[music]

Speaker: David, as you know was a great king. One thing that was foremost in David's mind and his heart was to build a great temple. So many of us in life start out building temples, temples of character, temples of justice, temples of peace. So often we don't finish them because life is like Schubert's Unfinished Symphony, and so we like David, find ourselves and so many instances having to face the fact that our dreams are not fulfilled.

[music]

Chelsi: This trip for me personally, I can't even wrap my mind around the fact that we're going to be in the very place that the Bible story has taken place. The cornerstone of Christianity is Jesus, his crucifixion and resurrection, and that's where we're going to be and that's very profound. It's dangerous area and they haven't researched this or studied this particular part of the world. I have all of these gut reactions without a lot of knowledge. I think that's what wakes me up in the middle of nights, it's like, "What am I doing here? [laughs] Do I really understand the gravity of this situation [laughs]"

September Penn: When I saw that we going to work at the Palestinian National theater, I had paused because when American television, represented terrorists, they're represented almost sub-human.

P. Michael: The one thing I want to see the most are camels. I want to see a camel. I want to ride and take pictures on a camel.

[singing]

Well, woke up this mo'nin

With my mind, stayin' on freedom

Woke up this mo'nin

With my mind, stayin' on the freedom

Well, woke up this mo'nin

With my mind, stayin' on freedom

Halleluh, halleleluh, halleleluh

Halleluh, halleleluh, halleleluh

[background conversation]

Kamel El-Basha: I'm glad that we are working on this critical subject which is Nonviolence and Martin Luther King. I hope through this play, we can do our part talking to the Palestinian people about ways to struggle for their rights. Still, we have--

Dr. Clayborne Carson: From the very beginning I've been very curious about the idea of bringing King to new cultures. It is no longer an American cultural possession, It's a global icon, and I want to tell King's story in a way that's going to resonate with Palestinians.

Speaker: Let's go. Let's do it.

Aleta Hayes: The first days I didn't think we were going to get along at all because they were separate and sitting together and speaking Arabic. [Arabic language] It seems like there was some ditching. [Arabic language]

Ramzi Magdisi: When arrived from American, I didn't know how it's going to be. They start like they had all their cameras and they start doing pictures.

P. Michael: We want some pictures?

[chuckling]

Ramzi: I didn't like this at all. I don't accept anybody to take a picture of me before saying hi. I'm not an object. I'm really frustrated as Palestinian to be an object for the cameras and for the journalist.

September: Ramzi, who plays Martin, he has a good read on characters, a good read on personalities. Very pretty early in our rehearsals, he wanted to get to know people, but he's like, "I want to get to know them, but they don't even know each other yet." He was unaware that we were from different parts of the United States, that part of us were from Florida, and part of us was from California. He was right; we didn't really know each other. I fessed up that I was a little offended about that. I said, "But you know what? I admire you for picking up on that quickly and even calling it out."

Ramzi: I will not lie, before; it was for me two countries it's not important to visit, Egypt and US. US because, all things arrives to Palestinian through the American politic or through Hollywood, which is the same face. Hollywood, the American always gives all the bad. They're Black, or they're Muslims, or Arabs, or Chinese, or Russian. Like the mother of the British, he hug his girlfriend and he kiss her, and they are the best people. This's what we know of US.

Kamel: One of my fears was that I don't know the choir. Both the songs in order, number one, number two, number three, It's 14 songs we have. The singing is part of the rhythm of the play so I was very terrified.

[singing]

Then my living shall not be in vain

Then my living shall not be in vain

Then my living shall not be

My living shall not be

My living shall not be in vain

Kamel: The highest that you can note.

[singing]

Kamel: Go, go go. Yes, yes, yes. One more--

[singing]

Speaker: She's going to get it. No no, no problem.

Kamel: You're that close.

[singing]

[applause]

Kamel: When I met them, and I saw how they sing, I felt that we are going to do a very good play.

Ramzi: [Arabic language]

Kamel: All these speeches of Martin Luther King, when he's speaking about justice, when he's speaking about love, when he's speaking about dealing with your enemy, to gain the respect and the understanding of the other so that you can solve your problem, he's talking to me as a human being.

Dr. Clayborne: What's interesting is another country asserting its own identity on the material. It's also frustrating and it sometimes tears you up because I came and found that the director with the cast had really developed another play.

Kamel: It started to change from the beginning because if we did it, as Dr. Carson wrote it, it would be a documentary about Martin Luther King. That is interesting for people who are interested in Martin Luther King life or philosophy.

Ramzi: [Arabic language]

Speaker: [Arabic language]

Ramzi: [Arabic language]

Speaker: [Arabic language]

Speaker: [Arabic language]

Kamel: For Palestinian audience, it doesn't work. It would be a documentary that they won't like it. I started to think how to do it in a proper way, in a way that our audience will like it and will absorb the message within the play.

Speaker: [Arabic language]

Kamel: I took about 80% of Dr. Carson's text and of Dr. Carson's text, and we build around it, 20%. What we are doing actually is a Palestinian theater group making rehearsal on the text of Dr. Carson with American director me on stage.

Speaker: I am here as an artist on a cultural exchange doing a play about Martin Luther King.

Speaker: He knew that the only way to do this play is to crack it open and allow the Palestinians particular situation to be able to be infused into the play. Seems like talking about negotiations, it's a hot issue, talking about the flag and each other's images.

Speaker: We won't put the American flag on stage. That's it.

Speaker: [Arabic language]

Speaker: Stop. I need to understand. [unintelligible 00:11:00] talk to me.

Speaker: There's nothing to understand.

Speaker: That is not talking to me. I need to understand this.

Speaker: You're here for two months, and you want to understand. You still don't know what image you have here as an American?

