Vol XIII (2021) by University of Toronto Undergraduate Journal of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations

Undergraduate Journal of

Near & Middle Eastern

Civilizations Scripted. Unscripted. Rescripted.

Undergraduate Journal of Near & Middle Eastern

Civilizations

ISSUE XIII 3

Editorial Board & Credits Co-Editors in Chief Zara Lal & Aiman Akmal Editors Sara Mostafa Mariam Ali Khan Kalliopé Anvar McCall Abolfazl Dadvar Layout & Illustrations Ubtan Addou Zara Lal Aiman Akmal Thank You Near & Middle Eastern Civilizations Students' Union (NMCSU) Arts and Sciences Students Union (ASSU) 5

Table of Contents 9

Letter from the Co-Editors-in-Chief

The History of Racism in Egyptology and its Impact on Pharaonic Nationalism Juniper Slieker

Where is the ruler in the city? Corporeal Invisibility and Architectural Visibility in the Mausoleum of al-Ṣāliḥ Najm al-Dīn Ayyūb

Emily Fu 30

Victims of the Map: Dissolution of the Blessed Nubian Land Leena Badri

What Gets Lost in Translation: An Analysis of Political Discourse and the Periphery in Mohamed Choukri’s For Bread Alone Yasmeen Atassi

The Copts and Egyptian National Identity From the 1919 Revolution to the Early Mubarak Period Lara Hovagimian

Revival of Bektashism in Post-Communist Albania: Internal Developments and Transnational Connections Foti Vito

The Instrumentalization of Minority Populations in the Middle East: The Cases of the Armenians, the Assyrians, and the Jews Lauren Vieira

Abolishing the Victim Complex: Reframing Palestinian Nationalism Saarah Khan

The Impacts of the Six-Day War on the Israeli National Consciousness and Global Geopolitics

Yasamin Jameh 7

Letter from the Co-Editors-in-Chief Dear Reader, On your screen you are now viewing Issue XIII of our annual Near & Middle Eastern Civilizations publication at the University of Toronto. This publication, particularly because of the challenges of publishing in a pandemic year, has taken countless hours of time, energy and love from all those involved in bringing this issue to life. We began in October of 2020 with an idea and a vague concept. Scripted. Unscripted. Re -scripted. We were fascinated by how our lives are constantly governed in a variety of ways by a multiplicity of social, political, economic, religious and gendered scripts that surround us, constantly shape us and re-define us. As ours is an era marked by unprecedented and historic protest, resistance and resilience, we were inspired to create a piece that highlighted the significance and value of reading against the grain. Through our theme of re-scripting, we sought to draw attention to the narratives, voices, experiences and ways of understanding history that are often sidelined and forgotten, though they carry profound insights. These pieces speak – each in their own way – to the ways in which new narratives are crafted – especially those that draw attention to perspectives at the fringes of traditional scholarship. We have attempted to draw together the ancient, modern, contemporary and medieval worlds of Middle East studies scholarship to better link common threads and place narratives in conversation with each other. We hope to illustrate continuities, shifts and divergences throughout time, space, and political realities to understand how different groups have constructed their identities in the face of forces seeking to reconstruct or marginalize them. Undertaking this ambitious project during a global pandemic was an enormous team effort. We could not have virtually coordinated everyone’s input without the hard work, understanding and dedication of the editorial board, the faculty and graduate peer reviewers and the authors themselves. We would like to thank and congratulate everyone for their contributions to the breadth, depth and quality of this journal. Issue XIII would not have been possible without all your time, patience and passion. We hope this journal proves informative and inspiring to our readers. In the spirit of Edward Said’s “contrapuntal reading” we encourage you to read, think deeply and engage with the issues raised by these pieces. We encourage you to seek out the hidden perspectives both in your own academic scholarship and in your everyday lives. Moreover, we encourage our readers to question the narratives they are given – regardless of where they come from – and actively search for and amplify the voices that are left to be forgotten. We thank you, reader, for finding your way to this journal. After all, it is your interest and willingness to read and engage that gives it a purpose. Yours truly, Zara & Aiman 9

