466520

Palestinian Women Writers and the Intifada
Author(s): Suha Sabbagh

Source: Social Text, No. 22 (Spring, 1989), pp. 62-78
Published by: Duke University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/466520 .
Accessed: 21/09/2014 07:47
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
.
Duke University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Social Text.
http://www.jstor.org
This content downloaded from 156.35.192.2 on Sun, 21 Sep 2014 07:47:02 AM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Palestinian Women Writers and the
Intifada
SUHA SABBAGH
While
many
have
attempted
to
analyze
various
aspects
of the
intifada,
one
aspect
that continues to be elusive is the contribution of Palestinian
women to the
uprising.
Media
analysts, reporters,
and Arab intellectuals
have had a
great
deal to
say
about the role of "hidden
forces,"
the
United National
Leadership,
and the outside
leadership, responsible
for
the
uprising, yet
all fail to
recognize
the active
participation
of middle
aged
traditional women who sometimes form human shields between the
youths
and the Israeli soldiers. It is of course
possible
to
argue
that the
initial
impetus
which drove women out of the
private sphere
of the
home and into the
public sphere
of the street-to the extent that the
term
public
and
private
are
applicable
to life on the West Bank and
Gaza-was
simply
the desire to
protect
their children.
By
the same
token, however,
women have
expressed willingness
to
question
tradition-
al values which
require
their exclusion from the
political sphere.
Their
very participation
indicates a transformation of consciousness: women
have
questioned
values that insure the economic
security
of the
family,
the
safety
of its
members,
that
require
women's seclusion from the
political sphere.
Their
priorities
have shifted from
protecting
the tradi-
tional values at all costs to
risking everything
in order to loosen the
grip
of
occupation.1
At a time when most men where
crippled by
a sense of defeat in the
aftermath of the 1967
invasion,
women were the first to
carry
the bur-
den of
ensuring
a
greater degree
of
compliance
with
family
needs in a
difficult environment. It can
generally
be said that
by encouraging
self
reliance and
nurturing
trends,
the
intifada
has feminized Palestinian
society
on the West Bank and Gaza. The
willingness
of Palestinian
women to reevaluate traditional norms
through
their
impact
on resis-
tance can best be understood
through
Franz Fanon's notion of violence.
In
writing
of the
Algerian revolution,
Fanon
proposes
that the act of
violence directed at the source of
oppression-in
the case of the in-
tifada
the
throwing
of stones-should be measured not
by degree
of
damage
inflected
upon
the
oppressor
but
by
the
degree
to which this act
empowers
the victim of
oppression. Following Fanon,
the
intifada
can
be read as
initiating
a
process
of liberation in a
psychological
sense.
For Palestinian women this sense of liberation takes
place
on two
62
63 Suha
Sabbagh
fronts: the fact of
participating
in the
intifada
leads women to
(1)
recognize
the need to
question
their
position
vis-a-vis
patriarchal
domination, (2) given
the influence women exert within the
home,
it is
not difficult to
imagine
that their
participation
in the
public sphere
will
have
long-term repercussions
on
gender
relations within the
family,
the
exact nature of which remains to be seen.
The active
participation
of Palestinian women and the contribution of
Palestinian women writers must be examined from the
point
of view of
nineteenth and twentieth
century
histories of Third World
struggle,
where women have
always participated
in national
struggles, e.g.,
the
uprising against
colonial rule in
Egypt (1919)
when women
demonstrated in the streets of Cairo
chanting
nationalist
slogans through
their chadors. The
intifada
must also be
perceived against
the
demonstrations of Palestinian women in 1921
against
Zionist
immigra-
tion and
against
the more active role of
Algerian
women in
bringing
an
end to the colonial
occupation
of
Algeria2.
The
history
of women's
par-
ticipation
in the national
agenda
is well delineated In Kumari
Jayawardena's
book,
Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World
(1986). Although Jayawardena
does not
specifically
mention the con-
tribution of Palestinian
women,
her definition of the relation between
feminism and nationalism in the Third World
accurately
delineates the
role that women assumed in the Palestinian resistance. Further
more,
her
use of feminism does not
imply
a direct confrontation with
patriarchal
authority qua patriarchy:
in
traditional,
patriarchal society,
women have
almost
always
been excluded
from
the
political sphere;
women's
par-
ticipation
in the
intifada automatically presents
a
challenge
to traditional
norms and
is, therefore,
both feminist and nationalist.
Palestinian women on the West Bank are also
making
a contribution
on the level of
writing.
This article examines
Raymonda
Tawil's
autobiography My
House
My
Prison, 19793, published
when the author
was under house detention in the West Bank
city
of
Ramalah,
and two
of Sahar Khalifeh's five
novels,
Al
Subar, (1976,
translated into
English
as Wild Thorns in
1985).4
and Abad El
Shams5, (1980).
Both Khalifeh
and
Tawil, neighbors
in Nablus
during
the 1967
invasion,
are
among
the
founders of the Arab Women's
Union,
which
emerged
in
response
to the
economic needs of
displaced villagers
after the 1967
invasion;
Tawil's
autobiography
offers a rare
glimpse
into issues around which women
organized
after 1967.6
Khalifeh's
early
work,
Wild
Thorns,
translated into
eight languages
including Hebrew,
deals
mainly
with the conditions of West Bank
day
laborers bussed in
daily
to work in Israel. Khalifeh's
strong point
lies
in her
ability
to
depict
the inner
struggle
of workers who must find a
balance between
meeting
the financial needs of their families
by
work-
ing
on
building settlements, often on land confiscated from their own
village,
and their desire to assert national and individual
rights.
Her
feminist concerns
emerge mainly
in Abad El Shams, a
sequel
to Wild
Palestinian Women and the
Intifada
64
Thorns,
where she deals with the
growing
number of traditional women
who
suddenly
find themselves
single
heads of households
(due
to the
incarceration or death of their
husbands) fighting
a battle on several
fronts,
including
a
psychological
battle
against
the internalization the
traditional norms that hinder their
ability
to
fully accept
the
respon-
sibility
of
being
sole breadwinner. The two novels
by
Sahar examined
below offer a rare view into the
thoughts
and actions of a number of
characters
brought together through
a common
geographical location,
an
old and
financially deprived alley
in the town of Nablus. Khalifeh's lat-
ter work can be
equated
with that of Nawal El Sadawi. Both
employ
the novel as a tool for
investigating
the role of women both show an
equal
concern for feminist and nationalist issues.
