Chapter 18

Beautiful Resistance—Palestine

Abdelfattah Abusrour created Alrowwad, a place to help children and women experience normalcy and to regain their inner human values while living in the middle of a conflict zone.

I want these children to grow up to be great changemakers so they can think that they can change the world without the need to carry a gun to kill anybody else in order to earn a living or to be alive. I want to help them hold on to their humanity and become role models to create a world where every day that comes is more beautiful than the day that goes before.

—Abdelfattah Abusrour

IN 1994, ABDELFATTAH ABUSROUR RETURNED TO PALESTINE AFTER nine years in France, where he had obtained his master's and PhD in biological and medical engineering. As a Palestinian, he'd been following the situation there, and what he learned choked his nationalistic pride and strained his love of peace for his fellow countrymen and women. It especially tore him apart to think of the way the children were suffering amid the difficulties they were having since the Israeli occupation. He intuitively knew that he could make more of a change on the ground than behind a desk in his “underground scientific palace.”

When he could no longer deny that his passion for his country was stronger than his need to live a comfortable life in Paris, he decided to return to Palestine. But not just anywhere in Palestine—he moved to the place where he'd grown up: the Aida Refugee Camp in Bethlehem. He returned to his roots to see if he could help the children who now lived there and were following in his childhood footsteps. He found work as an assistant professor at two universities while simultaneously working as a researcher in genetic engineering and the head of biologic analysis for a pharmaceutical company in Beit Jala, Palestine. He loved his work and was ambitious and as a result worked seven days a week in three different locations. In addition, he volunteered to teach theater at one of the universities, in the schools of the camp, and wherever he was asked to volunteer.

Interests Change, Values Endure

In Palestine, Abdelfattah observed despair and sadness. He witnessed anger and violence. He listened to cries of revenge and hatred. But he was most disturbed when he looked in his own children's eyes and thought about the heritage he and others would be leaving for them. And though a lot of people said that the situation in Palestine was a political nightmare, a desperate state of affairs with little they could do, he knew that no Palestinian had the luxury of despair. That was not going to be a legacy that anybody could be proud to leave their children and the generations to come. What he needed to do was to lift the heaviness of ill will that was crushing the Palestinian spirit and cultivate the values that he grew up appreciating: justice, freedom, love, and peace; values that should be shared by every human being. Abdelfattah is a firm believer in a consistent set of values for all humanity:

These values we share—whether we are Muslim or Christian, Jewish or Buddhist, Hindu or atheist, or whatever we are—they are not elastic. They do not change based on new realities on the ground or the dictation of one leader or one country or another. They are the essential flower of humanity and the cultural heritage we want to leave all of our children for generations to come. It's to the commitment to these values, the defense of these values, the protection of our humanity and pride in our heritage that we will leave behind; that is what my work is all about.

He wanted to bring the beauty back in people's hearts. He wanted to see it reflecting back in their eyes. He didn't want people to grow up thinking that the only way of resistance is throwing stones and burning tires, whether out of anger or boredom because the schools were closed. He wanted to “provide a safe space where children and youth can show their beauty and humanity through arts and narrate their stories through ‘Beautiful Resistance’ against the ugliness of occupation and violence.”

Beautiful Resistance became his mission, and in 1998, he created Alrowwad (Pioneers for Life) as both a physical and an emotional space where children and adults could come to express their feelings through the arts—in music, photography, painting, and theater. Alrowwad became a community center, a safe and positive space for children and women, who are the main focus of the program. Abdelfattah's vision was to create an empowered Palestinian society through educational and artistic means, a society free of violence, respectful of human rights and values, and based on the spirit of social entrepreneurship, innovation, and self-expression.

It was critical for people to look at this Beautiful Resistance as builders for future generations. And this is an act of resistance because, yes, we are not compromising our story or our narratives but are trying to remain truthful and integral to the values we share without being hypocritical about them.

Beauty and the Beast Within

What is truly amazing is that Abdelfattah created Alrowwad and his antiviolence program after the first Palestinian intifada, the popular uprising against Israel from 1989–1993, and two years before the second intifada, from 2000–2005. He was able to continue and grow it throughout a very tense time both within and outside Palestine. Starting out in Abdelfattah's brother's house, and his parents', moving from a two-room space into a three-story building, Alrowwad has continued to work out of its base in the Aida camp. It now has room for many different groups, and has expanded its services via a mobile program (Mobile Beautiful Resistance) that brings activities to different cities that have been deprived of visits from artistic troupes or lack facilities for the arts or libraries or outdoor games.

