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Learning about the Holocaust… in Arabic

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A joint trip to Jerusalem’s Holocaust Memorial provides Palestinians and Israelis with lessons in tragedy, pain and mutual respect.

Monday 24 September 2012

Participants learn about the Holocaust in Arabic… and Hebrew. Photo: Dara Frank

“Please excuse my broken Arabic,” our guide, Yehuda Yarin, told the mixed group of Palestinians and Israelis who had come to Jerusalem’s Holocaust Memorial, Yad Vashem, to learn more about the Holocaust as part of a three-day, self-financed joint trip (Tiyul-Rihla) which had taken them to Acre, Haifa and Jerusalem.

Yarin, whose ‘day job’ is to guide groups of Jews and Israelis in Poland, including to Auschwitz, has the distinction of being Yad Vashem’s only Arabic-language guide. “I first studied Arabic many years ago, at high school. But, you know, at high school, the level is not very good,” he told me. “Later, I started to learn, ya’ani, logha ameya [colloquial Arabic].”

When the new Yad Vashem – the largest Holocaust museum in the world and Israel’s second most popular tourist site – was opened in 2005, the odd Arabic-speaking group would come to visit, and Yarin, who had begun working as a guide there, was asked to show them around.

Since then, Yarin has guided Palestinians, both from the West Bank and Israel, as well as the occasional visitors from further afield, such as Egypt. “Some of them know nothing. Some of them never heard about the Holocaust. Some of them know the history. It depends,” he notes.

Although Yarin is at pains to emphasise that he doesn’t know what his Arab visitors “think in their hearts”, he is generally impressed by the level of interest they exhibit and their inquisitiveness. “I’m glad when they ask questions,” he confesses.

With the help of Arabic-speaking Israelis and Hebrew-speaking Palestinians in the group, Yarin attempted to convey the magnitude and mindlessness of the one-sided slaughter to his audience.

He said that the Holocaust was unique among modern mass killings because it was completely ideological and was not an extreme manifestation of a political conflict – over territory or competing nationalisms – as other attempted exterminations were. “The Jews were not the enemies of the German people and they represented no threat to Hitler,” he explained.

Although in terms of Jewish history the Holocaust is unique, sadly, the annals of 20^th century butchery are filled with genocides, classicides and other mass murders of defenceless groups.

Inside the sombre and sober pyramid-shaped, zigzagging galleries of the museum, the Tiyul-Rihla group of seven Israelis and six Palestinians, who had come on this three-day excursion which was organised by volunteers and largely paid for by the participants, wandered through Nazism’s hall of shame, starting with the rise of Hitler, through the Warsaw ghetto, to the horrors of the “Final Solution” and its death camps.

Familiar with this horrendous chapter in history, the Israelis followed the commentary and exhibits mostly in rapt silence. For the young Palestinians who were being exposed to the full extent of Nazi atrocities for the first time, their attempts to grasp the enormity led them to ply our guide with a constant stream of questions.

“If the Jews were so assimilated and successful, why did the Germans turn against them?”

“Was Einstein Jewish?”

“Why did the Jews believe the lies about the Nazi death camps?”

“Why didn’t the Soviets help the Jews?”

“Why did the West refuse to take in the Jewish refugees and Holocaust survivors?”

The personal stories showcased in the museum gave the whole experience a human face which the Palestinians visibly appreciated, while the section dedicated to the “Righteous among the Nations”, which chronicles non-Jews who protected Jews – including Muslims in Bosnia, Albania, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria and other countries – elicited the interest of both sides.

The Arabic being spoken by members of the group drew curious glances from Israeli visitors to the museum, who seemed to be trying to figure out what we were about. The passers-by included groups of young IDF recruits, apparently on motivational tours, who caused unarticulated yet visible stirrings of discomfort among the young Palestinian, whose only exposure to Israeli soldiers, though they are of a similar age, is as agents of the occupation.

Although some in the group had been to Yad Vashem before, experiencing it with this unusual group was an eye-opener. “It’s important to see something you think you know well through someone else’s eyes,” believes Dara Frank (22), an American-Israeli student who is currently working on a master’s in international relations at the Hebrew University, because it makes you “start questioning what you think you already know”.

“When it comes to the Holocaust, we only learn the basics about it at school, that Hitler slaughtered the Jews, so this trip has helped us acquire a lot of extra knowledge,” reflected Mohammed Mahareeq (23), who is originally from Hebron but works at a hotel in Ramallah and volunteers with the Palestinian Red Crescent.

The idea that Palestinians study the Holocaust at school, visit Yad Vashem and display genuine interest in the tragedy that befell the Jews of Europe is likely to come as something of a surprise to many Israelis who see regular reports in the media of Arab and Muslim Holocaust denial.

One recent example was Hamas’s angry response following the visit to Auschwitz by Ziad al-Bandak, a senior aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Describing the Holocaust as an “alleged tragedy”, a Hamas spokesman said the visit was “unjustified and unhelpful”.

While Hamas’s outburst, as well as the relative availability of literature questioning the Holocaust in some Arab countries, prove that there are certainly Arabs who insultingly deny that this horrendous crime took place. But fixating on Holocaust deniers, as many segments of the Israeli media tend to do, distorts the reality and downplays the importance of the work of the likes of al-Bandak, who visited Auschwitz and expressed sympathy for the historic plight of his people’s enemy, and he did so during a period of heightened animosity and distrust between the two sides.

And he is not a lone wolf. Many Palestinians are aware of the historic tragedy that befell their Jewish neighbours, but are often muted in expressing their sympathy due to the bitterness of the conflict or out of a conviction that it will be used as a political weapon against them. “Many Palestinians feel that sympathising too much with Israelis could lead to justification for the occupation,” Sami Adwan, a professor of education at Bethlehem University, was once quoted by the BBC as saying.

But there are those who point out that mutual sympathy is essential to building trust and understanding between Israelis and Palestinians. Determined to act on this conviction, one eccentric Palestinian-Israeli opened up his own tiny Arab Holocaust museum in Nazareth some years ago and tours the West Bank raising awareness about this dark chapter.

“When Palestinians learn about the Holocaust, they will understand the Jewish people better and can begin to develop a shared history,” Khaled Mahameed, the founder of the tiny museum he established with his own money, was quoted as saying.

And building understanding and compassion is exactly what the joint Tiyul/Rihla that brought these Palestinians and Israelis to Yad Vashem is about. “The idea behind the initiative is to expose each side to the other side’s narrative, and to have a very deep conversation about it,” explains Israeli journalist and activist Nir Boms, one of the originators of the idea.

“Personally, I think this trip is very interesting because it’s breaking down the walls between us: Israelis and Palestinians,” said Ibrahim Yassin, an activist and professional cook from East Jerusalem whose night job, as attested to by his hip hop look, is as a DJ.

There have been three join trips to date (two to Israel, one to the West Bank), and the participants brainstormed ideas for a fourth, to Palestine. The Palestinians wished to introduce the Israelis to al-Nakba (the Arabic for “The Catastrophe”), which is the term Palestinians use to describe perhaps the most defining trauma in their national experience: the exodus of up to three-quarters of Palestine’s Arab population, most of whom were not allowed to return following Israel’s declaration of independence in 1948.

However, they lamented the absence of a museum chronicling this painful chapter of Palestinian history. Some Palestinians suggested that the Israelis should join them on a trip to a refugee camp to enable them to gain a deeper insight into what contemporary life is like for many Palestinians.

“I want to introduce our Jewish friends to the suffering of the Palestinians… Just as they told us about their suffering in detail from an Israeli perspective, I’d like them to hear all the details about our stories,” reflected Mutasem Halawani, a student of business management from Jerusalem. “This helps build an exchange of ideas and tolerance.”

—

Follow Khaled Diab on Twitter.

This article first appeared in Haaretz on 19 September 2012.

