An anonymous group of students has created a document to express their
frustration born of Hamas's violent crackdowns on 'western decadence', the
destruction wreaked by Israel's attacks and the political games played by
Fatah and the UN

Ana Carbajosa, The Observer (UK) / Guardian(UK), Sunday 2 January 2011

A Gazan group of young people have issued a manifesto to vent their anger
about the situation in Palestine. Photograph: Mohammed Salem/Reuters

The meeting takes place in a bare room in a block of flats in the centre of
Gaza City. No photographs, no real names – those are the conditions.

This is the first time that a group of young Palestinian cyber-activists has
agreed to meet a journalist since launching what it calls Gaza Youth's
Manifesto for Change. It is an incendiary document – written with courage
and furious energy – that has captivated thousands of people who have come
across it online, and the young university students are visibly excited, but
also scared. "Not only are our lives in danger; we are also putting our
families at risk," says one of them, who calls himself Abu George.

Gaza Youth's Manifesto for Change is an extraordinary, impassioned
cyber-scream in which young men and women from Gaza – where more than half
the 1.5 million population is under 18 – make it clear that they've had
enough. "Fuck Hamas..." begins the text. "Fuck Israel. Fuck Fatah. Fuck UN.
Fuck UNWRA. Fuck USA! We, the youth in Gaza, are so fed up with Israel,
Hamas, the occupation, the violations of human rights and the indifference
of the international community!"

It goes on to detail the daily humiliations and frustrations that constitute
everyday life in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian slice of land that Israel
and Egypt have virtually sealed off from the world since Hamas was elected
to power in 2006.

"Here in Gaza we are scared of being incarcerated, interrogated, hit,
tortured, bombed, killed," reads the extraordinary document. "We are afraid
of living, because every single step we take has to be considered and
well-thought, there are limitations everywhere, we cannot move as we want,
say what we want, do what we want, sometimes we even can't think what we
want because the occupation has occupied our brains and hearts so terrible
that it hurts and it makes us want to shed endless tears of frustration and
rage!"

The text ends with a triple demand: "We want three things. We want to be
free. We want to be able to live a normal life. We want peace. Is that too
much to ask?"

On Facebook, the group calls itself Gaza Youth Breaks Out. When the
cyber-activists wrote the manifesto three weeks ago, they gave themselves a
year to gather enough support before thinking about further steps. But their
text has travelled around the world at an unexpected speed and has harvested
thousands of supporters, many of them human rights activists, who say they
are ready to help.

Now, the authors are dealing with the impact of a document that could be a
turning point in the life of the Strip. "We did not expect this to be so
big," one of them admits. Eight people – three women and five men – wrote
the text. They are normal students, from the more secular elements of Gazan
society. All declare themselves to be non-political and disgusted with the
tensions and rivalries that divide Palestinians between Hamas, the rulers of
Gaza, and Fatah, the more secular party which governs the Palestinian
Authority, based in the West Bank. "Politics is bollocks, it is screwing our
lives up," said one member of the group. "Politicians only care about money
and about their supporters. The Israelis are the only ones benefiting from
the division."

Two of the group have been detained by the Gazan authorities several times,
accused among other crimes of "immoral" behaviour. They say that they have
been abused in jail and claim that physical and psychological punishment is
commonplace in Gaza's detention centres.

Another one obtained a scholarship to attend a workshop at an American
university, but he says Israel did not issue a permit that would allow him
to leave the Strip.

"We are supposed to be the engine of change in this society, but our voices
are muted. In the press, at university, there is no room in our society to
talk freely, out of the frame, without putting yourself and your family at
risk," says one, who wants to be called Abu Yazan. He adds: "In Gaza, you
feel watched at school, in the streets, everywhere. You can be thrown into
jail at any time. [Hamas] will threaten you with ruining your family
reputation and that would be it."

These youngsters do not represent anybody except themselves, but their call
for change has resonated strongly, not only abroad but also inside Gaza.
Their Facebook page already has thousands of friends – including, they say,
many from the Strip.

The causes of frustration are legion. The Israeli blockade forbids Gazans to
travel in and out of the Strip without a permit, which is difficult to
obtain. For Gazan students who wish to study abroad, the most difficult part
is not being accepted at a foreign university or getting a scholarship, but
simply being able to travel.

Inside the Strip, things do not get much better. Israeli shelling which
follows the launching of rockets into Israel by Palestinian militants is
part of their everyday life. Power cuts and ruinous sanitary conditions are
among the side-effects of the embargo suffered by Gaza's inhabitants.

