Tent Politics

It's been nearly six weeks now since a 25 year old girl who got kicked out of her apartment and tired of having to pay ridiculously high rent and repeatedly be abused by greedy homeowners, opened a tent on Tel Aviv's best known street.



6 of her friends joined her initially to form the '7'. Since then, many other tents villages have opened across the country (now over than 90's) and many other groups, from divorced fathers asking for more rights, to the settlers offering the solution to the high prices in the West Bank, have joined giving their angle on what is termed the fight for social justice. Many political conversations were held in the tent village that formed on Rotschild street and in the other tent villages across the country. Even gestures to show agreement or displeasure with a speaker. Since the meetings became large, it was decided to avoid clapping in agreement. Instead, quick semi twists of the hand, as if changing a light bulb in a Bollywood film, became the sign of agreements.



At the beginning of the protests, 3 of the '7' went to the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, to listen to a government discussion of what is happening. They were quite unhappy but as visitors to the Knesset are not allowed to make any kind of noise, they remained silent. Instead, the 3 stood up and held their arms crossed, making a large X. They were kicked out of the Knesset at that point, and that has become the symbol for disapproval with a speaker.



Finally, to show that a speaker is continuing on and on, rumbling and rumbling, one does the 'ata hofer' symbol - you are digging, with arm over arm rotating in a circle, like traveling in basketball...





The '7' continued to lead the protests, deciding many times in small closed forms. As many people have joined the tent villages and even more the protests themselves, there was a strong cry for more representation in the 'deciding board'. The initial system had each tent village send a representative to some meetings to find out what was going on and the country divided into five areas, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Be'er Sheva, Haifa and the North, and each one of those allowed one representative in the deciding body. A bit of a democracy, except that the power of the '7' was too large in that situation.

This was problematic as this is the definition of a grassroots movement (even though most of us actually sleep on sand...). Almost all decisions are voted on in circles of people who come out, community members, folks in tents, even passerby's who want to make a statement. Everything is discussed, sometimes too much (at which point one does the traveling sign...).



Finally, early last week, the representative from Nordau (my tent village, I am proud to say :) ) suggested a new system, 10 + 3; 10 representatives from the different tent villages, elected in the villages themselves, and 3 representatives from the '7'. A developing democratic system... This will be the protest's leading board and soon, it will be time to negotiate, to decide if the government is doing enough - and maybe even eventually, to stop the protest once enough changed have been made.

Hey, one can always hope...