Me, Waiting for Godot, Citizen Duties and the Case of Yaniv David Harel

Estragon: Come on, we leave!
Vladimir: We can’t.
Estragon: Why not?
Vladimir: We are waiting for Godot.
Estragon: Oh yeah.

Estragon (a little later): But we might interrupt the wait?
Vladimir: Can we dare it?
Estragon: Yes, we can.
Vladimir: But Godot stays our first objective?
Estragon: Sure, he does.

Vladimir: Didn’t you have the feeling too, Godot tried to call yesterday?
Estragon: Uhhmmm, well, maybe.
Vladimir (mocking Estragon): “Uhhmmm, well, maybe”???? Can’t you express yourself a little bit clearer?
Estragon: Maybe means just that – it is possible. I admit that we had an unanswered call during work.
Vladimir: And what about the number?
Estragon: We didn’t recognize it. But admittedly again, it looks quite similar to one of Godot’s. Yet…
Vladimir: Yet? What is it?
Estragon: You tried to phone back, didn’t you?
Vladimir: Yes, sure I did. After all, we are waiting for Godot, aren’t we?
Estragon: And?
Vladimir: Well, the voice in the phone said that the number I called was temporarily unavailable…
Estragon: Hence, Godot is still unavailable, isn’t he? And we are still waiting.

Estragon (very depressed looking): I really set my hope into yesterday’s letter, didn’t you too?
Vladimir (walking up and down, wringing his hands): Sure I did! Who thought, they – who are so close (stopping in his steps and pointing out a tiny distance between his thumb and finger), so close to Godot – wouldn’t at least deliver a short message of him.
Estragon: I would have been satisfied with a single word…
Vladimir (talking himself into a rage): Just a little note so that we now they know we are waiting.
Estragon (absent minded): What are we waiting for again?
Vladimir (looking worried at his companion): For Godot. We are waiting for Godot.
Estragon (mumbling): Oh yeah, Godot.

Vladimir: You know, I didn’t like this stare into infinity you indulged yourself in lately. So, guess what I did?
Estragon (sighs): Well? I hear.
Vladimir: I called Godot.
Estragon (if he were a cat his ears would stand at point): Oi, YOU did WHAT?
Vladimir: I was weary of waiting, sick of being drained of my energy by our limbo existence, I was bored with filling my days counting daisies while my sheer existence might have not even been acknowledged by the Great Zampadu, less the effort we put in our long fight for patience; I… -
Estragon (impatiently exploding): Get to the point!
Vladimir: Godot has now the amiableness to take notice of us.
Estragon: Is it improving our situation?
Vladimir: It has a dualism to it.
Estragon: How is this?
Vladimir: Once Godot approaches finally, he might reject us…
Estragon: Well, then we better leave before he comes.
Vladimir: No, we mustn’t.
Estragon: Why not?
Vladimir: Because we are still waiting for Godot. It’s has become part of our lives.
Estragon: Oh yeah, sure.

Vladimir: Estragon?
Estragon (polishes the display of his cell phone): Vladimir?
Vladimir: Estragon? What is it? What’s wrong?
Estragon: How many installments of Dr. House did we watch since your call?
Vladimir (swallows a handful of pain reliever and limbs with a stiff leg to the TV to switch it off): Not that many, really.
Estragon (looks at Vladimir now leaning at a non-existing cane in an impossible angle in disbelief): Might have been one too many. – Anyway, are we still waiting?
Vladimir: patiently, uncomplaining, longanimous, tenacious, persistently, perseveringly, doggedly, adamantine, obstinately, pertinaciously, stubbornly, enduringly, stiff-necked…
Estragon:…stiff-legged, and this might only be from watching too much Dr. House…
Vladimir: …unfalteringly, unyieldingly, unbendingly, brassboundly…
Estragon: Who do you want to impress – the editorial department of the Thesaurus? Honestly, why can’t we just leave?
Vladimir: Because we are waiting – for Godot. Just today, when I called again Godot’s friends told me to call back next week as Godot hasn’t yet decided what to do concerning our request.
Estragon (exasperated): And why didn’t you tell me this earlier? Talking to you is sometimes like getting blood out of a stone!
Vladimir: The question is, is the blood you got from the stone any good?
Estragon: I would say, Godot didn’t reject us straight away. He didn’t take the easy way out.
Vladimir: Hence, you deem it good news, right? Well, then we wait on.
Estragon: It seems like it, doesn’t it?