The History of Racism in Egyptology and its Impact on Pharaonic Nationalism By Juniper Slieker Of all the Arab nations, Egypt is naturally predisposed1 to a territorial-based nationalist identity. As the only nation of the colonial period whose borders were not unnaturally imposed ruled lines,2 Egypt has a long history as an independent nation. The idea of Pharaonism—the modern use of Ancient Egypt in legitimizing an independent Egyptian state today—had the potential to extend beyond intellectual theory into tangible sources like popular culture, history and geography that would engage the population to the benefit of national politics. In this paper I will begin with a review of the racialist origins of Egyptology and then shift to discuss the consequences of this on politics. I will argue a legacy of racism in Egyptology has created an irreparable disconnect between Egyptians to the extent they have been removed from being the natural inheritors of Ancient Egypt. This disconnect, I will show, is reflected in the failure of Pharaonism, the turn to Arab nationalism and the production of a commercially convenient commodification of Ancient Egypt. Pharaonic Nationalism Several authorities helped usher in Pharaonic Nationalism in the 1920s. One of the scholars who informed the foundation was Muhammad Husayn Haykal. Born in Egypt, Haykal—like most of his contemporaries—was educated in France, an experience and scholarly background that influenced his theories. He believed Pharaonic nationalism had two theoretical components. The first was environmental determinism, or the idea that the environmental conditions of a nation instilled a national character in its peoples. Egypt with its natural borders of desert, cataracts, ocean and mountains, he says, created, “a natural disposition to submission, one that foreign rulers did nothing to change.”3 His logic was that “Every living thing enters the valley is received favorably and nourished. Should it attempt to revolt against the order established by the environment, however it will be severely punished and obliged to leave.” 4 The second component is race: Haykal viewed race as a unifying factor since, “the inhabitants of the Nile Valley share certain features which have distinguished them since primeval times; features of their bodily structure

and, similarly, of their mental and moral makeup.”5 Early theories of race such as Haykal’s were influenced by European scholars like Ernest Renan, cited in Gershoni and Jankowski’s book Egypt, Islam and the Arabs. Renan, “proposed attributing perceived social differences formerly attributed to biology to rigid and immutable cultural traditions – an approach which had, in effect, allowed biological racism to be reinvented in a different format.”6 Though scientific advancement led to the diminishing of eugenic theories after WWI, Pharaonism, which would reach its height post-WWI, was based on ingrained racist stereotypes. Thus, Pharaonism and its failure signifies a relationship between contemporary Egyptians and their ancient history. Both theoretical parts of Pharaonism, environmental determinism and race, relied on the idea that contemporary Egyptians were the legacy of Ancient Egypt. However, Egyptological racial classification of Ancient Egyptians as distinct from contemporary Egypt intentionally separated the independent Egyptian nation from its legacy. Without this relationship Pharaonism was destined for political failure. Early Sources on Ancient Egypt Egyptology as a premier field of knowledge on Ancient Egypt was rooted in the same racism as its European authorship. While the actual race of the Ancient Egyptian for the purposes of this research is irrelevant, the construction and manipulations of race by scholars is where racism is apparent. The roots of racism trace back to two classical surveys of Egypt that are foundational texts of Egyptology, both of which describe Egypt as Black. The latter of these two texts, now in the time of Arabs, disparages contemporary Egyptians using backwards Arab stereotypes. The first text is the account by Herodotus of his travels in Egypt around 450 BC. His texts include descriptions of contemporary Egypt and a history of its ancient dynasties. The facade of the current day museum in Cairo even honors him as one of the founding fathers of Egyptology. While his mention of Egyptian’s racial identity is brief, “they are Black in complexion and kinky-haired”, 7 this is the earliest written European 11

