Text by: Adam Bashar
Photos by: Activestills.org

Members of a Sudanese refugee dance group from the Darfur region dressed with traditional costumes dance on stage as part of a cultural festival of the Sudanese community at a cultural center in south Tel Aviv on February 15, 2013. (Shiraz Grinbaum/Activestills.org)

The idea behind The Cultural Day of the Sudanese refugees community, held at the Goren Goldstein Country Club in south Tel Aviv, was to expose local Israelis to the tradition of our uprooted community. We worked jointly with representatives from the different tribes living in Israel to create an event that will tell the story of the harsh situation we as refugees experience, while sharing our culture through dance, music and comedy.

The shadows of members of a theater group of Sudanese refugees from the Darfur region are seen on a white sheet as they perform at a cultural center in south Tel Aviv, February 15, 2013. (Shiraz Grinbaum/Activestills.org)

 

Sudanese refugees cheer a theater group from the Darfur region as they perform at a cultural center in south Tel Aviv, February 15, 2013. (Shiraz Grinbaum/Activestills.org)

 

A Sudanese refugee from the Nuba Mountain region dances in a traditional costume as part of a cultural festival of the Sudanese community at a cultural center in south Tel Aviv on February 15, 2013. (Shiraz Grinbaum/Activestills.org)

 

Sudanese girls watch a theater group from the Darfur region as they perform at a cultural center in south Tel Aviv, February 15, 2013. (Shiraz Grinbaum/Activestills.org)

 

Members of a dance group of Sudanese refugees from the Darfur region dressed with traditional costumes moments before going on stage as part of a cultural festival of the Sudanese community at a cultural center in south Tel Aviv on February 15, 2013. (Shiraz Grinbaum/Activestills.org)

 

The hosts of the cultural day welcome the audience at the opening of the event, cultural center in south Tel Aviv, February 15, 2013. (Shiraz Grinbaum/Activestills.org)

 

Members of a Sudanese theater group from the Darfur region perform at a cultural center in south Tel Aviv, February 15, 2013. (Shiraz Grinbaum/Activestills.org)

Adam Bashar is a refugee from Darfur living in Israel, and a social activist in the Sudanese community. He volunteers with the the Bnai Darfur NGO.

Carrying giant puppets, Palestinians of Al-Walaja, together with Palestinian, international, and Israeli supporters organized by the Freedom Bus campaign march through the West Bank village of Al-Walaja to protest the Israeli separation wall, September 28, 2012. (photo: Ryan Rodrick Beiler/Activestills.org)

The Freedom Bus, an initiative of Jenin’s Freedom Theatre, uses interactive theatre and cultural activism to bear witness, raise awareness and build alliances throughout occupied Palestine and beyond.

A Freedom Bus ensemble performs interactive playback theatre in Aida Refugee Camp, September 27, 2012. (photo: Anne Paq/Activestills.org)

From September 23-October 1 2012, Palestinians and allies from around the world took part in a 9-day solidarity ride through 11 communities in the West Bank of occupied Palestine. During the ride, Palestinian actors and musicians used playback theatre to perform the personal accounts of various community members. Enactments were based on real-life stories on the realities of life under Israeli occupation. The stories we heard underscored the rich Palestinian history of steadfastness, creative protest, and popular struggle.

An audience of Palestinians with international and Israeli supporters watches a performance of the Freedom Bus next to the separation wall in Aida Refugee Camp, September 27, 2012. (photo: Anne Paq/Activestills.org)

The ride was inspired by the Freedom Rides of 1961 in the USA, which saw civil rights activists travel through Southern states challenging segregation, and the Australian Freedom Rides of 1964 and 1965, which raised the issue of indigenous rights. Embracing this radical inheritance, the Freedom Bus promotes cultural resistance using concerts, university seminars, playback theatre performances, community visits, hip-hop, and giant puppet shows.

Carrying giant puppets, Palestinians of Al Walaja, together with Palestinian, international, and Israeli supporters march through the West Bank village of Al-Walaja as part of the Freedom Bus campaign. (photo: Ryan Rodrick Beiler/Activestills.org)

The Freedom Bus visited some of the most besieged areas of the West Bank, including Nabi Saleh, where weekly protests are held against the confiscation of Palestinian land, and villagers suffer military violence from the Israeli army; Faq’ua, where residents are denied access to water resources that irrigate Israeli fields on the other side of the separation barrier; and At-Tuwani, where villagers nonviolently resist harassment from settlers and the Israeli army by continuing to work their land.

