Choice

A new blog for a new adventure. I'm writing this first post about my upcoming new life in Nablus from the secure environment of my bedroom in the safe and stable country of the Netherlands. Within a few weeks I will be back in the Holy Land with renewed spirit for a second episode of the battle called Palestine.
The first episode was in June and I managed to withstand the Israeli "security measures" and the whole conflict altogether. I did... although maybe not completely without injuries. I might have incurred a few scratches on my soul, but in general I'm fine. I'm Dutch. The difference is that for me it is a decision to go there. For Palestinians it's not a choice, it's life... even when they live at the other side of the world, Palestine is not a choice.
I must be crazy to give up my perfectly fine organised, stable and cozy life for the reality of brutality. When I sit here in my bedroom with the omnipresent peace (not only from the absence of violence, but also from the absence of that enduring cacophony of bizar sounds) to think things through, it seems that this time for me it's also not that much of a choice anymore.
I've let it into my heart, I've let it get to me.... how much percent choice is left?? The choice has already been made while I was still in Palestine, subconciously. It was not a choice about going back or not, it was choice about opening up to people, attaching yourself and allowing yourself to attach. About bridging distances and differences. About erasing all the bullshit that is surrounding life and embracing the core. At that time I didn't see it as a choice, I naively assumed that it was a natural process... part of the Palestine experience that all Internationals went through. I couldn't have been more wrong and to realize that has been so painful for me. Many of the internationals that have been to Palestine, or maybe even the majority (but I still want to preserve some of my naive optimism) has made the choice not to see, not to feel Palestine in its entirety. They reject Palestine by neglecting, or denying important parts of the reality of Palestine. I've experienced that they are eager to embrace and even glorify the suffering of the Palestinians, but are not willing to show the same 'commitment' for the more ugly sides of the Palestinian story. The sensitive political issues don't contain the 'x-factor'. They don't want to accept the correlation between the widely beloved suffering and the nasty outcomes of this suffering. Their language is that of reconciliation, peace, non-violent resistance, mutual understanding. There's no understanding, however, for violent resistance, out of fear of gloryfying terrorism. By doing this they completely obstruct reality. By giving too much priority to peace, they fail to see the importance of freedom... Should freedom not be, at least, equally important as peace? Can there even be peace without freedom? Peace can not be imposed and it can definitely not be imposed in a situation where injustice thrives.
To make the decision to see with sincerity, really how rotten Palestine has been made, is almost to make the decision to come back simultaneously. Chosing to attach means giving up the CHOICE to come back, it becomes part of who you are. For me to do this, feels as nothing more than a natural outcome of the flow of life itself.