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Burning Man v. Zaatari

Posted August 6th, 2013 by Lesley Hazleton

zaatari camp 2Burning Man campPoet and writer Tamam Kahn had the wit to contrast these two aerial photos of temporary cities — the Zaatari camp for Syrian refugees in northern Jordan, and the Burning Man encampment in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada.  The desperate on the left, the Dionysiac on the right (below).

She also had the fortitude to use the Zaatari one as her screen saver for the past two weeks.

Zaatari, she writes on her blog, is “miles of boxed lives,” with each box a caravan, a prefab shelter, or by now simply a tent.  By last month, the population of the two-year-old camp was 115,000, including 60,000 children.  It is now Jordan’s fourth-largest ‘city.’

Tamam quotes Angelina Jolie on the Syrian refugee crisis, speaking in June: “1.6 million people have poured out of Syria with nothing but the clothes on their back, and more than half of them are children… Every 14 seconds someone crosses Syria’s border and becomes a refugee.”

And she ends her post with this:  “I’m struck with the surreal thought that this is the time Burning Man begins to come together as a desert city — half the size of Zaatari — a celebration of life, way out in the Nevada desert. Two cities: one a sudden city of survival, the other — an enormous party of freedom and excess. Hold them both! I tell myself. May all beings have what they need. May all have shelter, food and clean water, be well, safe, and happy.”

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File under: existence, Middle East, war | Tagged: Tags: Angelina Jolie, Complete Word, Jordan, Nevada, refugee camp, Syria, Tamam Kahn | 4 Comments
  1. mary scriver says:
    August 6, 2013 at 2:58 pm

    I wonder what the Rainbow Family encampment would look like from the air. It is dis-assembled and the site restored afterwards. I’m curious to know what the average income for Zataari is, compared to the average income for Burning Man and the Rainbow Family. It would be fascinating to convene a panel of representatives.

    Prairie Mary

  2. fatmakalkan says:
    August 6, 2013 at 4:57 pm

    Hi Lesley, Forgive my ignorance about this event. First time I heard about it. Why 50.000 people goes to middle of the dessert in hot August? Syrian are fleeing from Brutal Assad Regime to save their life’s. Obviously, Burning Man participants life’s are not in danger. They live in a best country in the world for many categories. If they are paying for this event they are not poor. How they spend their week at that camp? Is it religious gathering? Is it social event? Or they don’t have any serious problems, they are bored, just looking for adventure? Or nudity, drugs, etc. living crazy life with no moral code is provided at that camp. Sincerely

    Fatma Kalkan

    • tamam Kahn says:
      August 6, 2013 at 7:14 pm

      Burningman is an amazing experiment in communal living. Aside from the initial cost, there is generally no money exchanged there. I went several times, took an old RV and was part of a group camping there. One evening a bicycle rider brought our camp a hot pizza in a box, delicious and free. Our neighbor hooked up a bicycle to an ice-cream maker and gave out cold treats. The infrastructure is admirable in that a responsible number of people hold the energy for 50,000 people to celebrate and visit the art and music that is available 24/7. On one level it is a “party” but on another it is so much more. Ritual actions — like honoring the dead of the last year and writing their names on a beautiful sculptural temple for 5 days, then celebrating the “burn” as it goes back to dust. And the clean-up takes a month or more until nothing is left in that pristine desert. You bring in what you need and leave with it all. It is so colorful that everyday life — when you return— seems in black and white. It was started by the dot com-ers back in the 90’s. I went just after that. Everyone I brought there had a memorable time. The “wildness” is just a small part of the picture.

      Someone just suggested that Burningman could contribute to the refugee camp — helping purchase water. I think that’s a great idea!
      Tamam Kahn

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      August 7, 2013 at 8:50 am

      Fatma — There are so many ‘compare-and-contrasts’ involved here. So many ironies I don’t think I can count them all. A few:
      East v. West. Wealth v. poverty. Choice v. no-choice. Freedom v. no-freedom. Indulgence v. necessity. One week v. indeterminate time. Desperation v. partying. Survival v. art. Danger v. safety.
      These multiple ironies are what made the twinned photos so powerful for me.

Believing in Peace

Posted February 24th, 2011 by Lesley Hazleton

“I can’t believe you don’t believe in anything!” someone wrote on this blog a while back, commenting on my agnosticism (actually, she used capital letters and lots of exclamation marks, but I’ll refrain).   And I was a bit shocked by that.  What kind of human being can I claim to be if I don’t believe in anything?  A nihilist?  A god-forsaken creature left to the whims and mercies of fate?    A craven whimpering coward afraid to commit herself?

So in between keeping up with what’s happening in Egypt and Tunisia and Bahrain and Yemen and Jordan and Iraq and Iran and oh-my-god Libya, I’ve been haunted by what she said — and have realized that she placed the stress on the wrong word.  It doesn’t belong on the word ‘anything,’ but on the word before it:  ‘in.’

