[Reader-list] A Pianist and a Passport: Daniel Barenboim, Palestine and Israel

[shuddha at sarai.net]

Dear all, 

for quite some time now, I have had an interest in what might be described
somewhat roughly as 'the ethics of treason', or, the moral choices made by
a person who is described as a 'traitor' by his own people. The word
'own'here is used somewhat thoughtlessly, because the kind of 'traitor' I
am interested in is precisely the kind of person who refuses to let his
conscience, or his acts be 'owned' by his 'own' people. He is the Hindu who
is hated by Hindutva types, the Muslim harrassed by Islamists, the
Christian anathemized by the church, the Communist who has no place within
a Communist Party, the person who loves the land he or she lives in (not
necessarily exclusively, but nevertheless passionately)  but who is hounded
out by Nationalists.

I believe (following a reading of the Italian-German writer, activist and
politican Alexander Langer) that such 'traitors' (on all sides) are
actually vitally necessary for the difficult undertaking of getting people
caught in webs of animosity to learn to live with each other. I am learning
how to be a traitor, an apprentice in treason.

That is one reason why I am appending the text below (which was posted
recently by Patrice Riemens on Nettime) . It is written by Daniel
Barenboim, a person whose music making (he is an excellent classical
Pianist) has occasionally given me some moments of solace when the weather
on this list has been particularly heavy.

He (Barenboim) shared with the late Edward Said a great love for music
(Said was also a talented pianist) and a conversation that included dealing
with the difficult destiny of being an Israeli in dialogue with Edward
Said. (Said, as is well known, was a Palestinian exile). Being Israeli
means being implicated in the tribulations of Palestinians, just as being
Palestinian means an ongoing and difficult engagement (whether you like it
or not) with the reality of the State of Israel.

In the piece below, Barenboim spells out his reasons for accepting a
Palestinian passport (an act for which he will no doubt be considered a
traitor by many in Israel).

While I personally would not invest a gesture like accepting or refusing a
nationality  with meaning for myself(because I am not a nationalist, and
accepting or refusing nationalities is in some ways meaningless to me). I
do appreciate what it means for someone like Daniel Barenboim to do so. I
am not saying this to offer some patronizing endorsement of Barenboims act,
but as a token of my respect for some one who performs a manifestly
unpopular act on the basis of his convictions about the conduct of his own
nation-state. He accepts a Palestinian passport, because he values what it
means for someone like him to be an Israeli. I view passports and
nationalities, coldly, instrumentally. Barenboim probably does not, which
is preciely why his position is interesting to me. His is a choice that I
may not make, but I am compelled to value the ethical ground from which it
arises. I am not religious, but I often respect the sources of religious
action far more than I do the arrogance of people who are not religious. I
am not a patriot, but in Barenboim, I see the kind of confllicted, but
deeply passionate patriotism that even someone as indifferent as I am to
the affects that tie people to land(s) must learn to respect.

Barenboim's own dissent towards Zionism (which does not take away a jot
from his love and passion for Jewish culture and traditions, and his
passionate commitment vis-a-vis locating himself within the history of
Israel)  and Said's dissatisfaction with Palestinian nationalism (and his
lifelong commitment to fighting the good fight for justice for Palestinian
people) makes both of  them the kind of people I have learnt to respect.
Perhaps Barenboim's act could be seen in close proximity to the
passionately (and some would argue, peculiarly Jewish refusal) of people
like Hannah Arendt and Franz Rosenzweig to buy into the nationalist
particularism of zionism.

The more immersed I am in the vocabularies and cultures that are associated
with the history of the landmass of the country called India, the more
internally distant I become to the claims (constitutional and otherwise)
made on me by the apparatus of the state called the Republic of India.
Sometimes I think that an appreciation of a civilization must necessarily
require one to abjure the grandiose perversion of its ideals that occurs
within the civilizational travesty called the nation-state. This is
especially true when nation states pretend to inherit for themselves the
mantle of civilizations, rather than seeing themselves as being the mere
accidents of history that they are.

Accordingly, I pay my taxes scrouplously as a citizen, but I save my
conscience through acts of ethical treason to the very entity I pay my
taxes to. Inhabiting this paradox is one of the consequences of having to
live here, now. And I will always quietly sit or walk away when a national
anthem is played, or a flag is hoisted.

Here (below) is the recent piece by Barenboim in the International Herald
Tribune that I began by talking about and I offer it on this list with the
hope that it may be of interest to some of you. I find Barenboim's candour
and sensibility refreshing, and as full of light as his music making.

regards

Shuddha
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Israeli and Palestinian
By Daniel Barenboim

International Herald Tribune: Tuesday, January 29, 2008

BERLIN: I have often made the statement that the destinies of the Israeli
and Palestinian people are inextricably linked and that there is no
military solution to the conflict. My recent acceptance of Palestinian
nationality has given me the opportunity to demonstrate this more tangibly.

