The first piece I read for this week's reading was the excerpt from Parallels and Paradoxes: Explorations in Music and Society, and I was immediately drawn in. The first conversation begins with a discussion about what 'home' is and how it can be fluid. Daniel Barenboim says that he "feel[s] at home in the idea of Jerusalem". He then continues to talk about identity in relation to where one is at home. Edward Said describes this sense of identity as "a set of currents, flowing currents, rather than a fixed place or a stable set of objects".
I watched this theme of self-definition and different identities continue throughout the remainder of the readings. My favorite moment was in "A Dog's Life" in Sharon and my Mother-in-Law: Ramallah Diaries. Unlike the other pieces, Nura the dog was the character who had multiple and unique identities. Unbeknownst to herself, Nura was among the most privileged residents of the West Bank: she had a Jerusalem passport. To me, she has a home in the same "idea" of Jerusalem that Barenboim feels at home in. She got passport, as a dog, to a place she had never been, while thousands of residents had been forcibly moved from or denied access to their home. It seems it is the latter that Barenboim has a conflict with, and the former that he calls home: a place Nura has never been and does not yet exist, but one that Barenboim hopes to find in his musical work and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra.
Now I turn the question to you all: obviously, identity and a sense of home are inextricable parts of the Israel-Palestine conflict. But what are these things? Should they be treated as "fixed objects" or "flowing currents"? Can "home" be a place that does not exist? What does this mean for the way the peace process should continue?
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