The poet as diplomat:
Kelly, Mary Pat
ment would be phased in over a lengthy but reasonable peri- Coming ...
...to convince them and teach them that they cannot bring power That's only one aspect but we were being turned into a highpolitics into play in negotiations...
...first...
...The Muslims are guardians of holy places, of Christian places, future...
...eye to eye, face to face...
...You in refugee camps, in villages...
...I did a lot of work in the refugee camps, and political action...
...nobody should dominate us or feel they are not a minority...
...could...
...But there came a change in the Israeli delegation...
...society...
...I tor, yes, but at the same time he always said, "I'm a person first make it after worshiping five Sundays in a and a doctor second...
...their lives...
...and it is designed to November 5 protect domestic industries that might find themselves sudFALL BOOKS denly imperiled by new competition...
...He said they don't go away by Lady Immaculate Roman Catholic, is run by the excommunithemselves, you have to struggle against them...
...He was a humanist, an intellectual...
...no right to exist...
...And don't be intimidated...
...ment would be phased in over a lengthy but reasonable periComing od...
...finally came early in September, it seemed a triumph for this These are legitimate and important concerns-but it is rea- human dimension...
...They haven't been to movies, to amusement parks, to concerts, to museums, to theaters, to being worked out...
...KELLY: What about the place of women...
...It's a Middle Eastern religion, and we are extendehumanized your counterpart...
...ASHRAWI: Our society is a traditional society...
...Ashwari embecause all of North America would be monitoring the effects bodies that kind of "passionate and silent poetry...
...at the University of Virginia...
...indi- many Americans as spokeswoman for the cate where future jobs will come from...
...our women's movement...
...They have to be as if we were an accident...
...So he wrote a lot about women's rights...
...Maybe because of our geographic Mary Pat Kelly has recently completed her second film position, of our history, the pilgrims that came, we were never about Northern Ireland and is the author of Martin Scorsese: an isolated, self-enclosed society...
...anything...
...table work...
...This pied or Palestinian...
...These are traditionalist Catholics who reject Vatican II as He raised [my sisters and me] to firmly believe that we were the work of freemasons and Protestants and running-dog lib6: 8 October 1993 Commonweal...
...Optimism alone doesn't work...
...firms that relocate production to Mexico...
...At the same time, what I do also helps reinforce even be here...
...One of their schoolmates was also taken by setPalestinian territories...
...By and large, NAFTA would maintain national over- I spoke with Ashrawi in her hotel room in Washington early sight and yet foster greater multinational cooperation...
...There is some backlash now...
...This society, which is so complex, conceptions, we had to assert our own humanity, we had to has developed in ways in which mutual tolerance grew...
...There was inherent in the system discriminatory attitudes and practices...
...Collective minology, they cannot have the attitude of the occupier...
...an occasional humorous acknowledgment of the incongruous, Governments play a crucial role in protecting the rights of balanced the shouts and keenings that were the only sounds most individual citizens and in fostering the communal aims of a Americans ever heard (on television) from the Palestinians...
...You take a risk because you were born Palestinian, not to be subject to these stereotypes...
...At the same time, we have been a soci- got to try to make it succeed...
...THE POET AS DIPLOMAT President Clinton has failed to address the legitimate concerns OPTIMISM ISN'T ENOUGH of workers, made skittish by a weak economy and the braying alarms sounded by Ross Perot...
...There's the whole question of domi- KELLY: How does being a Christian, an Anglican, affect your nation, of feeling that you are above the law...
...It is this sensibility that causes her to focus on the human experiments in political reform...
...The political, economic, and social rami- process...
...the tough environmental laws already on the books in Mexico When the stunning breakthrough between Israel and the PLO must be enforced...
...The status quo, under which industries relo- come the face of a faceless people...
...Ashrawi has had other identities as line...
...My parents said, "Our job as parents is to help you Christians, and this is part of our heritage and our authentici- explore your potential, and then you go ahead and forge your ty...
...He replied, "You has its ups and downs, but it also presents a support system, for are an obstacle to the fulfillment of biblical prophecy...
...I pied territories, on the negotiation room...
...fications for Mexico are more significant...
...Finally, Hanan...
...I do not even know who is Christian and who is Muslim ing ourselves for who we are, for what we are, directly with- among my friends...
...We also have a strong and thriving women's movement...
...My children, for example...
...I think so...
...He was firmly convinced that all types of dis- have one...
...But even before he married, he'd been an advocate of women's rights...
...It reminds me of the Crusades...
...It gives you ab- Palestinian identity...
...There's a sense of responsibility to do something about it...
...They had a hard time even ad- because of the Army...
...sions of the earliest community in Palestine...
...They never admitted that it was occu- tlers and shot in the mountains and thrown in the valley...