Record of Ancient Egyptian racial makeup and has become a key point in scholarly arguments over the race of Ancient Egyptians. The early threads of racist ideology within Egyptology persisted through time as demonstrated by Description de L’Egypt. Description, published in 1809, reported on contemporary Egypt, ancient monuments, and natural history; it was authored during Napoleon's invasion in 1798. Like Herodotus, Napoleon's savants determined the race of ancient Egyptians to be Black. Vivant Denons’—one of Napoleon's scholars (and later Louvre director) — extracts from his travels with Napoleon provide two examples of Egyptian race. The first describes the contemporary Copts as being the most direct descendants of the Ancient Egyptian race:, “the old Egyptian flock, a sort of tawny Nubian… a flat face and hair wooly, eyes half open… a wide and flat mouth… large lips….” 8 Denon gave a similar description of ancient monuments as a reflection of the racial appearance of ancient Egyptians. He described the sphinx, saying, “The character is African; but the mouth, the lips of which are thick, has a sweetness in its drawing.”9 This description echoes Herodotus's earlier accounts determining ancient Egyptians to be Black. While scholars of ancient Egypt maintained racist descriptions of Black Egyptians, they added a whole new layer of bias by disparaging contemporary Arab culture. These authors described contemporary Egyptians’ ability and interest in maintaining ancient Egyptian monuments as linked to their Arab incivility. Edouard de Villiers du Terrage, an engineer on the expedition said, “An Arab village made up of miserable mud huts, dominates the most magnificent monuments of Egyptian architecture and seem placed there to attest to the triumph of ignorance and barbarians over centuries of light which in Egypt had raised the arts to the highest degree of splendor.”10 Thus, accounts that formed the foundations of Egyptology instilled a stigma against Arab involvement in the protection and research of Ancient Egypt. Denon and du Terrage’s accounts of Egypt clearly describe Ancient Egyptians as Black. However, publicizing Black achievement at home in Europe and America presented a significant political and ideological problem. If, as accepted, Egypt was a primary source of European culture that influenced Greek and Roman culture, these scientific accounts would mean that European advancement and civilization essentially found their origins in Black creativity, excellence, and progress. Given the economic, political, and ideological reliance on white superiority and European dominance

as ‘natural’ and legitimate – particularly with respect to ownership of Black people – and the question of African sovereignty, these “discoveries” were deemed problematic. As a result, Egypt could not be allowed to be Black. Explaining Away Blackness Scholars of the 19th century utilized two primary explanations to respond to this problem. The first, coming from Europe, took a religious angle. Scholars argued that while Ancient Egyptians may have appeared Black, Egyptians, “it was now remembered, were descendants of Mizran, a son of Ham. Noah had only cursed Canaan-Son-of-Ham, so that it was Canaan and his progeny alone who suffered the malediction.”11 Thus, although Egyptians appeared Black, they were not cursed like the majority of Black people who were ‘justifiably’ enslaved. Egyptians therefore had been capable of great knowledge without threatening the basis of European civilization. America, like Europe, needed a justification to protect its own system of enslavement. Their approach followed, “the intellectual vogue of the day [which] was the stress on ‘facts’, not abstract theories, in all disciplines. Craniology provided a seemingly concrete ‘fact’, thus fitting in neatly with the prevailing academic attitudes.” 12 Scholars like Samuel George Morten, whose crania studies were published in 1844, determined that the cranial measurements of mummies identified Ancient Egyptians as Caucasian. 13 After WWI and the powerful example of the damage that eugenic theories were capable of, scholarship needed to reposition use of scientific arguments of racial superiority. Thus scholarship after WWI was less overtly racist although the underlying discriminatory sentiment was the same. Theories sought to undermine Herodotus, such as by arguing that he never went to Egypt, or that Herodotus's passage was actually in regard to Ethiopians, and that Black was an exaggeration.14 The use of craniology continued under Egyptologist James Henry Breasted who founded the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute in 1919 (still active today) and wrote an influential high school textbook on Ancient History with editions in 1916 & 1935. Breasted’s theory of the Great White Race stated that, “The peoples of the great Northwest quadrant as far back as we know anything about prehistoric man have all been members of a race of white men who have well been called the Great White Race...the Negroes on the south occupy an important place in the modern world, but they played no part in the rise of civilization.”15 In

