Newcastle to Nablus

Newcastle to Nablus

In the post-modern age we live in, communities are fragmenting and new communities are erected. Old forms of community belonging are crumbling from traditional religion in the West to political regimes with a communist ideological framework. Today is International Workers' Day, an event celebrated by workers and leftists around the world. It is not what it once was when the Left was the rising star of world political communities after World War Two with flowering leftist de-colonization movements in the 1950s and 1960s, the Marxist-Leninist Soviet Union, and powerful communist parties from France to Italy. Yet, new communities spring up every day; so many new communities that we cannot keep up! There are Internet communities and anti-globalization political communities. Artistic communities and communities of work. Spiritual communities and sporting communities.

In this blog, I want to talk about two communities that are central to my well-being, football and political communities. Newcastle today will stand for football communities and Nablus for political communities. Newcastle upon Tyne is a city in England, but also a famous football club that is in danger of being relegated from England's Premier League. This would be a shock for the Newcastle community of supporters. Newcastle has won the prestigious FA Cup six times and the English First Division another four times. Nablus, on the other hand, is a major Palestinian commercial and cultural centre of 135,00 people under Palestinian Authority control. It is located 39 miles north of Jerusalem, squeezed between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim.

I want to suggest that both types of political communities, football and political communities, are works-in-progress. They offer the community faithful simultaneous doses of salvation and despair. Think of community, in drug terms, as both upper and downer! You never know when the heights of despair, or the ecstasy of orgiastic victory will come. Community belonging provides its adherents tears, tears of joy, and joy all rolled in one.

If Newcastle gets relegated to the lower rungs of English football, tears will flow among the Newcastle faithful. When Newcastle would qualify for major European football competitions, there was palatable joy in Newcastle. If they go down, the black and white stripes of Newcastle will metaphorically turn to the all-black colour of mourning. When Nablus gained complete autonomy after the Oslo Accords in 1993, songs of joy rang to the heights of Mount Gerizim! With Israeli checkpoints in and out of Nablus, there is sadness in Nablus. A sense that the Palestinian political community still has its dream of a viable state deferred.

Yet, our political dreams must recognize the dreams of others. Failure to do this will mean that the dream of two viable states for Israelis and Palestinians alike will be delayed. And the drummers for war will continue to drum, as Palestinian and Jewish children suffer in pain; soldiers die before they fall in love; suicide bombers and bombs kill in the name of community. Both Palestinian and Israeli political communities, whether the banner is the IDF, Palestinian Authority, or Hamas, do what we all know is not allowed spiritually: Kill fellow creatures of the human race. Each time we kill, whether Palestinians or Israelis, we think we advance the cause of "our" community. In contrast, the Talmud teaches that to kill one human life is like you have killed the entire universe.

Unfortunately, the realpolitik of political communities does not obey spiritual laws. But the spiritual laws of the universe will surely follow us to the grave, particularly when we kill in the name of community. We might say that some killing is legitimate and defensive, but it is killing nonetheless. It makes little difference to the victims and families if you are a young Palestinian boy killed by IDF bombs in Gaza, or an Israeli child murdered by a Hamas suicide bomb in Netanya. Excuses for killing are legitimization tactics. They seek to justify what we know cannot be justified.

So from a spiritual point of view, political communities justify killing when they really should not. Communities also seek to be our guardians, on condition that we keep our mouths shut. An open community allows for its members to speak out without fear of reprisals. It does not kill so-called "collaborators", or target opposing fans for hooligan orgies of violence. Because football or political communities focus on the "us," the "I" somehow gets lost along the way. A healthy community allows dissent from its members. It might even allow for multiple forms of belonging. Am I not after all a Canadian, Israeli, Jew, Sephardic Moroccan, Torontonian, lover of Liverpool, Hapoel Tel-Aviv, and Toronto FC, university professor, and Tamir Bar-On the human being? That is, the human being without abstract community labels or political projects.

Now if only we could be equally sad for all those killed in the name of a political community, whether in Israel, Palestine, Darfur, or Rwanda. Then we would evolve to a new chapter in human political communities. But communities blind us, whether political or football communities. They demonize our opponents, reducing them to abstract entities and foes in our eventual path to victory. The communities of the future will be an opening towards humanity, mutual recognition, individual creativity, and solidarity. High ideals indeed! Let us dream for better and more open communities. I dream that Newcastle stays in the Premier League! And that the people of Nablus, like those in Tel-Aviv, spiritually grow and truly recognize each other. For all life is precious, whether it is from Nablus, Newcastle, or Tel-Aviv.

Tamir Bar-On