Abu-Dis 20/3/2004 THE NEW GENERATION GOES FORTH INTO THE WORLD Doesn’t it drive you even crazier — those times one tangibly feels co-existence so intensely near that one basks in the easy grace, the civilised rationality, the natural justice of basic human values and fundamental rights – the ordinary, everyday normal life, before being shoved rudely back into contrasting reality? A reality where the word “Kafkaesque” is so overworked even Palestinian friends who’ve never heard of Kafka use it all the time. Let me tell you about yesterday’s piece of Kafka. On Friday I received a call from Terry Boulata (recently on tour with both the Geneva and Hague road shows), headmistress of the New Generation School of Abu-Dis. Emergency. Desperation. A planned trip for 150 kids, ranging in age from 3½ to 11, was in trouble. Israeli authorities refused to give travel permits to the 12 teachers, needed to escort the trip. Help! No problem. Six members of MachsomWatch arrived early at the school, to see hordes of tiny faces, decked out in best clothes, hugging gaily coloured satchels, lining up to go. Lots of chanting of morning songs, lots of forming into straight lines, crocodile style. Lots of calling out of names. Joyful confusion. Two buses arrived (later, after some muddling through, a third – the bus company pessimistic from the start!), and here the first major crisis of the day. The drivers wouldn’t take West Bank teachers without permits, or they risked their jobs, huge fines, impounded buses and even prison terms. Persuasion. Assurances. Some bluffing… and the weapon of choice, the mobile phone, in action. Relative calm rippled by anxiety engendered by a Border Police jeep carefully monitoring our goings on. The waves of 150 little things growing somehow to an unofficial 174 — meaning 24 families couldn’t pay but also couldn’t say no to their tiny ones. And off we went. In the busy, crowded, garbage packed, Third World, Separation Barrier-shadowed streets of Abu-Dis, there was soon an all-too-familiar sight: a dispute between a crowd of men and about eight Border Police, fingers itching on their M16 triggers nervously, while they called for and got tear gas grenades, in case a broken-down car was just a trap. Old hat. Out of the bus, talk to them, to let us pass. We passed; these charabancs of somewhat dazed children, most of whom never, ever leave that part of town. The flower gardens at the entry to Ma’ale Adumim were greeted with delight… no such thing in Abu-Dis. And so we left the West Bank, making for A-Zaim checkpoint, on an Israeli-only settler road, with bated breath. The Border Police waved us to one side (the first bus somehow sailed quite gaily through!). And the mobile phones again spoke. To each other, until the order came down to the real time of the actual man manning the point. We are talking about 174 children escaping from a prison. Only for a day. 174 children who have never seen – all of it. The Old City. The Damascus Gate or golden Dome. The immaculate streets of Rehavia. The Malha Mall. All of it. Birds, lions, monkeys, flowers, trees, open hilltops, giraffes, rhinoceros, lakes and swans and picnics and a proper playground and one little boy lost and found. All of it. The big, wide world. Even the so-called religious in their hordes on Bar Ilan, kept back by barriers and police, wanting to stone us on our return, for travelling on their Sabbath. All of it. Some of the children sang all the way home. Others slept, totally zonked. Passers-by looked amazed by busloads of kids, coming back – from where?? The Moon? Who goes anywhere these days? Don’t you know, it’s not allowed… Today I phoned the man who made it possible, a senior Border Police commander with a heart. Who said in words what his action already witnessed: we have to use our hearts. We have to learn to live together. We have to give the children something positive, something to enjoy. Somewhere fun to go. Something new to do. Something to show them there are choices out there, and more to life than this reality they know. He said something about needing to make others understand. And one of the teachers said, “the kids will be talking about this trip for the next two years!” Yes, the other people at the zoo knew there was a huge presence of Arabic speaking kids. Did they mind? Not really. But they didn’t know really what it was they saw. Only we knew we were part of that day’s Great Escape. That for a few, brief hours we had breached the ghetto walls. Taken them out of their cage into another one. Anyone for a swim? In the summer…? Perhaps. We’ll see. The Wall is closing in.