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From
Challenge # 91
May - June 2005
The Most Relevant Day of the Year
Rona Segal
THE FIRST
OF MAY 2005 met Tel Aviv at a moment in its history when the city is
lethargic, confused and tired. Asma Agbarieh of the Workers Advice
Center (WAC), moderating the event in the plaza of the Cinametheque,
called out from the platform: “A little more energy, friends!
There’s a feeling here as though we’ve gathered for nostalgia. But
the First of May is not that. This is the most relevant day in the
year!”
Such, though, is the situation in Tel Aviv: those who
most need defense don’t know they need it, and those who come to
demonstrations are precisely the ones who, socio-economically
speaking, are still “in good shape”: they don’t have to worry about
being fired, but if necessary they can always find something else,
in marketing or media maybe, or as artists – at least for the next
ten years, until stepped-up privatization eats into the middle
class. A dozen Palestinian construction workers from one of the WAC
teams came after work, standing out as the only ones present who
earn with their hands.
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On the
fence around the plaza were 56 posters made for the occasion by
Israeli and Palestinian artists. (The immense work of initiating and
organizing this display was done by Cheb Kammerer, Orit Soudry and
Nir Nader of Bamat Etgar, which co-sponsored the event.)
The posters were outstanding. Almost all related
to a written text, pulling the viewer into it, a tactic derived from
the graphic tradition of the socialist poster. David Reeb used the
text “Topple the wall.” Ronen Idelman wrote, “Free Tali Fahima”
(below). Ranya Akel sewed a piece of pita bread, quite literally,
onto an empty flour sack, on which was written in Hebrew and Arabic:
“The big mills.” Daphne Kaplan presented two photographs. One showed
an elderly demonstrator holding a sign with the words, “I am Arieh
Gil. Romanian worker. Gross 3600 [shekels].” The second showed a
Russian woman from a Personnel Company mopping a gym floor; on the
wall behind her was a banner: “What shall we do for a better Israel
in 2020?” Whoever took time to examine these works already knew, in
essence, what one needed to know. But whoever did not had only to
listen to Assaf Adiv, WAC’s National Coordinator, proclaiming from
the stage: “WAC organized this assembly today – the First of May
2005 – because we believe with all our hearts in certain basic
principles that were ground to dust in recent years by the
globalization of capital. At a time when many who raised these flags
and these principles in the past have dropped them, there is a need
that someone should lift them again. WAC is proud to stand up today
and say openly, without qualification: The red flag exists! The
working class exists! The struggle for organized labor exists! The
trade union exists! Solidarity among workers exists! Unity between
Arab and Jewish workers exists! Socialism exists!”
Dr. Roy Wagner of the Workers Hotline (Kav la’Oved)
listed one abuse after another, asking each time, “Is that work (avodah)
or slavery (avdut)?” The audience, at first reluctant to
break its passivity, murmured, “Slavery.” Wagner continued, “When
the government says, ‘From handouts to work,’ what they’re saying
is, ‘From handouts to slavery.’ When the government says, ‘A dynamic
labor market,’ what they’re saying is, ‘A dynamic slave market.’ The
government wants hungry workers. The government wants workers
who don’t have any alternative. The government – what is it? An arm
of the big bosses. They want workers who – when trampled on,
cheated, exploited – will say, ‘Thank you, sir’ and be silent. The
government and the big bosses don’t want workers at all – they want
slaves.” When Wagner returned to his list of abuses, asking each
time, “Work or slavery?” no one in the crowd held back.
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 Among
the speakers were Shevy Korzen, Executive Director of the Hotline
for Migrant Workers, and Dr. Yitzhak Saporta, a founder of the
Mizrahi Democratic Rainbow. Turning to the banner above the stage
(“Jobs, not Charity!”), Saporta said that the demand for jobs is not
enough. “We demand work that pays a living wage. The problem is that
in Israel the workers are poor. Did you know that 42% of the poor
children in Israel come from families that do have an
employed breadwinner? We are talking about the right not to live in
poverty! These aren’t radical words. These are basic rights.
“The first
of May,” Saporta went on, “is a time to remember the historical
struggles of workers who fought against the 14-hour work day. That’s
what they want to bring us back to! Our struggle is for a society
without poverty.”
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 The
last speaker, Nir Nader of Bamat Etgar, pointed out the poster of
Ariel Yannai, one of the 56 on display. Yannai presented an old
photograph showing the league of Soviet artists, all peering at the
picture’s future viewers with eyes full of fiery determination.
Yannai wrote beside it: “Malevich, Lissitzky, Kogan, Iudin – I
looked into their eyes and thought, ‘This gaze no longer exists.’”
Nader made bold to claim that it does, and the people in the crowd
glanced at one another, looking for eyes that had not been obscured
by the fog of the bourgeoisie.
Asma Agbarieh arose to announce the closing
performance by rock singer Yaheli Sobol, but the singer was being
interviewed. “We’ll wait,” she said – but found herself asking, “In
the meantime, would you like me to sing you the Internationale in
Arabic? I’ve always dreamed of singing in front of an audience.” And
Agbarieh sang, quietly at first, then in a deep, earthy voice, with
complete concentration, filling the plaza of Tel Aviv’s Cinematheque
with the familiar notes of the workers’ hymn but in Arabic. This
unplanned performance, backed by the crowd (each in his or her own
language), was the moment, for many, when the meaning of the day
came home to them: the singers understood that they are part of a
struggle – that the first of May is not just a holiday, nor a gloomy
relic, but a day to gather energies to fight for a year worth
living. The look in Agbarieh’s eyes as she sang could not be
mistaken: it was the look in the eyes of Malevich, Lissitzky, Kogan,
and Iudin in the photograph on the poster of Ariel Yannai. |
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