The actor created a theatre in Jenin but was killed for his ideals He had feared for his life in the past, but Juliano Mer-Khamis foresaw no danger when he carried his one-year-old son, Jay, to his old red Citroën for the drive home from the theatre he had founded in the West Bank city of Jenin. With his son on his lap and the nanny in the passenger seat, he pulled out and then braked when he heard his name called. Bullets smashed through the car window and Mer-Khamis moved his foot off the brake. The car moved slowly forward past a United Nations depot and a pool hall before scraping to a halt against a wall. The boy was untouched; the nanny suffered a cut to her hand. But Mer-Khamis was hit by seven bullets and died shortly afterwards. The Palestinian police announced on Wednesday that they had arrested a member of Hamas for Monday’s murder. Last week, as friends and supporters of the Freedom Theatre in Jenin, which Mer-Khamis ran, struggled to comprehend his death, mourners buried the 52-year-old actor next to his Jewish mother, Arna Mer, in a kibbutz in the north of Israel. Memorial meetings were held in Jenin and Haifa for a man who described himself as “100% Palestinian and 100% Jewish”. “He was aware of the danger and, although he joked about it, he was sometimes afraid,” said his partner, Jenny Nyman, who is pregnant with twins. “But he always said that he would rather die on his feet than live on his knees.” In Haifa, friends gathered at the Al-Midan Theatre, a state-funded Jewish-Arab theatre, where they delivered eulogies in Arabic and Hebrew to Mer-Khamis, who first appeared on film in the 1984 movie of John le Carré’s The Little Drummer Girl alongside Diane Keaton. He later became a major figure in Israeli cinema and theatre. But it will be for his efforts at the Freedom Theatre that Mer-Khamis will be mainly remembered. A project that grew out of his desire to offer artistic freedom to the youth of Jenin, it was also the resurrection of his mother’s theatre, a West Bank drama group to which she devoted much of her life. In her dying months, Mer-Khamis made a film, Arna’s Children , about her and her theatre – but in 2002, the building was destroyed during the second intifada. In 2006, with the help of Zakaria Zubeidi, a former Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade leader who had renounced violence and was given amnesty by Israel, Mer-Khamis reopened it. Speaking to the Observer last week, Nyman recalled the many difficulties Mer-Khamis had encountered in doing so. “People voiced their concerns, often politely but sometimes with firebombs,” she said. The theatre once staged an adaptation of George Orwell’s Animal Farm , which was perceived to label the Palestinian leadership as collaborators; the building was later petrol bombed. “We had support from sheikhs who led prayers on stage, but there is no doubt that, in an oppressed society like Jenin, there are always people that are afraid of change,” Nyman added. The Freedom Theatre brought change in all sorts of ways. Mer-Khamis found that encouraging girls to take part in productions was no easy task. “We had no problem attracting boys to the theatre,” said Nyman. “But girls were more difficult. We worked hard to make it acceptable. We visited families, invited them to the theatre and we got their consent.” Mer-Khamis, whose parents’ union – that of a Jewish woman with a Christian Arab man – symbolised their vision for the people of Israel and the Arab states, soon became a fixture in Jenin. “When we came in 2006 we were afraid, but we have had no problems for years. The theatre has become part of the society. Not fully accepted, but nothing is ever fully accepted here,” said Jonatan Stanczak, one of the founders of the theatre. Last week an old woman, sitting in the street metres from where Mer-Khamis was shot, kissed the tips of her fingers to emphasise her love for him. “He was wonderful, wonderful,” she said. As she spoke, a sombre procession of mourners, carrying portraits, flowers and Palestinian flags, walked from the centre of Jenin to its refugee camp and theatre. The residents of the camp watched the group of around 60 mourners without disrespect but with no great interest, either. Supporters in Israel and the West Bank are determined that Mer-Khamis’s dream should continue. Colleagues hope to stage an international theatre festival to allow supporters from around the world to show their appreciation. Nyman is looking to the future. “Jay knows that something is wrong. I’m glad that he won’t consciously remember what happened. Now I must take care of our son and give birth to our children and get us on the right track,” she said. “I’ll probably never live in Jenin again, but I feel very strongly that his work has to be carried on. I would hate for his death to have been for nothing.” Palestinian territories Israel Theatre Conal Urquhart guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Longtime far-right ‘Patriots’ moving into the mainstream — thanks to the Tea Partiers