terms of Egypt, Breasted argued that Black people would ‘wander’ into Egypt but were uninfluential. Breasted supported his argument with craniometry by comparing the skulls of Egyptians with those from the Mediterranean, with the caveat that, “‘the people of the Great White Race are darker skinned than elsewhere.'”16 Unlike works prior to WWI, Breasted’s argument concedes that Black people made contributions to the contemporary world. However, ingrained racism kept Ancient Egypt white due to its essential role in the foundational story of Western civilization. One exception to this period of scholarship is W.E.B. Du Bois, a Black contemporary of Breasted. In his argument to accept classical surveys as accurate, Du Bois made two insights that add context to the history of racist Egyptology. Firstly, he argued that Egyptology itself began at a time when, “Few scholars …dared to associate the Negro race with humanity much less with civilization.”17 Thus Egyptology was already far behind the times by the political time of Du Bois in the 1900s, which allowed Black scholarship. The very definition of race as it had previously been used needed to be updated. Du Bois expanded the attributes of race, saying, “of what race then were the Egyptians? They were certainly not white in any sense of the world, neither in color nor in physical measurements, in hair, nor countenance, in language nor social customs.”18 Scholars like du Bois challenged the status quo at a time when Egyptian involvement in their own Antiquities Service and Egyptology programs was minimal. While today we would like to think scholarship has long surpassed the fear that the foundation of Western Civilization was not white, this is still a topic of debate. In the early 2000s the mummy of Tutankhamun underwent CT scanning which allowed for reconstruction of the boy king's appearance. When the exhibition Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs opened in 2007 at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, it was met with backlash. Included in the exhibition was a facial reconstruction, and beside it a statement saying, “the features of his face are based on scientific data, but the exact color of his skin and the size and shape of many facial details cannot be determined with full certainty.”19 Despite the disclaimer, his depiction with light skin prompted outrage because it represented a clear bias towards whiteness, which is not surprising given the history of Egyptology. As Molefi Asante, a Temple University professor of African Studies who led protests over the exhibit said, “‘We asked the students as they were coming out of the museum, you've seen the exhibition of King Tut, 'Where is he from?'...You would discover that people can see the exhibition of Tutankhame-

n, and come out and not know that they have seen Africa.’”20 Representations like this one, created by Western institutions with racist histories emphasize the severing of Ancient Egypt from Africa, Black people and contemporary Egyptians. Within Egypt itself and internationally, Ancient Egypt as it is represented does not reflect a relationship with the modern state. The image of Tut and the long history of Western ownership of Egyptology has created the illusion that the Egyptian state is far removed from any possibility of Pharaonic nationalism. Dr. Charles Finch, the former Director of International Health at the Morehouse School of Medicine said, “Whenever our ancient writers, Hebrew, or Greek, make any reference to the ancient Egyptians color, it's always [B]lack. There was no debate. It only became a debate in the last 200 years.”21 Informed by a long history of European interference and exclusion, it is unsurprising that the former head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities in Egypt Zahi Hawass, does not fight the representation of Tut in question. Hawass said in response to these protests, “‘Tutankhamun was not [B]lack and the portrayal of ancient Egyptian Civilization as [B]lack has no truth to it’”, and, “‘Egyptians are not Arabs and are not Africans despite the fact that Egypt is in Africa.’”22 These statements from Hawass represent a struggle within Egyptology and the independent Egyptian nation as Egyptologists were trained to dissociate with any Black or Arab connections in order to be taken seriously. Given the long history of racial arguments justifying western domination of Egyptology, which disparaged Egyptians as barbarians, it is not surprising that Pharaonic nationalism has repeatedly failed. Between ingrained European racism and the Afrocentrism movement, Ancient Egyptian history is caught in its own identity battle. However, yet again, scholarly debate continues to involve the racial ownership of another nation's past: Black or white, Egypt still is not the owner of its history. Political Failure of Pharaonism This legacy severing Egypt from its Ancient history is reflected in Pharaonism’s political failure– which declined from its peak in 1922, transitioned to Arabism and eventually gave way to a political fear of Pharaonic association. The result is a ‘new Pharaonism’, meaning a new era of tyranny in Egyptian politics. This parallels Haykal’s early assertion that Egyptians have ‘a natural disposition to submission.’ After the granting of limited independence and the discovery of Tutankhamen’s tomb nine months lat13