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Tags: arab countries, arabic, auschwitz, conflict, hamas, hebrew, history, hitler, holocaust, holocaust memorial, holocaust museum, idf, israel, israelis, mahmoud abbas, nakba, palestine, palestinians, refugees, tolerance, yad vashem

Video: Personal Palestine – Part 1: A disappearing world

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By Khaled Diab

In part I of this Palestinian great-grandmother’s story, she tells of the tranquil Jerusalem in which she spent her youth until disaster struck.

Friday 11 May 2012

Um Khalil is a walking embodiment of modern Palestinian history and has lived through the most significant events of the past nine decades. A great-grandmother of 90, she has known peace, tranquility and tolerance… war and displacement… not to mention, British, Jordanian and Israeli rule, but no independence.

History is usually about mega events and the acts of leaders. And millions of us are familiar with the politics, wars, ideology and major episodes of the Arab-Israeli and Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But what about ordinary people? What was and is life like for them on the ground? How did the major convulsions of the conflict affect them? Do their personal experiences match the familiar narratives?

Um Khalil’s memories and recollections can provide us with some valuable insights into the personal history of a Palestinian person, as opposed to the more familiar collective history of the Palestinian people. Of course, Um Khalil’s personal history, like her life, is unique to her, and her experiences and impressions are not universal – some will be similar to the experiences of other Palestinians, others will differ.

Born in 1922 at the beginning of the British mandate over Palestine, Um Khalil missed the convulsions of World War I and Ottoman rule, which she only heard about from her parents. She was born into a prominent Palestinian family and spent the early years of her life in the ancient melting pot of the old city.

At the age of six or seven, following a major earthquake, her family was forced to move out of the old city and settle in one of the modern new neighbourhoods just outside the city’s walls.

Though she distrusts the British and blames them for what befell her country, she admired their cordiality, politeness and efficiency. “If they saw an Arab woman on the pavement, they stepped off onto the road. They never bothered anyone,” she opines.

She got married at the age of 19 to a young man who was in charge, as his ancestors had been, with managing the affairs of the Holy Sanctuary (the al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock). Though they were married in 1941, World War II passed but hardly noticed, except for the fact that they had to blackout their windows at night. But their time was soon to come.

“Life in Jerusalem was beautiful,” she remembers, and with their comfortable lifestyle, there seemed no reason why it should not be. The young couple made their home in West Jerusalem, near al-Baladiya (City Hall), which was then home to well-to-do Arabs and Jews. “We lived side by side, Muslims, Christians and Jews,” she recalls nostalgically.

Describing her Jewish neighbours as “friends”, she recalled how Arabs and Jews mixed freely, and some even came searching for them, 19 years after they’d last seen each other, following Israel’s capturing of East Jerusalem and the West Bank in 1967.

Her Jewish neighbours, all of whom spoke Arabic, shared a love for the Egyptian silver screen and, in those days without home entertainment systems, the local cinema was a popular hangout for all.

A particular favourite for all was the legendary Jewish Egyptian actress Leila Murad who came numerous times to visit Jerusalem, as did many other leading lights of Arab art, including the Syrian-Druze superstars Asmahan and her brother Farid al-Atrash and the “Lawrence Olivier” of the Arab World Youssef Wahbi.

This interfaith mixing had its advantages, lots of holidays to celebrate. “Muslims would celebrate Christian festivals with Christians, and Christians would celebrate Muslim festivals with us. And the same went for the Jews. We were all the same, except that each followed their own religion,” she said.

Um Khalil had little sense of the clouds of war and disaster forming on the horizon, nor did the low-intensity conflict between Zionist settlers and Arab nationalists register much in her daily life, though she would sometimes hear “older people talking about the Balfour Declaration”.

But then the UN partitioned Palestine and this comfortable, middle-class world came crashing down around everyone’s ears. Though the early fighting during the civil war had not affected them or their lives, when her son was about four months old and her daughter was four, they heard about the Deir Yassin massacre. “Everyone was afraid and people around here began to flee,” she recalled, describing the streams of frightened citizens carrying their children and a few belonging as they fled for safer ground.

Afraid that something might befall their children, they first fled to her family’s home, which was in a safer corner of Jerusalem. Then her mother-in-law urged her husband to seek refuge for his young family with a distant relative in Amman which was tiny, underdeveloped and full of “Bedouin houses”. “We left with nothing,” she says. And after a few months there, they returned to nothing, finding that their home had fallen inside the Jewish-controlled part of the city.

There, the landscape which greeted them was one in which tents outnumbered houses. “They pitched tents everywhere. There were no houses, just empty land full of tents,” she describes, recalling the wretched souls they saw in the refugee camps.

They were a little more fortunate, though eight of her family stayed in a single tiny room. “The Palestinians were fed a curse,” she concludes. And this “curse” they call the Nakba, or Catastrophe.

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Tags: amman, christian, cinema, civil war, displacement, east jerusalem, history, israel, israeli-palestinian conflict, jew, jordan, muslim, nakba, narratives, palestine, palestinians, west bank, zionism

Egypt’s Nubians: damned by the dam

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By Khaled Diab

Half a century after the inundation, Nubians may finally gain recognition and redress for the loss of their homeland.

Monday 23 April 2012

Lower Nubia is modern Egypt’s very own lost Atlantis. This ancient land today lies mostly under the waters of Lake Nasser, a massive reservoir created by the Aswan High Dam.

Now, half a century after the inundation, Egyptian Nubians are finally being offered the prospect of decent compensation for the loss of their homeland in the 1960s. Following years of concerted campaigning by Nubian campaigners, and their active role in the revolution, Fayza Abul Naga, the minister for planning and international co-operation, announced that Nubians would soon be compensated with new farmland and villages.

Ever since Egypt’s controversial decision, taken soon after the 1952 revolution, to construct the High Dam, questions have persisted as to why Cairo was so cavalier with both the Nubian people and the priceless archaeology in which the region abounded.

Defenders and apologists insist that Nubia had to be dammed so that Egypt, one of the driest places on the planet and almost wholly dependent on the Nile for its water, would not be damned.

And despite its severe environmental impacts, which were foreseen long before its construction, the dam saved Egypt, in the 1980s, from the severe drought upstream in Ethiopia, where most of Egypt’s water originates. It has also played a major role in the modernisation, electrification and industrialisation of the country.

It has also been suggested that racism played a role too. However, I am not convinced that racial discrimination was a conscious factor in the decision to flood Nubia. As far as I understand it, the Nile had only one cataract in Egypt and this happened to lie near the ancestral lands of the Nubians.

Then, there is the question of regionalism and class. Egypt has long been run centrally from Cairo and the urban centres of the north, while the south, in general, has had little say in its own or the country’s future. That would explain why Upper Egyptian peasants were also uprooted by the dam. The sacredness of “national unity” has also played a role, with Nubia’s distinct culture and language often seen as a threat by the Cairo elites.

In addition, as elsewhere in the developing world at the time, development and modernity were a far more pressing imperative in the minds of Egypt’s central planners of the time than cultural preservation and tradition. That helps explain why the Egyptian government had not given much thought to the preservation of the unique archaeological heritage of the region, home to the ‘Black Pharaohs‘, until an international furor erupted.

The international community managed, under the auspices of UNESCO, to pull off perhaps the largest and most impressive archaeological rescue operation in human history which rehoused Nubia’s most significant monuments, such as the temple of Abu Simbel.

The Nubians themselves were not as fortunate, and no massive international aid was forthcoming to help them relocate. Some 50,000 Egyptian Nubians were forced to move from 45 villages and relocated to Aswan, which has become a Little Nubia renowned for its hospitality and the warmth of its people, and to the ill-thought out New Nubia, near Kom Ombo.

Though New Nubia was supposed to mirror old Nubia, preserving its culture while introducing modern utilities, it was in reality a charmless development of small concrete housing which, unlike the lush Nubia they left behind, lay in the desert.

