The Palestinian Archipelago and the Construction of Palestinian
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THE PALESTINIAN ARCHIPELAGO AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF PALESTINIAN IDENTITY AFTER SIXTY-FIVE YEARS OF DIASPORA: THE REBIRTH OF THE NATION Basima Shaheen, B.A., M. A. Dissertation Prepared for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS May 2015 APPROVED: Masood Ashraf Raja, Major Professor Laila Amine, Committee Member Walton Muyumba, Committee Member Jack Peter, Interim Chair of the Department of English Costas Tsatsoulis, Interim Dean of the Toulouse Graduate School Shaheen, Basima. The Palestinian Archipelago and the Construction of Palestinian Identity after Sixty-Five Years of Diaspora: The Rebirth of the Nation. Doctor of Philosophy (English), May, 2015, 226 pp., works cited, 79 titles. This dissertation conceptualizes a Palestinian archipelago based on Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of the chronotope, and uses the archipelago model to illustrate the situation and development of Palestinian consciousness in diaspora. To gain insight into the personal lives of Palestinians in diaspora, This project highlights several islands of Palestinian identities as represented in the novels: Dancing Arabs, A Compass for the Sunflower, and The Inheritance. The identities of the characters in these works are organized according to the archipelago model, which illustrates how the characters rediscover, repress, or change their identities in order to accommodate life in diaspora. Analysis reveals that a major goal of Palestinian existence in diaspora is the maintenance of an authentic Palestinian identity. Therefore, my description of the characters’ identities and locations in the archipelago model are informed by various scholars and theories of nationalism. Moreover, this dissertation illustrates how different Palestinian identities coalesce into a single national consciousness that has been created and sustained by a collective experience of suffering and thirst for sense of belonging and community among Palestinians. Foremost in the memories of all Palestinians is the memory of the land of Palestine and the dream of national restoration; these are the main uniting factors between Palestinians revealed in my analysis. Furthermore, this project presents an argument that developing a Palestinian exceptionalism as both a response and a solution to the problems Palestine faced in the 20th century has already occurred among diasporic Palestinians as well as those settled in the West Bank. In addition, a significant finding of this dissertation is the generation clash in regarding to the methods of modernization of the West Bank society between the settled Palestinian and those returning from diaspora. Nevertheless, a Palestinian homecoming will require a renegotiation of Palestinian identities in which generation gaps and other disagreements will be resolved and transcended in favor of nation-state building. Copyright 2015 by Basima Shaheen ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I cannot express how grateful I am to Dr. Masood Raja for suggesting this dissertation topic. This dissertation would not have been possible without his help, guidance and belief in my ability to complete this dissertation. My thanks, also, to Dr. Laila Amine who offered me an endless amount of encouragements. I own an enormous of thanks to very special people: my parents, Kamel and Wedad, and my siblings, who though being far away, called me frequently to soothe my fears and anxiety— their unlimited support and patience were the forces that sustained my enthusiasm to complete this dissertation. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................... iii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER 2 THE ‘REAL’ EXPERIENCE OF BEING TRAPPED INSIDE AND OUTSIDE OF PALESTINE AND ISRAELI CONSCIOUSNESSES IN SAYED KASHUA’S DANCING ARABS ........................................................................................................................ 33 CHAPTER 3 ARE THEY PALESTINIAN-JORDANIAN OR JORDANIAN-PALESTINIAN? DOUBLE-CONSCIOUSNESS AND LOYALTY INFORM PALESTINIAN-JORDANIAN CO-EXISTENCE IN LIANA BADR’S A COMPASS FOR THE SUNFLOWER ........................ 76 CHAPTER 4 A PANORAMIC VIEW OF THE WEST BANK AS THE EQUILIBRIUM OF PALESTINIAN ARCHIPELAGO: THE MODERN PALESTINIAN CONSCIOUSNESS IN SAHAR KHALIFEH’S THE INHERITANCE ........................................................................... 145 CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION..................................................................................................... 198 ENDNOTES ............................................................................................................................... 216 WORKS CITED ......................................................................................................................... 220 iv CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION What’s the worth of a man Without a homeland, Without a flag, Without an address? What is the worth of such a man? Mahmoud Darwish In this project, I discuss the articulation of Palestinian national identity through a material and symbolic cartography of the Palestinian nation as an archipelago. Using the varied imaginative and literary texts about Palestine, I derive my archipelago model from combining theories of nationalism and national identity with Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of the chronotope, and using this perspective to analyze literature. Through analysis of Palestinian literary works and by tracking their orientation in space and time, I provide a rough map of the concept I call the Palestinian archipelago. By showing how Palestine has endured as a nation through several tragedies separated by time and geography, I invert the established narrative about Palestine in the West and transform the story of Palestine into the story of an exceptional nation and people who have preserved their nation in exile and who are preparing for a homecoming event. The hardships shared by Palestinians have formed them into a cohesive unit with a national consciousness, and the result of this adaptation to existing in diaspora has manifested, in a literary form, as novels that build upon the emerging theme of Palestinian exceptionalism. The main question I am attempting to answer is simply this: How is it that despite the loss of their native homeland and despite their dispersal across the world as a stateless nation, the Palestinians can still maintain and sustain a national identity? As David Noble writes in reference to the removal of Native Americans from the United States in Death of a Nation: American Culture and the end of Exceptionalism, “when the exodus of a people with history, history as progress, has culminated in modern nations as a particular 1 state of nature, then the great problem for bourgeois historians became that of explaining change away” (xliii). The question Noble is discussing is one of accuracy in memory: after a people have departed their homeland and their conquerors have claimed it for their own, how will the descendants of these conquerors justify the change in the nation-state to themselves in their own history? Noble goes on to discuss the evolution of American exceptionalism – how the removal of the Native and the enslavement of the African were presented and preserved in American memory as positive events – as historical progress and the inevitable advancement of civilization. In my discussion of Palestinian nationalism, the parallels between the Native American experience with American exceptionalism and the Palestinian experience with Israeli exceptionalism are significant because Palestinians face a similar form of erasure presented as progress; the antithesis is a narrative of Palestinian exceptionalism, which I have taken efforts to develop. The loss of land and dispossession that Palestinians have endured since 1948 are obstacles that few other nations have been able to overcome; however, Palestinians have outlasted multiple efforts directed at displacing them, silencing them, and causing them to assimilate into the Arab world or other societies. The nation of Palestine is exceptional, otherwise, because it is self-preserving. Palestine has adapted but not submitted to its circumstances, by becoming a nation that transcends borders, languages, and governments. Finally, Palestinian exceptionalism is demonstrated by the high degree of political awareness that has developed among Palestinians who, after exhausting military possibilities for the defense of their nation, have turned to rhetorical, economic, political, social and international strategies for sustaining, promoting, and even defending Palestine. I am certain that Palestine's current suffering will one day be presented in Palestinian history as the events that shaped a distinctive and enduring nation comprised of a people who stood against all odds without a need for 2 borders, or even a nation-state and its machinery to protect them. In my discussion, I employ the views of a diverse group of scholars on nationalism, cosmopolitanism, and decolonization to describe the parameters of the Palestinian nation and the forces that sustain it. The nation of Palestine, though it is currently under occupation and in diaspora, is recognized by a majority of the world’s nations and international bodies; 135 out of 193 member states of the United Nations have recognized the State of Palestine by 30 October, 2014.1 However, due to Palestine’s distress, a map or geographic conception of Palestine