er, 1922 was the peak of Pharaonic nationalism’s political power. While Saad Zaghloul, the leader of the 1919 revolution and first prime minister of semi-independent Egypt embraced pharaonic iconography and promoted the ancient connection in his speeches, pharaonic nationalism’s foundation was precarious. Upon the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb, the “director of the Egyptian Antiquities Service had the tomb seized and declared that, contrary to past practice, all the contents of the Tomb must remain in Egypt.”23 On the surface this decision appears to be a reflection of Egyptian involvement in Egyptology and the Egyptian nationalist desire to keep Egyptian antiquities. However, as the director of the Antiquities Service was French, the decision most likely reflects French interest in keeping this groundbreaking discovery within the French sphere of control, and out of the hands of their British rivals, who had made the discovery. As Ahmad Ziwar, the Prime Minister who replaced Zaghloul after his death, told Breasted – the originator of the Great White Race theory – “‘Egypt has no civilization except what comes to us from Europe and America. We must rely on foreign scientists - but I cannot say that in public!’”24 Ahmid Ziwar was correct – Egyptology as a field was completely reliant upon Western scholars, and indigenous scholars were pushed out. After Europe and America “phased out their excavations” being unable to “to retain enough of their discoveries to satisfy financial support back home,”25 there were major issues finding indigenous Egyptologists to fill the void left by foreign archaeologists. Prior to 1922, “Western archeological interests in the Antiquities Service forced three indigenous Egyptological schools in succession to close by refusing to employ their graduates.” 26 Egyptology thus stagnated, as there were no more “discoveries” to keep the pharaonic spirit alive in the general public. The limits of Pharaonic nationalism thus paralleled the limits of Egyptian independence. In theory, Europe's continued control over Egyptian governmental policies should have increased Pharaonic nationalism as political bonds with African or Arab nationalist movements were under the dictation of Britain. Yet Pharaonic nationalism came in direct conflict with Egyptian politicians’ notion that Egypt as the foundation of all Western civilization was destined to be a global leader again. Politicians quickly embraced the notion of being destined for global leadership, even at the cost of Pharaonic nationalism. Even Young Egypt, a political party founded on Pharaonism in 1933, shifted towards Islamic nationalism claiming, “it was moving ‘beyond the narrow limits of Egyptian nationalism.’”27 In the same vein, Ha-

ykal eventually also shifted towards Islamic nationalism, “opting for the celebration of the cultural ties that Egypt shared with other Eastern nations.”28 His articles after 1928 also include a biography on the Prophet Muhamad. The turn to Arab nationalism was solidified by the Free Officers Coup in 1952, which brought Gamal Abdel Nasser to power and resulted in a stronger shift towards an Arab identity. Ancient Egypt featured rarely in his political agenda, but mainly to serve political goals unrelated to cultivating Pharaonic nationalism. After the Free Officers coup brought de facto independence, “Nasser’s Free officers completed the Egyptianizing of the Antiquities Service.” 29 Thus, “after ninety-four years of French directors,” the president of Alexandria University, Mustafa Amer “became the first Egyptian to direct the Service.” 30 The move came out of the Free Officers political struggle for a fully independent Egyptian state, in which Egyptian government agencies would be run by Egyptians. While Nasser's rule also saw the return of foreign archaeological expeditions, the catalyst for these expeditions came out of the threat that Nasser's economic development scheme would pose to Ancient Egyptian monuments. Despite receiving letters of appeal from Egyptologists and engineers upon the prompting of the Director of Antiquities, Nasser remained indifferent.31 It was not until Egypt’s international reputation was at stake that he changed his stance, at least publicly. After all, the Nuremberg Trials had deemed, “the destruction of cultural property … a crime against humanity.” 32 Egypt as a new independent nation could not be viewed by the international community as failing to fulfil its new role or succumbing to the stereotypes about Arabs from Description de L’Egypt. The campaign and execution of recovering the Ancient Egyptian monuments became a symbol of international cooperation. Nasser thus stated: “‘We pin our hopes on the High Dam for the implementation of our plans of economic development; but likewise we pin our hopes on the preservation of the Nubian treasures in order to keep alive monuments which are not only dear to our hearts we being their guardians, but dear to the whole world which believes that the ancient and new components of human culture should blend in one harmonious whole.’” 33

