Hold on to your hat! Stavanger Aftenblad journalists Arild I. Olsson and photographer Jarle Aasland take you on a tour on four wheels around the bends in a vintage Nissan with thundering hard rock on the car stereo. Olsson has traveled in the Middle East for many years, doing what journalists like to do. He talks to people. HUMAN MEETINGS: In Shatila, Abdallah takes the journalists from Stavanger to the local market outside his house. The man, who has reached his nineties, has lived in exile in the refugee camp almost his entire life. Photo: Jarle Aasland Jarle Aasland was previously a UN soldier in southern Lebanon, but later in civilian life worked as a photographer for the same newspaper. Round trip in the Middle East At the beginning of the trip, the driver is visibly offended that the Norwegian journalist wants to wear his seat belt. It must stand as a metaphor for the insecurity many of us, who see it all from the outside, can feel after the massacre in Israel and the subsequent hostilities in Gaza. Must one choose a side in this infinitely complicated conflict? BEING INVITED IN: At the Shatila refugee camp, Abdallah opens his home to the journalists, where he tells them his life story. Photo: Jarle Aasland Aasland and Olsson find other ways into the area, and avoid ending up in the political trenches. Through the people they meet and their life stories, we also travel backwards in time, to another Middle East, where it becomes clear that everything could have quickly become completely different. The backdrop to the conflict A railway was planned, which would connect Europe and Damascus. Beirut was called the Paris of the Middle East. The international jet set hung out at bars and beaches in Tel Aviv. Much is actually in order for it to flourish in this fertile area, where the growing conditions are ideal for the “Middle Eastern meze table”, filled with chickpeas, red onions, squash, lettuce and aubergine. “A PARADISE”: The first image in “The Long Week” describes lush Palestine as a paradise. Photo: Jarle Aasland If only it hadn’t been for the disasters that big politics brought with it. Two disasters form the basis of the stories. The genocide of the Jews during the Second World War, which the Jews call the Sho ‘ah – the catastrophe – and the forced displacement of Palestinians from their homes in connection with the establishment of the state of Israel. Through the eyes of the people The road trip starts in the village of Al-Bassa, in the far north of today’s Israel. The year is 1948, and the young shepherd Abdallah escapes to a neighboring village in Lebanon to escape the Jewish Haganah militia. The exile, which he thought would last a week, turns out to last a lifetime. He is over ninety when he is visited by the Norwegian journalists, and tells them his life story. TEA AND CIGARETTES: At seamstress Zaada Barakat, the conversation is easy, while the journalists drink tea in the small Lebanese shop. Photo: Jarle Aasland Further on the journey we meet Hermann, who came to Norway as a refugee child during the war. He grew up in a Norwegian foster family, before he traveled to Tel Aviv, met his future wife, became a journalist, and among other things covered the trial against the great Nazi Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. Instead of telling the stories of the people we meet in the form of interviews, Arild Olsson chooses to retell the story, where we see the events from the individual’s perspective. It is a very successful move which means that what was previously printed in the newspaper now also works in book form. Getting close We travel to wine districts in Lebanon, to Gaza and to the West Bank. We meet ultra-Orthodox Jews in West Jerusalem and Christians in Lebanon. OPENS UP: The Stavanger-Aftenblad journalists get close to the local population on their tour of the Middle East. At Kamli and Saleem’s home in Mi’ilya, Olsson scribbles down their story. Photo: Jarle Aasland Olsson and Aasland talk to both settlers and Hamas supporters in the West Bank and Gaza. In Lebanon, they meet both Christian Phalangists and members of the pro-Palestinian Lebanese militia group Hezbollah. On a visit to ultra-orthodox Jews in the district of Mea Sharim in West Jerusalem, Olsson notes that the two Stavanger journalists come across many such nuances when they move on the ground. Gets the whole picture The political background, the creation of the state of Israel, the Six-Day War in 1967, the massacres in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps, and the conclusion of the two so-called “Oslo agreements”, which, among other things, ensured that the Palestinians were given self-government in Gaza, are painstakingly interwoven in the text. But in the foreground are the individual people and the stories they bring. TEL AVIV: Olsson and Aasland travel from Israel to Palestine to Lebanon. On the beach in Tel Aviv there is life and excitement until late at night. Photo: Jarle Aasland Aasland and Olsson meet them with curious respect and appropriate doses of humour. They go a long way with that. It is easier to spot the details when you are on the spot and talking to people than when you see them flicker across the TV screens. Olsson and Aasland bring the complicated big macro story down to ground level. “The long week. A boundless journey in the Middle East” has become a colorful and lively story from an area we are all burning to understand more of right now.
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“The long week” by Arild I. Olsson and Jarle Aasland – Reviews and recommendations
