No Kwanzaa in the Motherland - 2

eid al-milad.
bet lehem 12.24/12.25

On Christmas Eve, Nancy (a Palestinian friend of mine from the office) offered to take Ros, her friend Vince, and me to Bethlehem for the Christmas festivities.

I had no idea what to expect.

Every year, the Christian (and particularly – Catholic) community in Bethlehem holds a parade of scouts from schools across Palestine welcoming the Patriarch of Jerusalem into town for Christmas Mass.
[Last year, evidently, it was particularly desolate because the army refused to allow in scouts from other cities in the West Bank or Israel.]

This year was different – creepily different, in fact. Soldiers at the checkpoint were wishing visitors a “khag sameakh” (happy holiday), and going noticeably – uncomfortably – out of their way to be cordial. [Suffice it to say, it wasn’t the same going to Ramallah on Eid al-Adha.]Don’t be alarmed; they were quick to revert back to normal behavior on December 26th.

We went into the Church of the Nativity, and then onto Manger Square where we waited for the parade to begin.

By 1:30, when the parade was slated to (and actually did!) begin, there was a good deal of people in the plaza – both Christian AND Muslim Palestinians, and foreigners from all over the world. There was a French woman next to us who insisted that she move inside the barrier that the police had put up because, she objected, “I am French! I am French!”

Sahhat il-Mahd – Manger Square – reminded me, in structure and in spirit, of the plazas so common to southern Europe – especially Spain and Italy. I think the NATURE of Palestinian youth is to spend the better part of the night in cafes around the saha, slowly sipping tea and gossiping; they remain, instead, bound by self-imposed cultural formalities. This holds true in Bethlehem and in all other Palestinian cities where young people (especially girls) who would much rather be out drinking Arabic coffee with their friends are too often cooped up in their houses on a Saturday night watching Grey’s Anatomy and Friends. (There are clearly exceptions – but, from my observation, they remain exactly that.) This is due to three main factors, which feed sequentially off of one another:
1. The familial nature of Palestinian society.
2. A stigma against girls going out by themselves.
3. A lack of cafés conducive to guys and girls hanging out together. (Most of them are just men sitting around playing cards and smoking argeelah)

I digress. The parade itself was a sight I would seldom have imagined upon Palestine.

Scouts ages 7 to 47 (those who graduate remain eternal members of the troop) descended upon the square. Each troop had its drum brigade, its baton carrier, its flag bearers, and its younger troopers who just tagged alone in their uniforms. Some wore kilts; others had berets, and still others donned bandanas around their necks emblazoned with their troops logos. The scouts played instruments too – the best of which were the oh-so-Palestinian bagpipes. As they proceeded toward the Church, the flag bearers proudly raised the Palestinian flag, swiftly followed by the troop flag complete with their hometowns – Ramallah, Ram, Bethlehem, Nazareth, Jericho, Haifa.

The patriarch eventually graced us with his holy presence almost two hours later, identifiable in his massive surroundings only by the bright deflated beach ball he wore on his head.

I’ll describe the next two segments of the Christmas extravaganza in brief.

1. Christmas Eve Evening at Manger Square

After dinner at Nancy’s – complete with about 17 salatat, rice, chicken from the oven, and cup after cup of laban – we went back to Bethlehem for a series of concerts that had been planned. At 6:00 pm, the Edward Said National Music Conservatory performed.

We arrived at 8:30.

We missed the best part.

By the time we got there, as Vincent so keenly observed, the atmosphere was more like the Lucas County Fair than a Christmas Eve Celebration in Manger Square. You can imagine, I’m sure, that only 2 hours earlier, the environment had been ripe for Palestinian and international families to enjoy together. When we got there, though, Manger Square had achieved “post-dusk county fair” status. While solemn Christmas carols were being sung on the grandstand the crowd was tossing each other in the air, clapping, and moshing in the spirit of Christmas.


2. Christmas Night Hafleh

We went to a hafleh in Bethlehem – an Arab party – thrown by the Arab Catholic Club of Jerusalem. It’s REMARKABLE how little the haflat here vary from the ones I’m so used to at home:

Huge family tables with communal food in the middle;
A dance floor too small for its purpose;
People arguing as to whether the table they’re sitting at is in fact rightfully theirs; Little children running around EVERYWHERE;
All of the parents complaining that there are too many kids;
5 year old boys hitting on 5 year old girls;
5 year old boys hitting on 25 year old girls;
Moms begging their sons to dance, and their sons refusingly profusely, dragging their feet as their mom pulls them on to the dance floor (it wasn’t just me, mom);
Shaming fathers into buying raffle tickets for their entire family;
Elias Haddad.

The one thing that bothered me, and continues to bother me, is that in the 4 and a half hours I spent at the hafleh, they did not dance a SINGLE dabkeh.

Not ONE.

I was distressed, and I asked around as to why that might be. Why not dance dabkeh at a hafleh? Surely, it’s a way for mothers to get their sons to dance. Surely, they played at least 2 or 3 dabkeh songs, if not 4. Surely, they sang songs about Palestine and did the whole call and response “Oaf Oaf Oafffffff” business.

So it’s not about national sentiment.
It’s not about an inability to dance.

My friend Nadim told me that they just don’t dabkeh at Christmas. Haifa’s daughter Mai told me that they don’t dance dabkeh at haflat anymore. What is the STORY?

I’m determined to find out.