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22 August 2008 - 25 August 2008
Greenbelt’s title theme for the 2008 festival was ‘Rising Sun’. Picking up on this theme, and wishing to highlight the continuing struggle of the Palestinian people, Rediscovering Palestine (RP) captioned its exhibition/stand, situated in the G-Source - a huge tent housing several organisations and charities - ‘Sunset on Palestine'.
The amount of interest generated by the RP’s stand went to prove the value of our presence at the Festival. RP was the only organisation specifically highlighting the Palestinian issue, and the stand received a steady flow of visitors, the majority of whom were aware of the dire situation in Palestine and had come to the RP stand to learn more, collecting our materials and getting an update on the current situation . There were very few incidents where visitors to the RP stand were obviously hostile towards our work.
Having a guest speaker, Jonathan Kuttab, a Palestinian Christian lawyer RP flew over from Jerusalem, and being associated with another, Stephen Sizer, Anglican vicar from Virginia Water and the UK’s leading authority on Christian Zionism, certainly added to and cemented RP’s credibility. Jonathan Kuttab spoke twice and sat on a discussion panel. Undoubtedly his presence was an enormous success and confirmed our thoughts that a speaker of such high calibre was essential if we were to promote Palestine to the full.
Once again our thanks go to the Greenbelt committee for allowing us to hang the ‘seperation wall’ banner from the Grandstand. We were also heartened that their film committee choose to end the film programme with a showing of ‘Private’ - a psychological drama about a Palestinian family suddenly confronted with a volatile situation in their home in Gaza. Greenbelt felt that the film would neatly bring together the various talks and panel sessions which had highlighted Palestine throughout the 2008 Greenbelt Festival.
Under the ‘Sunset on Palestine?’ banner were graphic and moving photos depicting house demolitions, scenes of destruction, rubble, dust and the despair of the home owners and families. There were also sobering pictures of the separation wall depicting its sheer dominance and oppressive presence, the grim and threatening checkpoints and the early morning queues of Palestinians waiting to be allowed out to their places of work.
By contrast, alongside these displays were photos, books, embroidery and hand made goods portraying the beauty of Palestine, its people, its lands and its crafts, showing the positive view which we hold dear but which is so often overlooked and ignored by the Western media.
The overall effect of our presence was of a professional organisation with a clear message to promote - collectively, we the members of RP, will not allow the sun to set permanently on Palestine. We hope our many visitors shared our view and that they will revisit us in the G-Source at Greenbelt Festival 2009. To book your place at Greenbelt, click on the link: www.greenbelt.org.uk
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© 2003 Rediscovering Palestine All Rights Reserved | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
