I needed to go to the School of Oriental and African Studies again. There was another lecture: ‘Palestine: the invisible damage of life under occupation’. Since I had been to SOAS before, I quickly asked myself a question: should this count? I immediately decided that the Meetup groups matter, not the event or the venue.
This time, I knew what I was doing: I would catch the Northern Line to Goodge Street and walk through the streets of Bloomsbury to the SOAS main building, sign in, and head to the lower ground floor, where there was the lecture theatre.
I made it to the lecture theatre with seconds to spare. I found an empty seat close to the front. I took off my jacket, pulled out my notepad, and sat down. Looking around, I saw that the lecture theatre was packed.
The lecture, given by a practicing psychiatrist, was jointly hosted by the UK-Palestine Mental Health network. According to the event description, it was a talk about the impact of war, the effect of ‘persistent psychological damage’, the role of international civil society and the responsibilities of mental health professionals. Our speaker was introduced as someone who was involved in the training of Palestinian mental health professionals in Jerusalem.
The talk began with a presentation of statistics that summarised Palestinian casualties during the recent war between Israel and Gaza: a summary of deaths, injuries and disabilities. The presenter said, ‘I’m a citizen of nowhere in the world; I’m only a resident’, before showing us a copy of her early travel documents using a PowerPoint slide. The field that presented her nationality contained a word that made me feel uncomfortable. It contained the word ‘undefined’.
We were then shown some photographs of the aftermath of Israel’s bombing. It was a scene of unfathomable devastation. I could make out some figures in the foreground, posing for the camera. The rest of the photograph comprised of grey concrete, shattered and broken. Steel reinforcement wire poked from the rubble like desperate tentacles.
‘You can say there was an earthquake’, our speaker said, mentioning that people who have to live through earthquakes have to deal with profound psychological trauma, ‘but war is intended’.
Our speaker moved onto the subject of post-traumatic stress disorder and the distinction between constant exposure to stress and when PTSD becomes ‘pathological’. She had an interesting argument: PTSD only becomes apparent after a traumatic event has ended; those who experience it are taken back to the time in which the events occur. Her point was that trauma is happening all the time to Palestinians: ‘even though the bombs are not falling, the helicopters are always there’.
Another perspective was that of ‘resilience’; that the thought of the Palestinian state is not going to go away. There were more photos, and these led onto a brief exposition about the importance of demonstrations. Demonstrations in cities across the world may not be able to immediately change very much, but their impact on those who see protesters in the international community offering expressions of solidarity, are significant. Protest, it was implicitly argued, is welcome.
Just like the previous lecture I had been to, there was a question and answer session. There were questions about whether PTSD is a valid subject to study, ethical dilemmas about engaging with Israeli charitable non-governmental organisations, and the extent to which the Palestinian authorities are divided. I wasn’t able to follow all the questions and all the responses, but I could tell that the speaker clearly engaged well with anyone who had something to say. Everyone clapped. The lecture was over.
I made my way to the lobby area and hung around for a while. On the event, over forty people had signed up, and I wanted to chat with some of the group members. I walked over to a small group of women who were chatting. This time I was determined to reach out, to meet new people.
‘Excuse me, are you, erm, part of the, er, Meetup group?’
‘No, there are some people still inside, perhaps they might be?’ came the response. I realised the group was actually a mother with her two teenage daughters.
I returned to the lecture theatre and said hello to a group of people who were chatting.
‘Oh, you’re the guy who made a post who said that he looks like comedian Harry Hill! Yes, I can see that! Hello!’ I introduced myself to Sabena, Aisha, Kamal, Ahmed and Louise. Two of the women, Sabena and Aisha returned to a conversation about different groups they belonged to and I chatted to Ahmed and Louise.
‘I saw this event today, and just came down’, I explained. ‘Mental health is a really interesting topic, and it’s interesting to learn more about implications in a different context. Plus, all learning is good, right?’ They smiled, and agreed.
We all walked to the SOAS reception area. It turned out that this was the second Meetup that Aisha had been to, ‘I much prefer events that you can learn things from, don’t you think? There’s all these other events, like events about food – now, don’t get me wrong, I really like food, right, but it’s interesting to go to things like this…’ Soon, everyone was talking about heading home. The event had come to a definitive end, but I was glad that I had chatted to some fellow group members, who had made me feel welcome.
On the bus to Waterloo Station, there was a lot to think about. I thought about the talk, about the images, the statistics and the stories. The speaker hadn’t really said too much about mental health. Instead, she had talked more about statehood, protest and resilience. Given the description of the event, I found this slightly surprising, but perhaps this was a reflection of my own naivety. I also struggled to understand the different perspectives that were offered in the talk. For a brief hour, I had been thrown into an unfamiliar, difficult and terrifying world; it was a world that I found impossible to grasp; I was shown echoes of a deeper and darker side of the human condition, where survival, angst and frustration may well be common feelings and preoccupations. I was introduced to a perspective that had gently nudged me from my comfortable quasi middle-class, middle-England existence, towards one of greater curiosity and awareness. I was being shown more about what happens in the world, and shown more about the perspectives of others, and this was very welcome.
The event was also, undeniably, a milestone; I was half way through my quest.
When I started, I thought: ‘I’ll just try to do ten, and see what happens’. After doing the first ten, I couldn’t help but become addicted. This addiction came from the excitement of visiting new places, and visiting new groups, and the feeling hadn’t dimmed at fifty. If anything, what started as a folly had mutated into an obsession. This hasn’t become some hobby that passes the time, it has become a quest for a new ‘London experience’; it had become a catalyst for learning, a vehicle to feel more at home in the city that is becoming increasingly mine as its streets were gradually moving from the page of a map and into my head.
One thing that has happened is that my work has been affected. There was a time when I used to put every spare hour I had into doing my job, but that has changed. Instead, the quest has started to become my job: it had become ‘research’. I started to question the role that technology has in getting people together, how it facilitates real interaction and real connection between people. It had become accidental research about cities and communities. In some respect, the distinction between my day job and my quest were starting to blur; I could see how they were both exploring similar themes: technology, people and community.
Another question that crossed my mind as I crossed London on the bus was: ‘if I wasn’t doing this, what would I want to be doing?’ This is a question that I didn't have an answer to. This ‘I don’t know’ answer, more than anything, pushed me onwards to the next event, whatever it would be.
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