NEOBAR

The oceans of injustice are those in which Palestinians have been sinking for decades. In this short film, the memory of countless abuses, from apartheid to checkpoints, from military attacks to house demolitions, transforms the metaphor into the most actual and powerful vision of a helpless people drowning in the ocean.

United Arab Emirates 2016, 11’44” – direction: Bruno De Champris – screenplay: Farah Nabulsi – editing: Lyassin Chaoui – photography: Alessandro Martella – sound, music: Adam Benobaid – featuring: Farah Nabulsi, Mohammad Shammout, Wissam Saad – production: Native Liberty

So here is what changed me,
what tipped me over the edge,
the experience that drowned me,
forever changing the way I saw the world.

We think we know and we think we feel with them,
and we think we understand the injustice
because we've read some books
or some not so biased or quite so censored article,
or because we've heard from a friend.

But there is so much more.
We have merely dipped our toes into the gentle tide
of this colossal injustice.

You know that moment on a cold beach
when you didn't plan on swimming,
so you decide instead to pull off your socks,
and roll up your trousers,
and tiptoe to where the tide is rolling in or out?

And suddenly you feel the ice-cold water
wash over your feet.

And right then
at that moment,
you think you've fathomed everything
about the biting, unforgiving ocean in front of you,
but of course you don't,
and you won't
until you leave the shore, and hold your breath,
and submerge yourself in it.

So we don't know,
and won't ever know the true suffering of the Palestinians
until we go there,
until we open our eyes and our souls
and really see through the murkiness of it all.

Be mindful though
because the injustice creeps up on you
like harmless distant waves
that moments later come crashing unrelenting over you,
and leave you gasping for breath.

How could this be happening?
How can this be accepted?
Why doesn't the world do something to stop this?

Frustrations, hypocrisy, human rights abuse,
double standards, racism, the torrent is unceasing.

You see, when you go,
you don't know where the current will take you.

What I witnessed burnt my eyes
far more than the saltiest sea.

But open your minds
no matter how painful it stings,
and try live for a moment in their fractured world
as they are forced to.

Look into their eyes,
hear their voices,
understand their story.

Look at what was stolen,
what their fears are.

Look at what pressure and humiliation
they are made to drown in, everyday.

Don't close your eyes.
Don't turn away, look.
in the end you might experience or see things
more sad, or harsh, or brutal than I did.

Every journey into this injustice is unpredictable.
I didn't know what racist policy would apply
from one day to the next.
I didn't know if I would be kept
at any given checkpoint for 10 minutes or 10 hours.
I didn't know if the person next to me
would be held up longer than me,
or even allowed through because neither of us
had the superior race identification card.

I didn't know if the soldiers ordering me about,
and all those around me
actually feel stranded by their role
and have nightmares about what they've been told
and trained to do.

Or if they really do see the Palestinians as animals,
welcoming their role in drowning them
in deliberately degrading procedures.

And if that were the case,
and someone rightfully were to get emotional,
or understandably express anger
at being kept in the burning sun for hours,
or not being allowed through to work again,
or to see their family,
or even make it to a hospital to give birth.

That these soldiers could beat them mercilessly
until the blood soaked their clothing,
and there's nothing they would be able to do
to defend themselves.

But that's just it,
the confusion and vulnerability of everything.
I was there and nothing was for certain.

It's an unstable, spirit breaking, exhausting,
humiliating way to lead a life.

Just an ongoing struggle to keep their heads
above the rising tide of degradation,
and to live like that, barely able to breathe
with their very existence constantly submerged
with the instability and helplessness of it all.

Asking themselves daily,
will I get a permit to visit my mother 20 minutes away?

Will my home be ruthlessly bulldozed
to make way for the wall?

Will I be able to get clean drinking water
for my family today?

Will the land of my father, and my grandfather,
and his father before him simply be stolen,
and handed to thieving settlers,
or will the bombs rain down again on us at any moment?

Will my child make it back from school today,
or meet with a bullet on the way instead,
or my son be dragged away in the middle of the night?

Wave after wave,
decade after decade,
the persecution goes on.
That's when the injustice,
the true freezing ocean is felt.

When we go,
and we see,
and sadly, painfully drown with them
into the depths and darkness of their suffering.

And still then we will return
to the warmth of our homes on far away shores.

And even then,
only still have grasped a fraction
of the terror they endure daily,
tormented at the bottom of the ocean
that has become their home.

The freezing ocean we once thought
we understood so well
when we were merely standing
observing from the shore.