The Freedom Bus ensemble performs in solidarity with Faq’ua village near the West Bank city of Jenin, September 23, 2012. The people of Faq’ua shared personal stories about daily life under Israeli occupation. The Freedom Bus ensemble turned each story into a piece of improvised theater. (photo: Ahmad Al-Bazz/ Activestills.org)

In the shadow of the Israeli separation wall, youth from Al Walaja play drums under a Handala figure, a symbol of Palestinian refugee rights, during a march and cultural event as part of the Freedom Bus tour in the village of Al Walaja, September 28, 2012. (photo: Anne Paq/Activestills.org)

The Freedom Bus ensemble performs in the old city of Nablus, September 24, 2012. Local residents shared personal stories about life under Israeli occupation and the Israeli invasion of 2002. The Freedom Bus ensemble turned each story into a piece of improvised theater. (photo: Ahmad Al-Bazz/ Activestills.org)

Carrying giant puppets, Palestinian, international, and Israeli supporters march through the West Bank village of Al Walaja during a Freedom Bus event, September 28, 2012. (photo by: Ryan Rodrick Beiler/Activestills.org)

The Haifa-based reggae group Ministry of Dub-Key performs at a finale concert for the Freedom Bus tour in Beit Sahour, October 1, 2012. The Freedom Bus, an initiative of the Jenin Freedom Theater, traveled throughout the West Bank using cultural activism to bear witness, raise awareness, and build alliances throughout Palestine and beyond. (photo: Ryan Rodrick Beiler/Activestills.org)

Decca Muldowney is the Communications Director for The Freedom Bus.

So this rare, happy finding reported in Haaretz this week caught my eye:

A new study found a link between culture and tolerance: Israeli teens who watched plays about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict became more optimistic about the chances of achieving peace and viewed Palestinians more positively.

I read closely, because disappointment can set in upon finding out that the “research” involved non-rigorous methodology, or seems to be an obvious PR ploy – even if I approve of the goal, poor research taints the findings.

But the study turned out to have been conducted by an established faculty member of the School of Public Health at Haifa University, Dr. Anat Gesser-Edelsberg, and two colleagues, Dr. Nurit Guttman and Dr. Moshe Israelshwili. Dr. Gesser Edelsberg has published related research in academic journals and the three have researched/written together for y ears.

They sampled a good 540 Israeli teenagers, aged 16-18, writes Haaretz, and did a nice experiment of surveying the teens before and after the kids watched two plays  displaying the dilemmas of the conflict. One was Yael Ronen’s play “Plonter,” and while the other one was not named, both are part of the “culture basket” of cultural pieces sponsored by the Education Ministry and community centers.

The Haaretz report provides a good selection of the data, showing clear and attitudinal changes:

[Students] were shown two plays on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict…before watching the plays, 55 percent of the students believed the conflict would not be resolved because the Palestinians don’t want peace. Afterward, only 38 percent held these beliefs. Before they saw the plays, 47 percent of the students said they had no interest in Palestinians in the occupied territories, but only 27 percent said so afterward.

Initially, 65 percent said their feelings about Palestinians were mostly negative. This changed to 47 percent. And 78 percent initially said the checkpoint and roadblock policy should be maintained. This dropped to 60 percent.

The study was founded on the theory of “edutainment” – educational entertainment, according to which entertainment can be used to educate while not being perceived as preachy.

Some people here in the peace activist world have been searching for such techniques for a long time – perhaps part of the reason these plays are successful is that they come with a state-sponsored seal of approval, rather than through peace organizations who are being branded ‘traitors,’ and suffering de-legitimization attacks.

The study, as reported, also revealed findings that that might help explain why Israeli young people seem to avoid dealing with the conflict at all. The irony (or perhaps hypocrisy) becomes clear when it turns out that kids are deemed fit to be soldiers but not to handle knowledge about the conflict they’ll be forced to confront.

Gesser-Edelsburg said interviews conducted with educators found that they don’t know how the education system should address the conflict, and therefore prefer to avoid in-depth discussions on the subject. They also avoided holding discussions after the play – even though the researchers said this was essential – preferring instead to see them as pure entertainment.

The play authors called it paradoxical that teachers believe the students aren’t mature enough to discuss the conflict but are mature enough to be handed weapons a few months after graduation.

I was particularly pleased that the study reported on focus groups, which often provide richer illustrations of attitudes behind the numbers. This part didn’t make it into the English Haaretz, so here are a few rare and heartening free translations from the Hebrew version:

[After watching one of the plays addressing the conflict between carrying out an order and basic human feelings] One male youth in a focus group in Ashkelon said: “Of course if I am standing at a roadblock I’ll see them more as people, I’ll deal with them with greater humanity, I’ll give them water if they need it, but the situation is tough and I understand that everyone standing at a roadblock for a long time behaves like an automaton.”

At a focus group in Yehud, one of the girls said, after watching “Plonter” “We’ve always seen this from our side, how limited and scared we are. I saw the Arab as an enemy and suddenly I saw their side, their feelings towards us. Suddenly I saw how much they are human beings like us.

All this made me think how nice to have a parallel study among Palestinians. Although the conflict is not symmetrical, humanity and a nuanced understanding of the other side should be.