30 Mar 2015
From Bethlehem to Bologna: a message from Ms. Vera Baboun, Mayor of Bethlehem
The Theatre of life in the city of Bologna in Italy, organizes annually an international festival dedicated to a to a foreign country and its culture.
This year the festival is dedicated to Palestine and entitled “Heart of Palestine” and will take place for 12 days during the month of July. There will be presented theatrical, music, dance and cinema events, to offer an outlook over contemporary Palestinian culture and society. Moreover, every night a letter will be read from a Palestinian personality to show the connection between Palestinian poet, scholar, artist, lawyer, etc and on the other hand an Italian poet, scholar, artist, lawyer, etc. In this way words written by Palestinian personalities will get the voice of an Italian personality in front the audience.
On July 11th the Mayor of Bologna, Virginio Merola, was hosted in the first night of the festival and his excellency has read a message from her excellency, Ms. Vera Baboun, Mayor of Bethlehem in an ideal connection between Bethlehem and Bologna.
The Mayor of Bethlehem, Ms. Vera Baboun has written:
Vera Baboun
Mayor of Bethlehem
State of Palestine
From the city of which the message of peace, love, and hope was ordained to humanity, from the city where our lord, Jesus Christ was born, from the city of Bethlehem, I send you all a message of love and appreciation for selecting Palestine to be the theme of the Bologna Festival 2013.
Honoring the message of Bethlehem, the humble Palestinian city, to be the first to be read put me in a viable sense of responsibility and gratitude alike. Bologna is UNESCO Creative City of Music since 2006 “thanks to its extensive musical heritage and contemporary production, drawing from Father Gian Battista Martini’s compositions, up to Maestro Claudio Abbado’s direction of the Mozart Orchestra; going from the Municipal Theatre that dates back to 1763, to the contemporary scene of independent music, enlivening Bologna’s wineries, pubs, clubs and festivals.” Bologna, the city of culture, music, arts, and creativity, is a place where nature and humans collaborate to produce a Verdinian piece of music that rejects conformity, borders, and restrictions. A city where the sound of music, mobility of movement, and bridging between cultures raise a good question of how we can all make of the globe our bigger home, and of humans spread all around the globe our own family members. In our Palestinian town of Bethlehem, the Nativity Church and the historical Star Street were admitted on the UNESCO list of world heritage sites as well. The Nativity Church is our religious heritage where Jesus Christ was born and the message of peace was ordained to the world. The Star Street is the historical path through which the Holy Family has entered Bethlehem. It was the only access to the little town then. Our both cities are listed in the UNESCO creative and cultural cities. We bind together under the UNESCO motto which states the significance of “Building Peace in the Mind of Men and Women.” Accordingly, our two cities are privileged by the virtue of building peace in minds and hearts of humanity; Bethlehem by its original divine message of peace and Bologna by its cultural message of peace. Blessed are the builders of peace and we meet as builders where hard work and sacrifice do prevail.
Unfortunately, though, unlike Bologna, the city of Bethlehem, like all its Palestinian sister cities, suffers from the absence of peace. It took me some time to reflect upon the message to send to the attendants of the Bologna Festival. I had to reflect on the message and its content, on Bethlehem and its Palestinian and global contexts, and on Palestine and its occupied discourse. I could not think of the message without portraying it as an image in my mind. Palestine, the message and the portrait, is an olive tree, thoroughly rooted in the ground. Its roots are its honorable and human history. Its seeds are the grace best found in its oil and graceful heavenly message. Its leaves are the greenness that represents the fertility of its nature and the hearts of its population. Its branches stand steadfast in the face of the wind and heat of the sun proudly standing looking up to the last skies where liberty and freedom is never constrained. In the olive tree, the narrative of Palestine and every Palestinian starts and still going extending to the human community a message of steadfastness, generosity, and a shimmering resilience that acknowledges the unbounded borders where liberty and freedom dance on the rhythms of the winds.
