film for a
normalacy, for trying to go to work. Women of all classes were shown in
the film for example there is a woman who owns a TV-station and she is
an editor and lives in Nablus. And you hear the beginning of her voice…
Interruption by Boris Moscowitz:
I am sorry, again: Of course there is ways to introduce ourselves to
the works we do. And I am sure you haven’t seen every film that Romuald
has done, you haven’t read every piece that Carl has written, this is
the way, we meet here the first time. You choose the excerpts, the
minutes that you think are most representative or most valuable for the
discussion. We are starting a discussion, we are not presenting our
works, we are not looking for a validation for our works, this is not
art criticism here.
Alia Arasoughly:
In my paper – which I wasn’t able to tie the threads together
unfortunately and I feel bad about it – I was tracing the figure of the
mother in three works, one of my works, the work of Randa Shahal and
the work of Mona Hatoum. And I actually I was trying – and maybe it was
too long an argument, for I wanted actually to show something very
personal. And in some way you cannot tell me what I should show for
you. I chose this to talk about today, because it is of concern to me.
And if you are really interested in me, then you would pay attention to
my concern, too, and to the choices I selected for you, rather than
reject it and want me to select something for you. You cannot negate me
this way. I – as an artist, as a filmmaker, as an intellectual – I am
very interested in this relationship and the relationship of loss in
war. To me loss is multi-layered and very complex. One of the
interesting things I was trying to trace was this sense of how three
women filmmakers represent war not as a geopolitical essay of battles
and dates but how they represent war in terms of the separation from
the mother and the mother as representation of safety. And then the
processes of either idealization – which I feel is the core of Mona
Hatoum’s work, for the mother is there in naked and the
voluptuous flesh of the mother, suggests the longing of the child. In
Randa Shahal’s piece the work deals withthe mother who is
implicated, she is a guilty mother, and Randa is trying to deal
with her mother in war. And then the mother that I trace in “Torn
living” through the three narratives is a mother that in some way
reproduces unknowingly her own sorrow and pain by telling the stories
that then become the stories of the daughter and of nostalgia. I think
I have every right to pursue this line of inquiry and I have every
right to show the segments I showed.
Khaled Hourani:
مرحباً، كأنه صار الحوار بين طرفين فلسطينيين وألمان وكأنه كل الألمان
متفقين على شيء والفلسطينيين متفقين على شيء تاني وهادا مش حقيقي أبداً.
بالنسبة للصوراللي إتعرضلها الأخ هناك بالأفلام خاصة فلم عليا ، بصراحة لو
بدي أتخيل أنا كفلسطيني صور بعملها إسرائيلي عن تفجير باص في تل أبيب راح
تبين مؤلمة جداً كمان وبتخلينا ندين هذا الموقف فهل سؤال الفن إنو نقدم
ناس بتصرخ أو ناس منكوبة بوصل الرسالة في إنو الفن يمنع الحرب ممكن العكس
يعمل ممكن يحرض لحرب جديدة، بفكر مهمة الفن وأنا مابدي أعطي وصف تقديري
لشو مهمة الفن لأني صراحة ما بعرف بس على الأقل المشهد اللي بقدموا
الفلسطينيين عن نفسهم بحسن نية أو بسوء نية هو بساهم في تغييب الصورة
الحقيقية اللي المفروض الناس تشوفها مع إنو قد لا يكون من مهمة الفن أصلاً
إنو يقدم صورة ورسالة يعني هو مش واسطة لقول الأشياء ممكن يكون هو هدف
نوصله، كمان مرة بقول إحنا المتحاورين في هذه الحلقة مش صحيح إنو مقسومين
لطرفين، ممكن في إختلافات بين كل طرف على حدة إذا إفترضنا إنو في
فلسطينيين وألمان وغيرنا والدليل إنو ممكن واحد من فلسطين يتفق مع
واحد من ألمانيا في هذا الشأن، وهم مش جايين زي ما بنتخيل يحققوا في
هالمشكلة بين الفلسطينيين والإسرائيليين ومع مين الحق ومع مين يوقفوا.
الموضوع المطروح هو موضوع فكري وموضوع مهم جداً اللي دلونا في مفروض يكون
بمستوى الحرب اللي عنا وبمستوى الفن البائس ممكن أحياناً اللي بينتج في
البلد.
Norman Ohler:
I think it is very, very difficult to make art about suffering. I think
it is also nearly impossible and it very easily turns into kitsch, that
is why I would on the one hand agree with you. So if I was a
Palestinian artist I would – I don’t know, because I am not Palestinian
– but I think Palestinian artists have to be extremely careful and
sensitive and to think about this claim that it might turn to kitsch.
On the other hand, when I saw this film and then when I heard Vera talk
about it, how she made it during the invasion was happening – under
these conditions to produce a piece of art, to make an installation and
then actually having it altered by the re-entering Israeli tanks, I
think that is just, in a way, an amazing piece of art. So I think in a
way the installation is a great work of art.
Bazon Brock:
But let us say it is a great piece of art, but not because of the
circumstances, because of the quality of her as an artist, and that is
the difference.
Norman Ohler:
But I think Boris Groys said that a museum of contemporary art is a
museum of contemporary art because at that moment when we go into the
museum and look at the pieces that is that moment when it is art or
when it is not art. And I think that circumstance is part of that
installation and that is what makes it very unique.