Finally,
this article will examine two historical novels
by Soraya
An-
tonius, currently residing
in Beirut. Her work deals with the
occupation
of Palestine
by
the British in
1918,
to the establishment of the state of
Israel in 1948. Her first
novel,
The Lord
(1986)7,
deals with the emer-
gence
of Arab nationalism in
response
to the
growing
Zionist movement
in Palestine under the British Mandate. The
plot
deals with the life of
Tareq,
a
popular
local
magician
and an Arab
rebel,
hung by
the British
on the Moslem Feast of Sacrifice. But the novel derives its title from
the
irony
inherent to the colonial
encounter,
whereby
colonization is
sanctified in the name of
bringing Christianity
to the
people,
even as
the British
hang Tareq just
as the Roman
conquerors
crucified Christ.
Tareq
is
hung
on the Moslem Feast of Sacrifice when a
sheep
is ritual-
ly slaughtered
in commemoration of Isaac's
escape
from the same fate.
On an
allegorical
level the work establishes a relation between the suf-
fering
of the
individual,
Tareq,
in his
quest
for
freedom,
and the suffer-
ing
of the Palestinian
people
for national liberation and
dignity.
Like the
magician Tareq,
Antonius
conjures up
life in
pre-1948
Pales-
tine
by conveys
the
colors,
the smells and the
way
of life in Palestinian
villages
that have
long
since
disappeared.
She
repeats
this feat in Where
the Jinn Consult, 1987 , a sequel to the first novel, only to make this
world
disappear again
into the folds of
history through
the devastation
of
lives,
homes and entire
villages
as a result of the establishment of
the state of Israel in 1948.
At least one
underlying assumption
carries
through
the work of all
three women writers:
gender
conditions
experience of
the
occupation.
Khalifeh in
particular
draws
parallels
between the
oppression
ex-
perienced
as a result of
occupation
and the
oppression
of women in a
patriarchal
culture
showing
the double burden that women must endure
under
occupation.
The works of all three authors take
place
between the
poles
of colonial domination on the one hand, and traditional forms of
patriarchal
control on the other. Tawil draws
parallels
between herself
her mother
showing
how the seclusion of women from
political
action
diminished the
ability
of the Palestinian
community
to
pick up
the
pieces
after the 1948 invasion and the 1967
occupation
of the West
65 Suha
Sabbagh
Bank. Antonius
goes
further
proposing
that the
logic
of male domination
has altered the course of Palestinian
history.
She
proposes
that the false
sense of
security experienced by
local Palestinian
notables,
which con-
tributed to the 1948
disaster,
was based in
part
on the sense of control
that men exert over women's lives in the
patriarchal
structure of
pre-
1948 Palestine.
All three authors write from the
position
of a national
struggle
in
which the
questioning
of
patriarchal
norms is mediated
through
a na-
tional
agenda.
In this
respect,
Palestinian national
aspirations
offer a
form of
"protection"
to feminist
objectives.
Women who
opt
to take
political
action other than
writing
have
enjoyed
the same kind of
protection.
On the West Bank and Gaza
today,
women can demonstrate
in the streets in the name of
performing
Amal Al Watani
(national
work),
where
previously
their
very presence
was considered
improper.
However,
the
protection
afforded in the name of
nationalism,
whether in
writing
or in
political
action,
has
proved
to be a mixed
blessing:
it has
prevented
Palestinian women from
confronting directly
the central
paradigm
on which
patriarchy
rests, although
women have shattered
nearly every symbol
of this relation. The
argument against
such a con-
frontation states that direct
questioning
of this
power
relation
may
destroy
the social
glue
that is
currently holding
the
community together
in a world otherwise
gone
mad. All three authors are
engagmee
with
the
problems confronting
the Palestinian
society
as a
whole,
a
position
which refutes the notion that feminism must take a back seat
during
a
time of
crisis,
as well as the
commonly
held view in the Arab world
today
that feminism is a Western
import
and as such has no
place
in
Arab culture.
I seek to view the works under consideration first as a source of
social
history.
In relation to the dominant historical
discourse,
social
history
considers the
way
in which individuals react to
major
historical
change.
Khalifeh's two
novels,
for
example,
focus on
coping
mechanisms
developed
in the aftermath of the Israeli invasion.
Antonius's work
provides
an accurate and detailed
description
of
everyday peasant
life before 1948: measures taken
by
women to
prepare
the
Muni,
winter
provisions
of
grains,
onions, oil,
and other
supplies
necessary
in the
days prior
to
refrigeration
and
supermarkets.
The reader
is also
given
detailed information about the
practicality
of
sleep
accom-
modations when
peasants
used a
lahaf,
a thin cotton
quilt
that doubled
as both mattress and cover and was rolled
up
and
placed
in the Youk
(an early
form of wall
closet) providing
for
greater space
in the
day
time. There is also a detailed
description
of all the
objects
that con-
stitute most
peasant
dowries, including
the
Sini (meaning Chinese) cup-
board, referring
here to the
porcelain imports
from China that no
household could do without.
Second,
I consider these works as a national
allegory
of the Pales-
tinian situation. In an article
published
in 1986', Fredrick Jameson (one
Intifada
66
of the few American critics concerned with
developing
a
theory
for
third world
literature) argued
that all Third World literature can be
per-
ceived as an
allegory
to
emerging national
situations. In
part,
Jameson
bases his
argument
on the near obsessive concern of Third World intel-
lectuals with national character and national
identity
vis-a-vis
other third
world countries. Jameson was
criticized,
justifiably,
because his
analysis
fails to account for the rich
variety
of third world literature
currently
being produced10.
This caveat
aside,
Jameson's notion is
applicable
to
the literature of countries
facing
eminent outside
danger.
In Palestinian
literature this is
particularly
true of texts that combine the
political
and
the
personal,
as in the dearth of
poems
where the beloved
(usually
the
female)
and the land become
interchangeable metaphors
for the Pales-
tine. Or in narrative
prose,
where women are often described in terms
that evoke the
fertility
and the
giving qualities
of the land. In Ghassan
Kanafani's novella
Um Sa'ad,
the
ridges
and wrinkles carved in the
face of Sa'ad's mother are
equated
with the
geography
of Palestine and
her inner
qualities
are rendered
synonymous
with the
vine,
demanding
very
little in from the environment in form of water while
transforming
every drop
into a succulent and
nourishing
fruit.
