April 15, 2012
"A resident from a different ethnic group with a strong desire to belong joins the homeowner association's civil guard in order to protect it from a series of break-ins. Armed with a gun that he has no idea how to use, even his own neighbors are uncomfortable with him lurking around the neighborhood-but don't want to confront him about it. Late one night he sees a group of young people hanging around, one with a defining article of clothing, a hoodie. He first tries to call the police on his cell phone. Then he leaves his car and walks towards him........The scene ends with a neighbor who had been looking out the window collapsing at the sound of a single gunshot"
This description is of a 2008 episode of "Arab Labor," a popular comedic television series in Israel. In this case the shooter was Amjad, an Arab journalist for a Hebrew newspaper who had moved into a Jewish high end condominium development in his attempt to belong; who not only became active in the homeowner's association but took on the challenge of protecting residents from the criminal element.
The worldwide popularity of this series is that it expresses deep truths about human nature, it's genius being to transform the often tragic universal conflicts of diverse ethnicities and races living together into a brilliant comedy. The final gunshot in the episode, unlike the tragedy in Florida, was Amjad's bumbling misfire, long after the kids had walked away when they saw him coming.
Last month I attended a conference at University of California San Diego on Political Civility in America that was organized by history professor Tal Golan, who was brought up in Israel where political incivility takes a different form. There the political divide is also one of territory; the intrapsychic is externalized, frequently going beyond our type of war of words to one with tanks and missiles-and vast carnage. While not part of the conference agenda, the message that I got from that event was the universal aspect of such conflicts, and how it just may be impossible to come to grips with them when focusing on your own country's version. Faced with the intransigence of finding consensual solutions, we join one side or the other, and then we focus our energies to vilify what has become the enemy. In Israel there is no illusion that the two sides can become a single unified nation, and the generations long challenge is how to disengage equitably and peacefully.
The brilliance and the pleasure of "Arab Labor" is that it displays the common humanity of both of these groups that have been in mortal combat for three generations. In the face of this ancient hatred and its current lethal manifestations, we see camaraderie and even love that thrives across this divide. There is a message to be had here, a tool for addressing political conflict in all its forms. Let's make no mistake, the differences that lead to conflict within and among countries are real, are not to be explained or even joked away.
These issues, the division of land in Israel and of wealth in this country, may only be resolvable among those who cannot only argue against each other, but who also can laugh together. There must be a vision of a common humanity that gives the incentive that out of the wars, cultural or material, there can emerge something worth achieving, a community that can rise from the battleground. As the two episodes, one comedic in Jerusalem and the other tragic in Florida illustrate, the issues are universal; and addressing them a vital challenge for us all.
Al Rodbell
Here's the link to the scene that I describe on "Arab Labor"
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