For decades, our national narrative was tarnished by occupation, strangulation, dispersion, detention, demolition, deportation, confiscation of land, and denunciation. A nation that is scattered all over the globe building other countries while many are prevented from return; prevented from enjoying the shade of the olive tree and the Palestinian skies. A nation that stood fast to make the world hear and acknowledge their human national cause and their viable need and right to enjoy liberty and freedom. Detainees, injured, martyrs, refugees are the protagonists of the Palestinian saga. Jails, streets, hospitals, tombs, valleys, mountains escorted them and became main characters in the out making of such honorable saga.
However, as once Patriarch Beltritti of Jerusalem once said as I was attending a mass in the Nativity church as I was only seventeen years old, he said: “Grace only live in the womb of suffering. Learn to give it a birth.” Without the cross, we never enjoyed the grace of salvation. From the holy land where the birth and the resurrection of Jesus Christ took place, Palestinians and for decades have been suffering resiliently standing to give birth to the sense of grace that justice, liberty and freedom exemplify. Though unfairly suffering, Palestinians became blessed “with tolerance and acceptance, given an unbeatable soul and endless determination”.
Peace, justice, and liberty became a goal. In November of 2012, the world community unanimously voted for the State of Palestine. Is it a dream achieved or deferred? Though our State is acknowledged, we still live under a strangulating occupation; the occupation of the Apartheid wall. It stretches around every city killing viability for development, freedom, and humanly existence. Settlements constructed on lands that make the heart of our Palestinian State. Areas C where houses, hospitals, playgrounds can never be constructed at. Areas are critically needed to make us develop and sustain. Sixty percent of our 1967 borders are areas C and yet the narrative of resilience and endurance remain.
Our heritage and culture is our best witness. Our Kufiyeh is our symbol. A kufiyeh colored as the checked board. It stands for a nation striving to check out the dark reality in order to enjoy a glimmering future. Our dabkeh (traditional dancing), poetry, songs, embroidery, and arts are the best witness to our existence and hope. Each documents a line in our narrative and saga. Despite all the oppressing and occupational factors, Palestinian mastered resistance and resilience through their cultural heritage as well. In Bologna, today, we find a home. Today, our messages are to be heard, music to be played, dabkeh to be performed; an existence to be confessed.
Using this opportunity, I invite you all to attend our humble city and our State of Palestine to enjoy the beauty of its historical sites, religious shrines, beautiful nature, and welcoming people.
To know more about the festival, you can visit the website of Theatre of Life (www.teatridivita.it) and http://www.teatridivita.it/cuoredipalestina/ or the facbook page
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10200973033040874&set=a.1156835133884.24399.1617906238&type=1&relevant_count=1
On July 11th the Mayor of Bologna, Virginio Merola, was hosted in the first night of the festival and his excellency has read a message from her excellency, Ms. Vera Baboun, Mayor of Bethlehem in an ideal connection between Bethlehem and Bologna.
The Mayor of Bethlehem, Ms. Vera Baboun has written:
Vera Baboun
Mayor of Bethlehem
State of Palestine
From the city of which the message of peace, love, and hope was ordained to humanity, from the city where our lord, Jesus Christ was born, from the city of Bethlehem, I send you all a message of love and appreciation for selecting Palestine to be the theme of the Bologna Festival 2013.
Honoring the message of Bethlehem, the humble Palestinian city, to be the first to be read put me in a viable sense of responsibility and gratitude alike. Bologna is UNESCO Creative City of Music since 2006 “thanks to its extensive musical heritage and contemporary production, drawing from Father Gian Battista Martini’s compositions, up to Maestro Claudio Abbado’s direction of the Mozart Orchestra; going from the Municipal Theatre that dates back to 1763, to the contemporary scene of independent music, enlivening Bologna’s wineries, pubs, clubs and festivals.” Bologna, the city of culture, music, arts, and creativity, is a place where nature and humans collaborate to produce a Verdinian piece of music that rejects conformity, borders, and restrictions. A city where the sound of music, mobility of movement, and bridging between cultures raise a good question of how we can all make of the globe our bigger home, and of humans spread all around the globe our own family members. In our Palestinian town of Bethlehem, the Nativity Church and the historical Star Street were admitted on the UNESCO list of world heritage sites as well. The Nativity Church is our religious heritage where Jesus Christ was born and the message of peace was ordained to the world. The Star Street is the historical path through which the Holy Family has entered Bethlehem. It was the only access to the little town then. Our both cities are listed in the UNESCO creative and cultural cities. We bind together under the UNESCO motto which states the significance of “Building Peace in the Mind of Men and Women.” Accordingly, our two cities are privileged by the virtue of building peace in minds and hearts of humanity; Bethlehem by its original divine message of peace and Bologna by its cultural message of peace. Blessed are the builders of peace and we meet as builders where hard work and sacrifice do prevail.
