TEDxRamallah

“Ideas worth spreading” is the tagline of TED, an organization that sets up conferences to which it invites thinkers and doers to speak on an idea for 18 minutes. TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. (Taken from my itinerary) This Saturday a group from my program went to Bethlehem to attend TEDxRamallah, a conference organized around ‘Palestine Stories.’ A day-long conference, it ran from 9:30-19:00, mostly big chunks of time spent listening, but with food and caffeine breaks.

Although the leaning of the conference was apparent (and inherent, I suppose), the talks were largely unpolitical. Instead they were focused on human rights, economic development, technology, creativity, and universal human stories. My favorites, I think, were in the last category. One woman, an architect and now author, told about how she accidentally became a writer because of Ariel Sharon and her mother-in-law. The Israeli occupation of Ramallah in 2002 left her and her mother-in-law stranded at home for ten months, driving her to keep a diary for sanity. The result, demonstrating her philosophy that hardship requires humor, was published and translated widely. I liked this sort of speaker because although her situation was completely caused and informed by the political situation, her outlook was more generalized than that.

A Brazilian filmmaker, Julia Bacha, spoke about narratives, confirmation bias, and cognitive dissonance. She had made a documentary about Budrus, a Palestinian town in which the people united to peacefully protest the building of the west bank barrier through their town. The film came about when she heard the story, and was shocked that it hadn’t received any press coverage. As was explained, the story was not told because it didn’t fit into peoples’ narratives about Palestine. At that time particularly, Palestinians were known to the world as suicide-bombers. Because of confirmation bias, the media only reported on stories that corroborated that belief. She explained her idea that the way a documentarian can make a difference is to practice cognitive dissonance- or tell the stories that go against confirmation bias. The power of this act is that even one story can change a person’s narrative, in this case for the better. Her combination of effective speaking, terminology, and idealism was extremely appealing to my friends and me.

In what seemed like a strange turn of events, Alice Walker also attended. Predictably wonderful, she gave an unfocussed talk centering around her journey to Palestine and other travels. She started out explaining the path she took to get to Bethlehem, via Jordan. This seemed odd to me, because isn’t it so much more straightforward to enter Palestine as a tourist from Israel? (like I did) But then she described the conversation she had with the young soldier who detained and questioned her for nine hours. Unbelieving of her identity and reason for entering (famous author from the US attending giving a talk about Palestine), he proceeds to look her up online. With her identity confirmed, he goes on to look up everything she has ever said about the Middle East, including a promise never to go to Israel. She responds to his accusation, “Well, I’m not in Israel, am I?” which probably enraged him but delighted the audience. She then described her grandmotherly rebuke of his behavior, saying that this job is not good for him, and not good for his people. Where she’s from, elders are respected, not herded like cattle and then cut off from food and water for hours on end. As she described his reaction, he was taken aback. Not unreceptive, though: she said, “We had a good conversation.” Having encountered border soldiers myself, I can scarcely imagine this conversation taking place.

Frankly, though, I can’t remember the specifics of any of the rest of her discussion. Gripped by her talk and person, I failed to take any notes whatsoever. Alice Walker seems to exist on another level. How can someone become Alice Walker? Can I? By what means? In a room where speakers were accepted based on how much they’ve done for the cause or how much they’ve suffered by Israel, Alice Walker had the whole audience on her side. As an audience member who had comfortably found my place that day as an outsider due to my nationality, religion, upbringing, age, occupation, her message of universality was immediate and powerful.