Dissatisfied with their new homes, a large proportion the inhabitants of New Nubia migrated to other parts of Egypt, though many dreamed of returning as near as possible to their ancestral homeland.

The reality of discrimination is reflected in the marginalisation that Nubians still endure. For instance, a disproportionate number of Nubians are employed in menial work, such as bawabs (janitors). In fact, in some parts of downtown Cairo, a cluster of poor Nubian communities exist on the rooftops.

Despite that, a few Nubians have made it to the very top of Egyptian society. Culturally, the Nubian singer Ahmed Mounib was the first to introduce mainstream Egypt to the mellow sounds of Nubia. His protege, Mohamed Mounir – himself a refugee from the Aswan dam – has managed not only to put Nubian music on the map, with his funky fusion of traditional Nubian with jazzy western sounds, but was also one of the very few mainstream artists to sing socially conscious lyrics before the revolution.

Interestingly, in spite of their general underrepresentation, Nubians have fared markedly better in the highest echelons of Egyptian political life, perhaps due to the fact that the army has been one of the few routes open for the advancement of the marginalised.

The country’s third president Anwar Sadat, although he grew up in the north of Egypt, was the son of Nubian parents, while the country’s current de facto leader, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, is also of Nubian origin.

In recent years, attitudes towards Nubians have been changing, and there is a growing recognition that the Nubian people were wronged. This process has gathered pace since the revolution erupted, and one can only hope that Nubians will be allowed to resettle in what’s left of their homeland and be treated as full equals elsewhere in the country.

This article first appeared in The Guardian‘s Comment is Free on 21 April 2012.

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Tags: africa, archaeology, aswan high dam, culture, discrimination, drought, egypt, ethiopia, history, jazz, lake nasser, nile, nubia, nubians, pharaohs, revolution

Travelling without political baggage

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By Dara Frank

Israelis and Palestinians travelling together without their political baggage can help pave the way to the mutual respect eventual peace requires.

Monday 13 February 2012

Photo: ©Dara Frank

“Why are you even going on this trip?” a friend of mine asked as I was heading out to meet the group Tiyul-Rihla (“trip” in Hebrew and Arabic) to begin our two-day tour through the West Bank. “Do you think this will solve the conflict?” I honestly don’t know what I thought. I half-expected the trip to be another one of “those” tours that takes you into the West Bank and just burdens you with the conflict, hatred and politics.

The group assembled outside our hotel in Beit Jalah was an even mix of Israelis and Palestinians. At first we awkwardly mulled around, waiting for instructions, making small talk. Then some members of the group who attended Tiyul-Rihla Part I – when the group travelled to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv – started arriving and greeting their friends from the first trip with huge hugs and shining smiles (that kind you only see on a person who has not seen a close friend in a long time). I think it was the first time I’d seen Israelis and Palestinians actively embracing one another.

The agenda of the trip was non-political in nature, with the idea that we would travel to places that have historical and cultural significance to the members of the group. That way, we could teach and learn from one another about our about our respective religions, histories and cultures. At the Shalom Al Yisrael synagogue in Jericho, we were able to focus on the significance of the menorah mosaic on the floor and not the recent political struggle involving the building. At Hisham’s Palace, our Palestinian group members were able to proudly tour us around the remains of this magnificent structure that was erected hundreds of years ago.

For security reasons, we had to be very careful not to identify ourselves as Israelis. However, one of the guides at the Sycamore Tree site saw right through our cover. After he told us the history of the place, he concluded by saying, “Now go home and tell your friends, tell your country, that we want peace.” This comment made the whole group smile – after all, that’s why we were there in the first place. I was particularly excited by this encounter because, as simple as it sounds, it is not obvious that everyone wants peace; hearing our guide say this gave me hope.

As the day continued, I started to think about the implications of what this man had said. I thought: good, we’re at a good starting point, we both want peace. This means that we’re not engaged in a fight between one side who wants peace and one side who does not want peace and we both recognise that. But what does his peace look like? Does it look like my peace?

The remainder of the evening involved dancing in a park in Jericho, drinking coffee at a café in the center of town, walking through the streets with my new friends, lighting Chanukah candles and singing songs with the group.

It was reflecting on these moments that I was able to see what peace would have to entail. In the end, if I truly want peace, my definition has to overlap with my Palestinian friends’ definition of peace, and theirs with mine. It is trips like Tiyul-Rihla that help achieve the first step towards this recognition because we, as participants, can all now match a face to an idea. When “the Palestinians” are no longer just this group of people that exist in the abstract but a nationality that my friends define themselves as, it is easier to look at the question of a Palestinian state existing alongside Israel. And when my new friends see Israel not as the enemy but as a nation where I live, hopefully they can also see that I have the right to live here too, as a Jew, in my own sovereign nation-state.

We can’t solve the conflict or bring peace, but we can help pave the way for people to respect the other’s rights – on both sides of the divide. On the most basic level, encounters like this allow us to realise and understand the right for the other to exist. In turn, on a slightly more nuanced level, it allows each side to respect the sovereignty and legitimacy of the other. Without this seemingly simple recognition, it does not matter how much each side wants peace because our “peaces” won’t be the same.

To answer my friend’s question, no, I don’t think it will solve the conflict. But I do think it is paramount to the success of any resolution.

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Tags: conflict, culture, hebrew, history, israel, israelis, jericho, jerusalem, palestine, palestinian state, palestinians, west bank

Revolution@1: The Egyptian revolution as a historical event

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By Osama Diab

In the social media age, revolutions will no longer be followed by the constructing of a national identity based on just one “universal” truth.

Wednesday 25 January 2012

Recognising the importance of producing a grassroots, street-level media by the people and for the people, a group called Kazeboon (Liars) was founded following the outbreak of the Egyptian revolution to record the human rights violations committed by the security forces. They use simple citizen journalism tools, such as camera phones, and equipped with a projector, they roam the streets of the nation to screen the films they make in order to, in their own words, “keep the balance of truth”.

As a counter move, a group called Sadiqoon (Honest) was founded to project a positive image of the military police and try to prove by film that violence was carried out by protesters.

These two rival projects reflect divisive sentiments and narratives that are common in Egypt and are splitting the population. But which of these narratives, and many more, will actually make it into the history books remains the interesting question.

Michel Foucault, the French philosopher and sociologist, argues that the winners in any social or political struggle use their newly acquired political power to suppress the defeated’s alternative account of events. But do governments still have the luxury to suppress opposing narratives in the age of social media?

The historiographical approach to documenting major social and political transformations and the introduction of a new order differ quite considerably from one time to another, and from place to place. Pierre Nora, the French historian, explains that one approach is constructing a unified standard version of “what happened” in order to promote a unified national identity and social cohesion where the nation usually end up having a standard language, national holidays, etc. This approach was mainly predominant in the UK and France. However, in the United States, a large country with various traditions, the approach to writing history allows for more diversity and a wide range of narratives to emerge.

The construction of a unified national identity which Nora refers to requires the existence of a centralised media apparatus, usually government-owned, which sends a standard message to all the citizens of a nation. However, this is a fading phenomenon all over the world due to globalisation and the emergence of decentralised media. This means that it is getting increasingly hard for any government to have total control over the means of producing media and culture.

In the United States, some of the history and even the visual culture that emerged from the Civil War, was written by the defeated (the Southerners). Popular Hollywood box office hits, such as Cold Mountain and Gone with the Wind all tell the story of the civil war from a Southern perspective. In addition, even though the USA didn’t ‘win’ the Vietnam war, most films about Vietnam are American.

The openness and freedom of the American media, along with its diverse tradition, is probably what allows it more than other nations to present different and sometimes conflicting narratives and accounts without awakening the fear that this might affect national identity or social cohesion.

The Egyptian revolution is one of the first major political and historical transformations to be driven by online activism, but most importantly, this online activism still cast its shadow on how people want their revolution to be remembered, and there seems to be no consensus on the matter.