Gender and Colonial Relations in
Soraya
Antonius's Novels
Soraya
Antonius was born in Jerusalem before 1948. Her father is
George
Antonius,
well known historian and Arab
nationalist,
author of
The Arab
Awakening.
Her
mother,
Katie
Antonius,
dedicated most of her
later
years caring
for an
orphanage
in Jerusalem. Antonius is
intimately
acquainted
with the
geography,
the
politics,
and the
history
of the
Jerusalem
area,
and
through
her detailed
descriptions
of
pre-1948
Pales-
tinian
villages
and
countryside,
there is the sense that the author is
attempting
to reverse the historical
process
that led to the destruction of
Palestine,
to restore for
posterity,
if
only
within the folds of her
novel,
those Palestinian
villages
that
history
has erased.
While no one would
argue
that Antonius set out to write a feminist
work,
it is
impossible
to read her two historical novels without con-
stantly being
aware of a female voice. This voice
speaks through
Antonius's detailed
description
of
everyday peasant
life described
above,
in the
way
in which Violet
Dhaishi,
the Jerusalem socialite who
measures her success
by
the
degree
of her assimilation into British cul-
ture,
sets her table for one of
many
dinner
parties
attended
by
Arab
notables and British officials. A female voice is also evident at the level
of the
plot,
in which on several occasions Antonius narrates a discus-
sion of
gender
and
history.
Two such
episodes
have been
singled
out for
discussion below.
The events which take
place
in The Lord are told
mainly
from the
point
of view of the British Other, the
quintessential
British
missionary,
Miss Alice, interviewed in
England
about the events that led to
Tareq's
hanging,
when Miss Alice was
approaching
the
age
of
seventy
and
67 Suha
Sabbagh
"after Jaffa had
long
since
disappeared." Tareq
had been her favorite
student in the
missionary
school directed
by
her
father,
and a
special
relation
developed
between them. Miss Alice was not a
typical
mission-
ary,
she was
capable
of
overcoming many
of the
prejudices
that her
colleagues
harbored toward the Arabs.
Yet,
in
spite
of the
strong
ties
formed between her and the
neighborhood
women,
she was
incapable
of
supporting
the
grievances
of the local
population against
the Mandate.
She is
willing
to concede that the British had lied and two
conflicting
promises
were indeed made
regarding
the future of
Palestine,
yet
at the
time she had done
very
little in
way
of
questioning
British
policy
in the
face the
suffering
which she had seen first hand. While she
may
have
felt some
empathy
towards the Arab women based on shared household
experiences,
her
loyalty
at all times remained to Britain.
Antonius's
argument
is that
European
women,
because of their sub-
jugated
status are
capable
of a
greater degree
of
empathy
towards the
indigenous population
than
men,
but this
gender-based empathy
cannot
transcend the
exploitive
nature of colonial relations. The ties that
develop
between
Tareq's
mother and Miss Alice are based on their
mutual
experience
in
running
a
household,
but this
solidarity,
based on
gender,
does not transcend colonial interests. Colonization
pits occupiers
and
occupied against
each
other,
no
friendship
based
exclusively
on a
personal
relations,
however
sincere,
can withstand the historical current
which will one
day
lead to a confrontation between the two.
Although
the relation between the role of
European
women in colonization is not
as
thoroughly developed
as it
might
have
been,
the salient
point
is that
the author raises
questions rarely
addressed in the
analysis
of
colonialism:
namely,
what was the
position
of
European
women
fighting
for women's
rights
toward the human
rights
of
indigenous populations?
The narrative time of Where the Jinn Consult
begins during
the rela-
tive calm that
prevailed
in Palestine while World War II
raged
else-
where,
and ends with the 1948 defeat and
dispersal
of the
indigenous
population.
The life of
Buthaina,
Tareq's Magdalene,
the
peasant
woman
who
played
an
important
role in
Tareq's
life,
and that of characters en-
countered in the first
novel,
constitute a
subplot.
The second novel
deals
mainly
with the life as
experienced by
the
financially
secure strata
of
society
in Jerusalem.
Tareq's magic
act consists of
revealing
the truth about the British
occupation-the grand
finale of his act consists of
turning
a hat into a
Kuffiyya,
the
symbolism
of which does not
escape
British officials. The
Ingliz (British)
are also unamused
when,
on a different
occasion,
he
strips
the
high
commissioner naked in
public, symbolically baring
the
truth about British intentions in Palestine. Antonius's second novel
shows the historical
underpinnings
that
inexorably shaped
the destruction
of Palestine, even as life
appeared
on the surface to be
proceeding very
much as it had before. Where the Jinn Consult is the name
given
to the
courtyard
of the sultan's
palace
where assassinations of rival
princes
Intifada
68
who
might challenge
the throne were
plotted.
The title's
symbolic
refer-
ence is not
limited, however,
to the
plot against
Palestine
through
the
Balfour Declaration and later the Partition Plan. It also includes colonial
policies
which
sought
to use local
customs,
such as the
concept
of
"female
honor," against
the
population
in an effort to discredit leaders
of the
present uprising. Finally
it refers to the activities of the Stern
Gang
and the
Irgun,
aimed at
evicting
the local
population by
means of
terror.
If the local
population
is
faulted,
it is for
feeling
too secure in the
face of
signs indicating
the destruction of Palestine. For the
peasants,
the essence of that
security
derived from
having
lived for
generations
on the land. Abu-Ramzi cannot understand
why
his son has
joined
the
uprising
instead of
tilling
the earth. The
argument
that the land can be
usurped
seems absurd to him: "It
(the land)
can't be
killed,
like a
sheep.
It can't be driven to the
desert,
like a camel. And not even the
Ingliz
can
put
it in their suitcases and sail
away."11
The
security
of the
gentry
rested with their social and economic
standing, including
the
power
that men exercise over women in a cul-
ture in which
patriarchy
is so
heavily
entrenched. This idea is
put
forth
through
a
passage
that describes the interaction between a British Jour-
nalist and the 1948
mayor
of
Jerusalem,
Ragheb
Beh al-Nashashibi. To
demonstrate what will
inevitably happen
should Zionist
immigration
be
allowed to
continue,
the
mayor
instructs a
young
man to
pour
water
into an
already
full
glass explaining that,
due to the laws of
physics,
the result can
only
be one of two
things:
"The new addition is
spilled
or the container will
burst."
