Letter from Palestine, 20. Experiences of the election.
15th January 2004
Dear friends!
There has been the presidential election in Palestine, and internationally is heard that everything went well and that Israel helped well to fulfill a peaceful election. I do not quite agree. I have to admit that I had not learnt enough about the election on beforehand. But I wanted to experience it, and I went to the main post office in East Jerusalem, which I had understood was election office. I talked with some who had voted, and got an impression of what people thought. Then I wrote an article about the day’s experiences, which is at the YWCA-YMCA Global’s webpages in Norwegian. You might read the English version at my blog (see information later in this letter).
During the last week I have understood that not everything was how I thought Sunday. We have had a few Norwegians at the YWCA in Jerusalem after they had been around as international observers for the election. They have a lot of knowledge and understanding about what is happening here, and so I have had the opportunity to learn a bit. In addition they have had some tough experiences, especially the one who went to Gaza.
After the election I learnt what had actually happened here in East Jerusalem. 5367 of the around 200.000 Palestinian inhabitants of East Jerusalem had got permit to vote in Jerusalem. The rest had to go to the West Bank. These about 5000 were divided on five post offices, most of them on the main post office where I was, they did not know which post office they were registered at. Some had to go around trying to find out where they could give their vote. Some gave up. Jimmy Carter had “fixed it” so that everybody could vote everywhere. That was the message sent to the rest of the world. The post offices did not get the message though, and not the people either, so here the difference was not very clear. To call the post office election office was wrong, as the votes were not put in ordinary election boxes, but in boxes sent to the West Bank to be counted there. So nobody really voted in East Jerusalem, they had just sent their vote from there. Israel had full control, and the Palestinians did not have any symbol showing that East Jerusalem could have a future as the Palestinian capital.
Our Norwegian observer in Gaza had a lot to tell when she came back to Jerusalem. It was not primarily about the election, but more about Gaza in general, and especially crossing the Erez checkpoint on her way back. East Jerusalem and the West Bank can be sad places, but the explanation about Gaza gave me a view of another world. Her translator was a boy of my age. His siblings were not in a situation I can imagine, some were killed and some were heavily wounded. The family house was demolished. But this boy managed to keep his life going on, he is still strong. Every normal person would have given up long time ago. Gaza’s Palestinians must have a special patience. The experience at Erez had made impression. A pregnant woman had an abortion the same day because she could not pass the checkpoint. A man in a wheelchair on his way to a heart operation spent several hours to pass. The Norwegian herself spent five hours there, enough to “entertain” us with stories the whole evening. She was clear about that she was not sad that she had to go through this. At the same time she was very upset about what she had experienced. She came through it by speaking a lot and let the grim humour be visible during the evening.
It is not only the election that has had my attention the last week. I have also been quite busy in the office, with sponsors for the olive tree campaign. It is good at last to have enough to fill the working days. I also now know what I will do the next day. It is also good to be closer with the advocacy work. It is still possible to sponsor olive trees for this season. The December date was not exact. If you are interested, please take contact.
In addition to tasks I have got, I have also managed to find more spend time on myself. After getting the link to a blog of an activist priest I got to know when he was here for the Christmas holidays, I found out that I wanted to try to make my own blog. As I am not very technical, I was a bit sceptical. But it went surprisingly well. I am a bit impressed of my work. Now I have published the weekly letters and a few pictures. Then Internet did not work, but I will publish more when I have the opportunity. Now at least you have the chance to see pictures again after the RTS website is not working. I have organised it so that the last pictures are at the top, then comes the English translation of the letter, then the Norwegian. Former letters and pictures are archived by month. For those of you who don’t know more than I did, I can tell that blog is an abbreviation of web-log and is almost like a homepage. Those of you who know more might disagree, it doesn’t matter. The address is: banglahanne.blogspot.com
My work in Ramallah and the Arabic course, which I thought would start this week, were both postponed a week. Now both will start on Monday. So next week will also be full, I look forward to that.
Energetic greetings from Hanne.