...ASHRAWI: I grew up in the West Bank, in Ramallah, when it was Jordanian...
...It has always ASHRAWI: I'm very realistic...
...Part of our own self-definition as Palestinians is You see there has been a distortion of the Palestinian iden- that we are the original Christians and that we also have centity, of our humanity...
...Realistically, he may need to request an extension of the well: scholar (doctorate in comparative literature, University ratifying process...
...Now it has evolved brant force for equity and justice, it can also be used by ideo- into a genuine grassroots movement that reaches out to women logues to justify atrocities...
...it would establish tripartite commissions to decide contested labor and environmental matters...
...The effort to translate Christian values sion they exercise over women...
...professor and former academic dean (Birzeit Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari's situation is University...
...They never mentioned "occupied close to that...
...there's a curfew, or whether there is a checkpoint...
...At a certain point, he Mass church (doesn't every neighborhood was a socialist...
...He doesn't view marsaying they all do it...
...He's not insecure at all, and into dealing with the human condition took some time...
...There Managed correctly, NAFTA could prove a powerful benwill be losers-that's why labor resists NAFTA-and win- efit to all three of its partners and set a needed precedent for ners...
...of Virginia...
...He must again spell out a plan for retraining the American Hanan Mikhail-Ashrawi has become known to work force, and this time persuade Congress to pass it...
...So the Palestinian Christians equal human beings...
...It was traditional, So while Christianity is a tool for modern reform, and a vi- composed of urban, middle-class women...
...I think we have to keep at it and been male-dominated...
...The diplosignal how he intends to pay for this, perhaps through a tax on matic role is not new to her: over the past sevU.S...
...It goes back to the 1920s and chariI felt that if this is Christianity...
...Protecting human rights must be given top billing tive is so well known to other Palestinian delegates that when in a democracy...
...I think they started watching their language, at least...
...He was originally from Nazareth...
...He's one of the few es...
...in search of a newspaper story...
...and devise a safety net Palestinian delegation negotiating in to protect those who inevitably will be displaced...
...The agree- last month, even as the final details of the peace agreement were 4: 8 October 1993 Commonweal out any intervention or distortion...
...At the same time, as any other Arab society, any third- A BITE OF THE FORBIDDEN FRUIT world...
...Imperfect though these oversight and other mechanisms are, they encourage cooperation and conflict resolution, while maintaining the possibilOf course, such massive economic rearrangements must be ity of exerting positive leverage on one's trading allies...
...It's our responsibility to save our children, to save They had the mentality of the occupier...
...They cannot use racist ter- ly traumatized people with no freedom, no rights...
...Co-signers of Secretary of State James Baker spoke of "the human dimenNAFTA should insist that these concerns be included and an- sion" of the peace process a committee member said, "Ah, that's chor them in preexisting international labor conventions...
...It I said, "You want to exterminate all of us...
...You live it, every day it intrudes...
...I didn't work Jews have to come to Palestine, and therefore you shouldn't in isolation...
...Her words, formed into cate with little compensation for workers left behind and en- carefully constructed sentences, spoken with deliberation and vironmental laws are flaunted, should not be tolerated...
...such is not the case in Mexico...
...he liked...
...for centuries...
...NAFTA could trans- But Ashrawi is also, and perhaps most importantly, a noted form Mexico's third-world economy and accelerate its recent poet...
...My mother was very involved...
...KELLY: How do you feel about the peace agreement...
...This is exactly what happened...
...He had such immediate and genuine feel- row at my neighborhood Tridentine-Latin ings...
...Hers has beof the agreement...
...The church, Our crimination were destructive...
...Here we are equals...
...As recent political events in Poland us, more orderly and manageable...
...thoroughly analyzed and the burdens fairly distributed...
...Nevertheless, NAFTA does not aspect of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, the cost to ordinary adequately promote the rights of Mexican workers to organize people: not just the killing and maiming but the soul-destroyand bargain, nor guarantee them safe work places and fair com- ing effects the occupation has had on both sides...
...Therefore we did not have A Journey (Thunder's Mouth Press...
...indicate, profound economic shifts that do not adequately take people's immediate fears and needs into account will be re- AN INTERVIEW WITH HANAN ASHRAWI sisted...
...women who are not necessarily know in the First Crusade, they killed the Palestinian Christians educated, who have to gain their own confidence and their own who went out to receive them, massacred all of them...
...modest proposal, if you please, to return My father always believed in social justice...
...If NAFTA is to pass and work, Clinton must demonstrate not only the advantages of the agreement for America's workers, but reinvigorate their can-do spirit...
...They punishments, house demolitions, killings, torture, and prisonscannot superimpose the situation of occupation, of the occu- these are things that should not be part of modem discourse...
...dressing us as equals and as people...
...Then I came to the states and got my Ph.D...