The
journalist
is
impressed
with the anal-
ogy,
and "a woman
eyes
bent to the
ground
not to disturb the rulers of
the world" comes in to
sponge
the water
spilled
on the desk and on the
ground,
without either man
noticing
her
presence.
But the
journalist
proposes
a third alternative that the
mayor
had failed to consider: if the
new water is
poured
in fast
enough....The original
contents would be
displaced."'2
With economy of space, the author raises the issue of
gender
and its relation to the events that led to the destruction of Pales-
tine. She
proposes
that the false sense of
security experienced by
local
notables, long
considered one of the reasons for Palestinian inertia in
the face of the events that led to the
devastating
blow of
1948,
was
based in
part
on the sense of control that men
enjoy
over women's
lives. As she also
brings
out the role of women as invisible
cleaning
machines,
sometimes
fully
convinced of the
rightful
role of men to con-
duct the course of
history.
In the above
passage
the
mayor's authority
as a
patriarch
hindered his
ability
to foresee the last
option proposed by
the
journalist.
The role of women in
peasant society
is
questioned
in a
way
that
does not
disrupt
the narrative, e.g.,
in the
following passage,
even as
the author describes the fear and havoc that
reigned
in the
countryside
as
villagers
were
fleeing
before the terror
spread by
the
Irgun
in
1948,
69 Suha
Sabbagh
her
description encapsulates
the social
hierarchy present
in
peasant
society:
"Hadil,
as docile as
though obeying
a
man,
dropped
her bundle
and the two women
(mother
and
daughter)
left
by
the back
lane,
through
the fields and the
long dusty
road to
Lydda."13
The
passage
touches on the
power
held
by
men,
the
strength
of some
matriarchs,
parental respect, respect
for old
age,
and the ideal of female
docility,
bringing
back to life
pre-1948 villages, depicting
both the warmth and
the
problems.
The Three Circles of
Oppression Experienced by
Buthaina
Antonius's views on the
problems facing
women in rural Palestinian
society
are
expressed through
the life of
Buthaina,
a childless
peasant
women who seeks the
help
of the
magician Tareq
in
overcoming
her
problem.
Buthaina's
beauty
and
strength
of character win over her
father's heart. He
expresses
his love
by marrying
her to a much older
widower
capable
of
providing
for her. Viewed from within cultural con-
text,
her father's decision is based on
maximizing
the welfare of his
daughter,
and
although
the
marriage
does not seem to involve
Buthaina's
feelings,
she is
happy
with the
degree
of
autonomy
that she
exercises in the
home--but
the
security
which her father
sought
for her
was not to be. Her life is shattered at the hands of the British
authorities.
First,
British soldiers search and turn her house into
rubble,
second,
in an effort to discredit the nationalist
rebel,
Tareq,
the British
turn the
concept
of female honor
against
itself
by circulating
a rumor of
a sexual relation
linking Tareq
to Buthaina. As a
result,
Abu Ramzi
repudiates
Buthaina and marries
again.
Buthaina who must now seek
employment
as a maid to sustain her-
self and her
son,
recounted in the
sequel
to the first novel.
Through
the
character of
Buthaina,
the author examines the three areas of
oppression
experienced by
rural women:
oppression
based on
gender,
class,
and the
colonialism. Her conclusion
puts
forth the idea that women suffer far
more as a
consequence
of colonization than
they
do because of their
status as women. From Buthaina's
point
of
view,
her life with her hus-
band held a sense of cohesion if not
equality.
She understood her role
and the internal
logic
that holds the social structure
together.
However,
the British Mandate and Zionist
plans
for Palestine
prove
to be a for-
midable
enemy
that
destroys
what small comforts she was
finally
able
to make for herself.
Buthaina's resilience is not
easily
crushed. In the second novel
Buthaina becomes the maid of a Mrs. Al-Ghal, whose husband was kid-
naped by
British authorities.
Together,
the two women form a
support
system
for one another, albeit one not based on class
equality.
Buthaina
nevertheless achieves her
objective
of
educating
her son, who soon
shows
every
indication of
becoming
a future rebel such as
Tareq.
In
Antonius's work Palestinian women receive
acknowledgement
for their
resilience and for their contribution in
raising
the
coming generations.
Intifada
70
Where the author seemed somewhat removed and
dispassionate
in the
first
work,
due to historical
distance,
in Where the Jinn Consult the
narrative is
propelled
forward
by
the
injustice
done to the Palestinian
people.
Antonius's
ability
to make
palpable
historical facts that have
long
since lost their
ability
to shock the reader does not
change.
Violet
Dhaishi,
a Jerusalem
socialite,
is in
pursuit
of a treasured brooch
given
to her
by
a discarded British
love,
when she
miraculously escapes
death
as the
wing
of the
nearby King
David Hotel is blown
up. Ninety people
are killed in the
incident.
Mrs. Al-Ghal's son and
daughter
are on their
way
to a children's benefit
party
when her son is killed at the Damas-
cus Gate as barrels filled with
explosives
are hurled into the midst of a
crowd. The massacre of
Dayr
Yasin,
told from an
impassioned
female
perspective,
is
given
new
meaning.
The author's
technique
consists here
of
playing
with
temporality, placing
well known historical facts back
into the routine of
daily
life. She
compells
the reader to remembrance
form a
point
in the future in which the reader
peers
in on the
present
as it shatters
dispersing
like the dust of a nebula back into the future
and to all corners of the earth.
Subalternity
in Khalifeh's Novels
In her
private
life,
Sahar Khalifeh has shown the same
courage
manifested in her
inquiry
into the role of women. After thirteen
unhap-
pily
married
years,
she initiated divorce
procedures,
a
step rarely
taken
by
women in a traditional Arab
society,
to
pursue
a career in
writing.
She
recently
received her Ph.D. from the
University
of
Iowa
in Creative
Writing
and is
currently teaching
in Jordan where she lives with her
two
daughters.
