Art, Music & Culture

Revd. Jeremy Frost, Precentor of Canterbury Cathedral, expresses through poetry his concerns regarding Bethlehem, a town steeped both in religious history and recent political violence. Frost has visited the Middle East on several occasions, and has researched the theological relationshp between Israel and the Church, countering Christian Zionism in the process.

In December 2003, UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie visited Ruweished refugee camp in eastern Jordan. Jolie, who has been a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador since August 2001 wrote a journal which has been released today by the UN refugee agency. During her one day visit to Ruweished refugee camp, where more than 800 refugees, mostly Palestinians, have settled after fleeing Iraq in April 2003. The actress, who starred in Gone In 60 Seconds and as Lara Croft in Tomb Raider visited the camp’s pre-school. The children at the school told her “their dream is to see their homeland.”

In an unprecedented move, the organisers of France’s largest documentary film festival, Le Festival du Cinéma du Réel (4 to 14 March 2004), held annually at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, have cancelled one of the screenings of the film Route 181 – Fragments of a Journey to Palestine-Israel, which is co-directed by the Palestinian Michel Khleifi and the Israeli Eyal Sivan. Khleifi, a Palestinian, and Sivan, a Jewish Israeli, are not the first filmmakers from the region who have found their work on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to be met with censorship.

Over the last fifteen years or so, multiculturalism in children’s literature has brought some much-needed attention to the Middle East. But what about the Palestinians — key players in the most controversial issue in the whole region? Do Palestinians benefit from the open-minded approach promoted by multiculturalism — the basic idea that all cultural, national, and ethnic groups are worthy of positive attention and deserving of respect? Elsa Marston reports for EI on the representation of Palestinians in children’s literature, which has a lasting impression on readers and shapes their future perceptions of the world and its peoples.

Painter John Keane, who was has travelled to the occupied Palestinian territories, juxtaposes historical and current concerns through traditional and contemporary techniques in his work. Deeply impacted by what he saw, Keane’s paintings in his current exhibition The Inconvenience of History - Paintings from the West Bank and Palestine reflect the despair, humiliation, and the brutality Palestinians suffer under Israeli military occupation. His exhibition has been met with controversy, but will still travel Belfast and Ramallah after concluding in London. Nina Malmsten reports for EI.

The figures in Zahi Khamis’ paintings have twisted necks, their almond-shaped eyes peering upside down, tragically staring out at a land they will never know. The visual experience of the exhibit Of Exile and Return replicates the emotional experience of pain, love, longing and fear that Palestinians feel as they struggle to define themselves. Khamis, a Palestinian who has lived in the US for 22 years, sees his paintings as a commentary not only on Palestinians exiled from their homeland, but on humanity as a whole, for whom home plays a central role in defining the self.