Humble Mumbles   /     32. Poppy and Lola in Nablus and Ramallah

It’s a classic story. A sultry summer’s night: Two suave British students of Arabic and one flustered American activist talk about being Western women in Palestine.

Rebecca: “So what’s it like traveling in the West Bank ?”
Lola: “Sometimes it’s just like commuting… “
Poppy: “It’s completely different for internationals, there’s not really the same restriction on movement. But even for the four months I couldn’t get into Israel, didn’t really bother me; it was like yea, I’ll go another day”
Me: “And can you say why you couldn’t get into Israel?”
Poppy: “Yea, because they thought I was an activist… but, oh well”
Me: “So you haven’t gone into Jerusalem yet..”
Poppy: “I did once.. but I had to go around a village checkpoint”
Me: “So you went into Israel without a visa?”
Poppy: “Yes”
Me: “Cool”

Episode 2 of our ‘Foreigners in Palestine’ series features Lola and Poppy—who were studying at university in Nablus before moving to Ramallah—and Rebecca, a frenzied American rambler then staying in Beit Sahour.

“I don’t consider myself an activist, not because I’m inactive, but because I feel the definitions of being an activist are too narrow. I came here with a heightened awareness of ‘oh i don’t want to be THAT person–writing a ‘travelogue’ or i suppose the modern equivalent would be a blog–but theorizing it to such a certain extent that I never actually looked at it.” – Lola

“In a way I don’t feel like I’m entitled to give an opinion (on The Conflict). I’ve got to say, I just don’t feel a lot of guilt for being an international in Palestine. Personally I don’t feel too connected to the colonial background. I have no historical connection to Palestine so why should I have an opinion on it?” – Poppy

“We do have a historical connection to Palestine. If you think about it linguistically, the second language here is English…” – Lola

“I always feel really guilty… but I also profit off my own guilt” – Rebecca

In a talk that comprehensively covers The West’s legacy of interaction with The East, the three discuss ‘analyzing cultures on their own terms’, ‘not presuming a line of zero cultural longitude,’ efficacy, appropriateness, and neutrality…

“What is like to be.. a Westerner in Ramallah, and what is it like to be here… studying in Palestine, as opposed to coming to Palestine for activism? Then again, I came here for activism and now I’m just hanging out” – Rebecca

“I don’t think there’s any value in me personally, as a British woman, lamenting the differences between Nablus and Ramallah–those are the two places I’ve lived … I don’t think there’s any value in me lamenting a supposed loss of culture because that kind of narrative, in my eyes, assumes some kind of static culture that was always there and pure and idealized and historicized but that doesn’t necessarily exist because this has always been a contested and international place… Nablus is changing, Jericho is changing… Ramallah is also changing and maybe Ramallah is changing on a trajectory that is more easily mapped towards westernization / easternization so it’s easier for us to quantify that with our own experience but I don’t feel any need to lament it or feel guilty about living here.” – Lola

“I didn’t expect to see much firsthand occupation and everything… It’s definitely lot more visual than I expected it to be” – Poppy.

**Full disclosure: I, Rebecca, your freaked-out jewish-american host, the kind of host who roams through the messianic-nationalistic-apocalyptic Israeli settlements in Hebron at 2am strung-out and crying, found Poppy and Lola’s distance and intentional stepping back from the conflict really fascinating and challenging and complicating; I hope you also find this a rich discussion!

“I think that’s a cultural legacy that we have: we’re so aware that British people have come here and stated their opinions very loudly–it’s like: have you not had enough of us, people with our accents?” – Lola