The Israeli summer: Hundreds of thousands took to the streets in one demonstration after another. Hundreds erected tents in the middle of cities and other public places and lived in them. Protests were not about war and peace, but social concerns, a strong, angry and frustrated cry against the high cost of living and the quality of life. The demonstrators were particularly concerned about the price of housing (both for purchase and rent), low salaries, and the retreat of Israel from its previous social welfare commitments and the transformation of the state into what has become known as a “swine capitalism.” In July and August of this year, the unprecedented happened. Irit Dekel has already reported and appraised at Deliberately Considered earlier developments. Here, I consider a hopeful sign, and suggest how the concerns of the protestors might be addressed, even though I think this is unlikely, given the nature of the present government of the country.

A Hopeful Sign

As the massive civil protests were taking place, supporters were concerned that the sharp edge of this genuine social and political protest may be neutralized if a military threat suddenly erupts. Possible scenarios included President Assad of Syria or Hezbollah in Lebanon igniting Israel’s northern border in order to deflect international attention from Assad’s brutal suppression of the revolt against him. While this did not happen, in mid August, Israel’s southern border was ignited as Israel and the Palestinians in Gaza exchanged fire. This heightened military tension immediately set the agenda for the news. Coverage of the protest by the media all but disappeared. Yet, the protest did not abate.

Given this persistence, the political authorities are under great pressure to respond. Yet, Netanyahu and his government, at best, will try to placate the protestors, making minor changes, merely alleviating some of the despair, stress and misery that fueled the protests.  A significant response to the Israeli summer would require changed national priorities. Although I don’t think there is a political will for this by the ruling parties, important changes are possible, practical policy changes that could free resources, making major social change possible.

Possible Practical Remedies

A first candidate is the national settlement project in the occupied territories. Since 1967, the state has invested in building settlements, constructing roads, tax breaks for the settlers, and allocating military resources to defend the settlements, and probably some more expenses I am unaware of. In fact, the cost of the settlement project is hidden in so many items in the national budget that some researchers refer to this cost as one of the top secrets of the country. Many experts have pointed out that the “defense value” of these territories has become questionable, as was revealed during the second Lebanon War. Moreover, Israel’s public commitment to compromise with the Palestinians on the West Bank requires a serious decrease of the investments in the settlements.

Another expense that can be cut significantly is the financial support to religious institutions. Interestingly, Israel has a social welfare policy for some groups of its population. The religious agendas of many parties in past Israeli coalition governments managed to prioritize the allocation of resources to institutions such as Yeshivot, building Mikves (purification baths), as well as support a very large number of Haredi, ultra orthodox, males to devote their entire life to study sacred scriptures. The side effects of this policy are that large numbers of Haredi males are excluded from the job market, and that the relatively little amount of support has forced many traditionally large Haredi families into poverty. While Yeshivot and the study of the scriptures are important and fascinating parts of Jewish cultural tradition, the state can no longer completely subsidize this large a population. One way to save money is to change to a merit based system and only grant state benefits to the best scholars. A smaller number of scholars in Yeshivot could even benefit from the newly freed resources, as some of the money could be dedicated to a larger stipend to lift them out of poverty.

A third location to free up resources is the military budget. To give just one glaring, illustrative area: the retirement age of professional soldiers in the Israeli Defense Forces which was 45, has increased for some to 50. But why not increase it to 65? As an illustration, some of the best generals and salient military men during WWII were not teenagers. In 1943, at the height of the war, George Patton was 58, Bernard Montgomery 56 and Douglas MacArthur 63. They endured much harsher field conditions than today’s generals. General Norman Schwarzkopf, the military man behind the 1990-1 operation Desert Shield, was 56 years old at that time. Currently, Israel maintains two armies. One is the regular army, the other is an army of retired military personnel, of whom many are relatively young, have no desire to sit on the porch and bathe in the sun, and are actively engaged second careers. The military thus loses able soldiers with much valued accumulated experience while the civilian job market is dealing with an army of eager competitors for a variety of jobs that should indeed be filled by civilians. It has actually led to a situation where many civilian positions have been filled by ‘military’ people whose formative years and way of thinking were shaped and imprinted by military training that helped to shape their cognitive maps, their social networks, and their ways of conceptualizing issues. Another military saving lies in reducing the length of the compulsory service (three years for males now).

