a farmer’s connection to the land
a Palestian farmer replants when settlers destoy his crops;
a Palestian shepherd stays with his herd after the Israeli army demolishes his builidings, even though he and his family have to live in a cave;
but also:
a Danish farmer whose farm isn’t yielding enough income commits suicide;
a French farmer who has reached retirement keeps working because it’s what he enjoys;
a Canadian farmer doesn’t quit until he has a stroke;
and so,
the Palestian farmer’s son studies law, talks to diplomats, lectures students, and organises volunteers. Even though the occupier breaks his leg, wrecks his car, beats him and imprisons him.
« Why don’t they just leave ? » said a friend of mine when I tried to explain the situation in Masafer Yatta.
The quick, but superficial, answer to that will involve understanding that, if they leave, these farmers will join the many displaced people in the occupied Palestinian territories or further afield: there are around 6.5 million Palestinian refugees, of whom 260,00 Palestinians live in the refugee camps in the West Bank, subject to raids and bombardment by the IOF. Some of these people are amongst those who Europe’s inhumane migration agreements cause to drown in the Mediterranean.
It will also involve remembering that most people can't just move abroad the way Europeans and rich Americans can. On a daily basis, I chat to people in countries like Turkey or Vietnam; young, multilingual and ambitious professionals who can only dream about and envy the ease with which I can travel when and where I want.
But it’s not just that there’s nowhere to go, and that the oPt is a virtual cage. There is a cultural and social issue, and this is my theme here.
These are farming communities and farming isn’t just about income. For rural communities, it is an identity and a purpose. It is how and why you live. Over the past six weeks, I swapped many stories with different people, about farmers who can’t just give up and leave their land, their projects and their achievements.
‘til his last gasp
I spent a couple of nights in a lovely Ottoman-era villa in Madaba, Jordan. The house is now a fairly casual guesthouse with a shared kitchen and sitting area. I was munching my way through my street-food fare of kebab and tomato salad, washed down with a Jordanian beer.
Yup, beer ! Jordan is not as uniformly Muslim as you might have been led to think. Madaba attracts hordes of tourists who admire Byzantine mosaics in its Christian churches, and craft beer is available in corner shops.
Madaba: St George's Church, Crosses in Guesthouse, Year 1902, Jordanian craft beer.
digression:
As a non-religious European, trying to learn Arabic, you pick up a smattering of Quranic expressions. You get used to recognising verses of the Quran in the
inscriptions on monuments. I try to resist conflating Arabic and Muslim, and I thought I'd succeeded. I've read about the Eastern Churches, have marvelled over the diversity of
Christians sharing the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Despite this, I felt an irrational sense of surprise deciphering the Arabic writing in the Church of St George in Madaba. The
inscription in the first picture is the equivalent of the Latin in the mosaic: "Lamb of God who bears away the sins of the world." I had both a satisfying sense of discovery and of annoying
frustration with these lasting prejudices.
We lazily assume that countries we call "Muslim" have some kind of monolithic monoculture. Right, whatever.... These pictures show something different. This is Jordan too.
My fellow travellers were a Canadian couple, but, oddly enough, after a few polite formalities, we found common ground. They were teasing each other about how hard it had been to get the guy away for a holiday. I could relate to this and we got into a discussion about leaving your herd to be looked after by other people, about the constant worry about weather, harvests and getting hay in on time. About hiring contractors, about repairing machinery…. The French smallholding I had been running was a fraction of the size of an economically viable Canadian farm, but lots of the choices and the worries are similar.
The husband spoke with passion about his daily life and about the satisfaction he experiences every day. He has a fulfilling and fascinating job. However, this tireless young man works on his family’s farm. (He’s a heavily-built 40 year old, but that’s young in this job)
As with any family business, there is a balance between traditon, interdependence and the need for modernisation. I listened as he unburdened himself about conflits and difficulties with his parents. As far as he can see, there is no solution to the problems in his relationship with his father. The father refuses to let go of any responsibilities, needs to be present all the time, won’t take a back seat. The only thing that would stop him would be having a stroke. I thought he was kidding, but quite seriously, the son explained how he had seen this in his friends’ situations, and how it had been the case with his grandfather. In his community, you don’t retire from a farm, you can’t step away from everything that has been your meaning and motivation in life. Literally, you work yourself to death.
