Pyalara is a well known organization/group of youths from Palestine that is known to the Palestinian community. Unfortunately i did not have the chance to join and engage in Pyalara while i was living in Palestine, although my parents always wanted me to join.
"PYALARA is an independent Palestinian youth organization that seeks to create young Palestinian leaders who are aware of their rights and duties as equal citizens, capable of incurring social and political change, and effectively participate in building a democratic society through specialized media, lobbying and advocacy.". This is Pyalara's mission, a valuable mission and an important one that will empower the Palestinian youth.
Questions:
Q1) What are the activities planned for this summer?
Q2) Can anyone join the Pyalara's activities and what is the process of doing so?
Q3) Did Pyalara's visual and artistic media plans and projects had the chance to be delivered in any other country beside Palestine? Are there any activities or plans for the organization to grow globally?
While reading the article "Seizing locality in Jerusalem", i passed by a line that says "the traditions in the culture and professional formation of the generation of architects, which was entrusted with the national mandate of israelizing Jerusalem", this made me wonder how the Israeli architectures and the Israeli architects were able to Israelize Jerusalem? Because political wise, it is one of the top priorities for the ISraeli government to Israelize Jerusalem. Reading this article shows how some Jewish or Israeli architecture tried and is still trying to "Israelize" Jerusalem, a mission that contradicts the Pyalara mission for example, as Payalra's mission of architecture is not to "Palestinize" Palestine, but to empower a leadership sense within the community based on respect and education. I also wonder about the plan of the Israeli government in "remodeling" one of the oldest gates to the Old City in Jerusalem, Demascus Gate, which is a plan that is intended to "Israelize" the city more and more than it is really intended to remodel or re build the gate.
In the "West Bank", the Palestinian government with other youth organizations are working more and more in remodeling the old houses/institutes and the architecture in the area, in order to keep the old tradition and to maintain the sense of belonging to the land. One of the recent projects were in Ramallah, to remodel yet maintain the old appearance of the Hamrra Palace, as well as the re-opening of the Hamra cinema in East Jerusalem.
I had the hardest time reading your blog lol !
ReplyDeleteI do see the Israeli government using architecture to cover up the Arab culture. Also, I think old building give more aesthetic and shouldn't be tore down. If Israelis rely on the history of Jerusalem,they shouldn't be destroying historical aspects. Afterall, we have discussed several times that before 1948, they shared a history, and they shared this architecture.
ReplyDeleteI think that the idea is that the sabra movement was trying to establish an "Israeli" architectural identity. And that identity drew on (and co-opted) native Arab/Palestinian forms.
ReplyDeleteSo, in some way, "Israelizing" Jerusalem is actually "re-Arabizing" it, albeit through an interpretation.
In any case, any re-design does a violence to what was there.
Except when I think of it, there's some irony in trying to retain an "original" character of a place, when the buildings and urban layout has been cyclically created & destroyed many times. Which "original" character is privileged by being preserved? What we might interpret in the 21st century as "authentic" Jerusalem might just be Ottoman innovation built on the ruins of Crusader architecture.
So we end up back at the "who was here first?" argument, except it's "which architecture/design is the oldest?"
Thank you Britany. I do stand with you on how essential the Palestinian architecture is to stay in presence because of its rich history.
ReplyDeleteJoseph,
i think the "Israelizing" Jerusalem does not in any way fit the criteria of who was at the land first, it is just a way of trying to delete the Palestinian history of Jerusalem. I read an article about the Israeli educational systems and how they are introducing the wrong aspects of the Arabic language (grammar, facts, etc.)
I think i mentioned before in class how even the signs of the streets in Jerusalem, the Arabic names have been just deleted and now you can find signs of streets in English and Hebrew, and rarely in Arabic.
I will try to upload a sign where the word Al-Quds have been deleted from a sign in Jerusalem.
One of the very important things taking place in Jerusalem now and is really important for the Palestinians is in Arabic تهويد القدس or according to google translate "Judaizing" Jerusalem.