Political Implications and Prospects

Once resources are freed, money can be allocated to items that the protesters have asked for. First, resources need to be directed towards Israel’s Arab population, which constitutes about 20% of the Israeli population. Generally, the Arabs are being discriminated against and alienated in ways that are unbecoming for a democratic regime. The democratic legitimacy of Israel requires this reform.

And to further address the major norm of the protests, to truly accomplish a more equal distribution of resources, a reduction in the cost of living and more welfare, another significant change in the political structure is required. Israel, generally, has been ruled by coalition governments. These have been deeply flawed. They have been, as many Israelis have come to call them “Goalitzia.” This is a combination of two words in Hebrew: “Goal Nefesh” meaning “disgusting” and “Coalitzia” meaning “coalition.” This diabolical form of government is incapable of effective rule. Many decisions of Israeli governments are never carried out, nor does anybody feel responsible for the decisions that are made. This form of government simply means that any politician, or group of politicians, can promise voters the moon, sky and maybe the whole galaxy. but once they form a coalition with others, politicians, does not keep their election promises. They have the ultimate excuse for why not – the coalitional government. Each coalition party can blame one or more of its partners for not delivering on the promises it has made, freeing the party leaders from any responsibility. On top of this, this type of government has an almost built-in tendency to give small parties the power and resources way above and beyond their size, fundamentally distorting the will of the vast majority. A more democratic form of government would go along way in answering the democratic demands of the summer.

Now, the probability that any of the above listed suggestions will be applied is close to zero. Netanyahu appointed a committee of experts in response to the demonstrations. Its mandate is limited (e.g., to tax reforms) and it probably cannot, and perhaps should not, make recommendations for such significant social and political changes as I am proposing here. This should be done politically, not bureaucratically. For major political changes, one does not need a committee of experts. One needs politicians with a positive, democratic vision and a passionate drive to accomplish such a vision. Of course, a political solution of the conflict with the Palestinians and other Arab countries would not just release resources for civilian expenses, but, more generally, enable Israel to orient itself toward a more civil, liberal democratic society.

Given present political realities a resolution of the conflict, along with the practical reforms I have examined here, is difficult to imagine – even for this science fiction fan.

With these actions, journalists had turned this ship into a floating television studio, building a sense of suspense. The situation was carefully scripted, except for its outcome of course. However, in a way, the nature of the outcome did not matter. Either the Israelis would allow the flotilla to successfully challenge the Gaza blockade, which would show a sign of weakness, a defeat, a form of surrendering, or the Israelis would intervene to stop the flotilla. In that case, cameras were at hand to record violent actions: Israeli commandos attacking civilians, soldiers attacking “pacifists,” even if the latter are using weapons. Like in all reality shows, the narrative was built around a confrontation that took place on a small stage surrounded by cameras. The event was constructed as emblematic and endowed with a sustained visibility.

Let us now look at the explosion in the Argana café in Marrakesh, Morocca last month. The bombing occurred without warning. This suddenness is strategically understandable since an advance warning would have undermined its success. However, because it went unannounced, its impact has been enormously diminished. Of course, the number of victims in Marrakesh was much higher. If human lives count, the bombing at the popular Moroccan café should be considered a much more serious event than the odyssey of the Turkish flotilla. Yet, the victims, among them quite a few visiting foreigners, have stayed anonymous. The bombers are unknown and no camera was present to record the explosion while it happened. The photos in the next day’s newspapers showed only the aftermath of the explosion: destroyed walls, bloodstained shoes, overturned chairs and hospital beds. A carefully crafted dramaturgy is absent. The attention for the Marrakesh bombing was essentially quantitative. Seventeen people were killed. Twenty-five were wounded.

Put this in perspective with another bombing in Pakistan. On May 13, at least 80 people were killed and more than 150 were injured in a suicide bombing in Pakistan. Does this mean that this event was more important than the Marrakesh event? Does a scale on which to rate importance exist? In fact, it does. Human lives have become a media currency. This currency is heavily depreciated. There are simply too many dead people. There is too little attention.

In terms of expressing hatred, a suicide bombing is quite efficient. In terms of justifying this hatred, it represents a waste. In contrast to the masterfully run Mavi Marmara event, bombings feel amateurish. Of course, the Mavi Marmara is a big production. It delivers stars, a cast of hundreds, two major TV channels and the backing of one government. Bombings are rather do-it-yourself projects. The difference in style between both bombings and the Mavi Marmara epic is nevertheless stunning. While all are political events and all are meant to attract attention, only one provided a dramatic composition. As the perfect attention-trap, the flotilla was geared towards denunciation (of some), justification (of others). In the other two cases, there was just bare violence and poor dramaturgy. Perhaps the dramaturgy of the poor?