The so-called Arab Spring in general and the Egyptian revolution in particular are perfect examples of when diverse interpretations become inevitable in the age of digital media and open access to information. Arab countries are a good example because they have always been under authoritarian rule, with the media, culture and history traditionally under tight government control. Even though the new media and the information era have been covered quite intensively as the driving force behind the Arab revolutions, little has been said about the way it might affect how these revolutions, important historical events in their own right, might be remembered by future generations.

Even governmental attempts to document and archive the revolution are very wary of the sensitivity surrounding official accounts of what happened. The National Archive of Egypt appointed the head of the history department at the American Univeristy in Cairo, Khaled Fahmy, to take charge of its project to document and archive the revolution.

Fahmy is well aware of the challenge he faces. He pointed out in an interview with The Guardian newspaper that Egyptians are highly sensitive about official attempts to write history and create state-sponsored narratives about historical events. “When Hosni Mubarak was vice-president in the 1970s he was himself on a government committee tasked with writing – or rather rewriting – the history of the 1952 revolution to suit the political purposes of the elite at that time,” said Fahmy.

Fahmy, therefore, is attempting to only collect as much primary data as possible without trying to impose a certain narrative and leave it to the people, especially future generations, to construct their own narratives about the revolution and its period. Fahmy also makes it clear that, since the revolution was leaderless and decentralised, this should also be our approach to writing its history and accessing it. There are also a few other organised non-governmental attempts to document and archive the revolution by the Bibliotheca Alexandria, American University in Cairo students and alumni, and others.

The fact that the revolution was leaderless makes it a politically sensitive topic. Many factions seem to be fighting to claim ownership of the revolution and attempt to emphasise and stretch their role in it.

A power struggle has emerged in post-revolutionary Egypt to try and fill this power vacuum. Claiming ownership of the revolution and fighting the old regime is central to this power struggle. This dispute is expected to cast its shadow over the writing of the revolution’s history and help further diversify the narratives and interpretations of the events which are taking place.

The media play an important role in constructing national identity to the extent that some argue that nationalism as we know it did not exist before the invention of the printing press, which enabled the emergence of the first mass media. Benedict Anderson in his book Imagined Communities argues that the emergence of print led to the emergence of nationalism because it helped members of a nation ‘imagine’ and identify with a wider community with which they shared no direct contact.

Referred to sometimes as history’s first Facebook revolution, tthe role of social media continues even after the revolution and is causing fragmentation in society, as well as difficulties for the new political leadership to construct a new and unified national identity. More importantly, it is causing a diversity of historical narratives to emerge, not just about the recent revolution but also abut older historical events in which certain narratives were suppressed and swept under the carpet.

However, over time, it might be proven that nationalism and social cohesion are not necessarily linked to having only one version of the ‘truth’ while suppressing all the other versions. Future generations are likely to grow up surrounded by a whole range of historical and political narratives thanks to the decentralisation of media production. On the bright side, this phenomenon might promote tolerance and enhance people’s ability to coexist and accept difference.

This article is part of a special Chronikler series to mark the first anniversary of the Egyptian revolution.

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Tags: arab spring, citizen journalism, egypt, egyptian revolution, facebook, globalisation, historiographical approach, history, hosni mubarak, journalism, michel foucault, narratives, nationalism, online activism, pierre nora, revolution@1, uk, united states, usa

Hebron settlers: Palestinian people do not exist, are “PR bluff”

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By Khaled Diab

Hebron settlers criticise Arabs who deny Israeli identity, yet reject the existence of a Palestinian people and say historic Palestine was mostly empty.

Tuesday 10 January 2012

Khaled Diab: I notice you have a map of Palestine behind you. I wondered, is that an ironic gesture? Because I haven’t heard you mention Palestinians once. You only refer to “Arabs”.

David Wilder: You’re very perceptive. You’re very, very up on it. That’s very good, because I always tell people. I always know the people, you know the journalists who come in, when they’re awake, when they look at my wall and see that and they ask me that question. And you’ve added to the question because you’ve said I don’t mention Palestinians, because most people don’t even see it. So, you’re alert. That’s very good.

You know who printed it? Who printed the map?

Well, Israelis don’t usually put that sign on maps. It was printed in Bethlehem by the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, Palestinian Authority. What’s it a map of? It’s a map of the state of Israel. But it’s Palestine. Tel Aviv is Tal al-Arabi, and Ramla is al-Ramla, and Lod is al-Ludd. In other words, this is Palestine according to the Palestinian Authority. But it just happens to be a map of the state of Israel. That’s why I have it there.

Well, how about we look at it from the reverse, Israeli maps of Israel also deny the existence of any Palestinian entity.

Well, first of all, I think that the official line is that what they… Look there are different official lines, ok. But the one that’s used for world consumption is Palestine is Judea and Samaria, Gaza, right? It’s not Tal el-Arabi.

So, first of all, the official line is supposed to be that Palestine is Judea and Samaria. This is something else. I mean this is what they say to other people, ok, but it’s usually not publicised as such. Number two, I think that there are probably a lot of Israeli maps today, not the ones that I would print, but… that show Judea and Samaria as a very separate entity.

In terms of Palestinian entities as such, so far there isn’t a state of Palestine.

Yes, but do you think there’s a Palestinian people.

That’s a whole other issue. I have no problems talking to you about that too.

So you want to talk about the Palestinian people.

Yes, especially since you have another poster behind you which says, “Don’t the Arab states have enough land of their own?”

You probably saw what Newt Gingrich said the other day.

Yes, I did.

It probably didn’t go over really, really well, but he could’ve been quoting me. I mean, look…

Because for me, as an Arab, I see a distinct Palestinian identity, culture, history, and so on. So, I want to see how you view it.

I’ll put it very simply. When was the last time there was a king of Palestine or a Palestinian parliament or a Palestinian who won the Nobel prize or a Palestinian anything? Look, historically, just historically, ok… I can’t say forget the politics because it’s all politics.

But if we just take historical facts, ok. You may have even studied more history. I used to study history, but you may know more history than me. But where does the word “Palestine” come from?

Well, it comes from the Romans and the Philistines.

So, like I said, you’re up on your history. Ok, because most of the people when I ask them that question, they don’t know anything about the Romans. But the word “[Syria]Palestina” of course came from the Romans 2,000 years ago. It was a 2,000-year-old term that was used when they threw the Jews out, after the destruction of the Second Temple.

But they didn’t throw all the Jews out. A lot of the Palestinians around now were probably Jews once.

Hang on a second. Hang on a second. So let me evolve what I’m trying to say. Again, I don’t expect you to agree with me. I’ll explain to you where I’m coming from. Palestine came from [Syria]Palestina [see history of the term “Palestine”]. The Romans destroyed the Second Temple, and they wanted to create an entity which didn’t have any Jewish identity to it. They took Jerusalem and they changed the name of Yerushalayim to Aelia Capitolina. They threw the Jews out of Jerusalem, all of them out of Yerushalayim, and they changed the name to Aelia Capitolina.

Why did they do that? It’s very simple. I mean, simplistically, you want to create a new identity, you change the name. I mean, it doesn’t have the same association any more. It has a different association to it. Rather than have Israel, Yisrael, which has a Jewish identity to it, they changed the name to Palestina. They took the Palestina from the Philistines who died out a thousand years before.

Or they were integrated into the other peoples of the region.

Whatever, but there were no Philistines anymore. The Philistines died out during the days of King David. You didn’t have them during the days of the Roman conquest. So, all of a sudden, you have Palestina, the same way you, Aelia Capitalina. And it stayed. Over the next 2,000 years, I don’t even remember, but I can pull it out for you… there were about 14 or 16 different peoples that ruled in this little piece of land, which you can call Palestina or Palestine or Israel or whatever you want.

But ruled as part of an empire.

But there was never a… during that period…

But the local people largely stayed the same, more or less. There was some immigration, obviously…

You had different local peoples, depending on who was here at any given time. In the time of the Greeks, it was Greek. In the time of the Romans, you had Romans. You had local people but you didn’t have a whole lot of them. We’re talking about 2,000 years ago. We’re talking about 1,500 years ago. The populations around here were much smaller and very different.

