NATIONAL SOMETHING OR OTHER Being an expatriate is easy when you’ve never even been a patriate. I know that’s not a word, but it should be. There is Britain, the country I now owe allegiance to for the simple fact that I was born here. I was only born here for the simple fact that my parents, living in Egypt at the time, were determined to have a child with a European passport. If my mum had family in France, which was just as likely, I would be sitting at my computer smoking skinny cigarettes and asking “how you say in Eengleesh…” So you can understand, for that reason, why I appreciate the convenience of being a UK citizen, but don’t feel any emotional attachment to Britain. I would describe myself as a British citizen, but not British. I live in England, but I’m not English. When I go to Egypt to see my family, I speak Egyptian Arabic and feel Egyptian. When I go to Jordan to visit the rest of my family, I speak Jordanian Arabic and call myself a Jordanian. Although in that case, it’s true: I am a Jordanian. Like 60% of the population of Jordan, My grandfather, a refugee from Wadi-Hunayn in Palestine, took the offer of citizenship, and I inherited another nationality somewhat by default. Being rather arbitrarily British and Jordanian goes some way to explaining why the concept of Nationalism is so foreign to me. I’m thankful that Britain finally gave my family somewhere they could be stable and secure, but to see this country now turn to other people in my position and treat them like a burden is embarrassing. For that reason, somewhat by choice and somewhat by virtue of my upbringing, I identify far more culturally with the Arab world than I do with the English world. I should point out – as soon as possible - that I’ve never been to Palestine. I’ve passed through Elat on Israel’s Red Sea coast once, very briefly, walking between two chain link fences marked “Danger! Mine field!” to get to Jordan. But that’s it. A Palestinian who’s never been to Palestine. It’s more common than you’d think, but it causes some problems for the English who, when I tell them the story, usually conclude “Oh, so you’re English.” That leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against being English, for those who are English, but I’m not one of them. It’s much easier for most people (not just the English) to define nationality in the simplest and least political terms, and that usually comes down to the passport you hold. Never mind the millions of people worldwide who don’t live in their country of origin; if you hold a British passport, most people in Britain would consider you British, I suppose because most of the immigrants in Britain came specifically to get a new passport and, with it, a new identity. It’s natural for anyone to want to fit complicated situations into their own world-view, but when someone says to me, “Oh, so you’re English,” I get a twinge because - to my ears – they’re saying “Let’s pretend your problem doesn’t exist.” From my perspective it’s another way of saying “No one has to be responsible for Palestine any more, because you have a new country now.” It chills me because it’s the same reasoning the Israeli government uses to refuse concessions, claiming, for example, that Palestinian refugees in Lebanon are, in fact, now Lebanese (albeit without the right to vote, or buy land, or work in any number of restricted jobs. In case you haven’t realised by now, our Arab neighbours treat Palestinian refugees almost as badly as the Israeli government does.) It’s also a very messy excuse, mainly because over half of the world’s Palestinian population is outside of the occupied territories, and if we are to conclude now that they are not Palestinian but American, Canadian, Lebanese, Syrian, etc. then we may as well give up the whole idea of security, peace, justice and stability for the Palestinian people, because any solution has to be universal. When activists refer to a Palestinian refugee population of 6 million, that includes me, and any children I may have, and their children, and it would be insulting to ask me to forget that. It’s not called a diaspora for nothing. Here’s another perspective, and it come from filling in immigration forms at the airport. Whenever I’m in an Arab country, and I get called to the desk to hand over my passport for inspection, the conversation inevitably goes like this: (in Arabic) “Where are you from?” The problem with Nationalism is that - while we’re desperately double-dealing and conceding for scraps of land - we’re distracted from more pressing issues. The biggest tragedy is not that there isn’t a country called Palestine any more, it’s watching our culture and heritage whither away because we’re too busy drawing lines on a map. Politicians get so excited at the mention of the Gaza pull-out that no one seems to have noticed what an insufferable shithole Gaza actually is. It’s better than nothing, but it’s pretty close, and for Israel’s government to think we won’t notice what decades of military incursions and economic isolation have done to the place is insulting. It’s from this position that I got interested in working on a documentary. Because I ask and am asked so many questions about my own origins, the stories of migrants, illegal immigrants and transient populations have always fascinated me. While I was living and working in Morocco in 2004 I heard a lot about the Clandestine - illegal migrants crossing the Straits of Gibraltar into Spain- so at the end of my contract, I started looking for one. I wanted to find someone who would agree to let me follow them during their journey to see what things were really like for an illegal immigrant- specifically, what they expected to find upon reaching Europe, and what they would actually find. Though the business of illegal migration out of Morocco is a relatively secret affair, it took me only two days to find Abdelfattah on the balcony of Hotel Miami. I was mainly interested in finding out what was specifically driving Abdelfattah away from Morocco; what would make someone take that immense risk and willingly become a migrant. It has something to do with what is, in Abdelfattah as in a lot of Moroccans, a complex and contradictory attitude towards Europe: a mixture of resentment and admiration. Abdelfattah saw Morocco as a country that had betrayed him. He had done everything he could think of and still Morocco gave him nothing in return: no job, no security, no comfort, and he was sick of it. Understandably, he eventually became bitter about rich European tourists bounding around like they owned the place, looking for the “exotic-lite” experience while avoiding any real, ordinary Moroccan culture. But at the same time, he admired what Europe represented to him: money, security, freedom, comfort. Those are, in a nutshell, the main features of The Arab Condition. The Arab Condition, for those of you who haven’t yet heard of it, is what you get when you love and hate yourself in equal measures: love the fact that you come from such a rich and proud culture, but hate the fact that in recent years, you’ve tended to fuck it up on a grand scale. Like