What kind of a twisted idea was it to come to this godforsaken farmland on the edge of a windy Danish island? I thought to myself after two days in the Crossing Borders journalism seminar in Vallekilde.

What made me plunge my deliberately-estranged self back into the emotional dirt of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, hundreds of miles away from any familiar place? And why leap back again into the eternal limbo of this sorrowful affair after years of profound denial?

Something happened to me in that picturesque but isolated village near the Northern Sea, on the upper end of earth. Something that unmasked what I’ve been persistently burying beneath layers of bullet-proof cynicism.

Yes, for a too long I used journalism as a shield against the brute and grim realities of my region. It would have been a dark and stormy world for me if my know¬ledge translated into emotional involvement. Every drop of blood and every missed opportunity would world a throw me off balance.

THE OUTSIDER

There were several times when I truly tried to react to political fallacies and human atrocities, and the stage was there to be used. My mind would heat up, my rhetorical muse would steam up and rattle, and I’d cast my boiling arguments in molds of polemic missiles fired through my trilingual keyboard. But after having a look at the outcome I’d always think it's too personal, too demagogic, too pathetic. Shortly after, those texts would be dispatched into the familiar bin of frustration. Therefore, I chose to cling on to the outsider point of view. To depict reality, without allowing anything to stick to me—to research and interrogate, but only outwards. And at the end of the day to wash it off me before the next wave of filth arrives.

And why this weakness? This intellectual paralysis? Well, as much as I would like to deny it, it’s because of being a Palestinian – an essential side of the conflict. Nothing can be easier than being sucked into the polemic swamp of the Israeli-Arab conflict. And once you start wallowing inside, there's no chance of seeing anything else clearly. Wanting to be a non-biased professional journalist (and perhaps also a mentally healthy one), I wrote about everything but the conflict. You’d even find me writing about fashion and tourism. But after years of doing that, sweeping the truth beneath a fake carpet of impartial observation was no longer an option. It was time to step in and make a stand. So I bought a ticket to Copenhagen.

I FOUND THAT SOUL

Before arriving to the Crossing Borders seminar, I was in a severe state of dwindling inspiration. Everything turned pale and shapeless, and I had to escape to Europe in search of some remedy to a disturbingly growing writers block. This was my first time to participate in such a dialogue seminar, even though I had often been invited to them. Knowing the nature of these activities, I always rejected the invitations, expecting nothing but talking heads firing hollow clichés and banal facts. And so it was in too many cases, but nothing prepared me for the social encounters that rekindled my curiosity.

Gathered in that remote school in the countryside, the seminar presented a rare collection of identities and personalities. Never before have I met young journalists so hungry for expression. They were all there: the persecuted bloggers; the raging feminist activists; the resilient reporters; the idealistic truth seekers and the soldiers of freedom of speech – all seeking recognition. I watched them through my old protective bubble, which started shaking and trembling towards explosion.

It didn’t take long until that bubble burst and for the first time in years, I found myself exposed to nearly everything. The fire in the eyes of the Egyptian opposition journalists; the mettle of the Palestinian ones; the unlimited curiosity of the Danish others; and the courage of the Israelis to confront twenty-four Arab journalists were all worth coming for. It was one big laboratory of socio-political interactions and, as in any lab, things tend to explode. That indeed happened several times, when conceptions and misconceptions clashed in fire and noise. I was there not only to observe, but also to participate.

A NEW QUEST

Looking back, what seemed at the beginning a half-vacation turned out to be an enriching experience. Those two weeks were a pause in my professional life, but something new started, and this is only the beginning of a new quest, yet to be defined. My next meeting with those entreating personas will be in November. I wonder what kind of journalist I will be then.