The last empire to rule here was the Ottoman Empire.

Well, there were the British, don’t forget them.

That’s post… I’m talking about before them. Before then, you had the Ottoman Empire that ruled here.

In terms of different kinds of populations, you know what, I’ve seen different historical documents that say different things. One of the best, one of the more popular items, is, which I’m sure you’re probably familiar with, was… which I have actually here on the iPad, which I pulled off… is Mark Twain’s book. You know Mark Twain.

Yeah, of course, I know Mark Twain.

So, he wrote about his visit to the Holy Land [Innocents Abroad - Zionist perspective, Palestinian perspective]. There was nothing here, it was desolate. There were people. There were Bedouin. There were people here and there.

But there were plenty of urban populations too.

But he writes about it being desolate. You’re talking about the late 1800s. And he says… he came here expecting one thing.

But then the early Zionists came here and said, “The bride is beautiful but she is married to another man”.

Hear me out. Hear me out. First of all, when the early Zionists came here, there was nothing here either [See "A land without a people for a people without a land"].

But they said, the bride is beautiful but she’s already married.

Look, I don’t see too much of it today but… I saw commercials, things they used to put on television, in Gaza, about what the Jews had done. They showed pictures up north of beautiful houses, lawns, and everything, and then the Jews came, and then it’s all black, the screen is black and everything is destroyed.

Up north, for example, if we’re going to take the area of the Galilee. When Jews started to come over in the late 1800s, early 1900s, it was all swamps. There was nothing there. People died in droves trying to dry out the swamps. There was nothing there. It wasn’t green and beautiful and lush. There was nothing, literally, nothing. There was no industry, there was no fruit, there were no vegetables, the land didn’t grow anything, the trees didn’t grown anything. It was very, very sparse.

But going back to the Palestinian people. There were people here. There was no, never any such Palestinian entity whatsoever. When the British received the mandate from the League of Nations after World War I, that mandate called for them to develop a national home for the Jewish people, which included southern Lebanon, parts of Syria, all of what’s today called Jordan, of course, Judea and Samaria, coming all the way down. Of course, they changed their minds and they went in a different direction. But that’s what the original mandate called for.

The Palestinian people, as such, never existed. It’s probably the biggest, most successful PR bluff that the world has ever swallowed. What is today called the West Bank. What is the West Bank? The West Bank is the western side of the Jordan River. The Jordanian people never existed. There was never a Jordan. It was a creation of the British. The British created it. Ok, they had to have a place for a king, and they didn’t have any place to put him, so they created a monarchy, they called it Jordan and they put him there, so that he’d be happy and he’d have something that he could do with himself, until they killed him, until he died.

But there was never a state of Jordan. The people that lived on the eastern side of the Jordan River and the people that lived on the western side of the Jordan River were identical. They were the same thing. They were Arabs.

On the eastern side, there were mostly Bedouins. On the western side, they were mostly urban populations. They were very different.

No, they were not. Today, not things that I’ve written, things that have been written by many other people. 75%, and again, the numbers aren’t necessarily from today. The numbers that I remember, in any case, that 75% of the population of what’s today called the Kingdom of Jordan is identical to the Arab population we have today in Judea and Samaria.

The fact that Arafat was able to create a… I mean, let’s put it this way, ok. If there really is this thing called Palestine, and there really is this Palestinian people, then where was the demand for it, let’s just say from 1948 to 1967, when Israel wasn’t here. Israel wasn’t in Hebron, Israel wasn’t in Bethlehem, we weren’t anywhere in Judea and Samaria. We weren’t in Gaza. So where was the demand then, by the same people, for Palestine.

There was a demand but it was put down by the king of Jordan.

No, there never was a demand because it didn’t exist.

Ok, let’s take a different tack. Ok, now, you clearly don’t believe that a Palestinian people exists.

As such, yes.

So, what you’re saying is, you’re denying… you’re in denial of their identity. And yet you’re also irked by the fact that there are certain Palestinians who deny an Israeli… that there is an Israeli identity. Should it surprise you that if you deny them their identity… Should you expect them to accept your identity?

Look, there are very different goals. We have very different goals. My goal is to live. And I don’t have any problems with other people. Ok, you can be my next-door neighbour. I don’t care, as long as you don’t try to kill me. It doesn’t make any difference whether it’s you or Muhammad or Ahmed or Youssef or Dawoud or whoever. I don’t care, ok. But there has to be an acceptance of some kind of legitimacy. And that doesn’t exist amongst the other side. They refuse to accept the fact that I have a legitimate right to be here whatsoever.

Whether or not they accept… I mean, look, again, we can talk on two different planes. We can talk on the theoretical/ideological plane. We can talk on an actual plane, ok. The fact is the Jews and Arabs lived in Hebron for hundreds of years together. The relationships weren’t always great, and the people that ruled, there was no IDF and there was no state, ok. And the relationships weren’t always great. And there were Jews who were killed and they were heavily taxed. And they were treated as dhimmis.

When the relationship started to improve in the early 1900s, in Hebron, that improvement led to…

Look, today, look, I’ll give you a few examples. When I lived in Kiryat Arba, there were Arab workers. They used to, in the afternoon, lie down on the grass in different parks and go to sleep. And lo and behold, if they went to sleep, they would wake up. If I did that somewhere else, I don’t know if I would wake up. I might wake up without my head. Today, in Hebron, you have a situation, and I’ll show you in a little while, the city is divided. They can come over here. They do go through a security check, to make sure they’re not bringing over a gun or a knife to try to kill me. But they can come on this side. I can’t go on that side. It’s true I can’t go on that side because, number one, Israeli law outlaws it. But if I did go over there, they’d kill me.

You believe that?

Oh, yeah, no doubt about it. It depends who caught me, who got to me first. There are those that wouldn’t. It doesn’t happen frequently, but there have been kids who have wandered over, one way or another, and somebody found them and brought them back.

Arabs are not inherently evil because they are Arabs. But today there is a political conflict going on and, if they wrong person finds you, then they chop off your head. That’s number two.

Today, in Israel, you have Arabs in the Knesset. You have people like Ahmad Tibi, who is not a real strong supporter of Israel. But he sits in the Israeli parliamentary body. He’s a legislator. He can try to put laws through. He has legislative immunity, parliamentary immunity, which I don’t. But he works with the PA and he works with people that are against the existence of the state of Israel. But he sits in the Israeli Knesset.

Abu Mazen has said more than once that, in the state of Palestine, there won’t be any Jews. Because there are some people that say, just like there are Arabs that live in Israel, there are people who have citizenship, they have good jobs, they have Israeli ID cards, and they can vote in Israeli elections, they can go to school, they get the same healthcare as everybody else gets…

But Arafat accepted that Jews in the West Bank could choose to stay or leave.

I don’t know what Arafat said. Arafat is dead. Unless, you know, they want to bring him back. Abu Mazen has said that… well, you know people say it, people here in Hebron say, well, I’ll just stay here under it.

And he says time and time again, the Palestinian state will be Judenfrei. There will be no Jews here. Jews cannot live in Palestine. We have to establish our identity. A Jew in an Arab state is a dhimmi, and they treat him that way.

Arab states have secularised.

Well, it’s going back the other way. And an Arab in a Jewish state today has a lot of rights that, first of all, he doesn’t have in any Arab state, ok. Arab women are allowed to drive in Israel. They don’t get lashed.

If you have Arabs sitting on the Knesset. Look, you even had a guy who had to flee Israel because they were about to arrest him for treason, but they kept paying his pension, ok. It’s absurd that my taxes that I pay, part of my taxes go to pay people that are enemies of the state of Israel, ok.

I’m sure you remember Faisal al-Husseini.

Of course, yes.

