Back home

After a week of sleep and writing, I'm getting some distance, as they say, on the whole trip. I wish that I'd behaved differently in some ways; I wish I hadn't got so angry in Syria, as it coloured what I thought and said and wrote for the following ten days. I really wish that Detta hadn't taken things personally. Criticism sounds personal, simply because Follow the Women is Detta: it was her idea, and she runs the show - all speeches on behalf of Follow the Women are from Detta. So pointing out what went wrong is pointing out how she went wrong, which is an unfortunate situation when people just want the possibility of change.

It's horrible putting down people who mean well. The sentiment of Follow the Women is good, and it stems - I think, though others have disagreed - from genuine care for people Detta has met. But the naivety of the whole set-up leads to scenarios that I cannot possibly be positive about, and more - this is where insidious guilt asserts itself - I feel the need to be negative: the region means too much for me to allow such scenarios to go uncriticised.

Much of what there is to say about the trip itself can be easily incorporated into FtW. More communication before and during the ride; clearer aims from the beginning; workshops for everyone's questions and input - all this would instantly improve the atmosphere. People would be united, instead of feeling unrepresented. Of course, there are much deeper structural problems. Clarifying the aims sounds easy, given that the aims are there on the website, but there was so much disagreement, including fundamentally contradictory reasons for being there, that in practice this is difficult. For example, Detta stands firm with Sahar when the latter declares Israeli women are not welcome. But Detta has worked hard to bring Israelis on board; she is proud of this and in my opinion rightly so. Some people are there for the women, others say that this is irrelevant. And so on. It is not impossible to sort this out: Detta has to make some decisions and stick to them. But there are another level of problems for me.

No-one seems to know exactly what we are trying to do. Peace for Palestine, Detta said on the last night I was with FtW, in a workshop in Palestine; that's what it started with, that's what it's all about. Many people didn't know that, but even if that is stated as the only aim, there is still the problem that no-one can agree on what peace for Palestine would look like. And no-one seems to be thinking about what we are doing for this mysterious peace.

Taking the message home, is a common theme. What message? That Palestinians have tough lives and wait at checkpoints? This has been just a few days of the two weeks. What is the truth of life in the other three countries that we have seen? We have seen little of the real life of the countries - this is impossible with 250 women in tow, so where will the truth be found?

A view expressed by many was that it felt like a tour group; we were touring four countries in a novel way, cheaply. We were staying in nice hotels, doing tourist things, and on top of that cycling. Few people raised sponsorship so we were not taking money into Palestine.

"Everyone should pledge to do three things" said Detta. "Whether that's trying to get Israeli's on board, or writing an article, or writing letters to your MP, or giving a talk at your work, college, local club: if everyone did just a few things the aims of Follow the Women would be realised." But what would people say? Steph's point that no-one else takes any responsibility was born out by a completely silent response to Detta's request for help. But as I heard later, people didn't feel able to volunteer for something so undefined, something unknown. What I really don't understand is how people have worked so hard for results so unexamined. I want to know what we've achieved.

I have an inkling of some negative achievements, as I've already written about. We have given free publicity to politically dubious regimes and parties and also tourist boards. We have given support in word if not in deed to anyone we have passed along the way, often giving a false sense of what the rest of the world thinks: this takes cross-cultural understanding the wrong way.

Perhaps all of this is irrelevant compared to the feeling of support we give to the Palestinians; also, the message that the Palestinians have a hard life is certainly worth taking home: as Detta put it, "The Palestinians are the ones without a voice". But I wish I'd known that it was all about Palestine before I went, and I can't help thinking that if it was only about Palestine, we should have spent more time in Palestine and less enjoying the hospitality of the region.