The
only copy
of her first novel was confiscated
by
the Israeli
authorities. Her second novel is
currently
out of
print.
Wild
Thorns,
and
its
sequel,
Abad El Shams
(Sun Worshiper)
are her third and fourth
novels
(so
far
only
the former has been translated into
English).
Wild
Thorns narrates the life of four male
characters,
three of whom are
laborers bussed
daily
to work in Israel. The fourth
character,
repre-
senting
the
young
and more radical
generation,
is on a mission to
destroy
those
very
busses that
carry
the workers to
jobs
in
Israel,
plung-
ing
the whole area into a
deeper
relation of
dependency
and
subjuga-
tion. When Khalifeh wrote this novel the issue of
working
for the
benefit of the
occupying power
was still
being hotly
debated on the
West Bank,
and this accounts for the
prominence
that issue receives in
her work. Her third
novel,
Abad El Shams narrates the lives of three
women,
two of whom are
respectively
widow and
girlfriend
to two
laborers encountered in the first work.
Areas of
inquiry
into feminist issues are almost absent in Wild
Thorns: women characters are
underdeveloped
while the author's in-
timate
knowledge
of the world of men, i.e. scenes inside the male
prisons,
are
portrayed
in fine detail.
Finally,
rather than
addressing
the
71 Suha
Sabbagh
problem
of social
segregation
of men and
women,
the relation of the
first and second novel reiterate this
segregation.
In an interview the
author stated that at the time of
writing
Wild Thorns she was
pre-
feminist and felt
compelled
to write a
sequel
that describes the tribula-
tions of women under
occupation.
I would
argue
the author's lived
experience
as a woman
exposed
to the mechanisms of social control has
greatly
enhanced her
ability
to
explain
the mechanisms of
political
con-
trol and the
psychology
of
oppression
in the context of
occupation.
The
relation between the two forms of
oppression may
be
approached
though
Gramsci's notion of
"subalternity,"
behavior
indicating
the sub-
servience and obedience which
invariably develops
in situations of
dominance,
especially
under
colonization,
but also the internalization of
traditional norms in women in cultures were
patriarchal authority
is
heavily
entrenched. It is
precisely
her
unique insight
into the
psychological makeup
of the individual
caught
between financial de-
pendency
on the one
hand,
and the desire to resist on the other that
gives
Wild Thorns its
special
flavor. Khalifeh
investigates
this
phenomenon
as a relation between three
generations, giving
the work an
historical dimension
whereby
the
young
who have no
parental respon-
sibilities have
greater
freedom to refuse a status
quo
that seeks to
diminish their
being.
Laborers
Prior to the current
uprising,
120,000
laborers were bussed
daily
to
work in
Israel,
55% of whom work in
construction,
the rest in
agricul-
ture and
industry.
Unskilled
day
labor from the West Bank and Gaza
represents
6.5% of the total Israeli work force. Their
importance
is due
to their concentration in
building
new settlements.
A dilemma surrounds the issue of construction workers sometimes
hired to build settlements on land confiscated from their own
villages.
In
Tawil's work,
class rather than
gender
conditions the
way
the nation-
al
allegory
is construed.
Impoverished
land owners who can no
longer
compete
with the
wages paid
in Israel are
disapproving
out of self in-
terest. Others view the issue from a more nationalistic
angle.
But in
either
case,
the condemnation of the
day
laborer hasd ramifications on
workers'
self-image, exacerbating
their dilemma. Khalifeh
argues
that
while the workers'
earning capacity
has
improved somewhat,
the
psychological impact
of their new role cannot be
neglected.
The
laborers are of that
generation
that adheres to traditional values of mar-
riage
and
family,
and
consequently
find themselves in a double bind
between their economic
responsibility
toward the numerous mouths
that
depend
on them and their desire to resist
occupation by asserting
their
national
rights.
The
fingers
of Abu-Saber's
right
hand are
mangled by
construction
equipment.
Since he is from the territories and was
illegally
hired
by
an
Israeli firm that does not
provide
its workers with accident insurance,
Intifada
72
no
hospital
in Tel-Aviv will admit him.
During
the
long trip
back to
Nablus with two fellow
workers,
Adel and
Zuhdi, during
which he near-
ly
bleeds to
death,
Abu-Saber insists on
hearing
tales about the Arab
heroic
figure,
Abu-Zaid,
in order to
forget
his
present
condition. At a
point
when his life is in the balance and the financial survival of his
family
is at a
great
risk,
Abu-Saber's first
priority
is to
regain
a sense
of
dignity.
This somewhat
pathetic figure engages
here the
empathy
of
the reader as he
desperately
tries to
escape
into a
past
in which he
could take
pride
in his Arab
identity
over a
present
that
places
him
beyond
the
pale
of
thinghood.
Abu-Saber's
request
is not met. His
companions
share his
present
and
cannot recall the tales of the
glorious past.
But the
support
and kind-
ness of his
wife, friends,
and the
grocer
who offers food on
credit,
help
his
family
survive,
if not overcome the
squalid
state of
poverty
in
which
they
live. In a maze of red
tape
of incredible dimensions
(reminiscent
of the
plight
of
Saeed,
the
protagonist
of another Pales-
tinian
novel,
The
Pessoptimist, by
Emil
Habibi,
a member of the Israeli
Kenesset)
Abu-Saber wins his court case for
compensation
but looses
the battle. The
company
declares
bankruptcy
and
disappears
from the
scene.
The above
episode
is
preceded by
more than one scene in which
laborers from the West Bank are
exposed daily
to racist slurs that
produce
confrontations between Palestinian and Jewish laborers. The
combined effect of these scenes
explain
the
psychological
mechanisms
of the
subaltern,
set in motion as the Palestinian laborers must first
fight
each other to be selected to work in
Israel,
only
to be further
humiliated on the basis of their national
identity.
Abu-Saber's
attempt
to
recapture
the
past
becomes an abortive
attempt
to
reject
the slave con-
sciousness
imposed
on the
deepest
recesses of his
being by
what he
perceives
to be as sources of
authority:
Jewish
workers,
Israeli
policies
on the West
Bank,
and
by
fellow Palestinians who condemn his
par-
ticipation
in the Israeli
economy
without
offering any
alternative. The
laborer's sense of discord with the environment takes on a
symbolic
physical
dimensions in the form of
maiming,
Abu-Saber's
accident,
and
death,
that of Zuhdi. In the final
scene, Zuhdi,
one of the laborers
caught
in the crossfire between the
military
and the
young
Ousama who
carries out his mission and ambushes the
bus,
finds consolation in the
knowledge
that he will die as a wild thorn in the side of
occupation
and not as he had
lived,
compliant
and docile.