But as the program grew, so did the need for it. The situation in the Aida camp changed drastically after the wall of separation was erected, bringing with it rising unemployment rates and escalating land costs. With the construction of the wall, open spaces where the children used to play were lost. Except for places like Alrowwad most children had nothing but the street to play in. They had no place to pass their time, to experience childhood, and to express their inner anxieties and tensions. Many of the children had suffered deeply; they had seen their own houses and the houses of their neighbors destroyed, they had seen people killed, and some had seen their own parents or siblings dying in front of them.

One of them, a girl named Woud who came from a village named Ajjour, saw her mother die before her eyes after Israeli soldiers broke down the door of her house while her mother was standing behind it. Luckily she found Alrowwad and after three years was finally able to talk about the story of her mother's death. Her words sum up the impact of the program on children's lives and hearts. “I am using this Beautiful Resistance to express myself and tell my story eventually, but also to talk to the beast within me, before talking to the beasts of others.” The change in Woud was dramatic and as she entered her first year of pharmacy school, she became even more of a role model for children similarly distressed.

Ribal lived in the house next door. He also witnessed many things that you always try to shield children from seeing or being part of. He has been in Alrowwad since 1998, when he was seven years old. In 2011 he graduated from the Faculty of Law of Alquds University in Palestine, with hopes of being a lawyer. For four years during his law studies, he was coordinator of the arts unit at Alrowwad and also coordinator of volunteers. He taught dance and has gone on tour with the Alrowwad traveling theater company in France, Belgium, the United States, Sweden, Denmark, Austria, and Luxembourg. He gives back by sharing his positive and energized self to others whenever and wherever he can.

Woud's and Ribal's stories reflect those of many other children who have grown up at Alrowwad. Thanks to its existence, they are now becoming the new face of Palestine.

Import, Export

When Abdelfattah returned to his homeland, he made a commitment to himself and his community to put the priority of the people before the priority of any political party. As he saw anger and armed resistance against Israel rising, he was surprised to see similar emotions and aggressive behavior playing out inside Palestine as well, between the major political parties. In a highly partisan culture, it became clear that to affiliate with a party might well lead toward a path to disputes and violence for both him and his children, so he determined that he needed to remain independent of any political party on a personal as well as organization level.

Remaining independent was not an easy thing to accomplish. Ultimately it meant that neither political side would ever give him money and support. So he developed a number of partnerships inside and outside Palestine to sustain the operations of the center along with a growing number of outreach programs within Palestine's borders. He started to create networks and “Friends of Alrowwad” organizations in France and worked on similar connections with nonprofits in the United States. His work quickly rippled out. Not long ago, four schools came to the Center from Norway looking for a partner to support in Palestine. The sixteen- to eighteen-year-old students—from a calm, mostly peaceful country—really had their eyes opened to the differences in how people live and to the changes they themselves might be able to make to help others in the world. They were deeply inspired to connect and committed to build their partnership with Alrowwad. This partnership became a blueprint for how Alrowwad could create future changemakers both in and outside of Palestine.

In 2010 alone, sixteen hundred people from about fifteen countries visited the Center in the Aida Refugee Camp. Some visitors were inspired to work with the Center; others were just thankful for the opportunity to meet with people who exemplified a spirit of hope. Many who visited connected with different issues or interests—sometimes environmental, sometimes political, humanistic, or artistic. But normally the biggest connection is made through Abdelfattah's passion for what he does and his way of making people feel responsible for their involvement in making change happen. He does not want to be seen as a humanitarian case, nor a case of charity or pity, so instead he involves people in the spirit of partnership. This type of relationship makes supporters feel part of what Alrowwad does, and they often come back annually to see what transpired over the year and what the future possibilities could be. Alrowwad has become a model program for children growing up in conflict zones anywhere in the world. As the story of the Center's impact circulates outside Palestine, replication will follow.

Many who come make a commitment to volunteer. It's a continuous relationship and partnership that goes beyond a funding issue. It's a commitment to something they feel part of, and their participation is as important for them as it is for the Center. Usually, people who are in solidarity with Palestine are from an older generation. So this is a great model where really young people can learn and understand the issue and get committed to a cause. After spending two days in Alrowwad, they see what the Center does, they stay among the young people, everyone works together, and they all experience the possibilities for exchange. The emotional and intellectual connections affect everyone, and all feel that they are now part of a change that empowers action rather than overwhelms with despair and inertia. These intangible and unquantifiable sentiments propel students to see themselves as future world changemakers. As they mature they will hopefully commit themselves to the values that we share as human beings. Abdelfattah is hoping to export this model outside Palestine, so it can be duplicated; his vision is that this will go a long way to create a world where we won't deform our values to win an election or to please others around us, but we will elect or choose our leaders because they uphold those values that we treasure.

