Erectile Dysfunction: Exploring an untold narrative of the abandoned

Written by FANA’

“You know how hard it is to rent or buy an old house in Ramallah?” Asked a young man in desperate need for a space to start a new cafe project. “They are either rented, destroyed, disputed or locked… They are very expensive!”

 During the past two decades, the debate on the preservation of historic houses has gained ground in Palestinian public opinion, and made it to the agendas of local and international NGOs and the Palestinian Authority (PA). The discourse is split between on one hand, those who call for old houses to be preserved or renovated as they represent a part of Palestinian culture and heritage such as Riwaq, and on the other, the developers and investors with enough capital flow to buy such houses who call for allowing the neoliberal/capitalist agenda to wipe them out and put forth a new more modern city. While both positions are constantly in opposition, the official attitude of the PA and the Municipality of Ramallah usually oscillates between the two. This dynamic left little to no room for any other positions to arise and take ground, especially the ones that portray these old houses outside the mainstream social and political narrative and associated imaginaries of the ‘legitimate’ kinds and uses of city spaces. In the essay, we will explore practices of everyday life that surround some of these abandoned houses to provide some alternative, marginal, and more personalized narrative.

The Historic and the abandoned [1]

The Palestinian authority defines any building that was built before 1917 as cultural heritage.  But for the purpose of our exploration, we have chosen to define ‘historic’ as any building that was built before the 1980s. 

 Abandoned historic buildings have become an essential part of the Palestinian contemporary city life and composition. They allow for the incubation of marginal narratives that assume different time references through varying spatial and societal arrangements. Such time/space relation is important in the current neoliberal and religious climate to allow the unfamiliar, the untraditional, and the outcast to take place within our confined Palestinian cities.

The narratives surrounding these abandoned and historical spaces have changed radically over the past two decades, and particularly post the Oslo Accords and Yasser Arafat’s government. The Palestinian Authority was able to put forth a proposal for what Toufic Haddad calls a ‘social and neoliberal eco-political order’[2]. In the process of doing so, historic houses were either destroyed or framed under a national fetishized image or a historical romanticized narrative of a linear past.

The unordinary, the untraditional and the outcast

In this essay, we explore the parallel realities of these houses where on one hand, they were abandoned due to speculation, inheritance disputes, or the incapability to accommodate a contemporary lifestyle, and on the other, due to their abandonment, they are able to accommodate unordinary activities that the current socio-political system deems illegitimate or even criminal. The uses of these spaces vary depending on the triggers; the rise of control by the PA, the need for shelter in a precarious neoliberal economy, or an escape from the harsh reality into personalized sanctuaries.

The audio recording represents the sound of what is outside the confined space in contrast to the inside.

To eat

Many of these abandoned historic houses become sanctuaries for those who seek to eat and smoke cigarettes during the month of Ramadan. Breaking the fast in public has always been a social taboo but was never a legal issue. Even though under the Palestinian law of 1960, breaking the fast in public is considered a crime punishable by prison, it is only recently that the police has started actively punishing and imprisoning those who break the fast in public[3]. According to journalist Mohammad Bader, the practices led by the PA and represented by its police are nothing but an attempt to reclaim political authority through a particular emphasis on religious norms and activities. When people’s individual liberties are threatened, abandoned and historic city structures become places for safety and retreatment. They are used by individual after individual, group after group, from daytime until sunset, to share some meals and smoke some cigarettes. In these structures, you are safe from the eyes of society and the police. You only need chewing gum and perfume to leave no traces behind.

To consume

Drug use in Palestine is considered taboo and is illegal, yet similar to everywhere else around the world, the consumption of drugs happens regardless. Drug intake can be seen as a way to alter the current reality, a reality that one might see as bitter, or boring… etc. Many users seek historic abandoned spaces at night to consume different substances that are of narcotic nature. The nighttime hides such activity, and simultaneously makes it more thrilling. The time taken and the seconds passing become part of the process. Space unfolds differently, providing a little haven for those who seek to experience the effects of the narcotics on their bodies and minds.

The collapse of emotional and socio-economic support systems in Palestinian families and within the larger community, new societal norms triggered by neoliberal economies and excessive consumerism, exposure to the outside world through travel and the internet and TV, desired social independence, exploration of ‘other’ forms of being, disenfranchisement and feelings of alienation among the youth are some of the reasons allowing the conditions that encourage the increased consumption of drugs in Palestine. Unfortunately, there is little acknowledgement of the problem or attempts for a collective social reform that takes into account the related behavioral, mental health issues and depression that are common among drug users.[4]

To sleep

The neoliberal project of the Palestinian Authority has without doubt changed the demographic realities of Palestinian cities and their rural surroundings. In contrast to the rapid development of the private and public sectors, the percentage of Palestinians under the poverty line is on the rise, not to mention the lack of employment opportunities for the youth. The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics estimates that as of 2016, there were 25,000 empty and sealed apartments in Ramallah [5]. The number is on the rise. In addition, the City of Rawabi, 20 kilometers north of Ramallah and the many satellites in between the two cities remain largely abandoned because they are unaffordable to the majority.

Class divisions are changing the Palestinian social dynamics and traditional safety nets are shrinking without presenting institutional alternatives for the ones in need of protection, support and safety[6]. Today, we as a society still refuse to recognize homelessness as a real problem. The dominant escapist narrative is that of the 1980s of the supportive and collaborative social spirit that lent the First Intifada its romanticism. Nowadays, most of those living in cities are indebted and barely able to support themselves, making it difficult or nearly impossible to help others.

Many people who seek shelter in the city are unable to buy or rent, subsequently experiencing permanent or temporal homelessness, and ultimately finding refuge in abandoned structures. According to a person who experienced regular homelessness, squatting in Ramallah’s old houses used to be easier until recent times when most of such houses got cemented, welded, or demolished.

“You don’t need many things when you squat, I usually only go there to sleep … I take a mattress from a friend and hide it in one of the houses near Muqata’a… I slept there for a month, and I used the water in the well to wash my clothes and shower.”

Imagination: Two cities

Other spaces along historic buildings serve as grounds for the unordinary and untraditional such as newly constructed empty buildings. What is common among these spaces is that they are mostly abandoned, liminal, or peripheral. They are hidden from the eyes of society and the political structure.

 Projecting the current eco-political conditions onto our future, we believe that Ramallah will evolve to be two, one that is ordained to the eco-political and social apparatuses, and another that is of temporal nature allowing the unusual to take place. These two cities overlap and share the same spatial arrangements, but have different time narratives and socio-political realities. The more aggressive the ‘legitimate’ Ramallah turns, the stronger the parallel city will become, until they get exposed to one another, and enter a constant battle to erase one another.

FANA’ is an experimental collective launched in June 2019 that works towards dismantling and de-producing social and cultural truths within the art and philosophy of everyday life. It tries to unveil the processes of production rather than put forth an end product. FANA’ is launching “The Black Journal” end of this year, which will feature written and visual works. It also employs un-used spaces around Ramallah to host events, exhibitions and discussions around unfamiliar and unordinary issues.

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This is an article from the “Takhayal Ramallah” project conducted in 2019 with UR°BANA and Sakiya.