He was considered by the world as the Palestinian statesman. He was a spokesman and he was a statesman and he was a diplomat and he was very highly respected, right. That’s what I recall, before the peace process got into full swing.

He died post-Oslo. The last interview that he gave before he died. I think he gave the interview in Egypt, then he went to Kuwait and he died there. If I recall correctly, he had a heart attack. The last interview that he gave, he said that Oslo was a Trojan horse designed for us to get our foot in the door. And he said clearly in that interview, and I have copies of it, he said, of course all of Palestine belongs to us. Palestine? Israel belongs to us. Of course, it’s all ours. But this is our way in.

Ok, this was the statesman, this was Arafat’s righthand man. He was, you know, one of the people that Oslo was based on. You know, peace. But it’s a Trojan horse. So, when I try today to look, and you say… Well, if I deny their existence, why shouldn’t I expect them to deny my existence? It doesn’t begin. It doesn’t begin because it’s not just only a Palestinian identity, it’s a whole ideology.

Part I: The art of peace

Part II – From secular America to religious Hebron

Part III – “We are not extremists”

Part IV – “I don’t like Tel Aviv, does that mean we should tear Tel Aviv down”

Part VI – Living with Palestinian “dhimmis”

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A drinker’s guide to Islam

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By Khaled Diab

Although alcohol is ‘haraam’, Muslim societies have rarely managed to stay on the wagon, and vital parts of their culture have developed under the influence.

Tuesday 12 October 2011

Photo: © Khaled Diab

If I said that we went to an Oktoberfest last weekend, readers may wonder why I am writing about it. If I added that the beer festival in question was in the West Bank and there we encountered a couple of self-deprecating young Germans dressed in lederhosen, some may start asking themselves what I’ve been drinking, or perhaps smoking.

To add to the bizarreness of the situation, this Oktoberfest, the seventh of its kind, took place not in hip Ramallah but in the remote village of Taybeh, perched picturesquely at 850m above sea level and with a population of just 1,500. Moreover, as my wife pointed out, fellow Belgians – who possess not only the world’s best beers but also perhaps the greatest per-capita distribution of breweries – and other Europeans may wonder why thousands upon thousands of revellers had trekked all this way to attend a beer festival with only one beer on tap.

Secular Palestinians, expats and even leftist Israelis equipped with glasses of Taybeh beer wandered around food and handicraft stands, watched traditional Dabke dancers – which our toddler son strutted his stuff to – modern music, comedy and theatrical performances.

Despite its remoteness and tiny proportions, Taybeh has earned its place on the cultural and social map as being the location of the only Palestinian beer brewery. It has battled the restrictions imposed by the Israeli occupation and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism to become a rare Palestinian business and cultural success story.

This may explain why Taybeh once adopted “Taste the revolution” as its advertising slogan. And, judging by its micro-brewery quality, the revolution tastes pretty good.

The very existence of Taybeh overturns the stereotype associated with Palestinians – and Arabs in general – as teetotal, fanatical Muslims. This caricature has been reinforced since Hamas’s takeover of Gaza, where the Islamist party has imposed a de facto ban on alcohol, though bootlegging has become a popular, if risky, pastime.

Taybeh by night. Photo: ©Khaled Diab

There are those who will protest that Taybeh is the exception that proves the rule. After all, it is the only Palestinian brewery, and it is owned and run by Christians. But the absence of local competitors has more to do with the difficulty of setting up a viable business in the Palestinian territories, which requires a certain foolhardiness and courage – and, anyway, most of the people who drink Taybeh are Muslims.

In the wider Arab and Muslim context, booze is widely available. Although alcohol is generally considered to be haraam (forbidden) in Islam, only the most conservative countries actually impose a legal ban on it. Egypt, for instance, has a booming local alcohol industry that has been growing for years.

This is not just a recent Western import or “innovation“, as conservative Muslims might believe. In fact, the history of the region where beer and wine were probably invented shows that most societies there have a long track record of falling off the wagon. The prominent 19th-century orientalist Edward William Lane – famous for his incredibly observant if somewhat condescending book, Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians – provides, in one of his lesser-known works, some fascinating details about the drinking habits of Egyptians.

“From the conversations and writings of Arabs,” he notes, “drinking wine in private and by select parties is far from being uncommon among modern Muslims.” Lane also alludes to the fact that boozing was even more common in earlier centuries, before the introduction of tobacco and coffee as substitutes. Interestingly, the Arabic word for coffee, from which the English word derives, originally meant “wine”. That’s something to mull over while sipping on your morning caffeine shot.

There is plenty of historical evidence to back Lane’s assertion. Numerous prominent Muslims throughout the ages drank alcohol. Even caliphs, such as the Abbasid ruler Haroun al-Rashid of One Thousand and One Nights fame, were reputed to indulge, despite their title of “commanders of the faithful”.

Alcohol has played so prominent a role in Islamic history that many aspects of its various cultures and societies were formed under the influence, so to speak. This is evident not only in the starring (or should that be staggering?) role that booze has played over the decades on the silver screen, but also in traditional poetry and song.

Pre-Islamic Arabic poetry is famous for its odes to wine, known as khamariyat, and this tradition continued into the Islamic era. Take Abu Nuwas, Haroun al-Rashid’s camp court poet. In addition to his homoerotic ghazal, he penned endless verse in praise of wine.

Although he was considered to be the greatest Arab poet ever during his lifetime, Nuwas has fallen out of favour with the modern Muslim reader. But he is not alone in talking up the virtues of drink. The celebrated poet and polymath Omar Khayyám wrote extensively about wine and love, as did the legendary Sufi mystic Rumi.

Modern-day puritans will argue that Khayyám and Rumi used wine and drunkenness as a metaphor for spiritual intoxication. But there’s no reason why their poetry should not be read both literally and figuratively, as mystics have long used alcohol (after all, we do use the term “spirit” to describe some drinks) and other drugs to alter their consciousness in pursuit of the divine.

The relatively relaxed attitude to alcohol in the earlier centuries of Islam may have been due to doubts, in the days before the religion had hardened into rigid orthodoxy, as to whether the Qur’an actually prohibits the consumption of alcohol or merely recommends moderation and/or abstinence. Some hadith (traditions of the prophet) even suggest that Muhammad may have actually drunk mildly alcoholic beverages.

Regardless of whether this is the case or not, devout Muslims have every right to consider alcohol haraam and not part of Islam the religion. But they must also accept that alcohol has always been an integral and largely tolerated aspect of Islamic culture.

This article first appeared in The Guardian’s Comment is Free section on 8 October 2011. The related discussion can be viewed here.

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Indiana Hawass and the pharaoh’s curse

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By Osama Diab

Zahi Hawass may liken himself to Indiana Jones, but the minister of antiquities is one artifact of the old regime Egyptians want to live without.

Sunday 7 August 2011

Zahi Hawass, one of Egypt’s top archaeologists, symbolises the point where our proud and glorious past intersects with a bleak and uncertain present. In the minds of many Egyptians, he is associated with Egypt’s modern corrupt rulers rather than the great pharaohs of ancient times.

In Arabic, the word ‘pharaoh’ always has positive connotations except when it’s used to describe an absolute and ruthless ruler or manager. This is exactly the kind of pharaoh Hawass was in the eyes of many of his compatriots.

Since Hosni Mubarak’s departure from office, protests that demanded the removal of Hawass from his position as minister of antiquities were uninterrupted. These were held by fellow archaeologists, the guards of heritage sites, or simply Tahrir Square protesters who see him as an antiquity that they have no interest in embalming from the era of Egypt’s most recent pharaoh, Mubarak.

This pressure has yielded results and Hawass did lose the job he was offered during the 18-day revolution in a cabinet shuffle that aimed, but failed, to calm down angry anti-Mubarak protesters.

