Bedouins of Negev

Linda Paganelli is a visual anthropologist and a film maker from the seaside town of Rimini (Italy). Since 2011, together with photographer Silvia Boarini and lately SMK video factory, Linda has been involved in the making of a documentary film about a group of Bedouins in the Negev desert in Israel. This post presents an interview with Linda about this film.

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Sunil: Linda, tell me about this film you are making.

Linda: It's title is "Unrecognized in the Negev" and it is about a group of Bedouins from the village of Al Araqib. There are 38 Bedouin villages in the Negev desert in south of Israel, that are not recognized by the Israeli government. Thus, they are facing demolitions and do not have access to basic services like drinking water, electricity, and health care. The government calls them "invaders" though their villages go back to before the time of the Ottoman Empire.

Sunil: Your film is about one village. How many persons live there?

Linda: The first big demolition of that village was in 2010 when 35 families, about 250-300 persons, lived there. Since then there have been 67 more demolitions and now there are only 4 families left (20 people), though their homes have been bulldozed. So now they have been authorized to live only in the graveyard.

They had become sedentary by the turn of the 20th century, while before they were semi-nomads. This meant that for certain periods of the year, they went away to find pastures for their animals but for the rest of the year, they lived in their ancestral villages. They have roots in those villages and they do not change them.

Sunil: That sounds like some of the semi-nomad groups that I had known in Mongolia. Are the Bedouins culturally different from the Palestinians?

Linda: The Bedouins are a Palestinian-Muslim minority in Israel, half of them are completely urbanized and the other half are living in unrecognized villages trying to keep their lifestyle and fighting against the state coercion. Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are under occupation, while Bedouins in the unrecognized villages are under demolition orders, as they do not fit in the State's ideal model of life and their villages are being designed for other purposes - in the case of Al Araqib, for making a forest.

Sunil: I knew about the Israel and Palestine issues but I did not know that there were problems between Israel and the Bedouins. How are Bedouin issues different from the Palestine issues?

Linda: In the war of 1948 when Israel annexed this area, most Bedouins escaped to other Arab countries or to West Bank or Gaza. Only about 11,000 Bedouins were left here and they became Israeli citizens. They have I.D. cards that recognize them as Israeli, however, they are not considered equal to other Israeli citizens.

Sunil: How did you decide to make a film on this issue?

Linda: In summer 2011, I met a photographer, Silvia Boarini, in Ramallah (West Bank, Palestine), who had been visiting the Bedouin villages since 2008. We did some work together and she asked me to accompany her to Negev to visit this village.

We went back there many times and gradually we could build the trust between us and the villagers, by staying with them and listening to their problems. This film came from this experience. It has been very rich and humane experience.

They wish to share their story with the rest of the world and make people aware about what is happening in the Negev right now. That’s why this is a story that really matters, we hope to enrich and inform many people through this documentary.

Now the filming is done and the post-production work is being carried out by SMK Video-Factory in Bologna.

Sunil: Thanks Linda for sharing about your film, best of luck for its success.

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Note: You can watch a small clip from the Bedouin village in the Negev on Vimeo. Linda and Silvia are also looking for support to complete the film - you can also contribute through Indiegogo.

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The mountain of God - Ramallah

Palestine is divided in two parts - "West Bank" bordering Jordan and the Dead sea and "Gaza Strip" facing the Mediterranean sea. In the West Bank, Ramallah is probably the most important Palestinian city. Recently I had an opportunity to spend a couple of days in Ramallah. This is a photo-essay about Ramallah, literally the "Mountain of God".

Introduction

Before going to Ramallah, I had only heard about the city when they talked on the TV about some event in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Thus, the images of Ramallah in my mind were of boys waving flags or people shouting slogans behind the funerals of persons killed by Israeli shootings.

Therefore, I was not prepared to see Ramallah as a beautiful city with beautiful houses as you can see in the picture below with an overview of the city.

I did not visit the old city. However, even in the new part of Ramallah, the central part is relatively old, and is like any other Arab city with lively streets, people buying and selling things, persons selling and eating snacks and people sitting with friends and gossiping.

Over the past few years, Ramallah has expanded for many kilometres beyond the city centre with new buildings, new residential areas and new commercial spaces gleaming with steel and glass like the Ramallah towers and the Ramallah Trade Centre in the images below.

In the city centre, there are two main squares - Manara square and the clock square. Manara (lion) square has a central round-about with statues of 4 lions and a central pillar.

The clock square was called so because it had a clock in the centre. This was replaced some time ago by a new monument which has a man climbing towards the Palestinian flag and symbolizes the Palestinian struggle for nationhood. This square is now called Yasser Arafat square.

The image below presents the Palestinian Parliament building. In 2006, after Hamas had won the elections, there were disagreements between Hamas and Fateh. Since then, West Bank is under Palestinian authority (Fateh) while Gaza is under Hamas. Thus, at present, Parliament building is not being used. Recently, Hamas and Fateh had a meeting in Gaza during which they have signed an agreement for holding the elections within 6 months. Hopefully, the Parliament building in Ramallah will become active once again.

The Palestinian love for colours is seen in the wall paintings.

However, the modern buildings can also present wonderful views through reflections in the glass walls.

I saw some political graffiti on the high walls built by Israel near the Qalandiya check-point that controls the passage between Jerusalem and Ramallah.