Conversely, when the Center's theater troupe performs its story in different places around the world, it often causes a dramatic learning experience for everyone. After a performance when the troupe recently visited the southern part of the United States, an African American student remarked that though she often complained that she couldn't do this or that where she lived, how can she now continue to complain when the Alrowwad kids live in a refugee camp and can hardly do anything that she can in the United States? In Paris, France, the troupe performed in the Eighteenth Arrondissement, a poor section of the city predominantly inhabited by foreigners. What a revelation when the kids from Palestine realized that the kids in Paris were poorer than they were!

Seeing how others are living, how others are struggling in different places, created much more impact in strengthening the idea that we are all human beings and we all share an equal part in making changes for each other. Abdelfattah hopes that these lessons will help everyone get beyond their own prisons, beyond their own realities, and see how connected they are to others around them. For Abdelfattah, that was the point at which he knew that the message finally reached his children—that there are different injustices in different countries, whether social, religious, or economic. This knowledge, he realized, unites everyone and inspires respect regardless of where someone lives, or their color or nationality.

Values Need to Surpass Violence

But for this to happen Abdelfattah knows that people's priorities have to become less superficial. They need to focus less on what football match they are watching, what concert they are going to, or who a celebrity marries (or divorces). He gets annoyed that when it comes to essential issues, very few people are thinking about them: “You will find millions in the streets when a football game is happening but for environmental issues, for attacks on culture, for lack of teachers or good schools, these valuable causes become secondary to the sport matches on television or radio.” He wants people to start to focus more on these extremely important problems and rescue the future of humanity.

When Abdelfattah came back to Palestine in 1994, nonviolence was a totally unpopular concept because it was transmitted as a passive and negative action that involved normalization with Israelis. In those years, anything that sounded peaceful, and therefore potentially compromising, was not an acceptable stand for a Palestinian to make. It took quite a long time for Abdelfattah to explain that his way of resistance did not signify giving up or giving in—it was just a way to hold on to your values and beliefs and express them in “beautiful versus ugly ways.” But the vision and passion for the legacy and spirit he was trying to kindle was far stronger than the mockery and accusations he had to endure. He dared not to fear being called a coward and passive. He held fast to his vision that Palestinians deserve their rights and their homeland, and also to his belief that those cannot be obtained with violence and with the huge cost of losing a piece of your heart and soul to hatred. To his credit, just recently Abdelfattah has been hearing Palestinian political parties and even the prime minister talk about the importance of nonviolence being an acceptable part of popular resistance. He feels it's quite a breakthrough for people in positions of authority and political leadership to work toward helping the Palestinian people find peace within themselves and rekindle the inner beauty he fears they have been losing. The true long-lasting impact will be the change from the negative connotation of nonviolent resistance as passive and compromising to its positive meaning, which is in line with and integral to the noncompromised values of the people.

Over the years, since Abdelfattah started Alrowwad and his Beautiful Resistance movement, he has become more aware of the importance and power of every individual and the extent to which he needs commitment from many individuals to make values surpass violence. He has become more convinced that there can be no compromises on human values. When he thinks about injustice, he is determined that a key part of his role as a changemaker is to be true to these values. This conviction has gotten him to think beyond his needs as a Palestinian to those he has as a universal human being.

Abdelfattah relates his favorite story:

There was a village which was about to suffer from hunger so the chief of the village asked everybody to come and say, well, we may have difficult months ahead, so what do you propose? Someone said, we can share. Everyone can contribute one liter of milk in a container in the center of the village so we can make cheese, we can make butter, we can make yogurt. So everybody was happy with the idea, and everybody agreed. All during the night people were pouring their liters in the big container. Next morning, they open the big container, and what do they find? They find only water in the container.

Everyone was thinking, if one puts one liter of water in all this milk, no one will notice. Everyone was thinking I don't have to do it, everyone else will do it. And they were mistaken, because everyone is responsible and I am saying every day I am going with my liter of milk to this big container. If you want to join in that's fine, if you don't, that's fine as well, but I will never go to this container with a liter of water. This is the commitment I have made after thirteen years of flirting with this Beautiful Resistance.

Abdelfattah knows that, like Woud, his people need to build peace within for themselves before they can build peace with others. His ultimate goal is to never hear people say, “We die, we die, so that Palestine lives,” but instead to hear, “We live, we live, so that Palestine and every other country can live as well.”