Khalifeh's own
position
vis-A-vis social as well as
literary
forms of
authority
must
be
understood
through
her
controversial use of
language,
which
departs
from Arab
literary
norms. Not
only
does she mix collo-
quial
and classical Arabic, a form that is not
widely accepted,
she also
has no reservations
against faithfully reproducing
"street
language,"
ver-
bal use that one
might
encounter in the
everyday
life of an
alley
but
not
accepted
in literature
or
"polite"
conversation. Her characters are
73 Suha
Sabbagh
formed
through
what
they say,
not
through
visual
description;
the char-
acters are heard rather than seen. She
depicts
her characters
through
local
idioms,
proverbs, spontaneous
verse
composed against occupation
by
women in the
public
bath,
arguments
between women in the
quarter,
unflattering
remarks to the
soldiers,
and even
exchanges
of
insults,
when
necessary.
Khalifeh
questions
these forms of
authority
from the
standpoint
of
the
present
harsh
reality
of life in the Casbah under
occupation.
Her use
of
language suggests
that all
values,
all
ideological positions,
are
subject
to contestation from the
standpoint
of their
impact
on the social and
emotional well
being
of the most vulnerable strata of
society, through
the
language
of the
alley.
Her use of
language
creates an
affinity
be-
tween her
politics
and that of the
young generation
in her work. If
Khalifeh's
language brings
her closer
politically
to the
position
of the
young generation,
her
sympathies
are,
without a
doubt,
with the
laborers.
Although they
receive no benefits and their
hourly wage
is
considerably
less than the Israeli
minimum,
the laborers earn a
higher
income in Israel than
they
would
working
for the
semi-feudal,
and cur-
rently impoverished
landlords.
However, according
to the
author,
the
price
that the laborer must
pay
in terms of his inner
struggle
makes his
predicament
an
impossible
one.
The Landed
Gentry
Khalifeh does not
employ
a
great
deal of
symbolism
in her work. Her
portrayal
of a life basic survival is
expressed
in the direct and un-
adorned
style
of social realism. But there is one instance in which
sym-
bolism becomes an essential tool in
conveying
her
ideas,
and that is in
depicting
the
decaying
role of the landed
gentry. Deprived
of its land-
some of which was confiscated to build settlements-and unable to
compete
with the Israeli
market,
this
previously powerful
class is
paralyzed.
It is
symbolically represented through
the
figure
of Adel's
father,
the
ailing patriarch
of the
family, kept
alive
by
a
dialysis
machine. The
symbol
of the
dialysis
machine
conjures up
a
powerful
image
of a class whose
position
on the national issue is
exacting
a toll
paid
for with
blood,
the lives of two
younger generations.
Never a
cliche for
any ideological position,
she
express
the
suffering
of the
father as well as the burden that his
physical
and
political paralysis
places
on the rest of the
family
members. The three
generations
of the
Al-Karmi
family
come to
represent
the
way
in which each Palestinian
generation
views the solution to the
problem.
The father's
present self-imposed
mission is to receive
foreign jour-
nalists and
dignitaries, believing
that in
pleading
the case of the Pales-
tinians abroad, these emissaries will somehow
bring
about an end to
occupation. Though
well intended, his efforts to seek a solution from
outside increases the toll
placed
on the shoulders of the children: Adel,
who must work as a bussed laborer in order to sustain
through
his
Intifada
74
meager
resources his father's medical
costs,
and
young
Bassil unable to
exert
any
control over his own
professional
future in an
economy
set
up
to absorb
only
laborers.
Khalifeh
questions
here the
validity
of
waiting
for solutions to come
from abroad. Her own
position
is more self-reliant. It is
expressed
in
the
ending
of Abad El Shams: Sadia abandons her
quest
for an in-
dividual solution in the form of
building
her own haven
away
from the
alley
and
joins
other mothers and their children in demonstrations. She
also favors direct
dialogue
between the two
parties
concerned: in the
final scene of the same
novel,
when a
progressive
Israeli
journalist
and
Adel,
now editor of a
magazine
called
Al-Bald,
meet and cover the
demonstrations
together.
Collective
punishments imposed
from above
bring
the above histori-
cal
impasse
to an end
by uniting
the
population
behind the
position
of
the
young generation.
Unlike
Adel,
the eldest brother whose first com-
mitment is toward
sustaining
the
family,
Bassil's first
commitment,
and
that of the new
generation through
him,
is liberation. His involvement
in
unspecified
acts of resistance cause the
military governor
to issue
orders for
blowing up
their ancestral home. Adel takes this
opportunity
to
get
rid of the
dialysis
machine that has cost him his future. Pretend-
ing
that there was not
enough
time to remove it from the
home,
he
experiences
a sense of relief as he watches the machine blow
up
together
with the ancestral home. The scene can be read in a number of
ways,
all
indicating
a
greater
radicalization as the old is discarded and
new
responses emerge
towards
occupation.
The old
patriarch represents
the toll that certain traditional values are
exacting
from the
young generation.
An
important aspect
of Sahar's
work lies in her
ability
to
expose
the
way
in which some traditional
values
unwittingly
collaborate with the social mechanisms of
occupation.
Here she
proposes
that
respect
for the views of the
elderly
as well as
waiting
for this
generation
to lead the
struggle
is
preventing
the
young
from
leading
full and normal lives and from
restoring
their
right
to be
free.
The New Generation
The most
timely question
that
anyone
could
pose
to Sahar's is: what are
the forces that transform and radicaliz the new
generation?
The
question
is even more
pertinent today,
when
roughly
50% of the
population
of
the West Bank and 70% of the
population
of the Gaza
strip
is under
the
age
of 21, than it was when this book was written in 1976:
So the
only
solution is
emigration,
which means
working
in Saudi Arabia, Libya
and the Gulf. What's the result of all this? Educated
people
leave the
country,
and
only
workers and
peasants
remain. And that's
exactly
what
Israel
wants to
happen.
