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Send Mary in
There used to be a joke that, if you ever became stuck in a lift in Jerusalem with five people, by the time you were released you would have heard five different theories on how to resolve the problems of the Middle East, a new political party would have been formed and someone would have threatened to kill someone else.
Nowadays there is a new term being used for people having those kind of simplified opinions. It’s their ‘narratives’ and the perfect narrative has to be less than 140 characters so that it can be tweeted. Mind you we have our narratives here in Scotland too. ‘In Glasgow everything is so dreadful that nothing is serious, whilst in Edinburgh everything is so serious that nothing is dreadful’. This is probably the most famous and it summarises Scotland in only 112 characters. Well, it does, doesn’t it? No, of course not. Nothing is that simple.
Last week millions of dollars were being spent by various publicity machines trying to convince the global community of the validity of one of two competing narratives that summarised the two polemics. The first was that the poor Israelis were only defending themselves against the rocket attacks by firing a few missiles (101) and the other was that the poor Palestinians were only defending themselves against the bullying Israelis by firing a few rockets (92). And these narratives summarise the situation, don’t they? Of course not. Nothing is that simple.
How should we respond to the nonsense of the current Middle East crisis being so trivialised? Well, let me offer my own narrative. Rat diplomacy. It’s a technique I first developed in Ramallah some three years ago and as it may yet save the world and win me the Nobel peace prize you should concentrate hard and pay attention.
I had somehow managed to blag my way into the headquarters of the Palestinian movement on the West Bank and was indeed a bit mystified at how easy it had been. And then I realised that it was one of their specially set aside narrative days.
It was bizarre. They had this permanent crew of protestors who are called up every publicity day to do a token protest. On these days, 200 or so good souls take out their banners and march up and down, usually in front of virtually nobody. A request from a visiting hack to visit was a Godsend as, even although nobody had ever heard of him, I would at least provide some kind of an audience and give heart to the troops. So my photographer and I stood in front of the virtually empty building with about a dozen PLA politicians, watched the protest drama team demonstrate for 10 minutes and then we all applauded and went off to have apple tea.
Having come a long way for this event I was however determined to get a little more out of my day and managed to get a 20-minute slot with the main man of the Palestinian Authority who was good enough to sit down on the other side of a formica desk and parrot his own narrative to perfection (I had read it all online the night before) before giving me the sort of look that said: ‘Now, whoever you are, will you please get out of my office as I want to go and have a fag with my pals on the balcony’.
It was then that the clouds parted and rat diplomacy was born. Sitting on the desk behind the great man was a computer which was permanently switched on to his email account which to my good fortune was also my own brand. As I left I asked if he would very much mind if I checked my own emails, which was a bit of cheek really as I already knew what they all said. And in particular the one from my sister Mary, who is a saint. But as I opened Mary’s email I let out a bogus scream of such horror that even a man such as he could hardly ignore it. ‘The bitch!’ I yelled. ‘The wretched bitch!’ A foul observation given her nature, but my outrage was after all in the interest of world peace.
To my delight the politician was so moved by my tale that he
called in his fellow cabinet members from their fag break and insisted that I repeat my story (all this is true) and to a man they all agreed that poor Mary was well out of order, with one observing that if it had been in the kitchen that was fair enough, but the attic? No, that was man’s work. Then came their questions. Had she a husband? Did she get a quote? I should have a sharp word with her. (He obviously didn’t know my sister.)
Soon they were telling me their own rat stories. There was nothing I could tell them about rats – they were Palestinians, they had had to live in dreadful conditions for years. I must see the refugee camps, there were rats there the size of cats. After 40 minutes we were all the best of pals. Next time I was passing I should drop in. They wanted to hear if I had got rid of the rat, got rid of the lodger and found Mary a husband that might settle her a bit. As I left it occurred to me that if I ever got the chance to interview another Palestinian I should just start by opening my laptop and yelling ‘The bitch!’ and telling him the rat story from the get go. My sister later agreed and said that I could defame her anywhere on the planet if it would be of any help. Like I say, the woman is a saint. Of course there is a serious point here.
We now live in a world in which our shared humanity is only a click of a button away. There are now a billion people on Facebook, most of whom I imagine have their own rat stories which they would be only too delighted to share and through sharing become closer. In this new world order created by cheap and instant
communication, the trick is going to be circumventing the narratives, the ideologies, the advertising campaigns, the religious bigotry, the suspicions, the lies.
The infinite complexity of the current situation in the Middle East, which may well yet lead to a massive war, can only be resolved through the slow build-up of trust between peoples; any other theory, any other narrative, is just self delusion. We had better be quick though. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.
Maxwell MacLeod is an author and journalist