Of course there are things I believe.  I just don’t generally feel the need to believe in them.  I may well believe that such-and-such a thing is true, though in fact this is much the same thing as saying “I think that…” or the more amorphous “I feel that…”  and I’m trying not to be amorphous here.  And in fact there are some things I do believe in, prime among them the possibility of some seemingly impossible form of peace between Israel and Palestine.

If I look at Israel/Palestine rationally right now, I see no way to a peaceful resolution.   So in the lack of empirical evidence, I have no choice but to fall back on belief – that is, on the conviction that peace is possible, despite all evidence to the contrary.

I’m not being over-idealistic here.   The first step in any thinking about peace is to get rid of all those images of doves fluttering around all over the place and everyone falling on each others’ shoulders in universal brother/sisterhood.  Peace is far more mundane than that.  It’s the absence of war.  It’s people not being killed.  It’s the willingness to live and let live.  And that will do just fine.

There’s no love lost between England and Germany, for instance, but they’re at peace after two utterly devastating wars in the first half of the 20th century.  There’s less than no love lost between Egypt and Israel – in fact it’s safe to say that for the most part, they detest each other —  but that peace treaty, signed by an Egyptian dictator and an Israeli former terrorist, has lasted three decades.  It’s nobody’s ideal of peace, but however uneasily, it’s held, and will likely hold whatever the changes in Egypt – a frigid kind of peace, but peace nonetheless.

But even thinking in terms of pragmatic, undramatic, boring peace, which once seemed as impossible for England and Germany, and for Egypt and Israel, as for Israel and Palestine, I still can’t see it.  Of course this may simply mean that I have a very limited imagination, and so can’t see the forest for the trees.   But to think that something is impossible because I can’t see it is not only an absurd assumption, but also a dangerous one.

What we believe affects how we act.   If we stop believing that Israel/Palestine peace is possible, or even desirable, as the Israeli government seems to have done, then that affects how we act:  we really do make it impossible.  That is, we create a self-fulfilling prophecy of unending conflict.   We act in our own worst interests.

I’d rather be naïve than nihilistic.  So in face of the despair that often overtakes me at the latest news from Gaza or from the West Bank, I have to fall back on belief in the possibility of peace, no matter how seemingly irrational.  After all, if it was rational, it wouldn’t require belief.

One definition of despair is in the inability to imagine oneself into the future.  It is, in a very real sense, a failure of the imagination.  So perhaps this is what belief really is:  an act of imagination.   The astonishing human ability to imagine something into existence, and to act in accordance with that imagination.

That’s what we’ve seen these past few weeks in Tunisia and Egypt and Bahrain (and maybe even in Libya), and that’s what’s been so inspiring about it:  belief transformed into possibility.   Belief not as faith in the divine, but as faith in the human ability to act and to change the future.   Belief, that is, in ourselves.

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File under: agnosticism, existence, Middle East | Tagged: Tags: Bahrain, belief, conflict, Egypt, faith, Gaza, Germany, imagination, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Libya, nihilism, Palestine, peace, Tunisia, West Bank, Yemen | 15 Comments
  1. Sue says:
    February 24, 2011 at 2:44 pm

    Thank you for your distinction between ‘believing’ and ‘believing in’ – I think that’s fabulous.
    Regarding ‘Peace’ – I believe it to be more than just the absence of war – it is a whole other force in itself. It’s people’s determination to live differently and better and to care for each other and their communities, and so much more.
    And perhaps something to think about – it occurs to me that you use the word ‘believe’ (ie. you choose to believe in peace in the Middle East despite all evidence to the contrary) is used in the same sense as others would use the word ‘faith’, eg. I have ‘faith’ that there will be peace in the middle east. I do love words and how we use them, and I do love it when people can string a fabulous sentence together – you do that so well – thank you.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      February 25, 2011 at 2:34 pm

      So glad you pointed put my conflation of ‘belief’ and ‘faith’, Sue — it’s one of those things I was vaguely aware of doing, but hadn’t really paid attention to. Yes, I think there is a difference, but will have to work on figuring it out (it has to do, I think, with intention — a kind of willed decision — but am not sure, so will muse, and write about it at a later date). Thanks for the sharp eye. — L.

  2. Kate McLeod says:
    February 24, 2011 at 3:10 pm

    What these countries who want to go to war with each other need are football teams. They can take out their aggression in the viewing stands, wear war paint, wave flags–all that.
    Also my new rules about war in the world must be followed: no one under the age of 50 goes to war. I think it’s probably the fastest route to peace.

  3. Sana says:
    February 24, 2011 at 7:37 pm

    My husband always tells me that what I lack is belief. I give up too easily, hence abandoning any fight in me. My husband is the opposite, if he believes he achieves – and he makes it happen no matter what the odds are. Your article has made me realize how dangerous it is not believe….. its a bit daunting actually. Now comes the hard part – what do i believe? …….

  4. Lynn Rosen says:
    February 24, 2011 at 10:37 pm

    There is no point in believing IN war as an inevitable solution. Peace is the default. That is in what I believe.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      February 25, 2011 at 2:35 pm

      Perfectly in-put!