April 9, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media Tim Steller had an interesting profile of Richard Mack in the Arizona Daily Star the other day: For years, Richard Mack wrote books and gave speeches, arguing for gun rights, sovereign states and “constitutional sheriffs.” At first, not many people listened to Mack, a two-term Graham County sheriff who lives in Safford. Many wrote him off as a radical. But that’s changing. The tea party’s nationwide emergence and Arizona’s drift to the right are bringing Mack’s ideas from the political edge into the eddies of the mainstream. Since Barack Obama’s election as president, Mack, 58, has been a hot national speaker, and some of his dearest ideas have come up in the current Legislature. A system for Arizona to “nullify” federal laws reached the floor of the state Senate before being voted down last month. Another bill would have forced federal regulators to register with the sheriff in any Arizona county where they want to work. The bill’s author, Rep. Chester Crandell of Heber, said Mack inspired him. “I think the county sheriff has that power and should be protecting the rights of the people,” Crandell said. “This is a way to send a message and say we are a sovereign state.” This is, of course, the same scheme tea-partying legislators in Montana are attempting to pass, too. And as you can see from the above video, it all emanates from Mack’s ceaseless promotion of the radical right’s extremist localism — the belief that the sheriff, and not the federal government, represent the supreme law of the land. Mack certainly didn’t invent this system. Rather, it was first promoted back in the 1960s and ’70s by the old Posse Comitatus movement, which contended that “there is no legitimate form of government above that of the county level and no higher law authority than the county sheriff. If the sheriff refuses to carry out the will of the county’s citizens:” …he shall be removed by the Posse to the most populated intersection of streets in the township and at high noon be hung by the neck, the body remaining until sundown as an example to those who would subvert the law. Not only was the Posse one of the most radical far-right organizations — it became closely associated with the racist Christian Identity movement — it was also one of the most violent, inspiring acts of “lone wolves” like Gordon Kahl as well as the radicals at the Covenant, Sword and Arm of the Lord. It’s also the root of the sovereign citizen movement, which we’ve seen resurgent in the past couple of years as well, along with its accompanying violence and criminal plotting of violence . And now, according to Steller, Mack is getting a broad audience at various Tea Party-related gatherings — and lots of new adherents: In the last 18 months, Mack said, he has given 125 presentations, including an April 15 speech last year before thousands in Amarillo, Texas, and a December appearance at Faneuil Hall in Boston. But he’s got plans, and they could include running for office in Pima County. “Let’s not beat around the bush here,” Mack told about 25 people at the Dusenberry-River Library in the Catalina Foothills March 8. “We no longer live in a free country.” “They control our land, our air, our water, our education, our finances and now our health care,” Mack said of the federal government in a later interview. “What do I get to decide for myself? Nothing.” Of course, we pointed out the meaning of Mack’s involvement with the Tea Parties some time back — namely, he represents an increasing flow of radical-right ideas into mainstream conservatism, where they are being gobbled up like candy. And now Republican legislators are trying to enact these extremist beliefs — which are profoundly inimical to progressive ideals — into law. And no one seems to be paying it much of any mind.
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The owner of the News of the World is to admit liability in a number of cases brought against the paper for alleged phone hacking. News International says it has approached some claimants with an “unreserved apology”. It will also establish a compensation fund, with a view to “dealing with justifiable claims efficiently”. A News of the World reporter and an ex-news…
Continue reading …“This Just In” is CNN’s news blog. This is where you will find the latest news and information from CNN’s correspondents and sources around the world. We’ll cover fresh stories big and small – stories that are breaking , developing or …
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Why, yes he did… (H/T Smitty, who I still consider a friend, even though his co-blogger is a dumm gottverdammte Arschloch!) If there’s anything that does not require much of an excuse, especially ’round here; and that is to get the fucking LED OUT!: Turn it up! LOUD! Broadcasting platform : YouTube Source : Political Byline Discovery Date : 09/04/2011 04:32 Number of articles : 3
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Why, yes he did… (H/T Smitty, who I still consider a friend, even though his co-blogger is a dumm gottverdammte Arschloch!) If there’s anything that does not require much of an excuse, especially ’round here; and that is to get the fucking LED OUT!: Turn it up! LOUD! Broadcasting platform : YouTube Source : Political Byline Discovery Date : 09/04/2011 04:32 Number of articles : 3
Continue reading …Laurent Gbagbo, supposedly all but defeated, is surging, with forces loyal to him retaking control of two districts in Abidjan. “They clearly used the lull of Tuesday (for peace talks) as a trick to reinforce their position,” a UN official says. Further, Alassane Outtara’s fighters may have exaggerated their claims…