His best life
Maybe this isn’t as depressing as it sounds. A conversation with a neighbour of mine in France came to my mind : François had taken over his family farm, living and working with his parents util they died, then managing 60ha of arable land and a herd of beef cattle on his own. He didn’t marry and had no kids. When the time came to retire, he transferred the ownership of the land to his best mate – the farmer whose fields bordered his. These guys had been helping each other out, sharing equipment and tillling and harvesting together for years.
Finally, François got his paperwork sorted and the locals had a get-together to toast his retirement. But from my house, I could still hear him, in his blue tractor, heading out to work. I could see the blue tractor on the slopes, plowing and sowing. At harvest time, he was out with the guys in the middle of the night, racing to get the crops in before the storm broke.
So one evening, we were having a drink – l’apéro: the sundowner, which is the major social institution in the countryside. I was teasing him about not actually having retired, about working himself to the bone, about not being able to say no. He’s a good natured guy who can take a ribbing, but he answered me very seriously this time « You don’t get it. Now, I’m doing what I enjoy, what I really like. Without having to worry about turning a profit and about running a business. »
The financial squeeze
I was chatting to a Danish activist about how hard we found it to see the damage done by zionist thugs to crops in Tuwani, and wondering where the locals found the strength to bounce back after ceaseless attacks. She started talking about the rural community she comes from.
In Denmark, just as in the France that I know, middle-sized farms have been crushed by globalisation. The spiraling costs of energy, tools, administration and rules-and-regulations have put many farmers into a situation of unpayable debts. The need to find economies of scale and to be competitive implies that the "bigger the better". Rising costs and falling income means that a farm that guaranteed a livelihood for a family a generation ago will only yield a pittance now.
My friend explained how her mother managed to survive by reducing the scale of her farm in order to escape costs and stifling over-regulation. But this woman is someone who has had a career outside of farming too, and she had built up her small holding from scratch. Maybe her approach was more managerial, less a gut feeling. Other people in the community tried to keep going. Giving up and changing job would mean defeat. You have to defend your heritage, the achievements of your parents. One of her friends’ fathers kept going until the bitter end. His endless work on the land he had inherited from his parents just wasn’t enough to make ends meet. He couldn’t reconcile himself to suggestions from outsiders, wouldn’t knuckle under. Like many others, he couldn’t face looking for another life, so he took his own.
Settler incursions
For forty years the Israeli Occupation Forces have been destroying buildings and farm equipment, shooting, arresting and harassing people in Masafer Yatta. (Check out my links here or do a web search, it’s all documented) These actions are violations of the Geneva conventions (1) and are crimes against humanity (2).
While I was in Tuwani, the settler movement was a major source of attacks. Yitzhak Rabin told the army to « break their bones » and the settlers have taken that order to heart. We saw scarred bodies ; wrecked material and homes ; damaged plants and lands and listened to stories of pain and trauma.
Instead of leaving, people repair the damage and replant. They renovate the caves of their forebears and they make do with less. I’m thinking that the Occupation doesn’t understand what it’s up against. Those of us with two passports, who flit around the global village and for whom work is no more than the execution of a series of tasks will never understand a farmer’s attachment to the land.
(2) The obligations of the occupying power in international law include:
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The occupying power must take measures to restore and ensure, as far as possible, public order and safety.
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To the fullest extent of the means available to it, the occupying power must ensure sufficient hygiene and public health standards, as well as the provision of food and medical care to the population under occupation.
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Collective or individual forcible transfers of population from and within the occupied territory are prohibited.
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Transfers of the civilian population of the occupying power into the occupied territory, regardless whether forcible or voluntary, are prohibited.
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Collective punishment is prohibited.
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Reprisals against protected persons or their property are prohibited.
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The confiscation of private property by the occupant is prohibited.
It appears to me that all of these rules are violated in Masafer Yatta
source : https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/resources/documents/misc/634kfc.htm
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