  5. Lana says:
    February 24, 2011 at 11:26 pm

    Thank you 🙂
    i hope u add a “like” button under your posts … sometimes i realy like an article but has nothing else to add 🙂

    best wishes

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      February 25, 2011 at 2:36 pm

      Thanks Lana — will poke around and see if I can find out how to do it. — L.

      (Best way to ‘Like’ — click the Facebook button!)

  6. Moes says:
    February 25, 2011 at 9:05 am

    I enjoyed very much your TED talk about Kuran.
    We have a woman a bit like you in France, Annick de Souzenelle (except she’s not an agnostic). She has read the Bible in the languages it was written (she studied years and years to learn Aramean and Hebrew, symbology and theology). If you go back to the source, it’s the best way not to be misguided by translations and interpretations. And her books about the bible explain how deep and beautiful this book is. Far away from the interpretation men have made of it through the centuries, trying to control people out of it. Much more universal than we think it is (not to mention the stupid and childish “creationist” interpretation of it.)
    I guess Kuran is the same. It’s the fragility of beauty, when taken over by gridy and bad intentional people.
    Please continue your struggle for beauty and peace (and excuse my poor english.)
    all the best.

  7. Elisa Sparks says:
    February 26, 2011 at 9:29 am

    Have you seen the bumper sticker: “Militant agnostic: I don’t know, and neither do you”? Virginia Woolf’s father, Leslie Stephens, was famous for his statement of rational agnosticism.

  8. Anneza Akbar says:
    March 1, 2011 at 10:39 am

    Very interesting piece,
    I am curious as to what your view is on the idea of:

    “Peace is not the absence of war but the presence of justice”
    in comparison to:
    “peace is the absence of war”

    Could it be that perhaps “no war” and therefore “peace” could come about after a sense of justice is established?

    of course then the question would arise what would be justice in any specific case?

    Thank you for sharing your thoughts 🙂
    Anneza

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      March 1, 2011 at 1:12 pm

      Good question, and a tough one. “Peace and justice” is a much-used phrase, yet how exactly they go hand-in-hand is not clear, at least to me. The core problem being, of course, what we mean by justice. Are we talking justice as harmony, as moral rightness (and if so, whose morality?), as retribution, as equitability, as divine justice (in which case, whose concept of the divine?).

      I do think that any kind of peace, however minimal in concept, does have to involve a sense on both or all sides that nobody is being advantaged to the disadvantage of others. In practice, I think that might well mean that both/all sides will have to feel not that they’ve gotten what they think is right or what they deserve, but that they’ve had to give up a certain amount of what they think is right or what they deserve. In other words, that far from being perfect, peace is an imperfect compromise on all sides. And possible only when everyone is willing, finally, to make those compromises. I know it seems like there should be a “win-win” option, but in fact “lose-lose” may be the only realistic one — and thus, paradoxically, in fact a win-win.

      Have you heard of the Prisoner’s Dilemma? It’s a central paradigm in conflict resolution, in which the only rational solution is the one in which both sides lose an equal amount. Hard-headed, and worth thinking about. Here’s the Wikipedia entry on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma

  9. Sunny says:
    March 1, 2011 at 5:12 pm

    War and peace are two sides of the same coin, just as light and darkness are. Just as light cannot exist without darkness, peace cannot exist without war – just as God and Satan cannot exist, atleast in two Abrahamic religions, by themselves. The principle of duality seems to be all-encompassing.

  10. Kathleen says:
    March 4, 2011 at 12:50 pm

    Very though provoking and written – as usual – Leslie. 🙂 I came across a book’s paragraph about an underlying social dynamic (‘bargains with God) that are suppose to guarantee peace (except the world keeps cheating on the bargain by going to war) : During WWI. The protagonist is looking at a stained glass window in a cathedral of Abraham’s sacrifice of his son. ‘Behind Abraham was the ram caught in a thicket by his horns and struggling to escape…You could see the fear. Whereas Abraham, if he regretted having to sacrifice his son at all, was certainly hiding it well, and Isaac, bound on a makeshift altar, positively smirked’. …[This represents] ‘the bargain on which all patriarchal societies are founded. If you, who are young and strong, will obey me, who am old and weak, even to the extent of being prepared to sacrifice your life, then in the course of time you will peacefully inherit, and be able to exact the same obedience from your sons. [and this one sacrifice to the gods is enough to appease them, instead of thousands] Only …. [being at war is ] ‘breaking the bargain… all over the inheritors were dying…. while old men, and women of all ages, gathered together and sang hymns. *”Regeneration” by Pat Barker, pg 149 (book 2 of a trilogy based on a Psychologist trying to heal shell shocked solders in England during WWI.) Just an interesting twist on the concept that older men (and women) sit in hallowed-halls and declare war and it’s planning, while the young die to execute the plan. Don’t know that it adds anything to your dialogue on peace but just thought to add it. No comment back needed 🙂

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      March 4, 2011 at 4:44 pm

      I totally agree: the Pat Barker trilogy (‘Regeneration,’ ‘Eye in the Door’ and ‘Ghost Road’) is stunning, and perhaps the most sustained and subtle anti-war fiction ever written. — L.

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