If Egyptian archaeology was a country, then certainly Hawass would be its Mubarak. Just like his former boss, he is besieged by allegations about his business interests, accusations of turning Egypt’s archaeology into a one-man show by claiming credit for scientific findings and being the sole speaker about Egyptology in the local and international media. Of course, he’s also committed the unforgivable sin of being one of Mubarak’s favourite men.

Hawass is the epitome of the kind of self-centred, egocentric and possibly charismatic figure that the revolution has risen against, along with the kind of Mubarak-era politics he used to symbolise. Even though he’s been called Egypt’s Indiana Jones, the name that probably describes him best is his very own, Zahi, which means vain or conceited in Arabic.

Evidence of his narcissistic personality is not difficult to find. In April, he launched a clothing line named after himself in Harrods, and his latest book, A Secret Voyage, is Egypt’s most expensive book ever, carrying a price tag of 22,000 Egyptian pounds (about £2,300) with only 750 copies printed, and all signed by Egyptian archaeologists.

With his rock-star attitude, Hawass might have managed to bring archaeology more into the headlines – not necessarily because of his fine discoveries or first-class research, but mainly because of his rather eccentric behaviour. Even though the man was, or made himself, synonymous with Egyptian archaeology in the minds of many, whoever succeeds Hawass is certainly not going to be the media sensation he managed to be. Hawass will be missed by journalists searching for colourful and amusing stories, but unlike his ancestors, this pharaoh’s mystique might be short-lived as a symbol of an unpopular bygone era in Egypt’s history.

The sacking of Hawass, Egypt’s latest victim of the revolution, shows that the 18-day revolution was only the mother of numerous baby revolutions against little pharaohs or mini-Mubaraks in ministries, universities, factories, political parties and so on, and his departure marks another victory for those trying to clear the country of its deep-rooted authoritarianism.

This article first appeared in the Comment is Free section of The Guardian on 22 July 2011. Discussion of this article is available here. Republished with the author’s consent. ©Osama Diab. All rights reserved.

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Can peace be as simple as child’s play?

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By Khaled Diab

Palestinian and Israeli children are victims of the conflict they have inherited. So can joint schools help them learn to live together?

Sunday 7 August 2011

Palestinian and Israeli children are born into a protracted and bitter conflict and conflict is the ‘normal’ backdrop to their childhoods, which can have serious long-term psychological and emotional repercussions.

In terms of the future, perhaps the most worrying aspect of childhood here is that animosity is almost a birthright, a jealously guarded heritage that is handed down from one generation to the next, perpetuating the hatred, distrust and fear that fuel the conflict.

One way of breaking this intergenerational cycle of hostility is through joint education, where Israeli and Palestinian children study together as peers rather than foes. This is just what the Hand in Hand network of bilingual schools seeks to do.

Set up in 1997 by an Israeli-American social worker, Lee Gordon, and a Palestinian-Israeli teacher, Amin Khalaf, the Hand in Hand network is currently made up of four schools. The largest school, with some 500 pupils, is in Jerusalem.

A few days before I went to the state-of-the-art $11-million Jerusalem campus, the Colombian pop star Shakira, who is of part-Lebanese heritage, also visited the school in her capacity as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, much to the delight of the school kids.

Lacking her talent and celebrity, the buzz of excitement and the frenzied commotion surrounding me had nothing to do with my presence but were what you’d expect from hundreds of youngsters counting down the long hours to their summertime freedom on the last day of term. The key difference was that the kids in question were speaking an organic mix of Hebrew and Arabic.

Given that Arabs and Israelis tend to believe they come from different planets, one thing that immediately strikes you is how similar all the pupils appear, and how hard it is, without language and dress as a guide, to tell them apart.

And the children themselves, especially the younger ones, often can’t tell one another apart or don’t care to. “The children at the school don’t look at each other as ‘Jews’ and ‘Arabs’, they use their own criteria,” explains Ira Kerem, an American-Israeli social worker who works for the charity running the schools and my guide for the day. “What they’re interested in are things like is this person good friend material, is this kid cool, how good is he at football?”

And this was confirmed to me by some of the pupils we came across in the
corridors. “There’s no difference here between the Jewish kids and the Palestinian kids. Unlike outside the school, here we feel equal,” agreed Mu’eed and Jouhan, two Palestinian teenagers studying at the school.

But the reality of the divided city remains just outside the school gates. When I probed the youngsters about whether they socialised with their Jewish friends, both answered in the affirmative, but noted that Jewish and Palestinian neighbours were not always as tolerant and understanding.

In addition, the conflict is never far away, especially at times of heightened tension. “During the Gaza war, we had some very heated arguments with our Jewish classmates, but we didn’t let it get in the way of our friendships,” describe Mu’eed.

Hand in Hand promotes honest and mutually respectful dialogue among pupils and parents alike. It also gives equal time and attention to both Israeli and Palestinian narratives and tries to strike a balance between them, perhaps in the hope of helping create a new, more inclusive history.

This contrasts strongly with the experiences of Palestinian-Israelis who grew up with the official Israeli state curriculum. “Palestine’s history was a missing link in our history lessons,” observed Hatem Mater, a father at the Jerusalem school, in a special book profiling the parents of Hand in Hand’s pupils. “I want my children to know the Palestinian story and the Israeli story. I want them to know the truth.”

Although this is commendable, how much difference can Hand in Hand and other schools like it really make in such an apparently intractable situation. Kerem explains that the schools role is not to resolve the conflict but, in a context where Palestinians and Israelis who live or work together are seen as collaborators or traitors, to show that coexistence is possible. This motivation is similar to the one that drove the Jewish and Palestinian-Israeli families of Neve Shalom/Wahat el-Salam (Peace Oasis) to settle together for the past four decades.

“We have no illusions that this school will bring about peace between Israelis and
Palestinians,” one Israeli-Jewish father admitted to me. “But you have to do something and every little bit counts – change comes in drips. And you have to start with yourself.”

And this gradual change can be viewed in the shifting attitudes of the parents
themselves. “My association with Arab parents at the school has had a great effect on me,” writes Sigalit Ur, a Jewish mother at the school who defines herself as Orthodox, which shows that, despite stereotypes, it is not just secular, leftist Jews who are for peace and coexistence. “Once I used to take for granted that singing patriotic songs on national holidays was the right thing to do. Now I am more aware of the problematic nature of those songs.”

“This school offers a glimmer of hope for the future, and for the sake of our children, we need to provide them with every bit of hope we can,” a Palestinian mother told me.

Sadly, with Hand in Hand and other bilingual schools struggling to survive, even this glimmer risks being snuffed out. And if broader action to resolve the conflict is not taken, and if tolerance and coexistence are not taught across the board, then the enlightened voices of these youngsters may be drowned out by the overwhelming currents of hatred around them.

This article first appeared in The National on 29 July 2011.

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Hungary for a better future?

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By Swaan van Iterson

Faced with soaring unemployment and the lack of prospects, many educated young Hungarians are being drawn to the radical right. But will it give them the better future they seek?

Friday 5 August 2011

The Turul bird is the national symbol of Hungary. Jobbik voters often wear it on T-shirts, necklaces, bracelets and other accessories. Photo: Swaan van Iterson

Until last year, the international media paid little attention to Hungary. This changed when the nationalist and conservative Fidesz party, under the leadership of Viktor Orbán, won a two-thirds majority in the elections of April 2010, thereby gaining the power to push through radical changes.

Orbán moved quickly to nationalise private pension funds. In addition, he pushed through a controversial media law, which stipulates that a government-appointed media authority should monitor whether journalists provide “moral” and “objective” reporting.

More recently, in July of this year, his government passed a new church law, which officially recognises only 14 religions, and hence strips the others of the right to receive state subsidies. The Institute on Religion and Public Policy (IRPP) called the legislation the “worst religion law in Europe”.

And Orbán and his party are not finished yet. His latest idea is to allow secondary school children to study “basic military science” starting from the coming academic year.