Speaker: I personally have felt very welcome in this country.

Speaker: Everybody is welcome in our country. We don't have a problem with the people.

Speaker: This flag is the people, the American people.

Speaker: This flag represents the people and the government and the army and the politicians and everything. It reflects your image, and it's very ugly now.

Chelsi: When in the play they talk about the American flag, whether they should put it on Kennedy's coffin or not, and what the face of America looks like to the Palestinians and there's a big argument, that was eye-opening. The first run-through, I'm like, "Wait, what's going on? [chuckles] Well, wait, why?" I didn't know it was like that.

Speaker: You the American killed Martin Luther King and you killed Kennedy too, the beloved president. You kill each other everyday.

Speaker: You Palestinians kill each other every day.

Speaker: We're not.

Dr. Clayborne: It threw me for a loop because here I'm presented with a script in which my play is the play within the play. From that point on, I recognize that this was a tug of war.

[background conversation]

Dr. Clayborne: They're pulling at it in one direction. I'm pulling at it as the writer of the original play. I want to tell our story. I don't want it to be filtered through this process that Kamel has created with his actors.

Speaker: What will happen next is then a big discussion with Kamel and the cast. I think it was really beautiful for him to just see the whole like what's the shape?

Dr. Clayborne: I can tell you that you got some members of the choir very upset.

Chelsi: The way they were doing the play it almost seemed like a mockery or cynical. It's like, "This is really serious." It's like, "Why are we joking about this? [chuckles] Why are we laughing?" It was really weird.

[background conversation]

Chelsi: It was almost insulting.

[laughter]

[music]

[unintelligible 00:13:26]

Speaker: That feel good? No one, let's just go over it.

[singing]

Nobody knows the troubles I've seen

Nobody knows but Jesus

Nobody knows the troubles I've seen

Glory, Hallelujah

Sometimes I'm up

Sometimes I'm down

[laughter]

Speaker: Why did you do that?

P. Michael: Because you told me to.

[laughter]

Speaker: Oh, no. My word.

[laughter]

P. Michael: Just right now, I just want to do it one more time. I wasn't excusing.

[singing]

Praise God, praise God, praise God, praise God

Praise God, praise God, praise God,

Speaker: I had this assumption that this trip would be more contentious along the faith lines-

[singing]

Praise God, praise God, praise God,

Speaker: -because there are so many different faiths here. We're bringing gospel message in this play that these are going to be Muslims. They're not going to like this. [chuckles] I don't know how it's going to work.

P. Michael: Lead through us God in the name of Jesus. As we're singing these songs about freedom God in the name of Jesus, I'm asking you, God, let us be the voice of nonviolence God, enough peace, God in the name of Jesus because this play is going to change lives God in the name of Jesus and I thank you. Amen.

Speaker: Amen

[Islamic call to prayer]

Kamel: This is gospel land. My wife is Christian. Her family and me are in good relations. This is the holy land.

[Islamic call to prayer]

[music]

P. Michael: It's the first time I've been overseas. I've been to Cancun. I've been to places like that but it's the first time I've been somewhere so historically relevant. Being a Christian, I grew up hearing about Jerusalem and Israel and all these holy sites, but to be able to walk the streets where Jesus saved the major hitters in the Bible, to be able to see where they stood.

[music]

P. Michael: To feel the emotion that's here because there's so much emotion that's here, it shows me that the Bible is real. I never questioned it before, but to say, I got to see the cooling plate where they laid Christ's body after he died.

[music]

P. Michael: To say, I got to see the tomb, that Jesus was laid. I got to visit the Wailing Wall. As soon as I touched the wall, I just began to cry because it was so amazing. My mother always said, "Oh, the saints were teary. The saints were just wailing. The saints would just cry." I actually got to go to some of these places where they did that.

[music]

Speaker: The most heartbreaking experience for me was when we went to Bethlehem because they took us to the Church of the Nativity. We're just on cloud nine, spiritually. You're like, "Oh, this is great." [chuckles]

Speaker: This is the city where my Savior was born. 100 % God, 100% man, he came and put on flesh and he was birthed into this city.

[music]

Speaker: It was the full range of emotions, the elation of being in the place of the Savior's birth.

[music]

Speaker: Then the whole devastation of what is going on, not even miles away.

Speaker: We went to a man's home where he lived right next to the wall. He had acres and acres of land, before.

Ramzi: This is the foundation of the wall, what you see in front of us. This is the wall, the real wall. Here have nine meter, near the house there, and have 12 meters. Six like this, and six like this. This is called for security.

Speaker: I heard that the reason the Israeli government built the wall there was to protect the Israelis from bombings. At the same time, can you imagine just walking out of your front door and then there's a wall. Not to mention that your land is on the other side of it, which you can't get to anymore.

September: To me, that was just crushing because what was left was this man's home, in this tiny, little plot of a playground. Trying to make the very best of it, but literally, the debris from further construction of the wall is falling onto their little playground. All I could do was cry, just because I had the mother of three kids. I think about my kids, running and playing and being kids, and this is all they have left. It was crushing that all of this is happening right here in Bethlehem.

The tourists don't see this, no one's going to take them here to this man's property. No one is going to give them the real story of what's going on. When they bring the tour buses in with all the Christians making their pilgrimage, they don't tell them what the wall is. Us back in America, we have walls, but they're like sound barriers so the neighborhood on the other side, they don't hear all of the trucks going down the highway. They could possibly think, "Oh, this is just a sound barrier."

Speaker: Just knowing that that exists in the same place where we're in euphoria over the birth of Christ, it's just crazy.

