When a Pope or a President visits overseas, the schedule is much more than a tourists’ “Places You Must See.” Given the audience, every stop is subject to interpretation. He is on a mission where every move is a message.
This picture that has gone around the world and back, the Pope at the Wall, is evidence of what we are talking about.
I was in Bethlehem a few days before the Pope arrived, being shown the Wall by my alums and friends, and we got to chatting about the Papal visit. We thought that as improbable as it might seem, we hoped the Pope would stop at the Wall somewhere and be seen seeing the daily reality of the Palestinian people.
Well, it was as if the Pope was overhearing our chat because he did. But he did more than that. The world media have fed us the usual photo grabs of Francis saying mass, planting olive trees etc and visiting holy sites and museums, but some other images have slowly trickled out. One that has grabbed me is his visit to the Deheisha Refugee Camp, where I also visited recently. It is a place where time stopped in 1948. After the Nakba, these refugees came here, and now, they remain stuck in one square kilometer of 13,000 people made up mostly of kids. Pope Francis paid a visit and this is the video of part of it.
http://www.aleteia.org/ar/عالمي/فيديو/باسم-أطفال-فلسطين،-هذا-ما-قاله-للبابا-5792085135327232
The Pope hears from the children of Deheisha Refugee camp- where this very articulate little boy called Mohammad, got the chance to speak. Even when one doesn’t speak Arabic, you get the idea he is telling the Pope their story. To see the Pope sitting and attentive is an ikon of change- that someone is listening. Even though this picture did not boomerang around the world like the others, it is perhaps even more important. Why? Because the Wall is nothing more than the sorry and tragic past carried into an ugly and fearful present. What the Pope did at Deheisha was listen to the future.
(To read what he said,)
The little boy’s family know the past- his father was in an Israeli prison while he was growing up. But Mohammad told the Pope that the children of Palestine wish to live in peace with Israel and with the whole world. Is that a dream we can refuse?
The next day, Francis flew into Israel, and met with President Perez and in the welcome, he and the President listened to the Alleluias of Israeli kids. Look at the video. They are dressed in white, the same as the Palestinian kids, and have angelic faces and so much energy. What talent! What hope!
If these kids and the kids of Deheisha camp could share dreams, you can bet that they would discover they inhabit the exact same story of promise that kids everywhere take as normal.
Israel and Palestine will depend on this generation to imagine a future they can create together, one that their parents devoutly wished for them, and yet, a future that they cannot assure them. Perhaps that is the ultimate tragedy of this war- that kids are allowed to fear, but they are not allowed to dream. Dreams of a peace settlement, dreams of a prosperous Israel living beside a progressive Palestine. For the elders, that is mere fantasy. For the young, its the only thing that makes their lives worth living.