Democratic Palestine : 17 (ص 30)
غرض
- عنوان
- Democratic Palestine : 17 (ص 30)
- المحتوى
-
The Culture of Resistance
The paper below was presented by Salem Jubran, editor of Al Jadeed journal published in Haifa, at the
International Congress for Support of the Palestinian Culture in the Occupied Lands, held in Athens,
March 29-30. Jubran’s presentation was entitled: ‘‘The Role of the National Culture of Resistance in Con-
fronting National and Cultural Uprooting.’’ It deals with the cultural aspect of the Zionist policy for
uprooting/the Palestinians who remained in the part of Palestine occupied in 1984, and with their own
efforts to combat this.
The fortress of Dhaher A] Umar Al Zaidani, built during his rebellion against the Ottoman empire in 1770.
Today, the citadel is the symbol of Shafa Amr, near the northern coast of Palestine.
After the disaster of 1948, the largest
sector of the Palestinian people became
refugees - displaced persons. This
deeply affected Palestinian culture, yet
it is still expected of us to preserve the
Palestinian people’s cultural unity and
national identity. The experience of our
Palestinian Arab masses who remained
in their cities and villages, and their
preservation of the national culture,
contributed to foiling the plan to uproot
them.
After 1948, the Palestinian Arabs
became a minority in ‘Israel’ - they were
no more than 133,000. In the beginning,
‘the Zionists considered us as a ‘‘typo-
graphical error» or «temporary phe-
nomenon». Rabin Barkat, general
secretary of the Mapai party that was in
power in 1951, said: «We didn’t expect
that we would still have minorities in the
state of Israel. We wanted a state free of
minorities.»
The Kafr Qassem massacre in 1956
was intended to terrorize us and make us
leave. Even in the seventies, General
30
Aharon Yariv, former commander of
the Israeli army intelligence, admitted
that there were ready-made plans to
expell 700-800,000 of the Palestinian
Arabs that remained under occupation.
Uprooting, expelling and liquidating the
Arab presence in Palestine has always
been a central, strategic goal of official
Israeli policy. From the goal of physical
uprooting stems the policy of cultural
uprooting-spreading cosmopoli-
tanism* and ignorance, and depriving
the people of their culture.
In the first few years after the esta-
blishment of the state of ‘Israel’, the
Mapai official in charge of minorities
suggested a gradual transition from
Arabic to Hebrew as the official lan-
guage in the Arab schools. This was
intended to end our relationship to our
language, so that we would undergo the
same tragedy as the Algerian masses
who were thrown into cultural exile by
being forced to use the French colonia-
lists’ language. However, we preserved
our national language. The battle began
for developing our authentic national
culture, adhering to our land and his-
tory, in order to combat the uprooting
policy.
The racist authorities tried to create
an artificial, weak Arab culture that
would harmonize with and justify their
policies. Our people, however, dis-
played an amazing cultural resistance.
This foiled the collaborationist culture
and spelled doom for collaborationist
journalism as was attempted with
newspapers such as AJ Youm, Hakikat
Al Amr, Al Anba, etc. At the same time,
our own militant journalism was main-
tained through Al Ittihad daily, Al
Jadeed monthly journal, published
regularly since 1951, and AJ Ghad youth
magazire.
CHALLENGES TO THE
ARAB CULTURE IN
OCCUPIED PALESTINE
Until 1967, we were completely cut
off geographically from the rest of the
Palestinian people and from the rest of
the world. Despite our being isolated by
the enemy and by some Arab states, it
was our duty to protect our link with the
Palestinian history and culture, and
with Arab history and Islamic civiliza-
tion. Our children learned nothing
about Ibrahim Tugan, Abu Salma,
Abdul Rahim Mahmoud, Mutlaq Abdul
Khalq, Asaaf Al Nashashibi, Khalil Ali
Sakakin, etc. We had to provide the
younger generation with this ideological
and cultural national heritage.
The enemy tried to implant feelings of
inferiority and frustration in the face of
the Israeli ‘superman’, in the human
and national spirit of our people, in
order to break down their morale and
totally liquidate their national identity.
We confronted these attempts by tea-
ching our youth how the whole world
respects the Arab and Palestinian cul-
ture, thought and civilization.
The enemy tried to prove that the
people of Palestine lacked an integral
national character, that the Palestinians
are a bunch of terrorists, that the PLO is
not the sole, legitimate representative of
the Palestinian people, but only a terro-
rist organization. We confronted these
allegations by presenting the literature,
history and struggle of our people. We
presented the reality of the Zionists’ - هو جزء من
- Democratic Palestine : 17
- تاريخ
- يونيو ١٩٨٦
- المنشئ
- الجبهة الشعبية لتحرير فلسطين
Contribute
Not viewed