by shionline

“Remember Cedric. Remember, if the time should come when you have to make a choice between what is right and what is easy, remember what happened to a boy who was good, and kind, and brave, because he strayed across the path of Lord Voldemort. Remember Cedric Diggory.”

– Albus Dumbledore

 

I’ve recently considered changing this blog’s title, yet again. While most of my free time is spent in escapism, whenever I feel that I should write, it’s almost never about books, or TV, or music. It’s about racism, sexism, and other -isms in those media. Sometimes, like in the case of Harry Potter, it’s a book that triggers me to write about these topics.

I know very well that good art will not let you escape from the real world, and the things that you should be thinking and worrying about. When I had to choose between what’s right and what was easy, at the time, I went along and joined the IDF. You might say that draft-dodging is easier than going through over a year of service, but even in the most clerical position, I knew that it was not the right thing to do.

It showed very much in the reading material I chose back then, and the music I listened to. My last year in high school was when I rediscovered Bertolt Brecht, and managed to get my hands on nearly every single Hebrew recording of his songs. Near the end of my service, I had also bought Hanoch Levine’s Bathtub Queen, a satirical series of songs and sketches performed in 1968, when everyone was in the euphoria of 1967, the last war Israel had won, really, and the beginning of the occupation. When it came to books, all I could really read was Russian moralistic tales, Catch 22, and, granted, Oscar Wilde. I had also reread the Harry Potter series for the first time in a while, and its themes about bullying and racism and governmental abuse were obviously clearer than ever.

This choise between right and easy has stayed with me throughout my entire service, cut short by depression. I think this is the place to do a bit of exposition about the place I live, which is a little town, not very far from Jerusalem. It’s about a mile away from the 1967 border, on the right side of it. Another mile away, outside the border, is an ultra-orthodox settlement, and a huge one, at that. Between us, and outside the border, is a Palestinian village. There aren’t a lot of jobs in the West Bank, as far as I know, and the unemployment rate there is very high. It’s common for builders and others to go into Israel to find work, and if the wave a permit to do so, they can go to a checkpoint miles away, wait for ages, and get into Israel to work some, or get medical treatment, or something like that about living a normal life. Whatever.

Since the Separation Wall hasn’t yet arrived in our town, some people from said village just come here, and hop on a bus to Jerusalem, or one of the towns around us. They may or may not have a permit to be in Israel, and those can usually be taken away at a bureaucratic whim. Personally, and I could be naive, but I don’t see that much risk in letting people who just want to work go on a bus. Yes, buses have exploded, but usually in big cities, in crowded places, and never in a dinky town with only slightly over 6,000 people in it, most of whom own a car.

We don’t like them going on our buses, though, and some bus drivers don’t like it, either. One day, as a soldier, I had started my 6:00 ride to the base, and some clearly Palestinian people went on the bus. The town’s security took them off, even though I’m not sure they have a right to demand IDs from people. Another day, a year later, the bus driver had started demanding to see a woman’s ID, who tried to go to Jerusalem. He would not let her on the bus, and went on a rant, when she gave up. This has been happening increasingly on my morning buses. I never say anything.

What would happen, if I interfered in someone’s favor? In a subject that clearly matters to me, because bus drivers have no right to demand your papers? I might not know every person in this town, but the bus-riding population is small, and so is the pool of drivers. If the debate got heated enough, and if I could afford it, could I leave the bus? Will the same driver let me on it again, at another day? Or will people just start arguing with me on-sight, as I go to work, or school? These are my worries, and for now, they’ve done a very good job in keeping me quiet about this topic. So whenever I remember that quote from Dumbledore, and look back, I still know it’s not a standard I can hold myself to, as much as I’d like to, and this is as depressing as a book can get.