Land of the Free
Music plays in his mind like a soundtrack. It’s a familiar
tune, from a film he thinks. The van he’s lying in the rear of is moving fast,
and with every bump on the road he twitches with pain, for his ribs are broken.
Feelings of resignation and rebellion rage within him. Fear too, for he knows
what’s to come. Now, bound by plastic zip ties and a hood over his head, Hami
thinks of his father.
A few hours earlier he'd been walking home through the
marketplace of the Old City of Hebron, under the wretched eye of settler and
soldier alike. Noticing a group of internationals looking lost, he smiled their
way. ‘Excuse me. English?’, asked a young man with a British accent. ‘No,
Palestinian’, he answered with a cheeky smile. ‘And you?’ A little playful
banter later and he invited them on a tour, as was his custom and source of
income.
Not far from a settlement checkpoint Hami was pointing out a
building of historical significance, now a popular teahouse, when a car started
reversing into the group. It nudged one of them, a fair-haired twenty-two year
old American girl called Sally, eliciting a scream. Hami, excused himself to
confront the driver, speaking in Hebrew and gesturing towards his patrons.
Ignoring him, the driver continued reversing menacingly, provoking Hami to slam
his fist down on the car’s roof. The driver, ignoring Hami, got out of his car
gesticulating and howling wildly to the checkpoint soldiers. The last thing
Hami saw was Sally’s sorrowful gaze.
Now lying on the cold ribbed floor of the Israel Defense Force van and close
to passing out, Hami begins to smile, remembering something his father would
always say: ‘Your body may be imprisoned by the oppressor, but your mind can
never be’. Within his hooded darkness, he begins to envision a team of American
troops holed up just ahead ready to ambush the cavalcade of security cars.
The camera cuts to an aerial arc shot of a van driving
through a desert backdrop, the sound of tires crunching the road beneath, while
soldiers sing songs of victory having just captured the leader of the
resistance.
It zooms into the rear of the vehicle to a close up of his
body.
The music begins. A sharp and edgy guitar riff rumbles. Its
pace quickens. A drum beat. Action is imminent.
The camera pans to a front-of-vehicle shot of his captors
laughing indifferently. Side angle and extreme close up of their faces.
Cutaway to the rescue team.
The music stops.
Hami is thinking about his and his father’s love of
Hollywood movies, how he’d bring home a new one every week. He thinks about his
father’s love of everything USA, of the American dream. ‘America will come to
the rescue. One day Palestine will be free, you’ll see’, he’d say. And his
mother would laugh at his naivety, cursing the land of the free. He thinks of
them both and of Sally and smiles.