Dear friends!
There has been the presidential election in Palestine, and internationally is heard that everything went well and that Israel helped well to fulfill a peaceful election. I do not quite agree. I have to admit that I had not learnt enough about the election on beforehand. But I wanted to experience it, and I went to the main post office in East Jerusalem, which I had understood was election office. I talked with some who had voted, and got an impression of what people thought. Then I wrote an article about the day’s experiences, which is at the YWCA-YMCA Global’s webpages in Norwegian. You might read the English version at my blog (see information later in this letter).
During the last week I have understood that not everything was how I thought Sunday. We have had a few Norwegians at the YWCA in Jerusalem after they had been around as international observers for the election. They have a lot of knowledge and understanding about what is happening here, and so I have had the opportunity to learn a bit. In addition they have had some tough experiences, especially the one who went to Gaza.
After the election I learnt what had actually happened here in East Jerusalem. 5367 of the around 200.000 Palestinian inhabitants of East Jerusalem had got permit to vote in Jerusalem. The rest had to go to the West Bank. These about 5000 were divided on five post offices, most of them on the main post office where I was, they did not know which post office they were registered at. Some had to go around trying to find out where they could give their vote. Some gave up. Jimmy Carter had “fixed it” so that everybody could vote everywhere. That was the message sent to the rest of the world. The post offices did not get the message though, and not the people either, so here the difference was not very clear. To call the post office election office was wrong, as the votes were not put in ordinary election boxes, but in boxes sent to the West Bank to be counted there. So nobody really voted in East Jerusalem, they had just sent their vote from there. Israel had full control, and the Palestinians did not have any symbol showing that East Jerusalem could have a future as the Palestinian capital.
Our Norwegian observer in Gaza had a lot to tell when she came back to Jerusalem. It was not primarily about the election, but more about Gaza in general, and especially crossing the Erez checkpoint on her way back. East Jerusalem and the West Bank can be sad places, but the explanation about Gaza gave me a view of another world. Her translator was a boy of my age. His siblings were not in a situation I can imagine, some were killed and some were heavily wounded. The family house was demolished. But this boy managed to keep his life going on, he is still strong. Every normal person would have given up long time ago. Gaza’s Palestinians must have a special patience. The experience at Erez had made impression. A pregnant woman had an abortion the same day because she could not pass the checkpoint. A man in a wheelchair on his way to a heart operation spent several hours to pass. The Norwegian herself spent five hours there, enough to “entertain” us with stories the whole evening. She was clear about that she was not sad that she had to go through this. At the same time she was very upset about what she had experienced. She came through it by speaking a lot and let the grim humour be visible during the evening.
It is not only the election that has had my attention the last week. I have also been quite busy in the office, with sponsors for the olive tree campaign. It is good at last to have enough to fill the working days. I also now know what I will do the next day. It is also good to be closer with the advocacy work. It is still possible to sponsor olive trees for this season. The December date was not exact. If you are interested, please take contact.
In addition to tasks I have got, I have also managed to find more spend time on myself. After getting the link to a blog of an activist priest I got to know when he was here for the Christmas holidays, I found out that I wanted to try to make my own blog. As I am not very technical, I was a bit sceptical. But it went surprisingly well. I am a bit impressed of my work. Now I have published the weekly letters and a few pictures. Then Internet did not work, but I will publish more when I have the opportunity. Now at least you have the chance to see pictures again after the RTS website is not working. I have organised it so that the last pictures are at the top, then comes the English translation of the letter, then the Norwegian. Former letters and pictures are archived by month. For those of you who don’t know more than I did, I can tell that blog is an abbreviation of web-log and is almost like a homepage. Those of you who know more might disagree, it doesn’t matter. The address is: banglahanne.blogspot.com
My work in Ramallah and the Arabic course, which I thought would start this week, were both postponed a week. Now both will start on Monday. So next week will also be full, I look forward to that.
Energetic greetings from Hanne.
posted by Hanne at 7:32 AM
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