Achim Lengerer:
I just wanted to say in general that whatever opinion one has about a
certain art work, I would like to distance myself from judging
artworks and I don’t think that it is part of the symposium that people
show things and it is judged if it is good or bad. I think it is as a
guest interesting to look how it is done. And then I refer back to what
I said in the beginning, that maybe the criteria are unstable because
it – like then if we use a word like “kitsch”, which I wouldn't use at
all in this context because I can use it in a German context very well
and very precisely and know what is meant by it. But here it feels like
it is already a language problem and it is about – because we are
translating the whole time – I think it is also about different levels
– not like in hierarchies but like parallel levels – of working with –
like on which context we speak and what kind of language we then
use. Of course we are coming like guests and we are talking about
things in an abstract way. It is already an artistic way. I for myself
see, if Bazon Brock is talking it is a performative lecture – I
don’t want to weaken it or judge it – but it is a way of a performance
to speak, it is in itself an artistic approach of working with
language. I like it or I dislike it or I like what he says or not, but
it is not about a direct speech – or I don’t think it is. And coming
back to something which is very often used is a difference
between art that is about political issues and art which is a political
issue. And I think that the works that I just saw are in themselves
political issues and it is not art about political issues. But that
does not mean that one is better, it is just different.
Romuald Kamakar:
I think, what is a problem, also for the people who invited us, is that
we are not saying “I don’t like the work I saw for the reason A, B or
C”. The problem – and I also have the problem Boris's style is that you
come here and tell her what to do. For example, because you asked her
“why did you choose this, why didn’t you choose something else and why
don’t you make art about what you saw on the one day you were in
Ramallah”. But, you know, you can say, “I don’t like the film she is
doing or what they are doing”, but you did not talk in this way.
The next thing is that when we talk and represent ourselves here and
when we saw the images of the peasants from the 1980s – I mean in our
society we are producing, most of the art consists of images that do
not correspond to any reality of our society. We have a big society
with 80 million people, because we have a history that is very complex
and very difficult – but most of the images we produce are images of a
nice world, of a peasant It is not the images of a rotten
socialety, of a problematic society.
And what Bazon says is maybe that he wants art to be judged not
because it has a political cause or because it is from the Palestine or
from South Africa or from Nicaragua, which is also interesting. You
demand this, but for example when you see which films at the Berlin
film festival get an award or which films get an award at the Oscars
for the best foreign film – it’s always the films that deal with the
so-called human values about people. For example people who have
immigrated or who have problems like a Turkish family in our German
society. So the art products that get awarded and that are always
liked are art products that do not correspond to the way we live
in reality.
Adila Laidi:
I would like to make two comments. First I would like to clarify
something about the images that we saw in Tina Sherwell’s presentation,
because unfortunately she showed the images and talked about their
relationship with landscape and then we had these images attacked for
being kitschy or being whatever. So I would like to place them in a
context. Everybody here – I am talking about the Palestinian artists –
see these images as kitschy and old-fashioned. But it is important to
know the context in which these images were produced. I will talk only
about the artist Sliman Mansour who I believe is the best Palestinian
contemporary artist. In the 1980s and 1970s he used to do this work and
there is work even more kitschy then these works if you can believe it.
He and many other artists used to produce this kind of very
direct, representational work about the village. But the interesting
thing is that he has evolved and he has been doing all sorts of things,
experimenting with different media and his work a selection of
which we have exhibited at the Sakakini – has been absolutely amazing
and introspective, not only in the media that he uses but also in the
content about Palestinian history and evaluating it. It is an extremely
complex and introspective work. But why did this man evolve from doing
these kitschy, direct, pastoral scenes to this kind of very forward and
avant-garde work? He is a representative of most of the Palestinian
artists who felt the need the first time when they came out on the
scene when they were young people, when they graduated and were living
in Palestine in the late 1970s and the 1980s they felt the need to
create images, because we were robbed of images, like we were robbed of
our identity. And so the first images that you create, the first
narrative that you create is very direct, is very representational. You
create the paradise lost and then you evolve. And this session is only
one day, we don’t have time and maybe we don’t even have the
inclination – as I said before to Mr. Brock – to show the whole
panorama of Palestinian art to show that really we are good for just a
few pieces were shown.
The second point that I would like to say is that I am really angry
about this issue “Why do we show the kitsch?” and “Why do we show the
victims?” and “We should not be victims”. You know, why is it that
Palestinians always have to jump through so many hoops, they have to be
hip and they have to be introspective and they have to be smart and
they have to be this and that to be accepted. Regardless of what
anyone may think, this is our narrative, this is our story and we have
the full right to document it and we have the full right to exercise
what the French call the “duty of remembrance”, the duty to remember
and to document and to express the fullness of the loss and the
fullness of the violence that we experienced. And it doesn’t have to be
hip and smart and to pass some test. I mean, if I look at the other
side, if I look at the Israelis, who have been bombarding us for years
– not us, I mean we don’t get American TV-channels or European channels
who for years and years have been broadcasting films and documentaries
and TV-series and books and museums about the Holocaust. They have
every right to do that, they have every right to document it. But why
is it that we are criticized when we have a few people who make a few
films of a few minutes or a few books that talk about a little part of
the Palestinian experience. I think we have every right to express
ourselves in any way we want. And just to close, I have ridden in cabs
in France, I have ridden in cabs in London, and believe me, I have
heard a lot of fascist and racist comments and I didn’t make a judgment
about the French being racist or about the British being racist. Maybe
you should come and stay here a little bit more and be a town
chronicler like Norman.