When my family moved to Israel from Argentina in the 1950s, one of my
parents' intentions was to spare me the experience of growing up as
part of a minority - a Jewish minority. They wanted to me to grow up
as part of a majority - a Jewish majority.

The tragedy of this is that my generation, despite having been
educated in a society whose positive aspects and human values have
greatly enriched my thinking, ignored the existence of a minority
within Israel - a non-Jewish minority - which had been the majority in
the whole of Palestine until the creation of the state of Israel in
1948. Part of the non-Jewish population remained in Israel, and other
parts left out of fear or were forcefully displaced.

In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict there was and still is an
inability to admit the interdependence of their two voices. The
creation of the state of Israel was the result of a Jewish-European
idea, which, if it is to extend its leitmotif into the future, must
accept the Palestinian identity as an equally valid leitmotif.

The demographic development is impossible to ignore; Palestinians
within Israel are a minority but a rapidly growing one, and their
voice needs to be heard now more than ever. They now make up
approximately 22 percent of the population of Israel. This is a larger
percentage than was ever represented by a Jewish minority in any
country in any period of history. The total number of Palestinians
living within Israel and in the occupied territories (that is, greater
Israel for the Israelis or greater Palestine for the Palestinians) is
already larger than the Jewish population.

At present, Israel is confronted at once with three problems: the
nature of the modern democratic Jewish state - its very identity; the
problem of Palestinian identity within Israel; and the problem of
the creation of a Palestinian state outside of Israel. With Jordan
and Egypt it was possible to attain what can best be described as an
ice-cold peace without questioning Israel's existence as a Jewish
state.

The problem of the Palestinians within Israel, however, is a much
more challenging one to solve, both theoretically and practically.
For Israel, it means, among other things, coming to terms with the
fact that the land was not barren or empty, "a land without a people,"
an idea that was propagated at the time of its creation. For the
Palestinians, it means accepting the fact that Israel is a Jewish
state and is here to stay.

Israelis, however, must accept the integration of the Palestinian
minority even if it means changing certain aspects of the nature of
Israel; they must also accept the justification for and necessity
of the creation of a Palestinian state next to the state of Israel.
Not only is there no alternative, or magic wand, that will make the
Palestinians disappear, but their integration is an indispensable
condition - on moral, social and political grounds - for the very
survival of Israel.

The longer the occupation continues and Palestinian dissatisfaction
remains unaddressed, the more difficult it is to find even elementary
common ground. We have seen so often in the modern history of the
Middle East that missed opportunities for reconciliation have had
extremely negative results for both sides.

For my part, when the Palestinian passport was offered to me, I
accepted it in the spirit of acknowledging the Palestinian destiny
that I, as an Israeli, share.

A true citizen of Israel must reach out to the Palestinian people with
openness, and at the very least an attempt to understand what the
creation of the state of Israel has meant to them.

The 15th of May, 1948, is the day of independence for the Jews, but
the same day is Al Nakba, the catastrophe, for the Palestinians. A
true citizen of Israel must ask himself what the Jews, known as an
intelligent people of learning and culture, have done to share their
cultural heritage with the Palestinians.

A true citizen of Israel must also ask himself why the Palestinians
have been condemned to live in slums and accept lower standards
of education and medical care, rather than being provided by the
occupying force with decent, dignified and liveable conditions, a
right common to all human beings. In any occupied territory, the
occupiers are responsible for the quality of life of the occupied, and
in the case of the Palestinians, the different Israeli governments
over the last 40 years have failed miserably. The Palestinians
naturally must continue to resist the occupation and all attempts to
deny them basic individual needs and statehood. However, for their own
sake this resistance must not express itself through violence.

Crossing the boundary from adamant resistance (including non-violent
demonstrations and protests) to violence only results in more innocent
victims and does not serve the long-term interests of the Palestinian
people. At the same time, the citizens of Israel have just as much
cause to be alert to the needs and rights of the Palestinian people
(both within and outside Israel) as they do to their own. After all,
in the sense that we share one land and one destiny, we should all
have dual citizenship.


(Daniel Barenboim, a pianist and conductor, is music director of the
Staatskapelle Berlin and principal guest conductor at La Scala Opera
in Milan. He is co-founder with Edward Said of the West-Eastern Divan
Orchestra, which brings together Arab and Israeli musicians.)