But whether its workers and
peasants
or doctors and
engineers
who
stay,
our
mentality
and our
activity
remain the same. We're humble in
spirit,
feeble-hearted.
Men who work like machines, too scared to
say
"no" to
anything.14
75
Suha
Sabbagh
The
young generation
sees its future
suspended
between
emigration
on the one
hand,
or
rejecting
a status
quo
which seeks to
destroy
their
sense of selfhood on the other. Their frustration is due to their
inability
to fulfill their financial and
professional aspirations.
Lack of
jobs,
lack
of basic economic
security,
are all
part
of their concern. But basic
human
dignity,
achieved
through
national
rights,
constitutes an
equally
important aspect
of their
struggle.
Women
Women's
employment
on the West Bank has risen
during
the last 20
years.
These
figures
do
not,
unfortunately,
reflect an
improved
economic
position
since most women work for the benefit of the Israeli
economy.
Before the current
uprising many
women were
employed
with
Elite,
the
chocolate
manufacturing company;
in
agriculture, picking
citrus
fruit;
by
the
garment industry;
and in the services as
cleaning employees
for
homes and
hospitals.
Since
1967,
female
employment
has increased
from 8.4
percent
to 24.8
percent
in 1980.
However,
it must be noted
that women on the West Bank are
paid
50
percent
of what their
counterparts
receive in Israel. At the time that Khalifeh wrote Abad El
Shams in
1980,
women who
suddenly
found themselves
single
heads of
households were chastised
by
other women for
departing
from tradition-
al modes of behavior
by
virtue of their new found
responsibility.
Since
then,
social norms have
changed
to accommodate the
growing
numbers
of women
who,
due to the death or incarceration of their
husbands,
must now
provide
for their families.
All female characters in Sahar's work are
stronger
than
they
realize
themselves to be.
Sadia,
the attractive widow of Zuhdi is now
employed
as a seamstress for an Israeli shirt manufacturer. Her
wages,
however
meager,
exceed the income of her
departed
husband.
But,
her resilience
in
earning
a
living
contrasts even more
markedly
with her
inability
to
find the inner
strength
to
challenge
the values that condemn her be-
havior. In a strata of
society
where women do not work outside the
house,
Sadia's sudden
jolt
into the work
place
takes
place
at a faster
pace
than the
parallel adjustments
in the norms of the social
system.
The
neighborhood
women and Sadia herself doubt the "correctness" of
her new
behavior,
and she is
anguished by
her
trips
to the
Big City, by
the men who must visit her home
against prevailing accepted norms,
by
her
being
seen with a less than
reputable
woman which she
quickly
denies.
Trapped
between her frustration at
being
ostracized from the com-
munity,
her loneliness for her
departed husband, and her inner torment
at her
present behavior, she becomes obsessed with the dream of
escap-
ing
her
present reality by building
a home on the
sunny
side of town.
The title of the work, "Sun
Worshiper"
or "Sunflower," a
plant
which
follows the warm
rays
of the sun, reflects her
desperate attempt
to flee
an unbearable
present.
Her
quest
for an individual solution draws a cer-
Palestinian
Women
and the
Intifada
76
tain
parallel
with Abu-Saber's desire to
escape
into a more
golden past.
Sadia
spares
no sacrifice in her
quest
to achieve her
goal. Although
she
is able to feed her children
better,
they
suffer from her
anger
and her
frustration. Like Abu-Saber she must face the fact that
escape
is
impos-
sible. As soon as she moves into her new
haven,
the authorities confis-
cate her land and demolish her home for the
purpose
of
building
a
settlement in all the
surrounding
area.
Angry
and on the
verge
of mad-
ness,
she
finally
abandons her
quest
for the
rays
of the sun and
joins
her children and the crowds in
demonstrating against
the
occupation.
Given the current historical conditions on the West
Bank,
the issues
facing
women can
only
be addressed in
conjunction
with the
problem
facing
the as a whole. In
seeking
to
escape
her life in the
alley,
Sadia
had enforced her own chastisement.
But,
her
politicization
in the end
marks a
shift,
she will now be able to
challenge
traditional values from
the
point
of view of the resistance.
How Women
Organize
Raymonda Tawil,
an activist and a
correspondent
to various
Foreign
journals
and an editor to a local Palestinian
publication
called
AI-Awda
(Return, currently
closed down
by
the Israeli
authorities),
became
fairly
well known in the United States and
Europe through
her contact with
Western
reporters
and
foreign diplomats visiting
the West Bank. In
My
Home
My
Prison she informs the reader that her
objective
was to
pro-
vide a "a
bridge"
between the
occupied
territories and the outside
world. Prior to the
occupation,
Tawil formed a
literary
salon in her
home to
compensate
for the cultural life in
Nablus,
which soon
developed
into a
meeting place
for
diplomats, intellectuals,
and local
officials. After
1967,
she continued to receive visitors
including
the
Western
press,
Israeli
Leftists,
Arabs from
Israel,
and sometimes even
the local
military governor
and his aides.
My
Home
My
Prison is one of the few sources that offers informa-
tion on the
way
women
organize
as a reaction to the
punitive
measures
imposed by
the
military government.
Tawil offers
important
details
about
specific
events,
such as women's active involvement in
preventing
changes imposed by
the
military government
in the school
curriculum,
and demonstrations carried out
against
the demolition of homes. Tawil
is, however,
perhaps overly optimistic
in her assessment of the strides
made
by
women on the West Bank or their
ability
to maintain these
strides after the national
struggle
has achieved its
objectives.
Tawil's describes the condition of the
refugees
evicted from their
homes and settled
temporarily
around her house
during
the 1967 war.
Her first
thought
was to
provide food, shelter and medical care.
Together
with Khalifeh, the two women set off to
get
the Israeli
authorities to
open up
the UNRWA warehouse (United Nations Relief
and Works
Agency). Tawil, who
grew up
in the coastal
city
of Acre
after 1948, was able to communicate with the soldiers in Hebrew. Their
77 Suha
Sabbagh
move was bold-at that
point
no one knew what to
expect
from the
occupying power.
Their action was
pragmatic
and devoid of
ideological
posturing.
The later
agenda
of women's
organizations
maintained the
same directness in its
approach.