Ramzi: I decided to go to the Jerusalem hotel where they are staying to make a second way to break the silence between us to see because we have to work together. [background conversation]

Ramzi: They were speaking about how they see Palestine. They start crying after telling us how they saw the crime. For me, like a human first, before being Palestinian. I like to see the reaction of American people because I don't see it through the government. It's to confirm to myself, these people they're like us.

[laughter]

[singing]

Speaker: There you are.

Speaker: Ramzi, he shared so much. He's lived in different places. He has interesting things to talk about.

Speaker: He wants a bit new.

Speaker: He's also been to jail. He was really young when this happened.

Ramzi: When I was 16, I was thinking always why we don't have radio, why we don't have TV the Palestinian. I decide I'm going to make radio in Jerusalem. My family, they said, "You're crazy." I said, "Okay." I was working already and I could buy a small transmitter. I put it in our home in Jerusalem. I start speaking on the radio alone in this diameter. I was saying, "The Palestinian city, Jerusalem, welcome everybody, ladies and gentlemen." Things like this. After three days, the Israeli, they came and they attacked the home. I didn't know it was risky what I was doing. I was a boy. I had the dream; I want to make a radio. They took me to jail.

Speaker: He told me a little bit about the prison saying it was really, really small. He'd have his leg scrunched up against the wall, I believe for a year. For that reason, his back still has problems. It's just sad that you would be arrested for speaking your mind.

September: For me, it was seeing the Palestinians different. Seeing them us people with many in the Christian community, we devoutly support the Israeli government. The word is you got to be behind Israel. You got to support Israel. Got to support God's people. I had to open myself that "Wow, God is going to show you something here." I remember saying, "Okay, God, I'm going to receive it, whatever it is."

Ramzi: It's great now because we feel like we are closer to the African community, the Black.

[singing]

When the darkness appears and the night draws near

And the day is past and gone

Georgina Asfour: Before, when we're doing the rehearsals alone, we felt something missing all the time. When they come and we start work together, we felt this energy.

[applause]

Georgina: I think all of us, we start to see Martin Luther, new. [chuckles] I think we have the same energy.

Speaker: Yes. That's the thing that I've been pressing--

Georgina: You shared something.

Speaker: Right. The groundedness and the warmth.

Georgina: Yes, and the warmth.

[clapping and singing]

Speaker: Honestly, I think laughing is the thing that caused us to start to be friends.

Ramzi: Behind, I dance a lot.

Chelsi: I saw you. I saw you.

Ramzi: I love it.

Chelsi: Yes. You're good.

Speaker: Now I realize that they really bring some comedy, bring some lightheartedness to a really heavy issue, and bring it into an arena where people can enjoy being at the theater, while also being stimulated intellectually and emotionally and spiritually. There's lots of things he's trying to do with the play. It's very complex. I respect the fact that he's able to bring all of these different things together.

Dr. Clayborne: The relationship with Kamel has been interesting. [chuckles] I had to admire that artistic courage that allowed him to say, "Yes, I can pull this off."

[background talks]

Dr. Clayborne: It's like what happened with African-American theater back in the '30s and '40s. Even though they were producing material that was written by a white writer, they would adapt something. In that way, say, "We are making it into our own." Well, that's what's happening to my little play is, can you use something taken from the West and use it in a way that promotes the cause of Palestinian identity? Kamel is continuing that process that goes back into the 1960s when artists were among the first to say, "Yes, there are Palestinians. They do have a distinctive national identity."

Kamel: This is Handala. It's a character that was created by Naji al-Ali. Naji al-Ali is a Palestinian caricaturist. He was very famous in the Arab world. He invented this character, the character that is now the symbol of the Palestinian identity. The real Palestinian people, not the politicians, not intellectual people, but people in the street. During '80s, Naji al-Ali was assassinated in London. He did not carry a weapon. He was a politician in a way. He was Marxist also.

I don't believe in Marxism religious person, but he was also symbolizing me, my feelings through Handala, through the real Palestinian that is looking forward and giving his back to the whole world because he knows what he wants to do and he's going toward his target, free Palestine, free Palestine, nothing else.

[chanting]

Dr. Clayborne: This visit was an eye-opener for me.

[chanting]

Dr. Clayborne: There's a changing image of who these young Islamic students are. They don't fit the American stereotype. They're not terrorists. These are highly educated people. They would fit right in, in California. Some of them do come to California. Fadi was a member of my India's seminar on Gandhi. With the resources of Stanford, we were able to take 15 students to India to study Gandhi's legacy. Fadi, in particular, is just so taken with how this applied to the Palestinian situation.

Speaker: It's good to see you.

Fadi Quran: I first came across Martin Luther King in 9th Grade, back here in Palestine. We had a professor who was volunteering here to teach us English. He gave us Martin Luther King speech, and we had to memorize it. I was like, "Wow, is he speaking to people in the US or is he speaking to us?"

[chanting]

Dr. Clayborne: That is very quiet. I would not have thought of him as an activist. He was a physics major, but one of the things he was involved in even when he was my student at Stanford, was trying to open up discussions between Jews and Muslim students about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that were not accusatory.

Fadi: I want to introduce you to some of my very good friends. This is [unintelligible 00:28:20]

Dr. Clayborne: Oh, my. How are you?

Fadi: She's one of the main organizers behind this event.

Dr. Clayborne: They've grown up under occupation. How many people in the world have that experience of being under military occupation for their entire lives?

[chanting]

Kamel: As a youngster, I started my life being in demonstrations, and then being in jail, and then being in theater. All the time, I'm trying to find a way to get rid of this occupation until now it's not working. Nothing is working.

Speaker: [Arabic language]

Ramzi: [Arabic language]

Kamel: We tried in the '80s with a nonviolence movement with Mubarak Awad. He was American-Palestinian that started a nonviolent movement in Palestine, and Israelis throw him out of the country. They did not permit him to come back.