many Arabs of my generation, I also suffer from the Arab Condition, specifically in my attitude towards Israel. I resent the fact that an Ethiopian is encouraged to immigrate to Israel - to buy land and instantly become a citizen - while we get interrogated at the airport for wanting to visit family. I feel cheated when I see ads from the Israeli tourist board, or photographs of my family’s old house, now used as part of the Weitzman Institute. I know it’s unhealthy, and it doesn’t get us any closer to where we want to be, but that’s the Condition for you. But then, every once in a while, when I see an Israeli artist on television, or look at photographs of Jaffa town centre today, or hear about Israel’s success in agricultural research, I think to myself “Why can’t we do that?” The Arab Condition. Maybe for that reason, and because we were both in one way or another dispossessed, Abdelfattah could, like the immigration officer at the airport, see the importance of a Palestinian identity that many others are eager to ignore. Without a background in cultural studies, without a degree in post-colonialism or any of those foundations that many Europeans are armed with, he could understand - in a very straightforward way - the concept of my “estranged” Palestinian identity, and the fact that Palestinian identity in general was under threat. “The most important thing,” he once told me “is for you to marry a Palestinian, to preserve that line.” I don’t agree with him, but I can understand why he said it. If you ask a Palestinian where he’s from, he’ll never just say he’s Palestinian. He’ll always tell you which village his grandfather came from, what they used to grow there, where he moved to when he left Palestine, and how his uncle used to sell olives to your great uncle when he was growing up. It’s a ritual ingrained in us from the first time our parents explain what it means to be Palestinian, and it has a lot less to do with the political state of Palestine and more to do with a common culture. It’s our responsibility to keep that memory accurate, even if we never have a chance to do anything about it. That’s not Nationalism, it’s common sense. Language, traditions, heritage; things that routinely get trampled on by both Arab and Israeli politicians, are more fragile and certainly - at this point - more valuable than the promise of land. The Arab world in general suffers from political apathy coupled with political extremism, a combination so ridiculous it would be comical if it wasn’t dangerous, and through that fog we too often fail to see that there are very few people actually struggling to preserve the heritage of Palestine. This is what so much scholarship stubbornly fails to address: underneath all the sycophantic politics and bogus peace accords and the uninformed opinions about the “situation” in Palestine/Israel are ordinary people – both Jews and Arabs - who live with the same fear and doubt and shame and regret. There are ordinary people who would just like everyone to fuck off, please, and leave them to get on with their lives. At the risk of sounding sentimental, Edward Said understood this perfectly, but he’s gone, and not enough people listened to him when he was alive anyway. I’m not willing to die for Palestine, not because I don’t think it’s worth dying for, but because I don’t think it would do the Palestinians any good. Militants and suicide bombers are playing into the hands of the Israeli military and the government’s apologists, and frankly I like to think I can do more good for Palestine alive than dead. That’s not true for a lot of other people in my position. I constantly hear young Muslims and Arabs from all over the world say to me “I would love to go to Palestine and die as a martyr,” thinking it a compliment. So many Moroccans and Egyptians I’ve spoken to have grown up with the idea that to die in Palestine is an honour, rather than an abhorrence, but I always try to make the point that the real struggle is being carried out by those people who keep at it, not those that want to give up and die. I think it’s lazy to turn to violence; it’s unoriginal; it’s the path of least resistance (if you’ll excuse the pun). The sad fact is, in the Middle East, it’s a lot harder to be a non-violent moderate than it is to be an extremist, because it means you’re seen as suspicious by both Arabs and Israelis. Violence as an expression of dissent is a much more obvious choice, and it just goes to show how little we achieve when we bash our heads against the (security) wall; too single minded to think of another approach. This struggle for Palestinian cultural identity isn’t unique: it’s similar to the struggle that the entire post-colonial world has to go through, and it’s probably similar to the struggle Europe’s Jews went through when they contemplated the creation of Israel. Abdelfattah once explained to me his constant struggle against the legacy of French imperialism in Morocco, and how he planned, after settling in Europe, to forge for himself a Moroccan identity free from French influence. In other words, he found himself in the very surreal position of having to leave his culture in order to preserve it. That isn’t as rare a situation as it might seem, mainly because those within a crisis are often the least able to look critically and logically at it. That’s the reason why it’s not surprising to hear so many Palestinians focusing on the issue of statehood and not enough talking about the need for legally supported human rights: the palpability of nationalism makes it a much more appealing goal than the rather more esoteric pursuit of human rights. Edward Said often suggested that the Palestinian struggle had a lot in common with the anti-Apartheid movement, and that it should be used as a model if we wanted to see any real level of success. What’s missing with the Palestinians, however, is the kind of unity and international support that the anti-Apartheid movement enjoyed. Supporters of equality in South Africa managed to make human rights an imperative, making it so obvious to the world that injustice was being perpetrated on a massive scale that no one could argue with them. In contrast, not only Palestinian activists but entire Arab governments have fought over who has the right to represent the interests of the Palestinians, and it’s an issue that still hasn’t been resolved. For my part, I would want it to be a secular, democratically elected and accountable Palestinian government, but that’s far from a unanimous choice. What is agreed on is that it’s time the Palestinians were allowed to make their own decisions, not based on what everyone else thinks is best for them, but based on what they want. That’s going to be rather hard for both the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli government to swallow, but that’s why it’s called a struggle. It’s not supposed to be easy. (Thanks to Ziad Khouri for his help in articulating some of these concepts and in providing an invaluable perspective.) © Saeed Taji Farouky 2006 Return to writing & journalism
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