The unholiness of Easter in Jerusalem

You would think that a city that experience a high number of tourists every year, would have worked out a logistical plan for how to deal with the masses that enter its gates. Not having done so may be a flaw, but does not necessarily constitute a breach of human rights. However what I see and experience on the ground the 14^th of April 2012, with excessive violence by the police and military forces towards the people inculding old women, the refusal to let priests and nuns enter their convents, and the restriction in movement of its citizens as well as visitors – all of these point towards lacking human rights standards.

Standing by the New Gate’s entrance to the Old city of Jerusalem, queuing together with several hundreds of other Christians, I start to wonder on who is let in through the gate? I can see Orthodox Jews passing in both directions, squeezing through the masses and let in without any questions. Those who can address the security forces in Hebrew are also let in, much to the dismay of the tourists who have travelled to the country to experience the holiday. I hear Polish, Russian, Bulgarian, Greek, an Australian accent of English, as well as Italian and Spanish.

My first intention was not to enter, but rather observe and understand some of the mysteries of the Orthodox Church. The soldier closest to me has been standing singing “Hakuna Mata”, and even made up his own song with the words “I wish I could do more, but please wait a while, I don’t want to be here, but please I am doing my best”. Maybe he is because I feel relatively safe there, especially when there is plenty of shoving in the crowd. People desperately try to get through, but also the soldiers are physically forcing the people back; pushing nuns and old priests so hard they hit the ground. Unfortunately the crowd is so big, it is impossible to take a step backwards, and I am literally holding on to the barricade to assert my place. Opposite side of the New Gate, several men start to yell at the soldiers and police, and suddenly they are held through a strangling grip, and detained.

Yet after two hours of queuing I am so tired and frustrated with the system that I ask the soldier to let me pass. I squeeze in together with a 78 year old Rumanian woman, who tries to communicate with me. We find a common ground in my College  level Italian, and I understand she has lost her group of cousins. Apparently this was a lifelong dream of her and her husband, who sadly passed away a couple of months earlier, before having the chance to visit. When we after a couple of blocks reach the next barricade she is tired and we find her, Rhanyia is her name, a chair. However as the masses fill up behind us, the police starts to scream “Move back”. To explain that it is impossible to move even an inch backwards due to the people pushing from behind is fruitless. He pushes everyone back, we are falling and trampling on each other, and my newly adopted grandmother is sitting further back on her chair. He walks up to her, push her chair so it falls over, falling on top of her. I am furious at this point, why would anyone deliberately try to hurt an old frail woman? Perhaps it is for the best that I am busy trying to help her up from the hard cobble stone, and make sure she is OK, because otherwise I could easily have gotten into trouble.

Eventually, we are let through and walk towards the next barricade, where we find her cousins. We do not get further than past that barricade though, before the clock turns one o’clock and the holy fire is lit in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. An old Armenian man, who lives in the old city, angrily try to push through us, and a Greek orthodox Australian waste his energy trying to explain that it is impossible, they are not even letting the Scouts in charge of the holy fire through. His wheel chart, above his head, the old man charges the masses, dropping the chart on top of me and Rhanyia. I fail to understand the holiness in these events, but Rhanyia is light up as the sun when she can eventually light her candles from the holy fire. I become more concerned with ensuring that the flames are not caught in my hair, as the crowd is waving candles, singing and dropping wax around them. For them this is the symbol of how there are still miracles in the holy land, how God is still present, and it is a symbol of hope.

For me the day becomes a symbol of how the people in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory are still suffering. How excessive force and a lack of respect for other’s religious practices ruin much of the holy experience of the Holy land. But I take comfort in the fact that despite bruises Rhanyia and I are both OK, and I managed to provide some protective presence for her to ensure she had a good experience. As I walk back through the old city, I ask myself:  if it is this bad on a Christian holiday, what will it be like on Ramadan, when the streets instead of international Christians are full of Muslim Palestinians?