Critical Readings of Development Under Colonialism
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CRITICAL READINGS OF DEVELOPMENT UNDER COLONIALISM Towards a Political Economy for Liberation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories 2015 CRITICAL READINGS OF DEVELOPMENT UNDER COLONIALISM Towards a Political Economy for Liberation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories 2015 Critical readings of development under colonialism: Towards a Political Economy for Liberation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories The production of this publication has been supported by the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung Regional Office Palestine (RLS). The content of this publication is the sole responsibility of the authors and can under no circumstances be regarded as reflecting the position of RLS. Cover photo: RLS 4 Table of Contents Table of Contents Foreword by RLS ....................................................................................... 6 Foreword by CDS ....................................................................................... 7 After Oslo: Settler Colonialism, Neoliberal Development and Liberation Linda Tabar and Omar Jabary Salamanca Introduction .................................................................................................. 9 1. Missing links in the Palestinian development literature ............................ 12 2. Rethinking development in the settler colonial present ............................ 15 3. Bringing back history, power and politics ................................................. 20 Conclusion .................................................................................................... 25 Bibliography .................................................................................................. 26 Neoliberalism and Palestinian Development: Assessment and Alternatives Toufic Haddad Abstract ........................................................................................................ 33 Part One: Political Economy of Neoliberalism ......................................... 34 Introduction .................................................................................................. 34 Neoliberalism and Development .................................................................. 36 The Post-Washington Consensus .......................................................... 37 Criticism ................................................................................................. 38 Political Economy of Neoliberalism in the OPT ............................................. 41 Political Economy of Neoliberal Emergence in the OPT ........................ 41 Part Two: Neoliberalism in Practice .......................................................... 45 The PA and “National Development” ........................................................... 45 Palestinian Developmental Plans ........................................................... 48 Part Three ..................................................................................................... 53 Alternatives to Neoliberal Development in Palestine .................................... 53 Rejecting/ ending the political rent extraction ........................................ 54 Challenging and subverting the rule of capital ....................................... 55 Subverting the Neoliberal Apparatus Nature of the PA .......................... 56 The Security Dimension ......................................................................... 56 The Administrative Dimension ............................................................... 57 5 Critical readings of development under colonialism: Towards a Political Economy for Liberation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories The Geography and Trade Dimension .................................................... 59 The Case of Gaza ................................................................................... 61 Concluding Remarks .............................................................................. 62 References ................................................................................................... 64 Development under Colonialism? Nithya Nagarajan 1. Introduction ............................................................................................... 67 2. The Politics of International Assistance - Securing the Colonial Order ...... 70 3. Shifting the Gaze - From Liberation to Post Washington Consensus ........ 73 4. Development Paradigm vis-à-vis Anti-Colonial Struggle: Reflecting on Impacts ................................................................................... 77 “Economic Growth” as “Economic Peace”: Entrenching Subordination to Colonial Control ...................................... 77 PA “State Building”: Facilitating Political Pacification ........................... 82 Conclusion ................................................................................................... 84 Beyond Fragmentation The ties that bind Palestinians in the 1967 and 1948 territories Guy Burton Introduction ................................................................................................. 87 1. Political (re)connections between Palestinians ......................................... 91 1.1 Political connections in the pre-1967 period ..................................... 92 1.2 Building solidarity, 1967-1993 ........................................................... 94 1.3 Moving beyond solidarity, 1993-2000 ............................................... 97 1.4 The second Intifada and the disruption of ties .................................. 100 1.5 After the second Intifada: reconnecting at the grassroots ............... 102 2. Economic (re)connections between Palestinians ..................................... 107 2.1 Between core and periphery ........................................................... 107 2.2 The main features of Palestinian economic experience: labour, trade and neo-liberalism ............................................................. 113 2.3 Economic connections from Oslo through the second Intifada ....... 116 2.4 Rediscovering economic connections after the second Intifada ...... 118 3. Ways forward: looking to the future ......................................................... 120 References ................................................................................................... 125 Bibliography .................................................................................................. 126 6 Table of Contents People’s Power: Lessons from the First Intifada Linda Tabar People’s Power: Lessons from the First Intifada .......................................... 135 Introduction .................................................................................................. 135 1. History of the Present: The Neoliberal Restructuring of the Political and the Assault on Collective Struggles ....................................................... 138 Depoliticizing Politics and Replacing Radical Political Visions ................. 140 2. Rebuilding People’s Power: Palestinian Popular Organizing in 1970-80’s - Oppositional Liberation Consciousness ........................................................ 143 2.1 The Palestinian People’s Movement and Its Conditions of Possibility ........................................................................................... 144 2.2 The PLO, Third World Liberation Movements and an Alternative Worldview ............................................................................ 147 2.3 People as Power .............................................................................. 149 2.4 Organizing Structure ........................................................................ 153 3. Sustaining a People’s Movement for Liberation ....................................... 155 3.1 Linking the Individual to the Collective through Alternative Horizontal Relations ............................................................. 155 3.2 Progressive National Consciousness ............................................... 158 3.3 Economic Liberation is Necessary for National Liberation............... 161 Popular Theory of the Economy ...................................................... 162 The Dialectical Relationship between Economic and Political Liberation .................................................................... 164 Conclusion .................................................................................................... 168 References ................................................................................................... 171 7 Critical readings of development under colonialism: Towards a Political Economy for Liberation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories Foreword by RLS The Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung Regional Office Palestine (RLS) has been partnering with the Center of Development Studies at Birzeit University (CDS) since 2012. Since the beginning of the cooperation, the focus has been to critically analyze the impact of neo-liberal policies, and in particular foreign aid in Palestine. Is development possible under occupation? The premise of the analysis revolves around the question of, do the development and aid industries contradict the Palestinian struggle for liberation and sovereignty? What alternative development approaches could be developed to support this goal? What can be learned from the historical collective means of organization and struggle? While in the beginning the discussion was mainly limited to small academic circles, the work of the CDS has successfully contributed to widening