First week's readings

First I'd like to apologize for me limited use of English. I'm trying my best. After reading the articles (a long time ago; sorry for my delayed response; so many apologies…) I've read the comments posted here. I'm sad to admit it but I do question the very possibility of an open discussion about Palestinian-Israeli matters, even in an allegedly politics-free context such as this course, because only half of the possible efforts are being put to use. One of the thing that were rose from both Galit's piece and Suad's was the discourse's (as well as the practice's) inability to break free of the Political context. And it should be so. If I have any criticism here, it is towards the somewhat naïve attempts, you sometimes encounter, to create a non-political communication. I do not want those attempts to stop either. I give full credit to any attempt of establishing dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians. If there's anything clear by now, it is that the politicians take their sweet time not talking to one another at the expense of people's suffering. It's clear that open discussion, as an inseparable characteristic of the two people's culture, could emerge only from the people themselves, not from their so-called leaders. I'm merely suggesting here that we change the way we talk to each other (and talk more often): we should combine the two discourses- the political and the non-political. If we want to create change we cannot leave a portion of the matter unhandled. We have to be brave enough in both directions- listening to one another and stating what we have to say. The challenge is not just talking to each other; this is not a historical-geographic cocktail party. Lives are on the balance here and we cannot afford to pretend we're making real progress when were not. We must rise up to the challenge that is discussing what combines us (folklore and ethnography can serve us well to locate that) and also what separates us, namely- the conflict. Perhaps some real progress would have been made back then if the teams of the geopolitical project worked together with the teams of the cultural- academic project. We might not have gotten either- the festival or peace- but maybe, just maybe, we would have gotten one. That could have been real progress. That could have meant hope.