Bigger than Jesus

Are the Spice Girls in town?

No, not really. Lebanese pop-singer Nancy Ajram then? Or perhaps eighties one-hit-wonder Charles & Eddie? If no one else can help you, and if you can find them,… maybe Palestinians hired the A-Team? Quite unlikely. And yet, the sulfuric tang of ignited powder abounds. There floats an excitement that is difficult to explain otherwise.

Today, Ramallah is falling over itself, people dash about in thrilled flurries, and firecrackers litter the sound-spectrum. It’s the day of “tawjihi”, the proclamation of final-year high school student’s results, a local SAT or baccalaureate if you will. The tawjihi determines which, if any, college you’re allowed to enter, and the field of study that is deemed attainable for your intellectual prowess. The growing popularity of higher education has made Palestinian universities rather strict in their admittance policies. Too strict, some say, as the results of a single year determine who goes to college, and who doesn’t. Tension and anxiety hang thick like steel wires. Family and friends, not to mention the contenders themselves, brace as noon approaches.

“Nata’ig! Nata’ig!” the newspaper kids shout, the fates of lives wrapped in drooping folds from the left arm, like omnipotent waiters. Two shekels a pop. “Nata’ig!” Results! The special editions, already printed as bakers’ alarm clocks rang, were under lock and key, by presidential decree, until the official reading about a half hour shy of midday.

I’m running errands downtown, wading through a choppy sea of people. Traffic rules are, for the day, suspended. I exaggerate of course, but it’s hard to underestimate or misread the beaming smiles, or the rutted brows that hover over index fingers on the endless lists of printed names, scanning for the thumbs up. I’m startled as a young girl flails onto the street, screaming. She is pursued by a hive of classmates who are there just in time to catch her as she swoons onto the asphalt. For an unguarded second the word “Beatles” pops into my head, curtsies, and disappears just as quickly. “Stand back. Give her some air,” says a gentleman passer-by. Gravity will not let go of her just yet, and I saunter on. She’ll be alright.

Here, two adolescents crouch, poring over the percentages. Today it is permitted to read on the sidewalk. An older man is hunched against a car, pats his chest searching for his spectacles. Everyone has a cousin, a nephew, a son, daughter, sister or brother whose future is weighed on these pages. Whole families will gather in celebration tonight, or had planned to at least. Today, no one is Hamas or Fatah, and a powwow of smiles and handshakes in Jericho is the least of anybody’s concerns. Such moot topics elicit shrugs. A sigh at best. Today a true majority can be seen, in a whorl of uncertainty, placing the safest bet available; education. Perhaps, when the chips are down four years from now, jobs will be as scarce a commodity as they are now, and the current curls on mouths will droop. And yet. People take that chance. Hope is always at its best, clashing with the odds.

A youth launches sparklers from a balcony. The streets are covered black on white, and the faces carry smiles, or frowns. Soon the latter will withdraw. The night is claimed by honking cars, and even more fireworks. All in the name of education.

“Bigger than Jesus,” I catch myself thinking. One of those unruly seconds…