MIDEAST: Dancing in a Palestinian Bubble

By Mel Frykberg Reprint | | Print |

Mel Frykberg

RAMALLAH, Jul 3 2011 (IPS) - It’s Thursday night, the beginning of the weekend in the Muslim world, and time to party and let one’s hair down in Ramallah, the occupied West Bank’s isolated bubble and de facto capital.

Ala’ Awadallah, 27, originally from the Nablus area in the northern West Bank, and his mate Billal Kura’an, also 27, from El Bireh, a city adjacent to Ramallah, are dressed to the nines as they “survey the local talent” and enjoy a shisha (water pipe) in a local hotel.

And there appears to be plenty of “talent” to survey, among the fashionably dressed Palestinian women. Some are dressed in tight jeans and the traditional but brightly coloured headscarves.

The young men who frequent Ramallah’s ubiquitous night clubs, bars, coffee shops and hotels, which cater to the Western-oriented city’s young and beautiful on weekend nights, are just as fashionably adorned and primped.

Clothing bearing fashion logos from Paris to New York are accessorised with hair oiled into spikes and waves, a trend currently sweeping the Mideast.

The young men sit snacking on nuts and seeds at tables and at the bar, which offers alcoholic beverages and light meals. As the evening wears on the lights are dimmed and a pulsating beat throbs into the night air as the local DJ starts spinning the latest rap, hip-hop and heavy metal hits.

Pairs of men and women hit the dance floor, abandoning caution to the wind in this enclave of Westernisation amidst a sea of Islamic conservatism.

“I love Ramallah,” declares Awadallah, a tall strapping young man. “There is far more freedom here than in Nablus or anywhere else in the West Bank,” he tells IPS.

“You would never find young, unmarried singles dancing and mingling like this in any other part of the West Bank. There would be trouble. At the least there would be verbal abuse. At the worst, physical confrontations and perhaps the police called,” he adds.

“The people here are much more broadminded. Actually I think it has more to do with them being indifferent to a large degree and more interested in making money, following business leads and pursuing their own interests,” Kura’an tells IPS.

Ramallah is the de facto political (and some say playboy) capital of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in light of Israel’s illegal occupation of East Jerusalem. It is home to a fairly large expatriate community of NGO and other aid workers, foreign political activists, foreign diplomats and many U.S. educated Palestinian- Americans who returned following the1993 Oslo Peace Accords.

Looking for a state of the art gym with all the latest workout equipment and technology, saunas, videos and TV? Ramallah has at least half a dozen. European-style coffee shops with French pastries, and cappuccinos or moccaccinos abound. You can take up salsa, kick-boxing, yoga and classical painting classes here.

Ramallah also has several brothels which operate clandestinely behind night club fronts. They are not officially acknowledged, and unknown to many locals due to their clandestine operations and word-of- mouth modus operandi. Law enforcement officials, the UN, foreign diplomats and government officials, however, are aware of their existence.

But for all its apparent middle class prosperity Ramallah is only one piece of the West Bank pie. The city’s prosperity separates it from the rest of the West Bank where the political and economic hardship of the Israeli occupation bites hard.

The much hyped “economic boom” in the West Bank which the Western media frequently discusses is very one-sided.

According to the June issue of the Ramallah-based Palestinian Economic Bulletin published by The Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute, evidence from the second half of 2010 shows deteriorating market conditions.

Unemployment has grown. Manufacturing accounted for 30 percent of job losses, and agriculture for 17 percent of job losses. Total government revenues dropped to 428 million dollars in the fourth quarter of 2010, a decrease of 15.1 percent from the previous quarter.

Total public expenditure increased by 12.2 percent in the fourth quarter, reaching 861.5 million dollars. The recent increase in public expenditure and decrease in revenue has substantially inflated the budget deficit; it increased from 169.7 million dollars in the third quarter to 358.2 million dollars in the fourth quarter of 2010. All this while relying heavily on foreign aid.

The UN Relief and Welfare Agency (Unrwa) released a report analysing economic trends in the West Bank and reported that rising unemployment and economic hardship were hitting Palestinian refugees the hardest.

“There have been isolated pockets of improvement in the West Bank’s economic situation. However, structurally for the long-term all indicators point to an overall downward trend,” Unrwa spokesman Chris Gunness tells IPS.

“Hundreds of Israeli restrictions in the territory deny Palestinian farmers access to their farmland, an inability to reach their markets and sell their produce, and transport restrictions effecting imports and exports,” adds Gunness.

“The only way to resolve the situation is for Israel to end its occupation of the West Bank, which is illegal under international law, and allow Palestinians full access to their land.”