Black Intifada’: Black Arts Movement, Palestinian Poetry of Resistance and the Roots of Black and Palestinian Solidarity

University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Doctoral Dissertations Dissertations and Theses July 2019 ‘BLACK INTIFADA’: BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT, PALESTINIAN POETRY OF RESISTANCE AND THE ROOTS OF BLACK AND PALESTINIAN SOLIDARITY Nadia Alahmed University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2 Part of the Africana Studies Commons, and the Comparative Literature Commons Recommended Citation Alahmed, Nadia, "‘BLACK INTIFADA’: BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT, PALESTINIAN POETRY OF RESISTANCE AND THE ROOTS OF BLACK AND PALESTINIAN SOLIDARITY" (2019). Doctoral Dissertations. 1579. https://doi.org/10.7275/q60n-kq71 https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/1579 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Dissertations and Theses at ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. “‘BLACK INTIFADA’: BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT, PALESTINIAN POETRY OF RESISTANCE AND THE ROOTS OF BLACK AND PALESTINIAN SOLIDARITY” A Dissertation Presented by NADIA ALAHMED Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY May 2019 W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies © Copyright by Nadia Alahmed 2019 All Rights Reserved “‘BLACK INTIFADA’: BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT, PALESTINIAN POETRY OF RESISTANCE AND THE ROOTS OF BLACK AND PALESTINIAN SOLIDARITY” A Dissertation Presented by NADIA ALAHMED Approved as to style and content by: ___________________________ James Smethurst, Chair ___________________________ John H. Bracey, Member ___________________________ Keith Feldman, Member ___________________________ Mazen Naous, Outside Member _____________________________ Stephanie Shonekan, Department Chair W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies DEDICATION To my grandmother, Faina Ivanova, who taught me to always speak against injustice. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to extend sincere gratitude to my mentors and advisers: John Bracey and James Smethurst, who guided and supported my research for over a decade. I am also grateful for the unwavering support on behalf of Keith Feldman, his input and invaluable expertise. I would also like to thank Mazen Naous, who joined the team of these outstanding scholars at the latter stage of my dissertation, but made a tremendous impact on some of the most complex aspects of this project. I am grateful for my friends, who became a second family and loved and supported me throughout the long and complicated process of writing this dissertation. I am grateful for my father’s support and faith in me, and for my mother’s prayers. Finally, I am thankful for Black and Palestinian artists, activists and politicians of the 1960s and 1970s, their endless talent, tireless struggle and courage to dream and fight for a better world. v ABSTRACT ‘BLACK INTIFADA’: BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT, PALESTINIAN POETRY OF RESISTANCE AND THE ROOTS OF BLACK AND PALESTINIAN SOLIDARITY MAY 2019 NADIA ALAHMED, B.A., BIRZEIT UNIVERSITY M.A., RUTGERS UNIVERISTY Ph.D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor James Smethurst This dissertation is an interdisciplinary contrapuntal study of Black Arts, Black Power Movements, Palestinian Poetry of Resistance and Palestinian Nationalist movement of the 1960s and 1970s. It begins with an examination of shared historical, political, cultural, ideological and aesthetic forces that propelled the emergence of these movements, parallels between their strategies and goals. It moves on to analyze Black discourse on the Palestine/Israeli conflict from 1948, until the 1967 War, using W.E.B. Du Bois and James Baldwin as models. It reveals how its key characteristics premeditated the transformation of this discourse with the emergence of the Black Arts and Black Power Movement in mid-1960s. The dissertation shows that the resonance between Black and Palestinian radical movements of the decade triggered the emergence of Black solidarity Movement with Palestinians post 1967 War. It examines major manifestations of this movement and how it affected articulations of Black and Palestinian identity, internationalist ideology and discourse and vision of liberation. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT…………………………………………………….…………….………….vi CHAPTER I. COMMON IDEOLOGICAL BACKGROUND OF THE BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT AND PALESTINIAN POETRY OF RESISTANCE…...………………………………...1 II. W.E.B. DU BOIS, JAMES BALDWIN AND THE EARLY ARTICULATIONS OF BLACK THOUGHT ON PALESTINE/ISRAEL……………..……....………....……...41 III. BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT, PALESTINIAN POETRY OF RESISTANCE AND THE AESTHETICS OF REVOLUTION…..