Mubarak Awad: Martin Luther King came against it and other people came against it, yet we still are in love with war.

Ramzi: In the beginning, I was like, "Me as a person, I'm not similar to Martin Luther. I'm more similar to Malcolm X."

Malcolm X: [Arabic language] As-salamu alaykum.

Speaker: As-salamu alaykum.

Audience: Wa alaykumu salam

[shouting and gunshots]

[singing]

No more weepin' over me

And before I'd be a slave

I'd be buried in my grave

And go home to my Lord and be free

Kamel: I don't believe as an artist that I can solve problems by killing no matter what they did to me. This is how this play connects to our course when you talk about people who helped in liberating their people, as somebody under occupation, you become interested in them. This is something I think we need as Palestinians now.

[singing]

Ain't gonna let nobody, turn me around

Turn me around, turn me around

Ain't gonna let nobody, turn me around

I'm gonna keep on a-walkin', keep on a-talkin'

Marchin' down to freedom land

Ain't gonna let no jail cell turn me around

Turn me around, turn me around

Ain't gonna let no jail cell turn me around

I'm gonna keep on a-walkin', keep on a-talkin'

Marchin' up to freedom's land

Ramzi: [Arabic language]

[singing]

And the one thing we did right

Was the day we started to fight

Keep your eyes on the prize and hold on

Hold on, let your body hold on

Hold on, yes my sister

Keep your eyes on the prize and hold on

[applause]

[background conversation]

Dr. Clayborne: What I realized is that things are never solved, and when you're doing something as complex as doing a play in another country. At the Wednesday performance, Kamel changed my play again without asking me. That was a hard pill for me to swallow, and I didn't swallow it very well.

Kamel: When I changed the end of the play, he was very angry. I had to convince him that this is the best way, in order to pass the message of the play.

Dr. Clayborne: As an author, it's just inconceivable to me, how you can put my conclusion at the beginning.

Kamel: I did that to get the best results of the play, to get the Palestinian audience think about nonviolence. It's not because I don't like what you write. I told the actors today, "If we are doing this play in America or Europe, the people will listen and will accept it as it is written, but our audience is not like American and European audience. They're not good listeners."

Dr. Clayborne: What's the difference between having them listen at the beginning and listen at the end?

Kamel: The audience is fresh and they will absorb all the information, the ideas, the philosophy.

Dr. Clayborne: By moving something from the end to the beginning, you changed the philosophy.

Kamel: You do.

Dr. Clayborne: No.

[music]

Dr. Clayborne: Since we obviously do not agree on this-

Kamel: Yes.

Dr. Clayborne: -what I would like to do is broaden the discussion a little bit.

Kamel: If anybody likes to join our discussion with doctor, you are more than welcome.

Speaker: This is negotiation.

Kamel: No, it's not negotiation.

[laughter]

Kamel: It's to make us both-

Dr. Clayborne: On an equal level.

Kamel: -understand what is the better for the show in Palestine.

Dr. Clayborne: Eye to eye.

Kamel: It's not negotiation.

Dr. Clayborne: Everything came together in that one space. All the frustrations of everybody wanting what they wanted and not being able to find the common ground.

Kamel: It's really to ask the question, "What do we want the audience to take?" If we think about ourselves, "What do I want to gain from this play?" We will not reach agreements.

Dr. Clayborne: I wrote the ending as a conclusion to Martin's spiritual journey. To me, it's the most important speech that Martin gives. To have it performed at the beginning when there's no context, when there's no understanding of what that journey is, there's no emotional weight to it.

Georgina: We want our audience to be attracted to hear what he's saying because it's very important. They told me, "We didn't hear him actually. We didn't have the energy to hear him again."

Dr. Clayborne: If the play fails, it's my play that fails. If this play succeeds, it's my play that succeeds.

Ramzi: In theater, at least in Palestine the director is the God of the play, at least, for me.

Georgina: It's our audience and it's our culture and this is how we deal with it.

[pause 00:36:19]

P. Michael: What if this is just a way to tie it all together? If he did a speech at the beginning, then we go through the whole play, and before she does her song, he does the first two sentences, "If you don't have something to die for, find something." Then it fades to black. Then that would show like, "Oh, okay. All this led to this." Then that would be the end because then that connects the speech at the beginning to the very end with the death.

[music]

Dr. Clayborne: You know what satisfies my desire for some closure?

Speaker: Yes.

Dr. Clayborne: It allows you to give part of that when the audience is fresh, and at the end, the part that has to do with there's something worth dying for.

Georgina: I think that's it's very important also, this idea.

Dr. Clayborne: Then everyone's happy.

Speaker: Yes.

Dr. Clayborne: Then everyone's happy. Everyone.

Georgina: Absolutely.

Ramzi: Impossible, all happy.

[laughter]

Georgina: Satisfied.

Dr. Clayborne: It's in the spirit of Martin Luther King to try to find a way a peaceful ending.

Kamel: You will be happy.

[laughter]

Speaker: I just want to say that in all the years that I've done theater, I've never been in a conversation like this, with the director, the playwright, and the performers. It's actually very moving because I feel like this is the core of our spending time together of having this kind of conversation.

Ramzi: Because chairman, he's good director. If I was the director, I will not let anyone down.

[laughter]

Ramzi: Well, directors, they're like this. If I was in his place, I would tell him--

[background conversation and laughter]

Dr. Clayborne: P. Michael was the least experienced person. He was recruited in January to be part of this. He doesn't have a passport. A year ago, he was homeless. He's the one who sees through all the various competing interests and suggests something that worked.