In my book, The Cynical Society, published in 1991, I had a simple project. I sought to show that along with the manipulation and cynicism of contemporary politics and political reporting, there was ongoing real principled democratic debate in American society. I criticized one dimensional accounts of American society that saw the debate between Ronald Reagan and his opponents, for example, as being about his personality and theirs, the interests he served and they served, and the manipulative strategies of both sides. They didn’t recognize that fundamental issues in American public life were being debated, specifically about the role of the state in our economy. I worried that people who didn’t like the prevailing order of things confused their cynicism with criticism, and in the process resigned from offering alternatives. My posts this week were extensions of that project to our present circumstances.

I attempted to illuminate the ways in which Barack Obama’s Presidency was and still is about fundamental change in my first post, and I tried to illuminate the terrain of principled political debate in my second post, additionally accounting for Obama’s position. America is a cynical society, but it is also a democratic one. A rosy colored view is naïve, while an exclusively dark one is enervating. I insist on understanding both dimensions.

But as the host of Deliberately Considered, I am learning and expanding my understanding. My two dimensional picture is limited and conceals some important matters, specifically the emotional dimension. We should keep in mind that we don’t only act on principle and reason and pursue our interests with strategies that are sometimes manipulative. We also act out and upon our emotions, as James Jasper explored in his posts a couple of weeks ago, and Gary Alan Fine has analyzed as well. Indeed Richard Dienst’s “bonds of debt,” that Vince Carducci reports on, are more emotional than rational, highlighting the connection between attachment, indebtedness and power, making it so that breaking the bank is a good thing. This is an imaginative act, working on emotions, revealing alternatives. I have my concerns about such thinking, skeptical as I am about utopias, but I understand how they can work reasonably to illuminate and form the basis of criticism.

Vittorio Arrigoni

But there is a much darker side to emotional politics revealed in Benoit Challand’s post and the discussion which followed. Emotions and emotional dispositions are part of the explanation for the assassination of Vittorio Arrigoni and our reaction to it. Chiara questioned Benoit Challand’s account when it came to the assassins. His suggestion that Salafists were responsible was not convincing. She felt that those responsible for killing a pacifist must have an overpowering reason and noted that “as Kant reminds us, human beings are not devils.” Yet we received a reply from Gaza which answered her assertion, poignantly explaining“to kill you do not need a reason you need to lose one,” affirming that the killer may very well have been a Salafist.  Chaira confidently maintained that we will know the identity of the killers if we can discover who could not tolerate what he was saying and who benefited from his silence. And then in a reply quite untypical, for its brevity and certainty, on this blog, Inggaw declared “This is an Israel move.” The ungrammatical sentence suggests that this reply also may be from Gaza or the region.

Although press reports emanating from the Hamas authorities in Gaza do suggest that this was a Salafist operation, gone bad, I don’t think we can know for sure at this distance. What is noteworthy in terms of our theme of the week is that what people “know” is as much a product of their emotional state as a product of their reason, and that this is an important if difficult part of the political situation in Israel – Palestine. To overlook this dimension means to not understand it. This has been revealed in some earlier posts coming from the region and will be explored in the future.

Keiko Fujimori

This dark emotional dimension of politics may play a decisive role in the upcoming second round elections in Peru and was evident in the first round, Rafael Narvaez reported in his post this week. Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of a thief, her father, Alberto Fujimori, complicit in a regime of torture, may be elected, with a primary end of freeing her father from prison. She is not a rational choice, but one arising from a deep and dark emotional place. Narvaez speculates: “The Fujimoris of the world fit the almost Jungian image of the obscene, emasculating, and yet seductive father.” To ignore such emotional politics is to ignore the appeal and to turn away from confronting the horrors of authoritarians of all different sorts, archetypically from Hitler to Stalin. But clearly this is an emotional side that must be constrained and answered with alternatives.

