Norihiko Kuwayama, 46, psychiatrist and head of non-profit organization Earth Stage, as been engaged in international volunteer work for 20 years. In mid-January, he took part in relief efforts in the Gaza Strip, part of the Palestinian autonomous region that some characterize as "a roofless concentration camp," and where an Israeli attack launched last December left over 1,300 people dead. The Mainichi interviewed him about his experiences.
Q: How did you enter Gaza?
A: I crossed the border from Egypt. An Egyptian soldier let me through when I told him I was a doctor, I'd been involved in relief operations in Rafah for the past six years and that my friends were waiting for me. It was raining bombs in the border region, and the windows shook violently. I called my friend Darwish Abu Sharik in Rafah to tell him that I wasn't going to make it. "The city center is relatively calm," Darwish said. "If you're coming, I'll wait for you." I knew that if I turned back then, I would regret it for the rest of my life.
Q: What did you do in Rafah?
A: I took on emergency medical cases at a hospital. Every day, 50 to 60 people were brought in. One 13-year-old boy, whose head had been blown apart by a surveillance drone, was brought to the hospital on Jan. 16. He had died instantly. Gaza had run out of cooking gas, and everyone was burning wood to cook. The boy had been gathering firewood since morning to help out his mother, and a figure carrying dead branches can look like a man shooting rockets. Adults can figure out when they're being targeted by an unmanned spy plane, but children aren't capable of deciphering such a situation.
Q: How bad is the overall situation?
A: Power outages are common. People are drinking rainwater, they are slaughtering sheep and goats that they'd been raising for food. The banks have shut down, so the money economy is not functioning. Darwish told me that he couldn't remember another time in his life when things had been this bad.
Q: How frequent were bombings?
A: They continued incessantly during the day. When a bombed house burned a block away, I kept thinking it was my turn next. I felt humiliated that these pilots had made the decision that I deserved to die. Bombings completely destroy people's dignity.
At night, too, attacks took place every couple of hours. We'd hear the engines of the F-16s, the whooshing sound of bombs falling, the crash when they landed. My entire body stiffened as the sounds grew nearer, and I'd break out in a nervous sweat. A sense of relief washed over me as I heard the bombs landing. Then, I would catch myself, realizing that I had found relief in a bomb falling on someone else. The misery was indescribable ...
Soon I began to visualize myself getting hit, ending up a corpse lying under a pile of debris. I overlapped myself onto the images of countless bodies I'd seen, and told myself that I, too, will one day die that way. That is how I endured. It was the first time I experienced the strange sense of comfort that comes from resigning oneself to death.
Q: What emotional impacts has the fighting had on the children of Gaza?
A: Considering how deeply scarred I am in spite of my having been in Gaza for just five days, the impact on local children is immeasurable.
Once, I was transporting a girl in critical condition to another hospital. The driver, Abu Omar, 50, drove at a speed of 140 kilometers per hour to avoid sniper attacks. I thought then that I would die of indignation if this man, who was risking his life to save another, were killed. At that moment, even I felt that those who attacked Israeli soldiers with bombs strapped to their bodies could not be blamed.
If adults do not continue to encourage children to talk about the pain and humiliation they've experienced, they will ultimately crack from the stress and become soldiers themselves, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will continue.
Q: Can they find relief from verbalizing their experiences?
A: It is effective if a professional listens to them, allowing them to share their painful experiences with others, and thereby diluting them. The nonprofit organization Earth Stage [which I head] has been providing emotional care for children in Rafah through activities such as singing, acting, and soccer since June 2003.
For example, we have children write their own scripts and perform them. For example, a child playing the role of an Israeli soldier with his gun turned to another child, yells, "You deserve to die!" Another child, in the role of a Palestinian child, then screams, "But my mother hasn't done anything wrong!" At that moment, a dove appears and takes the two of them to heaven, where it listens to the pleas of both parties. "That'll just lead to more death," it says. "Let's all hold hands and live here happily."
"But this is heaven," the girl playing the role of the Palestinian child says. "I want to live in the real world where my father and mother are, and feel peace and happiness there." The dove comes round to its senses. "I understand. Let's take the feelings we've reaffirmed here back with us to the real world."
Children aged 13 to 15 cry as they perform these roles. But those who are older say things like, "Nothing we do here will change the fact that Israeli soldiers are going to shoot us."
Q: Do you feel like you're making progress?
A: Psychological tests performed on the children after our workshops show that their levels of anxiety and irritability have gone down. But there have not been any wide-reaching effects yet. What I want is for the children to understand that revenge is meaningless.
Q: What led you to get involved in international volunteer activities?
A: Since the time I was a young child, I wasn't athletic and I got bad grades. My older brother always told me, "You're a pathetic kid who can't do what everyone else can. You're missing a few screws in your head." So I decided I'd become a psychiatrist to fix my head. I got into medical school, but I still held onto a lot of complexes and was not good with people. I went on a soul-searching journeys around the world, which lasted six years, as I took on part-time jobs to support my travel.
When I treated an old homeless woman in the Philippines who had pus oozing from her eye onto her cheek from conjunctivitis, she cried with joy. It dawned on me then that one small act had the power to help others.
As I continued my activities, though, I had guns pointed at me along with the words, "It's not your place to do anything," and I became depressed, watching children I'd treated die. It was through such experiences that I realized that it was all right to engage in international volunteer work for my own sake. I came to know my own weaknesses, and learned that it was okay for me to overcome them through international volunteerism. My primary motivation for going to Gaza this time around, too, was not the benefit of others, but more because I didn't want to run away from reality.
Q: What are your thoughts on Gaza's future?
A: Both the Palestinian people and I have high expectations for U.S. President Obama. I hope he keeps Israeli recklessness in check. I believe that both the Israelis and Palestinians take extreme action because they feel isolated. That's the primary cause of the conflict. If the world were to show more interest in Jewish history and the current situation in Gaza, that sense of isolation would subside. And I think that's a contribution we're all capable of making. (Interviewed by Sumire Kunieda, Mainichi Shimbun)
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