With high unemployment in the Strip and little access to other job markets
after graduation, many feel that they have reached a dead end. Some keep
studying and accumulating degrees and foreign languages, which they learn
via the internet, hoping for better days to come. Others kill their time
smoking hookahs with their friends day after day. There is an increasing
number who rely on drugs to cope with their conflict traumas and
frustrations.

Going out, meeting friends in cafés – let alone clubs or discotheques – or
attending cultural events has become an increasingly complicated task as
Hamas cracks down on western "decadence".

In Gaza there are no theatres and few concerts aside from the Islamic
musical performances organised by the Hamas authorities. In the places where
young men and women are allowed to meet, considered an "oasis" by the less
conservative youth, the police are quick to interrogate mixed couples
suspected of not being married or engaged.

The "last straw" for the writers of the Gaza manifesto came a month ago,
when Hamas closed Sharek, an internationally financed organisation offering
training and summer activities for thousands of adolescents and young
people. Sharek had also became a hang-out place for the more liberal-minded
in Gaza. Human Rights Watch recently issued a statement condemning its
closure. "Hamas authorities in Gaza should allow an organisation that helps
children and youth to reopen, and penalise officials who have harassed its
workers," it said.

According to Ihab Al Ghusain, a spokesman for the Hamas Ministry of the
Interior, the problems highlighted by Gaza's disaffected youth are sometimes
the result of over-zealous officials. "There are no laws prohibiting men and
women sitting together in public places in Gaza," he said. "But some
policemen at their own initiative interrogate the couples. Those policemen
should be punished."

He says that proof of the government's commitment to Gaza's young generation
is that it has declared 2011 the Year for the Youth. But the authors of the
youth manifesto are unlikely to be persuaded by such symbolic initiatives.
The group is currently investing most of its time and energy in debating new
strategies to pursue a web-based platform for change. The new year may yet
become one for the youth of the Strip, but perhaps not in the way Hamas
intended.

The Manifesto

"Fuck Hamas. Fuck Israel. Fuck Fatah. Fuck UN. Fuck UNWRA. Fuck USA! We, the
youth in Gaza, are so fed up with Israel, Hamas, the occupation, the
violations of human rights and the indifference of the international
community!

"We want to scream and break this wall of silence, injustice and
indifference like the Israeli F16s breaking the wall of sound; scream with
all the power in our souls in order to release this immense frustration that
consumes us because of this fucking situation we live in...

"We are sick of being caught in this political struggle; sick of coal-dark
nights with airplanes circling above our homes; sick of innocent farmers
getting shot in the buffer zone because they are taking care of their lands;
sick of bearded guys walking around with their guns abusing their power,
beating up or incarcerating young people demonstrating for what they believe
in; sick of the wall of shame that separates us from the rest of our country
and keeps us imprisoned in a stamp-sized piece of land; sick of being
portrayed as terrorists, home-made fanatics with explosives in our pockets
and evil in our eyes; sick of the indifference we meet from the
international community, the so-called experts in expressing concerns and
drafting resolutions but cowards in enforcing anything they agree on; we are
sick and tired of living a shitty life, being kept in jail by Israel, beaten
up by Hamas and completely ignored by the rest of the world.

"There is a revolution growing inside of us, an immense dissatisfaction and
frustration that will destroy us unless we find a way of canalising this
energy into something that can challenge the status quo and give us some
kind of hope.

"We barely survived the Operation Cast Lead, where Israel very effectively
bombed the shit out of us, destroying thousands of homes and even more lives
and dreams. During the war we got the unmistakable feeling that Israel
wanted to erase us from the face of the Earth. During the last years, Hamas
has been doing all they can to control our thoughts, behaviour and
aspirations. Here in Gaza we are scared of being incarcerated, interrogated,
hit, tortured, bombed, killed. We cannot move as we want, say what we want,
do what we want.

"ENOUGH! Enough pain, enough tears, enough suffering, enough control,
limitations, unjust justifications, terror, torture, excuses, bombings,
sleepless nights, dead civilians, black memories, bleak future, heart-aching
present, disturbed politics, fanatic politicians, religious bullshit, enough
incarceration! WE SAY STOP! This is not the future we want! We want to be
free. We want to be able to live a normal life. We want peace. Is that too
much to ask?"

• Prev
• Next