Donald Trump

An assassination in Gaza and the possible return of a corrupt and brutal Peruvian regime, or at least the toleration of criminals associated with that regime, seems quite distant from New York, where I write this review. Yet, this dark side of politics clearly plays an important role here as well. How else can I explain Donald Trump’s remarkably high polling among potential Republican Presidential candidates, apparently at the top of the heap as he bizarrely escalates the attacks against Barack Obama, as the worst President in American history, an illegitimate office holder, born in Kenya? It seems to be a joke, but with public support emanating from an irrational emotional place, such jokes can become deadly.

Vittorio Arrigoni, an Italian peace activist, was abducted in Gaza City yesterday, and then killed, apparently by a Salafist group opposed to Hamas. The news already has shaken Italy and Europe, and it will also make for some somber headlines here in the USA.

Arrigoni arrived in Gaza three years ago as part of the International Solidarity Movement, a network of foreign activists who deliberately choose to live in the heart of the occupied territories to bear witness to the continuing harassment of the Palestinian population at the hands of the Israeli occupier (be they military or of the radical settler movements). Some of these activists live in remote villages, some accompany ambulances through checkpoints. Often IDF soldiers let the vehicles through simply because there is a ‘white’ person onboard. Others organize protests around Israel’s Separation Wall or in Palestinian villages, such as Budrus, Ni’lin, non-violently protesting. All confront the apartheid nature of the occupation. For this reason, Israel tries to prevent them from entering its territories, attempting to silence these annoying witnesses.

Arrigoni was such a witness-activist. Choosing Gaza as the place of his activism, he was one of the very few non-diplomat foreigners present during the Operation Cast Lead (Dec. 2008-January 2009). His blogs and reports were published on the Italian leftist daily Il Manifesto for which he kept sending reports.

Gaza has been off limits to most foreigners and at times fully inaccessible to journalists and even ambassadors. Israel controls all of the borders around the Palestinian territories. Based on his experience in the 2008-2009 war, Arrigoni published a poignant book entitled Restiamo Umani, which can be translated in the affirmative as “We Remain Human” or in the imperative form as “Let Us Stay Human.” Giving a human face to the Palestinian civilian population in Gaza was Arrigoni’s mission. His was an urgent sense of witnessing the ordeal of ordinary Palestinians.

But why would a Palestinian group execute him? The official line is that a radical Salafist group, opposed to Hamas, had captured him hoping to exchange his release for the release of one of their leaders arrested by Hamas. It could well be that a small group of Palestinian extremists carried out the operation and lost control, leading to this tragic ending. Yet, the motives and timing of this killing remain unclear and pose many further questions.

Paola Caridi, an Italian journalist-scholar questions the motive of this killing in her latest blog posting. She provides excellent coverage of the Arab Middle East and has written a very detailed book on Hamas (in Italian and now available in English), based on serious fieldwork, which included direct contact with the Islamist movement. Here are some of her questions, coupled with my concerns, as to cui prodest, who profits from the crime.

The fact that Vittorio Arrigoni’s murder comes just a few days after the execution by masked gunmen of another peace activist, Juliano Mer-Khamis, in Jenin, is in itself very disturbing. This strongly contrasts with the pattern of peaceful popular revolts throughout the Arab world (except for what has become a civil war in Libya). Moreover, the name of the Salafist group involved in Arrigoni’s killing (Tawhid and Jihad), though known in the Iraqi context, is literally unheard of in the Gaza Strip, colleagues there tell me. And when previous radical Islamist groups have taken hostages (remember BBC correspondent Alan Johnston abducted for four months back in 2007), the ultimatum has always been respected. Finally, when these peace activists were seen to become too critical of their peers, they received other types of warnings, not death threats. (I cited an episode of intimidation that Juliano Mer-Khamis and his theater faced in 2009 in the introduction of a working paper on civil society and conflict transformation). The hasty execution of Arrigoni, again, does not fit the rather rare pattern of abduction-negotiation that has taken place in the Gaza Strip.

Unfortunately raising such questions will not bring Vittorio back to life. But they must be posed, especially in the light of an ongoing escalation of violence around Gaza. Hamas must investigate why nothing could be done to prevent this tragedy, and why the response to Arrigoni’s abduction was so slow. Certainly, there will be commentators and political actors in the region who will argue that the opponents to Arab autocracy are bloodthirsty and violent murderers and that stability, opposed to democratic change, is in the interest of all influential actors in the region. But this would not do justice to the nature of the Arab revolts nor to Arrigoni’s efforts to show the Gazans under a more humane face. Restiamo umani.