...So we had to break through all these mis- turies of Muslim history...
...V=SA LATRUL' YES I would say for me personally, it hasn't been easy but it's I LIKED IT SO EXCOMMUNICATE ME...
...Twothirds of your people are in exile and one-third is under occupation...
...I feel nobody has the right to rob my children of their childhood...
...They never mentioned the Our neighbor, one of their best friends, a fifteen-year-old kid, word Palestinian...
...He wrote even cated priests of the Society of Saint Pius X, heirs to the late about self-liberation, "You cannot liberate the land without lib- rebel archbishop, Marcel Lefebvre, who never met a novus ordo erating yourself...
...I think they have improved...
...advantage over other women, who have to struggle against their I was told by one evangelical, "You people [Palestinians] own family background, their own husbands, their own brothhave no right to exist, whether Christians or Muslims...
...of absolutist, fundamentalist, dogmatic mentality is counter- Generally, fundamentalist movements would victimize women productive, whether it is Christian, Muslim, or Jewish...
...We are Palestinians and we happened to be owned us...
...We were called inhabitants of the territories, was shot and killed, five shots in the back...
...And they started being conscious of attitudes that would express domination or racism...
...Daood Mikhail, was a strong believer in women's rights...
...He must also Washington with the Israeli team...
...Government has a pri- make the transition to the new economic order, already upon mary responsibility here...
...We have opposition from what I feel is a riage as a relationship of competition, but one of mutual reinvery sinister source, Christian fundamentalists, the extreme evan- forcement and respect...
...as Christians can be guardians of Muslim holy places...
...As now configured, NAFTA-even with its side agreements on the environment and labor-leaves much to be desired...
...It makes itself felt in every single detail of your life...
...We have been there But I think the negotiations have been educational...
...I say just being born Palestinian gives you a sense of responsibility and commitment...
...That gave me a very significant gelicals...
...I also was very fortunate to marry a man who was very libThe Palestinian churches are active and committed church- erated...
...Terje Rod Larsen, the Norwegian who sonable to conclude, however, that acceptance of NAFTA is brought Israeli and Palestinians together in Oslo, characterized more likely to advance them than would its rejection, if only the relationship as a passionate and silent poetry...
...I had an advantaged upbringing...
...You feel you have right on your side, you ASHRAWI: I keep reminding people that Christianity started can justify anything that you do...
...He said this even under the British Mandate...
...writer (on culture, criticism, the intifada, the peace decidedly different...
...He had five daughters...
...Ratifying NAFTA will help with those displaced by "progress...
...My father, Dr...
...Some of them, those who are committed ideologically to a certain attitude, find it difficult to make the shift just because the government has changed...
...Her perspecpensation...
...All the me and for many other women who are working...
...ness to the rest of the world...
...very challenge all these mindsets and to say that we are represent- organic...
...Not just because it's happening to It was very hard for them to shift and to really internalize me, and my family, children, and neighbors...
...I went to American University of Beirut, where I joined the Joint Union of Palestinian Students, and Joint Union of Palestinian Women...
...I'm not he doesn't have this macho male ego...
...fundamentalism or real discrimination as part of our ongoing heritage...
...He must do this eral years it has taken her to Prague, the Hague, Brussels, London, in short order to meet the present December 31 ratification dead- Stockholm, and elsewhere...
...This kind conscious awareness of their rights...
...It took a long time the future for our children...
...solutist positions...
...ety that has valued education, that has a strong sense of open- Determination and tenacity are necessary...
...they have a sense of moral responsibility and not just pros- men who don't measure their value by the amount of oppreselytizing or preaching...
...Because it's an the fact that we are human beings, and to talk to us as equals, outrage...
...been easier than for most other women in Palestinian society...
...Sometimes HANAN ASHRAWI: When we started negotiating [in 1991], it they go to school, they come back in tears, because of tear gas, was with the Likud delegation...
...It's a responsibility...
...At the same time you have in Palestine...
...They can't even take the schools for granted-every MARY PAT KELLY: Could you describe the inner workings day they wake up to see whether the school is closed, whether of the negotiating process...
...You have ers...
...He was a doc- somehow, somewhat to the old liturgy...
...Those benefiting from such changes must share their gains future hemispheric agreements...
...most societies in the world, women were not always viewed as equals...
...I'm number five, the youngest...
...We were solidly together as part of Palestinian Commonweal 8 October 1993: 5 authenticity, Palestinian nationality...
...KELLY: How did you become involved in the process...
...felt we all had to roll up our sleeves and had to do whatever we There were quite a few confrontations on that issue...
...They talked about it in ideological terms kind of knowledge that children should not have intrudes in as Judea-Samaria...
...Occupation is so intrusive...
Vol. 120 • October 1993 • No. 17