We learn that some men in Nablus felt
highly
offended to see the two women in the
company
of an Israeli
official,
the
enemy,
even if the issue was to save lives.
But,
Tawil and
Khalifeh nevertheless define themselves as nationalist: the conflict be-
tween men and women's
perception
is based on the
greater degree
of
dogmatism
which informs men's
approach,
considered
by
Khalifeh and
Raymonda
as
unessential,
and
pragmatism
or
nurturing
as women's
domain,
viewed as the essential stuff of life.
'Talking
to the
enemy
is collaboration!" someone
says furiously.
Sahar loses her
temper.
"We have suffered
enough
from
slogans
and
ideologies!"
she
cries."Ba'athism, Marxism,
and all the rest. Now we have thousands of mouths
to
feed,
hundreds of wounded to care for. We've talked
enough!
Now let's
go
to
work and save what we can of the Palestinian
people."115
The
emphasis
on
saving
life carries
through
in women's
organization.
By
and
large,
women
organize
around an extension of their
nurturing
role.
Any problem touching
on the life of the
family,
school
curriculum,
food for
needy
families,
medical
care,
becomes the domain of the Arab Women's
Union,
whose
activities
the author describes. Women's
position
shifts
from
being
the
gran-
tor of life in their
maternal
context,
to
becoming
the
protectors
of life and
family
concerns in the
political
context.
However,
it is
incorrect
to assume that women
have no
ideological
views.
Although
their
approach
is basic and is concerned
with
survival,
women's
organizations
also
belong
to different
ideological
factions
within the
PLO,
and the nature of their involvement is influenced
by
their
views. The Arab Women's Union consists of middle-class
women,
and is
mainly
a charitable
organization,
while other
organizations
are more involved
with vocational
training
and self
help.
Tawil
also
provides
some information
on
young
women who
joined
the armed resistance. In numerical
terms,
how-
ever,
their
participation
is
marginal.
Far
greater
numbers
join demonstrations,
sit-ins and acts of civil disobedience.
In the above
passage,
it is clear that
Tawil
expects
the nationalist
nature of women's work to
provide
a form of
protection against
traditional
norms. Women
clearly
feel that the violation of traditional boundaries is
justified by
the
very
nature of their nationalist concern. This attitude is
typified
in a remark made
by
a
foreign journalist
as
reported
in
Tawil's
book: traditional
middle-aged
women feel free to lift
up
their skirts to
show him the bruises left on their bodies
by
the
soldiers,
quite
unbothered
by
traditional norms that
require
much
greater modesty.
In
time,
women's
participation
in Amal
al Watani
has earned them
greater
freedoms. In the
intifada
most of the members of the committees
responsible
for
providing
food and other
staples
for families in need are
young
women with fewer
restraints
placed by
families on their
mobility
or their
segregation.
The broad lines of the work discussed above shows that some tradition-
al values, especially
ones that
apply
to women, unwittingly cooperate
with
Intifada
78
the
objectives
of
occupation hampering
the mobilization efforts of half
the
population.
On the other
hand,
traditional values that dictate
generosity
and
support
extended to one's
neighbor
in times of
need,
as in the case of
Abu-Saber,
may
well be
responsible
for
maintaining
the fiber of
society
under
occupation.
The texts considered do not show a direct
challenge
to
the
central
patriarchal paradigm. Ratfer,
in
their feminist/nationalist
approach,
the
three authors seek to
incorporate
the role of women
into
the national
pic-
ture. It is doubtful whether a more direct confrontation will take
place
at
a time when Palestinians are faced with an immanent outside
danger. Many
women on the West Bank Gaza have voiced their
hope
that the
gains
made
by
women and their contributions will become a
platform
for
negotiations
once a
political
solution is
reached. Women's demands will then receive the same
priorities
as the
multiplicity
of factions within the umbrella of the PLO.
NOTES
1. On the West Bank
alone,
there are
thirty
six
registered organizations
that offer
literacy
programs, sewing programs,
and social welfare
programs providing
food,
clothing
and shelter
for those who need it.
The
care now extended to one's
neighbor,
in the
form
of
growing vegetable
gardens
to and domestic animals to be shared and
exchanged
with
community
members.
Almost
all
Palestinianhomes in rural
settings grow avegetablepatch
and care for achicken
coup, generally
tended to
by
women. Women's
responsibilities
have now become a
symbol
of
community
cooperation. Finally,
street demonstrations under the Jordanian rule and the Israeli
occupation
were carried out far more
frequently by
women's
groups precisely
because the authorities tend to
be reluctant to use violence
against
women.
2. Kumari
Jayawardena,
Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World
(New
York:
Holt,
1979).
3.
Raymonda
Tawil,
My
Home
My
Prison
(London: Zed, 1986).
4. Sahar
Khalifeh,
Wild
Thorns,
trans. Trevor Le Gassick and E.
Fernea,
first
published
in
Arabic in 1976
(London:
Al
Saqi
Books, 1985).
5. Sahar
Khalifeh,
AbadAl Shams (Beirut:
PLO
Press, 1980).
6. The work of
these
two authors can
best
be
understood
against the
work of
pioneering Egyptian
feminists
like
Malak Hifni Nassif
(1886-1918)
who
wrote
on the
segregation
of
woman,
veiling,
and
marital
problems and
HudaSharawi
(1886-1918) whosemany accomplishments included
the
founding
of the
Egyptian
Feminist Union similar in its
objectives
to the Arab Women's union which has
operated
on the West Bank since 1967.
7.
Soraya
Antonius,
The Lord
(New York: Holt, 1986).
8.
Soraya
Antonius,
Where the Jinn Consult
(London:
Hamish Hamilton, 1987).
9. 'Third World Literature in
the
Eraof
Multinational
Capitalism,"Social Text,
fall
1986,
pp.
65-88.
10.
Aijaz
Ahmad,
"Jameson's Rhetoric of
Othemess
and the
'National
Allegory,"'
Social
Text,
fall
1986,
pp.
3-28.
11.
Antonius,
1987: 91.
12.
Ibid.,
145-146.
13.
Ibid.,
229.
14.
Khalifeh,
1985: 59-60.
15.
Tawil,
98.

466520

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

466520

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Palestinian Women Writers and the Intifada

Author(s): Suha Sabbagh

You might also like