Modern media technology is on the mind of everyone analyzing the ongoing Arab revolts. It is also a great didactic tool that can change perspectives inside out, both for students and for their teachers.

Last week, as part of my New School undergraduate class, “Civil Society and Democratization in the Middle East,” I organized a video conference connecting my twelve students with a group of students and activists from Gaza City. Video conference is a bit exaggerated because the New School does not have such a facility, although the two existing universities in the Gaza Strip have the latest technology available. If this were still needed, we had confirmation that Arabs are on top of their technology (and that more money is needed from the Gates Foundation to equip American research institutions). Despite fear of a power failure (as is frequently the case in Gaza) and a bricolage of Skype with a laptop connected to the video-projector, the connection was smooth and the flow of questions on both sides lasted more than an hour and a half.

The Palestinian students were in the MBA and Journalism programs at Al-Azhar University (the college closer in line with the nationalist party Fatah, while the Islamist University is under Hamas’ hegemony). They were chosen for their fluency in English by a former Ph.D. colleague, a long time Palestinian activist and social scientist. The five Palestinian interlocutors (two women speaking articulately and more passionately than their shy male colleagues) responded to my students’ questions with great nuance and passion. The most outspoken student was a female journalist, half Libyan and half Palestinian. Unlike the other students, who showed less enthusiasm for the international coalition’s bombings in Libya, she was very glad to see that, at least once, the international community was standing by its word in defending an anti-dictatorial protest movement.

We heard of their plans to organize another protest in Gaza, not around the occupation or the siege of Gaza, but calling for the end of international Palestinian divisions. For this young generation, the Fatah-Hamas political stand-off, since the 2006 elections and the military actions in June 2007, has been the most pressing issue. The division between a Hamas-led de facto government in the Gaza Strip and a Fatah-run Palestinian Authority in the West Bank has meant a gradual shrinking of the Palestinian population’s freedoms of association and expression. Political opponents and activists have encountered the same fate under Fatah or Hamas: arrest, physical intimidation and in some cases even torture. Clearly, the Palestinian people, in the judgment of these students, could do with a revolt like in Tunisia and Egypt, and this would also force Israel to be more proactive in seeking a just and peaceful solution with the Palestinians and its Arab neighbors.

Sadly, the international media did not report on the bravery of the few hundreds of Gaza students who took the street on the 30^th of March, despite the warnings by the Hamas government that any public gathering would be considered illegal. The NY Times had literally two lines on this protest, at the end of a larger article dedicated to human rights violations in the Gaza strip. All it said was that “Hamas police officers broke up a small demonstration by youths calling for an end to the split between Gaza and the West Bank, where the Palestinian Authority holds sway.” What we heard from our Gaza friends a few days after this demonstration was that the students, as they marched out the university, were beaten up by the police, with many left injured.

Students in my class were impressed by the courageous stance taken by their Palestinian colleagues. The usually rather silent students turned out to be the most vocal in expressing their solidarity with the Palestinian activists. This face-to-face dialogue will have made the ordeal of many Palestinians more understandable and more tangible to a few American youths. To me, it has also demonstrated that giving a personal voice to otherwise complicated issues is the best way to get students more interested in pressing international affairs.

“[I]t is high time that honest people outside the region .. conceive of [the Palestinian Israeli conflict] as a tragedy and not as some ‘Wild – West Show,’ containing good guys and bad guys.  Tragedies can be resolved in one of two ways: there is the Shakespearean resolution and there is the Chekhovian one.  At the end of the Shakespeare tragedy, the stage is strewn with dead bodies, and maybe there’s some justice hovering high above.  A Chekhov tragedy, on the other hand, ends with everybody disillusioned, embittered, heartbroken, disappointed, absolutely shattered, but still alive.  And I want a Chekhovian resolution, not a Shakespearean one, for the Israeli – Palestinian tragedy.”

I completely agree.  A persecuted people, after centuries of oppression and exclusion in Europe, culminating in genocide, find a place for themselves in what they perceive to be their ancient homeland.  A peaceful people are forced off their land, displaced, homeless, subjected to second class citizenship.  As Israelis and Palestinians fight against each other in their pursuit of justice, justice is denied.  The majority on both sides, at least at times, have even agreed on what they perceive as a just solution, a two state solution, with Jerusalem as the capital of two nations, but getting there from here has made the solution elusive, if not impossible.   Repeated failure has led to despair and aggression.  On both sides, majorities are convinced that the other side is not serious about a just resolution, not serious about peace.  Against these majorities, some try to keep alternatives alive.  Their activities remind me of small things I had observed in the U.S. and in East and Central Europe.