Continue reading …Those eagerly rushing to put the boot into Nick Clegg would be well advised to put their own houses in order Is Nick Clegg a hypocrite? Or worse, as his loudest accuser, the widely quoted Labour MP John Mann has it, a “total hypocrite”, for deploring the use of interns when, three decades ago, the member for Sheffield Hallam benefited from an identical leg-up? Mann, who represents the nearby constituency of Bassetlaw, explains: “It is total hypocrisy and really desperate for him to attack internships now. His policies are holding down social mobility in this country but he enjoyed all the advantages of family connections himself.” So? Should Clegg be disqualified by his personal advantages ever from addressing social mobility? Or is there some way he might atone for the offence of early privilege, possibly through a formal denunciation of his parents or an act of self-flagellation in Parliament Square? It has occasionally been done. After choosing to embrace poverty and to call everything sister or brother, the total hypocrite St Francis of Assisi was not just
Continue reading …Those eagerly rushing to put the boot into Nick Clegg would be well advised to put their own houses in order Is Nick Clegg a hypocrite? Or worse, as his loudest accuser, the widely quoted Labour MP John Mann has it, a “total hypocrite”, for deploring the use of interns when, three decades ago, the member for Sheffield Hallam benefited from an identical leg-up? Mann, who represents the nearby constituency of Bassetlaw, explains: “It is total hypocrisy and really desperate for him to attack internships now. His policies are holding down social mobility in this country but he enjoyed all the advantages of family connections himself.” So? Should Clegg be disqualified by his personal advantages ever from addressing social mobility? Or is there some way he might atone for the offence of early privilege, possibly through a formal denunciation of his parents or an act of self-flagellation in Parliament Square? It has occasionally been done. After choosing to embrace poverty and to call everything sister or brother, the total hypocrite St Francis of Assisi was not just
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American ‘optimism expert’ who inspired prime minister fears that he got it all wrong As David Cameron’s £2m plan to measure the nation’s happiness gets under way this month, the American psychologist whose work inspired it has said he has changed his mind about the importance of being happy. One of the pioneers of positive psychology, Professor Martin Seligman insists he is not recanting the doctrine which has made him a bestselling author and world-renowned expert on optimism but just that we should be focusing less on people’s happiness and more on their ability to “flourish”. He said he was naive in the past to think wellbeing was based only on mood. “The word ‘happiness’ always bothered me, partly because it was scientifically unwieldy and meant a lot of different things to different people, and also because it’s subjective,” said Seligman, the director of the Positive Psychology Centre at the University of Pennsylvania. The prime minister has long been interested in Seligman’s work and first floated the idea of a “happiness index” in 2005. When he was in Downing Street Tony Blair considered the idea but dismissed it as “too flaky” and Cameron has been criticised for focusing on wellbeing as a distraction from the economy. He has admitted that measuring happiness could be seen as “woolly” and “impractical” but insists he wants a gross domestic happiness scale to become as reliable an indicator of a country’s progress as its economic output. Now the Office of National Statistics has four happiness questions in this year’s annual Integrated Household Survey which will be sent out to 200,000 British homes this month. Seligman, who has been in touch with the British government over his methods, said he welcomed the move on “both on scientific grounds and on political grounds”. But he added that the notion of what made people happy had to be rethought. He said he has become increasingly frustrated with the perception of what he called “happyology” and has written a new book called Flourish , which will be released in the UK next month. “I wanted to be much clearer that this was much more than a happyology. What humans want is not just happiness. They want justice, they want meaning. An interesting example is that there is quite a bit of evidence that says people’s mood isn’t as good once they have children. If that were all people were interested in, we should have been extinguished a long time ago,” he told Psychologies magazine in an interview to be published next week. Even depressed people, he said, can flourish. “I think you can be depressed and flourish, I think you can have cancer and flourish, I think you can be divorced and flourish. When we believed that happiness was only smiling and good mood, that wasn’t very good for people like me, people in the lower half of positive affectivity. “When positive emotion was more central to your ideas, one problem was the evidence that most people have a ‘set point’ or ‘set range’ for their mood, meaning that whatever they do or whatever happens to them, they tend to revert to a certain level of happiness.” It was while president of the American Psychological Association in 1998 that Seligman began to promote the idea that psychology should be about creating better mental health. He is involved in a project with the US Army to increase levels of resilience and decrease mental health problems among soldiers and there is enormous interest in what positive psychology could achieve in schools. Flourish: A New Understanding Of Happiness And Well-Being – And How To Achieve Them by Martin Seligman is published on 12 May. Health policy Health & wellbeing Health Psychology Tracy McVeigh guardian.co.uk
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