Yasser Arafat continues to be remembered as the national icon by the Palestinians. The mausoleum with his tomb is situated just behind the presidential palace.

Ramallah is full of roads going up and down the hills. Sometimes, there are stairs connecting roads at different levels.

To conclude this photo-essay, here is an image of the mosque at the Arafat mausoleum.

Conclusions

Before going there, I had only seen images of Ramallah with conservative Muslims and angry youth. Due to those images, I was a little afraid of going there. Thus visiting Ramallah was a surprise.

Recently, I had read an article by an Indian journalist called Zahir Janmohamed where he had talked about how journalists can perpetuate the stereotypes about persons and places, and justify it by saying that public wishes to read only that kind of information. While visiting Ramallah, I could understand the point made by Zahir.

Ramallah is a vibrant, living place with real persons who have complex lives. Presenting them exclusively in terms of Israel-Palestinian conflict or in terms of conservative Islam, reduces them to uni-dimensional stereotypes. I hope that this photo-essay gives you another view about life in Ramallah.

One of my most beautiful memory of the stay in Ramallah is about listening to the early morning azaan by the muezzin, who had a wonderful voice. I wish I could have recorded that call, but it was not loud enough for recording. As I lay in the bed, I could feel the waves of that sound surround me and touch my heart!

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El Mina, the sea port of Gaza

I am in Gaza city in Palestine, and I am staying in an apartment in front of the sea port of Gaza called El Mina. This is a photo-essay about the Gaza sea port.

Stories about the sea port in Gaza go back to antiquity.

The port is like a "T" with the long vertical leg jutting out from the coast into the sea. As you enter the port, there is a monument with a round globe at the top. It has some names at the base along with the Turkish and Palestinian flags. It was built by Turkey to commemorate the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara and activists who had tried to force through the Israeli blockade of the port in May 2010.

As you walk down the vertical leg of the T, on the right side there are red-roofed sheds for the fishermen.

At the end, where the vertical leg of the "T" meets its horizontal leg, there is another monument that I call Aeroplane monument. It looks like the front motor of a fighter plane, set in the centre of a round-about. (PS: My friend Adriano told me that it is the propeller of a ship and not the motor of an aeroplane!)

A few days ago, one early morning, before 6 AM, I went down to take a walk at the seaport.

It was absolutely marvelous. There were few people and boats were coming back with the fish they had caught. In the boats, men sat around sorting the fishes and putting them in plastic crates. Other men took the crates and piled them in carriages run by horses to distribute them in the city.

Parallel to the vertical leg of the "T", there is another thin strip of land going into the sea for the bigger boats. A truck had brought a new boat and was putting it down.

Cats and young children from poor families with plastic bags stood around the fishermen, waiting for fish scraps.

If they came too close, the fishermen glared at them and they retreated. But the fishermen were not too hard on them. Every now and then, someone took pity on the cats or the kids, and threw a torn or headless fish at them.

The horizontal leg of the "T" on the left, it continues with the beach of Gaza. On the right side, it goes and ends suddenly in the sea, creating a small bay. If you stand at the tip, in a distance you can see the long chimneys of some industrial plant spewing smoke in the sky. Those chimneys are on the Israeli side of the border.

On the skyline of Gaza, you can immediately see the new and the beautiful Abdul Aziz Khalidi mosque, built by a rich Palestinian, who lives just across from the mosque, in the memory of his father. Next to the mosque is the "Beach camp" or the Shati refugee camp. They are widening the road along the seacoast of Gaza with money from Qatar, so soon, the Beach camp will disappear and hundreds of families living there will be shifted to the south of Gaza city.

As the sun came up, I walked to the tip of the land that protects the port. There I met an adolescent boy called Mohammed, whom I asked to take my picture. Soon we were joined by a group of his friends who all surrounded me. “I am Hindi” I said, and suddenly we were friends, many of them smiled. I already knew that in Palestine, they do not understand if you say "India", for them India is "Hindi" or "Indi".

Bollywood is well known in Palestine and many persons have told me about their love for Indian films and how these make them cry and how much they like Amitabh Bachchan!

At the port, in the morning most persons are male, you hardly see any women or girls. Children are every where, some playing and others working.

That morning walk, it was a wonderful experience.

I was back at the port, one evening as well. In the darkness, it was quiet and peaceful.

It is beautiful to wake up in the morning and see the boats come alive and see the sky change colours. In the evenings, often I sit in the balcony with a book and look at the sun going down and the persons walking around the port.

Here are a few images of the morning and evening at the port, taken from the apartment.

As I write this post, occasionally I glance out of the window at the port. Today, dark clouds are hanging low and the water has a silvery-leaded sheen. It is deserted. Except for an occasional boat that leaves a soundless trail on the water, it can even be a painting that I am looking at.

Last night it had looked so crowded but then it was the Friday night! On Friday evenings,  the seaport is like an ant hill, full of people, more persons joining them from all the sides and cars blocking the road, parked till the end of the tip of the port.

The picture below, shows the apartment building on the right, where I am staying.

To conclude this photo-essay, here is another image from my early morning walk at the port of Gaza.

The word "Gaza" brings on images of Palestinian struggles with bombs and wars. In these days, I have met so many Palestinians who seem tired of wars and bombs and who dream of decent lives for their children. This post is dedicated to them.

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