Collated and Edited by Manavi and Uditi
Editors’ Note- Mahnoor Yar Khan started her career as a filmmaker in Toronto in 1983. She was assistant editor on Ordure which won the jury prize at the Canadian Student Film Festival and worked on the film Bread as Production Manager, which won the Blue Ribbon Award at the 26th American Film Festival 1984. She also worked on several social service films in India as a director. She co-directed Farewell to Sri Lanka (1991) which was selected for screening the following year at the Mumbai International Film Festival. In 2016, she curated a multi-media show on Palestine that included 50 artworks produced by young artists from Gaza. Aside from being a filmmaker, she is also a drama therapist.
This interview was held on the day of the Palestine Exhibition organised by students on KREA campus. The views expressed in this article are those of the interviewee. Team Leher curated the questions.
Aside from the professional background of Mahnoor, her self-description is quite simple and comprises two sentences; “Lived in Hyderabad. Worked in Palestine, specifically Gaza for over 20 years which today has become my second home”. These two lines paint quite a picture, given her love for Hyderabad which culminated in her and a friend putting together a documentary titled “Other Kohinoors: The Rocks of Hyderabad”, which seeks to spread awareness of the depleting rock landscapes that form the very heart and culture of Hyderabad. Her calling Gaza her second home hits hard in times like these. It is also why we felt her presence would greatly enrich and enhance our discussions and conversations around Palestine, the day-to-day normalised inhumanness, and the love and courage maintained through it all.
When asked about her work as a drama therapist, Mahnoor said, “I use techniques in drama, and they cut across all dramatic techniques, meaning using music, theatre, artworks, painting, story writing, poetry and movement.” She worked in groups and used these methods to create a space wherein concerns can be expressed and brought up, and as and when they do ways of looking at and confronting them can be examined through the therapeutic process. Her groups comprised mainly adolescents in the West Bank and Gaza; these would be groups of 12-14 year olds with whom she engaged up until 1999. Post that, she has “been doing a series of training programs, working with women also, and working with young professionals and youth”. (Mahnoor Khan, personal communication, 16th December 2023)
Mandela said, “[P]erhaps it requires such depths of oppression to create such heights of character” in the context of the brilliant leaders and visionaries that emerged against racial apartheid in South Africa. However, the words carry a significance spanning spatial and temporal realities. Owing to this, we asked her whether she noticed a certain creative uniqueness in the forms of expression of the Palestinians, given their brutal and persisting historical oppression. She felt there are two aspects in question: that there lies a certain consciousness and unconsciousness Palestinians have with their bodies and what they are telling them. Not only with Palestinians but a lot of other communities that face restrictions and constraints in actually understanding their body, what she refers to as “blocks”. Read below what she said in addition to this in her response-
“Just allowing that release and to try and understand what your body is actually telling you and to do it in a creative manner so that it doesn't become oppressive and is acceptable within communities initially and then to be able to expand that in terms of going beyond your limits is something that I've had to work through with various groups but when it comes to art and writing, music I think um they're quite open to those forms of expression um when it comes to collage making it's quite unique for them and unusual so that again is a process that they take a while to get used to. With using masks, it's quite frightening for them to do any work in terms of using a mask; in terms of meditation with your eyes closed, especially with young kids, it's quite frightening because for them closing your eyes means death a lot of the times and so that association is quite disturbing and so expecting kids or adolescents to close their eyes and lie down is something that is difficult to do.”
Hope. Hope gives strength, the will to move forward and carry on. The light at the end of the tunnel grew dimmer following the violence inflicted by Israel in 2014. At this point, one can only speculate whether or not hope remains in whatever scattered fragments. Mahnoor said that religion has been that unifying force for the Palestinians from which they derive their will to continue and sustain; that it has given them something to live for and has helped in coming to terms with death and the trauma they have gone through. Mahnoor also spoke on the importance of family and community. Knowing that the experiences of trauma and grief are collective, “and so not necessarily speaking about it or not necessarily dealing with the issues, but to collectively try and come to terms. To come to terms with the issues and support each other in that collective getting together is, I feel and think, is what would work under the present circumstances, especially with kids.” (Mahnoor Khan, personal communication, 16th December 2023)
She told us that she believes that Palestinians' strength and resilience are widely talked about, but the effects this may have on them are hardly spoken of. The endurance and resilience have come at a cost. She told us very candidly that she wasn’t sure how much more they could endure. She shared that Western NGOs don’t necessarily have an understanding of the landscape of Palestinian trauma and experience and, hence, can’t reasonably assess what works and what doesn’t. The methodology is different, and the experiences' enormity is also a factor. 2.5 million people. Everybody is suffering; everybody is traumatised. How must one build an infrastructure around this? Psychologists and therapists aren't excluded from this, given that they have suffered and are human at the end of the day. There is no one to help in the process of healing. There needs to be a certain amount of capacity and understanding to address the Palestinian traumas; where to begin remains an estranged concern if the violence continues. The end of brutality will only begin to illuminate the effects borne and their layered nature and complexity, or more fundamentally, will they (Palestinians) even be there?
Mahnoor also spoke of what she thinks is a case of historical hypocrisy. It was the elephant in the room because it is an argument gaining more and more visibility with each passing day in mainstream media and trickling into routine conversations around the conflict- when the oppressed turn oppressors, history takes a deep breath. She mentioned how the holocaust hasn’t faded from memory, far from it. But according to her, it has been transformed into a unique kind of impunity that wards off remarks on Israeli apartheid; Anti-semitism is being used to propagate and spread terror under the guise of historical marginalisation and extermination. Mahnoor asked why. Because those who have seen violence never wish to brush against it again. The extent of surveillance and the extent of brutality makes one wonder. The current generations of Palestinians, both within and abroad, have taken to the task of documentation so that we don’t forget. The demonstrations and protests headed by the youth stand as a testament to this. The tide is changing “among the young who refuse to accept one narrative.” (Mahnoor Khan, personal communication, 16th December 2023)
Towards the end of the interview, we asked her what she thought the future holds and what can be expected. Mahnoor had only one thing to say, something fundamental and yet out of reach for the Palestinians: to live in peace and have a country, in whatever form they can call their own,“[a]nd live in equality with all peoples around. Because I think that's what they deserve.”
Here’s an inspiring snippet from the interview to end on a relatively optimistic note:
Q: You organised the Gaza 51 exhibition. Did you have any realisations after looking at those pictures, or even during your time in Gaza, any moments of unexpected humanity or kindness from strangers you experienced that stood out, and you still keep with you that you'd like to share?
“I think just living there and people accepting you for what you are is an experience worth experiencing. For people who have lost so much and to yet take you in and make you a part of their family, literally, is very heartening. And I am very grateful for that. Because I think without that support, I don't think I would have been able to survive for the many, many years and months that I have spent in Gaza.
The memory I take back is their humour. Their capacity to laugh at themselves. And the other thing is the capacity to want to live a normal life under totally abnormal conditions.
And so, for example, the sea is close to them. Suddenly, Israel decided, you can't go to the sea. So they bring on Fridays, they bring the sand and they put up an umbrella and they take all the kids out and they spend time out cooking and making their tea, exactly what they do on the beach. And just that idea that you have to make do with what you have and you have to live the life you want to live. So they have weddings, they have births, they have birthday parties. They put their kids into their school uniforms and send them to school every day knowing there are snipers out there. And so this desire to try and create a normal life is very touching.” (Mahnoor Khan, personal communication, 16th December 2023)
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