[music]

Georgina: [Arabic language]

[music]

Speaker: [Arabic language]

[music]

Ramzi: For years I wanted to go to The Freedom Theater to work because it's not a big place, but it's a special theater.

Chelsi: Just from what I heard, from the Palestinian actors, I could tell that this theater was different and it was held in high regard in the community, especially among the youth. It's a new way of thinking that they are portraying in this theater.

Ramzi: The theater was built in 2006 by a great actor and Director Juliano.

Juliano: The Freedom Theater offers the very basic elements of life to children, to people, to grown-ups, to women, to men, freedom.

Speaker: [Arabic language]

Speaker: [Arabic language]

Speakers: [Arabic language]

Kamel: Juliano Mer-Khamis, talking about his character is a very strange combination of Israeli-Palestinian, communist, radicalist, artist. It's this mass of things altogether.

Juliano: I have a Jewish mother, a Palestinian father, among the Jews, I am an Arab, a dirty Arab. Here, I am a Jew who is coming to corrupt our children and move them into Western-corrupted culture.

[shouting]

Mustafa Staiti: Meeting Juliano, what's so weird, it's so similar of meeting your love suddenly, you know what I mean?

Speaker: Yes.

Mustafa: Meeting the guy who introduced you to life first, introduced you to fun, introduced you to art. The minute I put my foot on the doors of The Freedom Theater, everything in my life changed. First of all, I wanted to liberate myself of the fear. It was built in my heart since I was born, only fear from everything. Fear make you not do anything. Being a refugee from the refugee camp, you are surrounded with all kinds of violence, all kinds of ugliness of humanity.

Juliano: We are sitting in the mid of the most attacked and poor refugee camp in Palestine. We are sieged by electric fence. People cannot go out or in unless you have a permit. We have two gates like a big prison. We have children that could not open their mouths, they could not look at your eyes.

Mustafa: They never see one good day in their life. They don't care what's going to happen after. They don't care if they are going to get killed or not. We don't care, we are just dead inside, and suddenly from all this, fun, laughing, smiling.

Jonatan Stanczak: Juliano started bringing children and he more or less just stood in the street and collected children around and they came in hundreds.

Kamel: Juliano was serving in his beliefs. He was concentrating on not only violence that is related to the Palestine-Israeli conflict, but also violence that is related to the community, within the community, drug dealers, thieves. Young people that had nothing do to and they had the peace and the opportunity to feel that what they are doing or saying is important for themselves and the community.

Juliano: We want to uplift the ability of our expression and to deepen our own values as humans because killing each other happens to rats when they are closed in a cage.

[background noise]

Speaker: In 2002, when we start the second Intifada, the occupation pushed a lot of Palestinian young in the refugee camp of Jenin, to be fighters, to take guns to defend theirselves. After he did like Martin Luther, Juliano, he change a lot of minds of Palestinian resistance, to fight through theater.

[trumpet sound]

[laughter]

Juliano: You know the [unintelligible 00:45:04], he was a freedom fighter. He decided to put down the weapons and take up stage.

[music]

Juliano: We gave the resistance of Jenin, a platform to continue their struggle in different ways.

Jonatan: The Freedom Theater with Juliano was challenging everything from the father in the family to the Israeli occupation.

Juliano: To be a theater and not controversial then you should go and open a clinic, or be a dentist. We are the factory of ideas, of arguments, of disputes. We are the factory where people should not like it.

Jonatan: He was challenging everyone, in one way or another.

Juliano: That's dangerous.

[singing]

One way or another, I'm going to find ya

I'm gonna get ya, get ya, get ya, get ya

One way or another I'm going to win ya

I'm gonna get ya, get ya, get ya, get ya

One way

Juliano: Theater is a place where you can dream, and here, we don't dream anymore. Even the small kids, the maximum dream is about death.

Speaker: Monday, Kamel, asked us in a rehearsal, he wanted us to improv on dreaming. They couldn't do it. They could not do it. It took an hour of just failures, of improvs not working, not working. Finally, we sat down and talked about it and they said, "How are we supposed to dream? Look at our realities."

Ramzi: In this country, better to not hope because if you hope, I am sure you can be fucked up after. To not be fucked up, to protect yourself, better to not hope and to not think in a good way.

P. Michael: I began to cry because it's just so emotional to see somebody so young say, "You know what? I don't have a reason to dream, why should I?" I'm from the land of dreams. I'm from the land of dreams. We dream the American dream and we say, "You know what? I want this so I'm going to strive for this." He is from a place where he doesn't see how he can overcome. He doesn't see how he can find peace.

Juliano: I have no hope for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, at least, not in my lifetime. It is going to be solved, Jews and Arabs are going to kiss each other, and hold hand, and go to the beach, this is not going to happen. I have hope as a human being, yes. Oh, I have big hope as a human being. I believe in humans. I believe that people are good.

[background noise]

[singing]

Oh, freedom, Oh, freedom

Oh freedom over me

And before I'd be a slave

I'd be buried in my grave

And go home to my Lord and be free

Ramzi: [Arabic language]

Mustafa: I was so happy to sit in the audience and watching the play about Martin Luther King. In the refugee camp, we don't have many opportunities of learning what's happening outside of the camp.

[background conversation]

Mustafa: It was interesting to know more about the history of America that just a few years ago, Black people were not able to sit in front on the bus. It was very shocking for me, how can civilized countries take the rights of the people to live, to talk, to move?

[singing]

Well, woke up this mo'nin

With my mind, stayin' on freedom

Mustafa: I love the songs because it was the first time for me, hearing this music.

[singing]

Well, woke up this mo'nin

With my mind, stayin' on freedom

Mustafa: We were looking for hope. We were looking for somebody who give you power.