Vladimir (is down on his knees and knocks his head hard onto the floor): No, no, no, no!
Estragon: Eh … Vladimir? Will you be alright?
Vladimir (throws his cell phone against the next wall where it smashes): Arrrghhhhhhhh!
Estragon: Vladimir, my friend, remember – breathe in, breathe out, in, out, in, out and ohmmmmmmmmmmmmm. And now, tell me what is wrong – ohmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Vladimir: ‘What’s wrong?’ you ask me! (clenches his teeth and presses the next words through them) Godot! Godot is wrong!
Estragon: Remember, in and out, in and out and ohmmmmmmmmm. What has he done this time? – in and out, in and out, this is right.
Vladimir (speaks in between breaths of air): He must suffer of amnesia! After all the time spent waiting, after all the calls and promises of a decision – he didn’t reject us or accepted our request. (the breathing becomes gasping, the eye bulge, the voice becomes gradually louder until he shouts) He couldn’t remember us and so, asked us to start the process all over again, to jump to start but don’t get the 2000 Euro, to send our request again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Estragon (voiceless and pale looking): You’re kidding?
Vladimir: When I tell you! I wrote a complain already criticizing the internal flow of information and the handling of client contact. But would you believe it!? Others try to avoid Godot at any cost and are forced by courts to associate with him. And we try to keep his company and are ignored. (shakes his head)
Estragon: It’s a strange, strange world after all… Well, taking all this into consideration I would say we leave, come on.
Vladimir: No, we can’t.
Estragon: You don’t say we are still waiting for Godot, do you?
Vladimir: Yes, we do. Now more than ever!

I warn you. I am not a good company right now. For one thing my voice sounds like a rasp if I can get a sound out of my mouth at all that sounds like speech. And I cough like a 90 year old chain smoker though his coughing might be a little more productive than mine. And for another thing I would love to bang my head on every wall I see as I had never imagined how hard it can be to get into an organization other people try to avoid at all cost.

Just today I read an article on Haaretz  about a young man called Yaniv David Harel who takes all legal actions possible to get an exemption from the army for just a few more years until he finishes medical school. Well, to be more precise he takes the legal action to regain a passport so that he can continue his studies abroad and the issuing is denied to him on reasons of draft-dodging.

The latest decision in this case was handed down last week by Jerusalem District Court Judge Noam Sohlberg. Sohlberg said that the linkage of the right to obtain a passport and the fulfillment of military duty as mandated by law is both logical and reasonable because “individual existence is not separate from public [life]; rather, they are intertwined. This relationship is one of give-and-take, which we cannot do without.” Further, the judge wrote that “the discourse about rights and the constant striving to optimize them sometimes overshadows the fact that no society can be established without individuals carrying out their responsibilities to public institutions.”

I once already published here an article about citizenship, rights and duties and deprivation of citizenship. And just as judge Sohlberg I am of the opinion that one mustn’t only fight for the rights coming with a citizenship but must fulfill the duties as well as this is the only way a society can work (though I think the duties have to be spread on all shoulders belonging to the society as far as they can carry them). I deviate with the people responsible for the decision not to allow him to finish his studies before he starts his service as they could easily have done a deal with him whose service could be even more valuable for his comrades as soon as he has finished his school.

What really rankles me however is the inequality of handling of cases in a way. Harel and I can’t be compared as far as Harel seems to be of sole Israeli citizenship while I hold a dual citizenship. Yet, when I once applied for my first passport I wasn’t even asked if I would be willing to serve. With my passport I got a sheet of paper in Hebrew with a post it glued to it saying ‘This is your exemption from the army.’

At that time I was just a bit younger than Harel now and had started with law school. I might have reacted like Harel though I wouldn’t have depended on a passport as much as he does right now. One will never know as I wasn’t asked. But what has grown over the time since then in me is the feeling that I failed a duty. I have accumulated skills over the time I now want to apply in service for my country. And funnily enough just as Harel has the hardest time to get (temporarily) out of the service I have the hardest time to get in as I am getting the runaround.

The latest? After being told two weeks ago that my request had finally reached them I was told to call back for a decision a week from then. I did it and was told that they regret that they are not able yet to tell me a decision in my case and that I need to call back a week later again. I did so again. On Tuesday nobody cared to answer the phone though I called all of the three main phone numbers the consulate in Berlin gave me as they didn’t see themselves fit to help me on. On Wednesday I reached yet another female soldier who apparently looked my file up in her computer, asked her supervisor and returned to tell me that she doesn’t know my case at all but that her supervisor had told her that she thinks I need to return to the consulate in Berlin to formally apply again. *bangs her head at the wall just remembering the call*

Sorry? Isn’t this the place I started from? Hadn’t we yet proceeded to a point in all the calls and emails I always started where we were talking about a decision? Hadn’t the last time I called the girl answering the phone even remembered me when I just said my name? Does the right hand know what the left hand does? Hadn’t I asked right in the beginning if I would need to do or write anything else and was told my stuff sent in so far was sufficient? Can it really be so hard to be granted the right to be taken serious and talked to in a proper way? Can it really be so hard to get into an army while others who are almost in the same situation fight for some kind of only temporary exemption?

Sorry, but I can’t understand it. But now I am in a ‘now more than ever’ mood.

Tags: diary entry, draft, draft-dodging, Godot, IDF, Israel, Jerusalem District Court ruling, judge Noam Sohlberg, Me, Waiting for Godot, Yaniv David Harel