I saw a powerful play tonight, There Is a Field,
about the death during a protest of 17-year-old Aseel Asleh, a Palestinian
living in Israel, in October 2000. Jen
Marlowe, a human rights activist and
writer, wrote the play; she knew Aseel when she was a counselor at the Seeds ofPeace camp, which brings together children from all
sides from regions in conflict.
The play is
based on years of interviews Marlowe had with Aseel’s sister and other
members of his family, presenting a heartbreaking account mostly from his
sister’s point of view. The Asleh family lived in Arrabeh, a village in
northern Israel, and the parents brought up their children to be proud of being
Palestinian. Aseel wrote, in a 1998 e-mail to his Seeds of Peace campmates
about Land Day commemorations (about the 1976 seizure of Palestinian land by
the Israeli government): “We should never forget, but we should forgive.... I
will go on. I will make this planet a better place t live and I will go on. For
all the souls who only saw pain and sorrow in their eyes; for the souls who
will never see a pain of another soul, I promise you I will go on.”
In this
presentation, Aseel appears as a very mature, serious yet playful young man,
and it is lamentable that his voice and actions were stilled by police in
actions that an Israeli commission
determined were not justifiable.
I’m
really glad I saw this performance at Columbia University, the middle of what
the playwright calls the Land Day Tour. There
Is a Field will be seen at other universities, in Florida, Georgia, and
Missouri, and there will be two more performances in New York in mid-April. Check
here for more information about tour dates.
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