……...……………….…………...……….66 IV. PARALLELS BETWEEN BLACK POWER AND PALESTINIAN LIBERATION MOVEMENT, GENESIS OF BLACK/PALESTINIAN SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT................................................................................................................…91 V. CONTEMPORARY LEGACIES: BLACK POWER, BLACK LIVES MATTER AND BLACK/PALESTINIAN SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT TODAY…..........…….110 VI. CONCLUSION...………….…………………………………………..…........…....139 BIBLIOGRAPHY.....……………………………………………...........……...……….141 vii CHAPTER I COMMON IDEOLOGICAL BACKGROUND OF THE BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT AND PALESTINIAN POETRY OF RESISTANCE Introduction There is a country in your heart where story lives And poem comes from No one can occupy it Suheir Hammad In many ways, the poetry and artistic philosophy of both, Black Arts Movement and Palestinian Poetry of Resistance (PPR), was a direct response to powerful ideological forces of anti-colonialism formulated by Frantz Fanon, Non-Aligned Movement, various types of Marxism, Black and Arab nationalisms as articulated by Edward Blyden, Marcus Garvey and Jamal Abdulnasser. Both were also under influence of different forms of Islam and Islamic ideology and culture. Successful revolutions that swept across African and Asian countries as well as Cuba along with the aforementioned revolutionary ideologies molded the political counterparts of BAM and PPR: Black Power and the Palestinian Liberation movements. This kind of intimacy between the artistic and the political movements effectively shaped the philosophy, strategies and goals of BAM and PPR. The string of victories over the Western hegemony, in its different forms, breathed life in the poetic craft of Palestinian and Black artists, who chose art as their key tool in re-creating these victories at home. With poetry as a revolutionary weapon, they were seeking to transform their communities and educate those communities about the potential of liberation and the nature of the struggle for it. They were seeking to find the 1 kind of language and the kind of groundbreaking aesthetic to not only nurture emotional needs of their people, but educate and endow them with tools and skills to make liberation and ultimately, sovereignty possible. The following chapter explores the defining ideological forces behind BAM and PPR that in turn defined their artistic philosophy and goals. The similarities between these forces are not only responsible for their shared aesthetic characteristics, but also reveal the reasons behind the collaborations and acts of solidarity between these movements. The following chapter is going to highlight major ideological forces that shaped the contours of BAM and PPR. Based on this shared ideological background, it will reveal why studying the two movements contrapuntally will broaden and deepen understanding of each. Moreover, it will highlight the fact that BAM and PPR and two powerful, intertwined manifestations of a similar artistic and political phenomena that swept the globe during the turbulent decade between 1965 and 1975. The ideological comparison of BAM and PPR and their political counterparts, the Black Power Movement and Palestinian Liberation Movement will be made on the basis of the following ideologies, trends and cultural and aesthetic traditions: 1.Various forms of Marxism and Socialism (Democratic Socialism, Third World Marxism, Trotskyism, Leninism). 2. Anti-colonial discourse and major theories about the relationship between art and resistance as articulated by Frantz Fanon and Edward Said. 3. Third World and Non-Aligned Movement and the ideologies produced in the aftermath of Bandung conference of 1955. 2 4. Various forms of Islam, specifically as articulated by Black Nationalist institutions like Nation of Islam, and, specifically, Malcolm X. 5. The particular forms of nationalism BAM and PPR poets and critics articulated as their political agenda between 1965 and 1975. These powerful and complex ideologies did not only fuel the rise of BAM and PPR, they made a profound impact on their political strategies, artistic philosophy and aesthetics, and defined their political goals. Various forms of Marxism, Islam, nationalism, anti-colonialism were intertwined themselves and effectively influenced each other. Marxist and Communist Influences A full spectrum of discussion on parallels between BAM and Palestinian Poetry of Resistance and their counterparts has to begin with Marxist and Socialist ideologies. Palestinian nationalist liberation movement at its genesis did not carry the radical Islamic ideology through which it is now often viewed. At its roots, Palestinian liberation movement was always saturated with what came to be known as a Third World Marxism. Palestinian

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