[singing]

Mustafa: Halleluh, halleleluh

[applause]

[music]

Speaker: [background conversation] Don't be afraid.

Speaker: Oh crap, oh shoot. [laughs] Oh, shoot. Oh, shoot. I'm riding a camel.

[laughter]

Speakers: Go, go. Go Charlie, it's your birthday, we're going to party like it's your birthday, we're going to sip Barcadi like it's your birthday, and you know we don't give a [censored] it's not your birthday.

Speaker: You can find me in the club, bottle-- You should sing things like this.

Speaker: Okay, let's go.

Speaker: I know. You're the third.

[beat boxing]

Speaker: I'm going to end up with saliva all over my hand.

[laughter]

Speaker: Remix.

Speaker: [foreign language]

[beat boxing]

Speaker: I'm tired. No.

Speaker: [laughs]

[foreign language]

Fadi: The play about Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights struggle generally happening in Palestine means a lot to me. When people see the success that Martin Luther King achieved, it gives people hope.

Speaker: [foreign language] Who'd have guessed that college students would start sit-ins to demand to be treated as equally as the white?

Speaker: [foreign language] White folks thought I was the leader. Actually, I was trying to catch up with the young people in SNCC. They were eager to go to jail to win their freedom.

Fadi: There are a lot of lessons that can be learned from the play about patience, about strategy, and lessons about speaking to the soul of the people. That's what Luther King was very good at. He can speak directly to your soul.

Speaker: [foreign language] I say to you today, even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream.

[crowd cheers]

Fadi: His, I Have a Dream speech, people here have a dream right now.

[music]

Fadi: Right now I'm taking it to a village where the segregation is very clear. It's like the pre-1960s period in the US, and you compare New York to Mississippi. There's racism and there's segregation everywhere, but it's much easier to see it in Mississippi than it was to see it in New York. When you're in a place like Jerusalem, that's like New York, but when you go to these more rural areas, it becomes obvious.

Most of this land belongs to Palestinians, they have the deeds to the land, but they can't build on it. At the center, you'll begin seeing settlements that are expanding and taking over this land. There are settlements on top of hills that overlook Palestinian populations. These settlements are built on areas with a lot of water resources, the best agricultural land. It's a violation of international law, because to move a population of one country to the occupied territories of another country, but that's what settlements are. These settlements have infrastructure between them, like roads, like public transportation, buses that we Palestinians don't have access to.

[music]

Fadi: Before I knew exactly what they were, I thought they were so beautiful, like, "Wow. That must be when people dream and they accomplish what they are going after."

Speaker: I had heard through Christian television that they're coming back to Israel. This is how it's presented in this beautiful way. It's a good thing that people are coming back. I was not aware that that meant that they're pushing people off of their property, and building their own communities.

[music]

[background conversation]

Fadi: I want to introduce you the two main leaders, Mariman, whose husband has been imprisoned and Mannet.

[background conversation]

Fadi: Every week, we have something that we download on YouTube. If you have 10 minutes, we can show you. [foreign language] The people of [unintelligible 00:56:23] every week attempt to non-violently reach a spring that belongs to them, that's on their land. The Israeli army and the centers nearby don't allow them any access to that water. There have always been many cases of Palestinians using nonviolent resistance. It's more than a century old.

Speaker: We try many ways to be non-violent, like singing, like invite foreigners to come to the village and see the village.

[crowd chanting]

Fadi: It's people from all over really who participate in these marches. Children to old men and women, college students just like myself, Israeli-Jews who are supportive of the Palestinian struggle.

[background conversation]

[background noise]

Speaker: I'd never seen anything like this before. He was showing it to me like you would show any one of your friends like, "Oh, look at my YouTube video. Come check out what we've been videoing."

Speaker: Our village was unique that nearly half of the demo was women and children. They began to target children. They came to the houses after midnight, they wake up children, they took their ID number, their full name. [foreign language] [unintelligible 00:58:15] three children, they are 13 and 14 years old. [foreign language] This is the worst thing for a mother, to see her child is very afraid of something. I choose this life. I know when I go to this demonstration, they will arrest me, I will be injured, but my children didn't choose this life.

Speaker: I had a request earlier. She had mentioned that on their protests, that they sing, that's a part of their protests. I just wanted to hear one of their freedom songs, because we're singers. When we sing, we give energy. I wanted to hear what she had so that we can maybe learn it.

?Speaker: We'll sing something for you.

[singing]

We took to the streets, we raised the banners.

[singing]

We sang to our country the most beautiful songs,

We want freedom, we want unity.

[singing]

Ain't gonna let no jail house,

Turn me around, turn me around, turn me around,

Ain't gonna let no jail house, turn me around, I'm gonna keep on a-walkin', keep on a-talkin',

Marchin' down to freedom land,

Ain't gonna let segregation turn me around,

Turn me around, turn me around,

Ain't gonna let segregation turn me around

I'm gonna keep on a-walkin', keep on a-talkin'

Marchin' down to freedom's land.

Speaker: I was sitting back with Ramsey and he was explaining, they're living in a modern-day civil rights movement. I didn't realize that what Dr. King was fighting for back then was what these people are fighting for now.

Speaker: You can go faster if you want.

Speaker: They're saying, "We want our peace, we want our lands, we want our joy, we want our story to be told."

[background noise]

Speaker: The Israelians ask us to destroy our home in Jerusalem. By the Israelian law, I cannot build home because they don't give permission, not only for me, for all the Palestinian. We built without permission. They asked us to destroy the home by our hands or they're going to send workers. If they're going to send workers, it's going to cost us around $20,000 for destroying the home. We decided to destroy our homes by our hand. To see your home and the home of your brother and the home of your parents destroyed, it become like no man, and this did to us, because, they can destroy the stones and the cement, this we can repair it, but our soul, who going to repair it?

