Peeve Farm

g r o t t o 1 1

Peeve Farm
Breeding peeves for show, not just to keep as pets

  Blog \Blôg\, n. [Jrg, fr. Jrg. "Web-log".
     See {Blogger, BlogSpot, LiveJournal}.]
     A stream-of-consciousness Web journal, containing
     links, commentary, and pointless drivel.

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Saturday, August 3, 2002
03:58 - Hope for Rationality	(top)
One other NPR point-of-interest that I passed like a ship in the night on the way home was the always-interesting This American Life segment, which this time was a fairly in-depth look at life in the West Bank, from both the Israeli and Palestinian perspectives. They got Israeli high-school students dishing about dating; they got Palestinian blue-collar workers grumbling about being cooped up day after day due to the imposed-at-gunpoint curfews; they got a look in at the Knesset, where the right-wing Likud party HQ was full of supporters and life and energy, whereas the pro-peace-process Labor wing was all but abandoned, and the phones silent; they got a Palestinian-American developer working on building a large glass-walled shopping mall in a West Bank town, who spoke with careful nonchalance about how the Palestinian Authority and the big shareholders of the regional phone company had looted the company by splitting off the lucrative cellular division into a new company in which the PA and the bigwigs were the only shareholders-- on the very same day that the PA was pledging to the Europeans that the PA would be divesting itself of its private holdings in a show of good faith towards an honest free market. And then he had to hurry to hail a cab for the reporter and zoom off so he wouldn't get shot when a curfew was suddenly re-imposed. But most interesting to me was the street-interview segment where they talked about a politically high-profile doctor named Mustafa Barghouti, who has built up quite a reputation for himself as the leader of a volunteer medical task force providing emergency care to people in the West Bank. To a man, every single person interviewed described Barghouti as "a good man-- a good, good guy". Presented as a "third alternative" (next to Arafat and the leader of Hamas), he seemed to be an ideal candidate, at least in our eyes, for filling Arafat's political shoes. He's moderate (he advocates non-violence and opposes suicide bombings on moral grounds as well as tactical ones); he's reasonable (he wants to see a return to 1967 borders, but his is a two-state solution that doesn't eventually end up being a one-state and Israeli-minority solution, the way other "moderates" want it); and he's secular. He's run for office before, and he's only lost because his opponent (his brother Marwan, who is much more extreme in his views, sort of a Malcolm X figure) was said to have fixed the elections-- which he only narrowly won anyway. It would seem that Barghouti would be an ideal horse to back. Except for what the street interviewees had to say. Though they all loved Barghouti, none of them seemed willing to vote for him if he were to run. When asked who they would vote for if given a choice between Arafat and Barghouti, those interviewed said they'd pick Arafat. When pressed for why, they repeated the same phrase: He is our father; he is our symbol. (This could well be the result of fear of secret-police inquisitions, but considering how much stock these folks seem to put in symbols, I'm not at all sure that these sentiments aren't genuine.) And if given a choice between Barghouti and one of the Hamas mucky-mucks, the interviewees said they'd take the Hamas guy. Why? Because Hamas is religious, and Barghouti is secular. "Everything Hamas does is based on our religion," said one interviewee. So there we have it. If we can take this as any kind of representative sample, a true democratic vote-- if taken tomorrow-- would probably still turn up Arafat as a winner. Even if people distrust him and find him to be corrupt and ineffectual, he's our father and our symbol. Opinions are opinions. But change? Nooo... we can't have that. I've seen this kind of mentality before. People will complain about a situation that is just bad enough to make them complain but not bad enough to make them want to do something about it. It's the art of keeping people on a knife edge. Microsoft has mastered it, and so has Arafat, apparently. So on one hand, I'm cheered that people like Barghouti-- with blue jeans and a pin-striped shirt, leading non-violent chanting protests against curfew conditions-- exist in the occupied Palestinian areas. But on the other, I'm discouraged at the thought that the Palestinians are more concerned with preserving symbols than with forging themselves a better life. But at least those poll numbers keep fluctuating. If a shakeup occurs, at least there's some nonzero chance of a rational, charismatic, secular leader taking the reins. Not a large one. But larger than it used to be.