Real-World Obstacles to Supernatural Demand: A Classic Tale of Tragedy
Although older surveys do not tell us much about the current state of the handicraft industry, what they do highlight is how dramatically the political volatility that hampers the whole of the Palestinian economy adversely affects this sector in unique ways. I hope to describe this scenario by using as much available data as possible while also filling in the gaps with a personal reflection on the challenges and promises of the handicraft industry in Palestine.
The relative “calm” of the late 1990s and early part of the new millennium saw a rise in the number of tourists to Palestine’s historical and religious sites. Pilgrims from the world over took advantage of the decrease in violence to come and buy locally produced goods such as olive wood carvings, embroidery, and religious items. In 1998, over 600,000 tourists visited Bethlehem, and by 2000, the number had increased to almost 850,000 - nearly 50 percent more than only two years before.* Had the second Intifada never occurred, it is likely that the numbers would have continued to rise at the same rate.
The unique aspect of the handicraft trade in Palestine is that religious trinkets, such as rosaries, prayer beads, Bibles, and Qurans, can be blessed in the very places where the gods and prophets of old walked and spoke. Interestingly, the place where it is bought is far more important than the actual item sold.
I remember bringing a rosary to my grandmother a few years back - one that I had bought in East Jerusalem and laid upon the stones in and around the tomb of Christ. Of the seemingly endless collection of religious paraphernalia that my grandmother owns (from Lourdes, the Vatican, Notre Dame, etc.), this simple rosary is by far her most treasured possession. She still gets excited when she has a chance to show it off to people, and she is becoming increasingly protective of it. “Don’t touch it so much, you will wear it out!” she says.
This is the magic of Palestine handicrafts; they are imbued with the supernatural. The amazing quality of the work you see and read about in this issue is important, but it takes a backseat to the fact that they are produced in the Holy Land.
Yet while the demand for Palestinian handicrafts could be said to be almost supernatural, the very real world of politics is not easily overcome. The onset of the second Intifada and the incursion of Israeli military forces into Palestinian cities and towns shocked the world and spread fear about the safety and security of further pilgrimages. Between the years 2000 and 2003, the number of tourists to Bethlehem went down from 850,000 to approximately 15,000!
Yet even after the Intifada had slashed the number of tourists visiting Bethlehem’s holy sites by almost 98 percent, the small numbers that continued to come still made up over half of the handicraft consumer market. Only 45 percent of Palestinian handicraft production is sold to markets abroad, with approximately 30 percent going to Western markets and 15 percent going to the Arab world.* People want these goods; that much is clear. But what they seem to want even more is to be here to buy them.
I had originally hoped to provide a snapshot of the handicraft industry in order to ground the rest of the articles in this issue in facts and figures. In truth it was not only the lack of data that made me want to avoid discussing the realities of Palestinian handicrafts. The economic de-development caused by the occupation affects this sector as it does every other. We have heard this story before, and it is never a happy one.
The sad story of the “supply side” of handicrafts in Palestine, however, is only one side of the coin. Whether it is useful or just fanciful, I find myself wanting to tell the other story as well. The story of my grandmother typifies well the billions of Christians, Muslims, and Jews dying to fill the streets and markets of cities throughout the West Bank and Gaza. She represents the “demand side” of the story; and if I told her that I could bring one more rosary tomorrow, she would ask for ten. If I could peel her away from the images of Palestine that she sees on her television every day and convince her to make the pilgrimage she has always dreamed of, she would buy hundreds.
This Week in Palestine.
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