Cultural Palace of Ramallah

The curtains are drawn to reveal an eerily-lit stage set like a garbage dump. A pile of garbage consumes the middle of the stage, a round metal trash can lies tipped over at stage left, and a row of large plastic green trash bins, the oddly rectangular kind, line the back. It is a play without spoken dialogue, only music. A few days after a New York Times article was published entitled “West Bank Boys Dig a Living from Settler Trash,” the instinct that it was drama-worthy was affirmed.

Children emerge from the sidelines and began to beseech the audience, holding up papers and props for sale. A grown woman and a little boy fight over home-ownership of the metal can. The woman triumphs. An old man in a kaffiyeh hobbles about. He searches his pockets for a cigarette, and, finding none, sits with a resigned sigh upon the metal can. A hand reaches up from deep within the trash pile, offering a cigarette. Several matches fail to flare, and another disembodied hand provides a flame. The man pulls two pairs of shoes out of his bag, eyes darting this way and that. He puts on the boots furtively but quickly, like a child stealing candy. The other pair, of shiny gold, he leaves near the sideways can. The woman crawls out, puts the shoes on with a grin, and begins to tap and twirl. The raggedy children creep slowly up from behind the green bins, holding out their hands at her. “Why you?” says their universal gesture. A phrase comes to mind: in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

The tone changes. An upbeat song starts, and the children dance around collecting metal and putting it in a bag held by one boy. Suddenly whistles pierce the activity. The children hide. Two men in uniform appear, falling over themselves and whistling inanely. “Let me guess,” I say to Rosi. “It’s the army.”

The Israelis played the classic idiots, a role I’d never seen them in before but was delighted by. It was a classic tale of absurd cops and clever charming criminals, like officer Krupke and the gang of “troubled boys” from West Side Story. The IDF, somber symbol of heroism and defense to so many, was reduced to the joke I wish it was. They staggered on and off stage, opening the same trash can several times, stupidly expecting the contents to be different. The children moved around their trash bins, anticipating and mirroring the movement of the soldiers, such that they didn’t see them. Rotate to the left, one step forward, one to the right, and one behind. But eventually nearly all of them were caught. The last boy rolled away from the soldiers in the metal can, the only one un-captured.

The show continued for several hours, full of debke troops and singers from refugee camps and cultural centers across Palestine. It was an elegant show, well choreographed and costumed, attended by a few hundred. Entrance seemed to be free, or by some kind of invitation card it didn’t matter that Rosi and I didn’t have. It trumped any American high school production. I didn’t expect to find so much art in Palestine, or so many resources. I came here expecting destitution. I found it, but it does not always overwhelm, nor does it control.

There is a significant movement here in dance, singing, circus, and photography. Money pours into it from European aid agencies and from other sources I don’t know. This is no third world, not a forgotten island. Cultural centers with abundant programs are everywhere. Each refugee camp seems to have at least one; in Dheishe there even exists a rivalry. Every international creates a new program; some find theater sexier than demonstrations.

What happens to a society whose national identity is that of a refugee, an outcast? The modern state of Israel seems to be one such example. How will Palestine protect itself from similar corruption?
What will become of Ibda’a and the tour bus with its shiny logo if a democratic state is established? Where will all these programs go? Will they disappear with the occupation? If so, what power does this art and theater have?

I wonder, did Jews in ghettos before and during the Holocaust put on plays and paint murals and write rap songs? Where have they gone, the cultural icons of mine? Who bought them cameras and paintbrushes? Palestine appears privileged from the perspective of culture and arts programs. The south side of Chicago is not so well off. But justice is not a historical tally of suffering, I have to remind myself.