A most compelling example of people who work against the common sense about the other is The Parents Circle, a Palestinian Israeli organization of “bereaved families for peace.”  I first met them at their Israeli headquarters outside of Tel Aviv when a student of mine arranged a meeting.  I found it absolutely remarkable how the Israeli and the Palestinian members of the organization worked with each other.  I know that when people try to work across divides of conflict and of domination, finding an equal footing is difficult.  Condescension and arrogance on the part of the structurally advantaged group members is difficult to avoid, as is acquiescence to subordination or defensive aggression on the part of the members of the dominated group.  The warm feeling and the careful avoidance of such pitfalls were striking at The Parents Circle office.

What I saw that day is depicted in Encounter Point, a moving film about the group.3  It introduces ordinary people on both sides of the conflict attempting to re-write the political culture as it accounts for them and us.  These are people who have lost love ones in the conflict, victims of wars, military raids, suicide bombings, terror of the state apparatus and of resistance organizations.  The group members are dedicated to not having their loss used to justify a politics of retribution. It started in Tel Aviv, among a group of Israeli parents.  It now has both Palestinian and Israeli branches, with the Palestinian group slightly outnumbering the Israeli one. The groups operate independently and also work jointly.  Getting together, a crucial part of their endeavors, though, is not easy.  Travel restrictions make Palestinian movements within Israel proper difficult, if not impossible.  And Israeli citizens also are restricted in their movements in the occupied territories.  In the film, we see a group meeting in Jerusalem.  What we don’t see are the obstacles and checkpoints that had to be surmounted for the Palestinians to take part.  We are shown an attempt by the Israeli group to meet a group in the West Bank, and though they finally do get through, their difficulties are clearly depicted. It includes a postscript of the Palestinian host of the gathering being arrested as a terrorist, but released from prison thanks to his Parents Circle Israeli colleagues.  Road blocks, checkpoints, official regulations and fear are the group’s immediate obstacles.  But memory and attitudes toward the other are more profound ones.

In the report of the Jerusalem meeting, we see a discussion between two families who lost their daughters to the conflict, in an anti terrorist military operation in Bethlehem and in a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv.  It is a quick empathetic conversation, casual, seemingly not of profound significance.  But we see more outside the meeting.  We learn that the family from Bethlehem had the bad luck of driving their late model Toyota on a shopping trip on the same day a group of suspected terrorists were driving the same model.  And when their car came into view of the Israeli army, they were attacked and their daughter was killed.  We see the funeral, a full martyr’s ceremony, with aggressive nationalist, almost militaristic, rhetoric and with the father actively taking part.  And we see the father, later, now a member of Parents Circle, as deputy major of the city.  This is a moving sequence of events.  The family, of course, has not forgotten the loss of their daughter, but in their actions, they are undermining a dominant way of remembering, trying to create another way, apparently with some success.

Their Israeli counterparts do the same thing.  We see the father who lost his daughter to the suicide bombing go to school groups and argue not only for peace and reconciliation, but also against the linking of memory and retribution.  He may not convince, but he is, at least, opening up new possibilities.

Both fathers know that as they work in their own communities, they make it possible to work together, and in doing so, they are creating new political alternatives to the logic of the central authorities, by redefining their situation and acting together based on that redefinition.  I am struck by the fact that working against memory, or, at least, “re-remembering,” collectively remembering in a different way, is a first act of transforming the common sense about them and us and reinventing a political culture.

The two fathers and their fellow members of The Parents Circle meet the other in a different way.  Even as they are part of different political communities and may not agree on the big political questions, they share a commitment that their losses are not used as a key justification for flaming the conflict.  Their attempt to de-militarized the conflict suggests a possible overcoming of the tragedy.  The obstacles they face are very real, some they are able to overcome in their interaction.  But the interaction is difficult, requiring changes in fundamental attitudes, but also requiring a subversion of structures that separate people, physical restrictions and communal attitudes.  Nonetheless these people and many like them persist.  And in their persistence off the main political stage, I believe, the script of the “Chekhovian resolution” is being written.  More about the writing of the script in future posts.