[music]

Speaker: They were just so real with us, "This is what we're dealing with, this is how we live." I can't honestly say that I hear a lot of hope. What I do hear is a resiliency to just continue standing. I look at many others, I don't know how they get up in the morning. How do you learn your lines to a play and get on the stage and perform it so well? How do you function and still be creative? How?

[music]

[foreign language]

Speaker: Very smart. [unintelligible 01:03:31]

Speaker: [foreign language]

Speaker: [foreign language]

Speaker: I know he spoke in Hebrew. Why?

Speaker: [foreign language]

Speaker: [foreign language]

Speaker: This is what the army does.

Speaker: I know the Israelis do that with you, but we are doing an American play in Arabic. I don't want any Hebrew in it. American, Palestinian.

Speaker: [foreign language]

Speaker: [foreign language]

Speaker: He want to show our suffering.

Speaker: That's another play.

Speaker: [foreign language] In each play we do, we should show our suffering. Why do you think I agreed to do this small part? To show our suffering.

[music]

Speaker: It seems like people are in prison but walking around. Ramsey said that they can't even go to the ocean. Then he said something really poetic, "We don't have the sea anymore. The sky is our sea." Wow.

Speaker: Can you see how it's closed? They have to close because they build the settlement in that area, and they throw then like rubbish. To protect themselves, they have to put this iron. You're going to walk through all the old city, you will see more.

[music]

Speaker: This used to be the mosque?

Child: [foreign language]

Speaker: It's not the mosque?

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: Yes?

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: Is this the church, a mosque, or a synagogue?

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: Which one?

Speaker: It's the mosque of Ibrahim, it's important for the Muslims because we believe in Ibrahim. The problem, the Jews, they don't accept we believe in Ibrahim. They believe Ibrahim is the Jewish prophet. When Israel occupied Hebron, they start occupying inside the mosque, and they say it's a very important place for the Jews. Now, the Muslims they have, I think, 20% from the mosque.

[music]

Speaker: I will show you the settlement, come. This family, you see how they are very near to the settlers, how they deal with this family, they deal really bad. You see, the settlers, every half kilometers, they have one tower to protect. There is another one there. There, another one. They are occupying even the dead people here, the cemetery. It's funny, these people in the cemetery, they don't have chance because, they were occupied alive and they are occupied now. They keep water here, the Palestinian arrives one time--

Speaker: To ration?

Speaker: Yes. Arrives one time or two times in the month, and this way, they have to fill all these tanks, how you see.

Speaker: [foreign language]

Speaker: Many days, we're staying without water because, when we fill the tanks, there are settlers who shoot holes in the tanks and we lose the water.

Speaker: Since I've been here, I've heard a lot of things. I heard about some of the things that I saw today, but it's still different to see here, to be in it, is a very different situation. I mean, in a way, I imagine myself, "What if I lived here?" And I don't know how I could stand it.

[music]

Speaker: I can't begin to put in words how I feel. It's like for this to be such a beautiful place, there are so many ugly situations and ugly stories that have taken place here.

Speaker: It's hard to wrap your mind around what's happening, especially as a Christian. Because, if you're Christian, I'm assuming you believe the Bible to be the truth, [laughs] and I do. Then, in the Bible, there's a story of the children of Israel, and how God essentially is trying to get them to the promised land. If you're just looking at the Bible alone and thinking, "Okay, this is supposed to be their land." Then you see why Israel's like, "Well, this is our land, we're going to take our land." But they're going off the Old Testament. Whereas, with the Christian faith, we have the New Testament as well. When you throw that into it, it doesn't really justify what they're doing to take the land.

The New Testament is, God is here for all of us. Jesus came so we all have access. Doesn't matter where you're from. Jew or Gentile. As it says in the Bible. Because of that, we're all the children of God. When you come into that fold and you come into that belief, what does that mean? We're all supposed to come just take this land? No, that's not what it [laughs] means.

[music]

Speaker: I feel that this is man getting involved saying, "We're just going to take it. We're just going to do it our way. I really don't believe that God intended for things to happen in this way at all.

[music]

Speaker: That was a hard day. We had eleven o'clock show with the college students.

[foreign language]

[clapping]

Speaker: That was a very good show. Good showing, very responsive.

[applause]

Speaker: Towards the end of the day, I got a phone call from Mick, and she sounds very intense on the phone. She just says, "September, can I come over?" I said, "Sure, come on over." I had no idea what to expect. She gets here within 10 minutes, and she shares that earlier that morning. On that day, Juliano Mer-Khamis, the owner and manager of the Freedom Theater had been shot five times.

[music]

Speaker: It was so real, and scary, and in your face. This is happening right now. You just did a play of nonviolence in his theater last week, and then this man is assassinated on the anniversary of King's assassination. Honestly, I can't tell you what my thought process was. It was just devastation and despair. It was, "Oh my God. His children." I thought about that. His wife, his unborn children.

Juliano Mer-Khamis: I had nothing to say except, "Well. Okay." I started talking to friends on the phone. I opened my Facebook and started messaging everybody that I know, started collecting his images and articles. Interviews with him, and started reading and reading and reading to find the reason for this man who killed him. Why?

Speaker: I'm telling them about how I'm going to end my life. A bullet from a fucked up Palestinian who's going to be very angry that we are in Jenin with this blonde coming to corrupt the youth of the Islam. He's going to [mimics] and she's going to find me dead on the doorstep.

[music]

Speaker: Big shock. Living in a denial first. Every time somebody opened the door, I'll be waiting like Juliano going to come, laugh and said like, "Listen. I made a joke. I was joking with you."