Unfortunately, though, unlike Bologna, the city of Bethlehem, like all its Palestinian sister cities, suffers from the absence of peace. It took me some time to reflect upon the message to send to the attendants of the Bologna Festival. I had to reflect on the message and its content, on Bethlehem and its Palestinian and global contexts, and on Palestine and its occupied discourse. I could not think of the message without portraying it as an image in my mind. Palestine, the message and the portrait, is an olive tree, thoroughly rooted in the ground. Its roots are its honorable and human history. Its seeds are the grace best found in its oil and graceful heavenly message. Its leaves are the greenness that represents the fertility of its nature and the hearts of its population. Its branches stand steadfast in the face of the wind and heat of the sun proudly standing looking up to the last skies where liberty and freedom is never constrained. In the olive tree, the narrative of Palestine and every Palestinian starts and still going extending to the human community a message of steadfastness, generosity, and a shimmering resilience that acknowledges the unbounded borders where liberty and freedom dance on the rhythms of the winds.
For decades, our national narrative was tarnished by occupation, strangulation, dispersion, detention, demolition, deportation, confiscation of land, and denunciation. A nation that is scattered all over the globe building other countries while many are prevented from return; prevented from enjoying the shade of the olive tree and the Palestinian skies. A nation that stood fast to make the world hear and acknowledge their human national cause and their viable need and right to enjoy liberty and freedom. Detainees, injured, martyrs, refugees are the protagonists of the Palestinian saga. Jails, streets, hospitals, tombs, valleys, mountains escorted them and became main characters in the out making of such honorable saga.
However, as once Patriarch Beltritti of Jerusalem once said as I was attending a mass in the Nativity church as I was only seventeen years old, he said: “Grace only live in the womb of suffering. Learn to give it a birth.” Without the cross, we never enjoyed the grace of salvation. From the holy land where the birth and the resurrection of Jesus Christ took place, Palestinians and for decades have been suffering resiliently standing to give birth to the sense of grace that justice, liberty and freedom exemplify. Though unfairly suffering, Palestinians became blessed “with tolerance and acceptance, given an unbeatable soul and endless determination”.
Peace, justice, and liberty became a goal. In November of 2012, the world community unanimously voted for the State of Palestine. Is it a dream achieved or deferred? Though our State is acknowledged, we still live under a strangulating occupation; the occupation of the Apartheid wall. It stretches around every city killing viability for development, freedom, and humanly existence. Settlements constructed on lands that make the heart of our Palestinian State. Areas C where houses, hospitals, playgrounds can never be constructed at. Areas are critically needed to make us develop and sustain. Sixty percent of our 1967 borders are areas C and yet the narrative of resilience and endurance remain.
Our heritage and culture is our best witness. Our Kufiyeh is our symbol. A kufiyeh colored as the checked board. It stands for a nation striving to check out the dark reality in order to enjoy a glimmering future. Our dabkeh (traditional dancing), poetry, songs, embroidery, and arts are the best witness to our existence and hope. Each documents a line in our narrative and saga. Despite all the oppressing and occupational factors, Palestinian mastered resistance and resilience through their cultural heritage as well. In Bologna, today, we find a home. Today, our messages are to be heard, music to be played, dabkeh to be performed; an existence to be confessed.
Using this opportunity, I invite you all to attend our humble city and our State of Palestine to enjoy the beauty of its historical sites, religious shrines, beautiful nature, and welcoming people.
To know more about the festival, you can visit the website of Theatre of Life (www.teatridivita.it) and http://www.teatridivita.it/cuoredipalestina/ or the facbook page
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10200973033040874&set=a.1156835133884.24399.1617906238&type=1&relevant_count=1
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