But it is not just the Fidesz party that is making news in Hungary. Further to the right on the political spectrum the radical Jobbik party, which won 16.7% of the vote in the 2010 elections to become the third largest party in Hungary, is drawing attention. The Movement for a Better Hungary’s (A Jobbik Magyarországért Mozgalom) manifesto is mainly based on, among other things, nationalism and the combating of so-called “gypsy criminality” (cigánybűnözés). Many believe that the party was closely linked to the Magyar Gárda (the Hungarian Guard that is now dissolved, but still active under different names), which was established to protect the population against this “gypsy crime”.

Jobbik’s main support base is not only found in the ranks of the poor and poorly educated workers in the northeast of the country, but increasingly amongst the urban young. In early 2010, some 15% of under-25s said they would vote for Jobbik – the party was particularly popular among university students specialising in the humanities or history.

This raises the question of why Jobbik is attractive to more highly educated students in Budapest. Most narratives paint a picture of a faceless crowd of “societal losers” who vote for the radical right. Can the same terminology be used to describe these students? I travelled to Budapest to find out. During a month of extensively interviewing students and hearing their story, while trying not to judge and to remain objective, I learned that radical right voters can be far from being the indistinguishable mass of victims they are often taken to be.

Of multinationals and gypsies

A Jobbik student attends class with pen and bracelet in the colours of the Hungarian flag. Photo: Swaan van Iterson.

Farkas Gergely (25), a recent graduate in economics and sociology, is a Jobbik member and one of the youngest members of parliament. According to Gergely, the lack of prospects many students face leads them to vote for his party: “Many students in Hungary cannot find work once they graduate… For 20 years, no party stood up for young people and so they looked for something new. We have filled that gap.”

A lot of the students I have spoken to indicate that having a university degree in Hungary is no guarantee for a secure future. According to Marcell, a 25-year-old public administration student, the bad socio-economic situation is a result of, amongst other things, foreign interference: “Multinationals, transnational companies and foreign banks have come to the country in droves since 1989. They were able to operate here without paying any taxes while local firms had to pick up the tab – they got no special perks,” he says. “The result is that the multinationals have devoured our economy. They became the rulers of our homeland. Every Hungarian government over the past 20 years has been their unquestioning servant.”

Szuszanna (21), a medical student in Budapest, believes that it is mainly Jewish enterprises that have received this beneficial treatment: “We’re not happy with the Israeli companies which buy up everything here – they ruin everything. They take a lot of money out of the country and invest very little,” she argues.

In Szuszanna’s view, the trouble is that if you want to do something about the situation, you’re immediately labelled as an anti-Semite. According to her, the same problem arises around the “gypsy question”. The Jobbik introduced the term “gypsy criminality” into Hungary’s political discourse, which finally made it, in Szuszanna’s view, possible to talk about the situation - something that is very urgent, she believes: “During communist times, everybody was obliged to work, but that changed with the advent of capitalism,” Szuszanna tells. “Now that you can get benefits, a lot of gypsies don’t work anymore. They spend their benefits on alcohol and cigarettes and when this runs out, they often steal.”

Radical change

Student supporters of Jobbik greet one another by saying “Szebb Jövőt”, meaning “A better future”. They would like to see change not only in the socio-economic conditions but also in the political situation. János (26), who studies IT, believes that students vote for Jobbik because they want radical change. According to him, Hungary never underwent a change of the regime (rendszerváltás). He thinks that many communists continue to be in power under the guise of socialism and that communism actually never went away in Hungary. Moreover, like János, a lot of students view the socialists as being corrupt.

For a lot of the students, 2006 was the time they decided to join the Jobbik party. That year, an audio recording surfaced from a closed-door meeting, featuring the then socialist president Ferenc Gyurcsány. On the recording, Gyurcsány admitted that “we have been lying for the last one and a half to two years” about the economic situation in Hungary. The leak led to public outrage and mass demonstrations, including the occupation of the state television building by football hooligans and radical-right students.

Many of the Jobbik supporters believe that socialist “indoctrination” does not only occur in the political sphere, but also in the education system. Jószef, a PhD student in political science who is researching euroscepticism, would like to build an academic career but, in his view, it is very difficult to earn money as an independent political scientist in Hungary: “You need to have a political colour, otherwise you’ll get nowhere in this field,” he says. “Personally I have had no problems but I have heard others say that it is difficult to get a good position if you’re not a socialist.”

And it’s not just academia. In Katalin’s opinion the media is also dominated by “liberal leftists” (referring to the socialists). The “simplistic and oversexualised” American programming on television annoys her: “The Hungarian media is extremely prejudiced and, above all, extremely liberal,” she complains. “People watch MTV, use drugs, find it normal to be gay and encourage others to become so too. That’s just ridiculous.”

The “bias” of the Hungarian media does not stop Jobbik from reaching the public, János stresses. He says that the party bypasses the mainstream media by being very active on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. Moreover, this helps the party to connect better with young people.

Eszter, a master’s student in public administration, thinks that Jobbik is a party for the young generation in a country where there is an intergenerational divide in politics: “Older people lived through communism and miss the security and stability of those times. In those days, there was still work for everyone. This means that older people vote more frequently for the socialists. Young people don’t have the same experiences and sympathies.”

Hungary’s Young Turks?

Badges worn by a Jobbik supporter. Photo: Swaan van Iterson.

Péter is a university lecturer at both ELTE and Corvinus University. He says that students who vote for Jobbik regularly voice their political views in their essays and assignments. According to him, history students in particular are drawn to the party – a phenomenon that does not surprise him in the least: “Hungarians have a history of lost wars and lost independence. This gives you a reason to become nationalistic. Young people are convinced that, given all they’ve lost, Hungarians can only count on themselves.”

Many of the students I spoke to integrate their political views not only into their studies but also their plans for the future. Ákos (21) describes knowledge as his “weapon” with which he can build his future and change the world. Towards that end, he is studying history and Turkish. He believes that Hungarians must have more control over their country, and the only way to achieve this is to become more independent from the West.

Surprisingly for all those right-wing Europeans who oppose Turkish membership of the EU because of the supposed civilisational differences, Ákos wishes to strengthen ties between Hungary and Turkey, as he believes the two countries share a common history: “Most people believe that the Hungarians are descendants of the Finno-Ugric tribes, but this is untrue. The Turks and Hungarians are brothers and there is a lot of research which shows that Hungarians are related to tribes in Kazakhstan.”

For other students, Jobbik is more a part of their daily reality than their future dreams. Barnabás (20), also a history student, wears black jeans and a leather jacket bearing Hungarian nationalist iconography, as well as an armband in the colours of the Hungarian flag. His interest in the Hungarista subculture began when he turned 16 and started listening to nationalist rock bands like Kárpátia and Romantikus Erőszak, whose songs include 100% Magyar (100% Hungarian) and Lesz még Erdély (Transylvania will be ours).

“It is very, very important for me to be part of the Jobbik movement. It is an integral part of my Hungarian identity,” Barnabás admits. “You really get the feeling that you belong to a group. Jobbik helps people who feel out of place but have a strong bond with Hungary to find a community. Before I joined Jobbik, I often felt alone, like I didn’t belong anywhere.”

According to Ákos, this sense of loneliness is common among young Hungarians who have few extracurricular activities to engage in or groups to join. For him, Jobbik is almost more like a family than a party: “At Jobbik, you feel that you’re at home. You are surrounded by people who think just like you and who want to reach the same goals.” He ended our conversation with the following words: “We’re there for each other. We fight for each other. Also for you, a better future!”

The students I talked to are trying to change their future through the Jobbik party. The way they actively engage their political ideas in their daily activities, studies and career plans, and use modern utilities like social media, makes it impossible to label them as ‘losers of the modern world’ or the modernisation process. But despite the solidarity and belonging that Jobbik inspires in its young members, the question is whether the radical right path they are treading is the way to achieve their dreams of independence, pride and well-being.

This article is part of a special Chronikler series on far-right extremism. It is published here with the author’s consent. ©Swaan van Iterson.

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