Speaker: Whoa.

[laughter]

Speaker: Juliano was in a place where I thought that he would never disappear. He would never die. We might die, but he's not. He's strong.

[music]

Speaker: Next day, I see Juliano in closed box. We cried.

[music] [background noises]

Speaker: I thought that this is the biggest test now. Maybe he want to test me.

[singing]

Speaker: Who killed Juliano is a question that I think that we will never know. Today, there is as many theories as there are people in the camp. Juliano was a very controversial person, so I don't know who killed him, and I don't think I will ever know.

[music]

Speaker: [foreign language] I couldn't imagine Juliano being murdered. Two days ago, he was playing around with me, a man with a lot of heart, always joking.

Speaker: You expect people of this kind to vanish suddenly. I don't know. We have this saying in our culture that says, "Good people. You lose very early."

[background noise]

Speaker: He died as a great man. He was killed when he was on the top of the mountain, not in the valley.

Speaker: [foreign language] Is Ramzi Maqdisi available?

Speaker: Ramzi?

Speaker: [foreign language] Give me some of your thoughts.

Speaker: [foreign language] What happened is that-- I don't know what to say. I can't.

Speaker: It was not easy to do that last performing. It was no reason to do the performing. In one moment, I thought, "There is no reason. We should go home. All of us."

[background noises]

Speaker: [singing]

Speaker: It's not easy to lose an artist like Juliano first time. We don't have a lot of artists like Juliano, because Juliano, he was strong for what he wanted. Even I don't agree with him for many things, but he was not a normal person. He died for something. He found for what he going to die.

[singing]

[background conversations]

Speaker: This is our last [unintelligible 01:18:50]

[applause]

Speaker: You notice that day we lost one of the greatest Brazilian artists, Juliano Mer-Khamis. Some of you knew Juliano and some did not. I'm asking you to give this show as a present to the memory of Juliano Mer-Khamis. The most important thing for Juliano was to enjoy life. Enjoy it, and give this present to him. Again, thank you, and thank you, and thank you.

Speaker: Shukran.

[applause]

Speaker: Shukran.

[shouting]

Speaker: There was a presence of heaviness on the stage. I think every scene was different.

Speaker: [foreign language] There's a chance that someone is going to try to kill me, and it could happen without any warning at all. My involvement is too complete to stop. And if mine isn't to be a long life, well then, I respect that, as you've always taught us to respect God's will.

Speaker: I don't like to hear this, Martin.

Speaker: That monologue, it was for the murder of Juliano Mer-Khamis, I was saying this.

Speaker: When I took up the cross, I recognized it meaning. It is not merely something that you wear. The cross is something that you bear. That you ultimately die on, and that is why I have decided to go. And I say to you this morning that if you have never found something so dear and so precious that you will die for it, you aren't fit to live.

Speaker: And I heard inside myself, like I was thinking, "Oh, he can hear it." Maybe he was in the theatre, I don't know.

Speaker: [singing]

Sometimes I feel like a motherless child, sometimes I feel like a motherless child.

Sometimes I feel like a motherless child--

Speaker: It's like people pulled from a different space within themselves. Everything was different. Everything was more heated, even to watch Mick and Gina have their argument on stage, it was the most real it has ever been. It was a real argument, the fire was there.

Speaker: But you killed Martin Luther King and Kennedy, your beloved president, you Americans kill each other every day.

Speaker: You, the Palestinians, kill each other every day.

[singing]

Speaker: It wasn't like it was even a play, it was, we were playing our life on stage, the script was so right, every line. Even though they were the same lines.

Speaker: [singing]

To heal the thin thick soul, at times I get discouraged,

and think my work's in vain, but then--

Speaker: The last show I sat, as usual, the last seat in the hall, and I felt it, I felt the power of theatre. I smiled after the show, and when I was talking to the actors I said, "I can see that now you understand what does it mean to lose Martin Luther and Malcolm X."

[singing]

[applause]

Speaker: Like anybody, I would like to live a long life, but I'm not concerned about that now. I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land.

[music]

Speaker: For three months, I was walking in the street with no expression in my face. After three months I realized, "No, he's dead. He's not there, and we have to do something, we can sit in a corner and cry until we die or we say, we have to move on." You have two roads, you go back, you sleep in your bed, or you move on. We decided, no, with the pressure, with everything, we continue laughing, we continue smiling, we continue partying in Jenin and in Jalamah, partying, and we continue working.

[music]

Speaker: My name is [unintelligible 01:26:06] I'm the media spokeswoman for the Palestinian Freedom Rights campaign. 50 years ago, brave African American civil rights activists challenged the racist and unjust laws of Jim Crow by boarding buses through the segregated south. In less than an hour, Palestinian activists, taking inspiration from the Freedom Rights, would embark on a similar civil disobedience campaign.

[music]

Speaker: What do you expect will happen to you when you try to get on the bus?

Speaker: Maybe we'll be arrested. Maybe we'll be attacked.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: It's going away. It left.

Speaker: Right now you saw an example of the segregation Palestinians face when they attempt to ride on the segregated buses, the bus saw that we were Palestinian, we're not hiding the fact that we are and decided to pull away.

[music]

Speaker: What I've learned about the situation, I could never forget that. I was so ignorant coming here, and I'm still ignorant to a degree, and I don't know everything. We've also just seen one side of the story. I'm still ignorant to the other side, but there's not much I feel that can convince me that this is right. Here, it's very, very clear to me how the story of the Palestinian people relates to Black Americans and the Civil Rights Movement. I think that connection is so clear that you can't ignore it.

[music]

Speaker: [singing] My living, it shall not be in vain.

[singing continues]

[applause]

[music]

[01:32:00] [END OF AUDIO]