Freedom is hot verbal currency these days and much is claimed or done in its name; it has become what in French would be called a passe-partout, a key to all doors. George W. Bush used the word freedom 42 times during his second inaugural address as US president earlier this year; the speech lasted only 21 minutes which amounts to two freedoms per minute. As an abstract and modern notion (i.e. not physical freedom from slavery or oppression) freedom is a product or indeed aim of the Enlightenment project; it was sloganised during the French revolution in égalité, liberté, fraternité (equality, freedom and familial/national ties) and canonized in the same year in relation to speech as the first amendment to the US constitution. Since then, freedom of speech has been promoted to a fundamental human right and is now embedded in many constitutions and charters worldwide, often bundled with the right to information.
Yet this double freedom of expression and information is by no means an absolute one; there are many interests, be they political or economic, that it may not interfere with. Not only if speech is to be free and informed is it dependent on access and thus subject to various control-mechanisms; also on much more subtle levels, many conditions are necessary for freedom of speech to be possible in reality. In Archive Fever Derrida notes how access to archives can be seen as a measure of democratization.
For decades, many facts of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict have remained unspoken, not only in both communities but also internationally. However, the absence of real freedom of speech on both sides of the conflict can still crudely and sadly be measured by the fact that speaking their mind can (and has) cost people their lives.
Defying this, Michel Khleifi and Eyal Sivan set out to hear people speak about their experiences in this complicated land, tell their stories, convey their understanding of the present situation as well as their ideas of the past, their hopes for or resignation vis-à-vis the future. Traveling from the south to the north of Palestine/Israel on a virtual line which follows the UN borders of the never implemented 1947 partition plan (resolution 181), the film-makers encountered anonymous Israelis and Palestinians freely speaking their mind. In the project notes of Route 181, the four and a half hour filmic document of their journey, Khleifi and Sivan write: “The voices of those forgotten by official discourse will, we hope, be heard – the voices of those who nonetheless constitute the majority in both societies, those in whose name wars are fought.”
Much has been made in Middle East commentary of the lack and/or promise of dialogue. Route 181 exposes the false premise of this. The film-makers’ aim is not to reconcile opposing sides, nor to make them talk to each other; what they do instead is more modest, but also more radical. They simply listen to what people have to say. And it is their act of listening which creates the very conditions for what is being said and how it is being said. Khleifi’s and Sivan’s presence and attention allows the people they encounter on their journey to address them and in turn address us, the viewers.
Indeed, at a time when so much has been said about Palestine/Israel but much less has actually been heard, the quality of listening takes on crucial importance. What the encounter with the ‘protagonists’ of Route 181 makes us realize is that we don’t just need new historians or new histories; we also need an ethics of listening. Talk is cheap – the privilege and skill of listening is hard-earned.
Source : Uriel Orlow, 01.01.2005