Nasser was not the only one to use the term Nubian to refer to the monuments in question: even UNESCO’s campaign was advertised as the “Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia.” Given that the majority of these monuments were Ancient Egyptian and all but two remain within Egypt 's borders, the use of the term “Nubian” is significant. Furthermore, there is no explanation for the choice of this term anywhere on UNESCO’s web pages and media articles, or in academia. While there were Nubian pharaohs of Egypt, the majority of the monuments in question were built by Ramses II, who conquered the Nubians. The use of the term Nubian suggests that participants of the UNESCO campaign had no qualms about associating Egypt with Blackness. While race may have been the primary barrier to Pharaonic nationalism in the past, to the rulers of the fully independent Egyptian state, pharaonic allusion itself may have been problematic. Haykal's view of the Egyptian political personality as submissive appears to be self-fulfilling as Egypt was once again led by an authoritarian ruler. Under Nasser’s rule, “The Egyptians had come to identify strongly with this forceful and charismatic ruler because he had established Egypt as a leader of the Arabs, and had made all Egyptians feel important and heroic”34 – despite the cost to their political freedoms. Nasser’s successful use of Arab nationalism and his ability to capture the public imagination put Egypt in a leadership position, as Pharaonism argued Egypt was destined for. Under the domination of a larger than life ruler, Egypt became an international leader. Egypt’s next major political leader, Anwar Sadat, exemplified the danger of Pharaonic allusion. Upon his death, Sadat's assassins proclaimed, “We have killed Pharaoh!” 35 But what was Sadat's relationship with Ancient Egypt and why did his assassins associate him with the pharaohs? Like the Nubian dynasty of Egyptians, Sadat was physically much darker than his predecessors, having a Sudanese mother. Furthermore, his upbringing in a rural village gave him a unique perspective. He also expressed his respect for his ancient predecessors by closing the mummy room at the Egyptian Museum. The Director General of Archaeology at the time recalls that, “he asked that the man be respected. The mummies were not to be displayed until a way was found to preserve their dignity.” 36 Sadat also worked to increase Egypt’s international role, using Pharaonic Egypt as enticement. Like Nasser who, “sent important works of art to the Soviet Union, Japan and the Vatican… Sadat sent jewelry, statues and other artifacts to the heads of state of France, the United States, the Philippines, and Iran.”37 Both Nasser and Sadat also allowed internation-

al exhibitions of Tutankhamun’s funerary goods, which facilitated US-Egypt relations. These efforts would culminate in the US becoming the mediator between Egypt and Israel during the Camp David Accords. Sadat's involvement in peace talks with Israel at Camp David was the most prominent motivation behind his assassination. But where does his association with the pharaohs come from? Rather than any government ideology of Pharaonic nationalism, Raphael Israeli suggests three issues that painted Sadat as a pharaoh in the eyes of the population. First was Sadat's lifestyle which was perceived as, “conspicuous and wasteful.”38 Economic inequality under Sadat while he enjoyed a lavish lifestyle was reminiscent of the exorbitant wealth that had been buried with pharaohs of the past at the expense of the people. Secondly Sadat’s regime suffered from what Israeli calls “half-way-democracysyndrome,”39 which means people were “given a taste of freedom,” and thus began “ demanding, in the name of that freedom, to go all the way.” 40 Unlike Nasser, Sadat loosened restrictions slightly, which allowed Egyptians to taste the possibility of life outside authoritarianism. Lastly, Sadat's political “showmanship” gave way to “larger-than-life expectations among his people,”41 which set him up for failure as a pharaoh in a ‘democratic’ world. Gamal Hamdan, a friend of Haykal and an intellectual connected to environmental determinism, illustrated this divide between ruler and his people: “It [tyranny] is the single most significant continuous, common denominator running through all of Egyptian history… In olden times, we used to be ‘slaves of Pharaoh’ and ‘slaves of the Sultan’. More recently, though we may not have entirely become ‘slaves of the president,’ we are still divided into pharaohs and peasants; subjects not citizens… This is…‘the new pharaonism.’” 42 Conclusion Contemporary Egyptians as produced by colonialism were cast as Arabs incapable of protecting Ancient Egypt’s global heritage. As a result, present-day Egyptians are not allowed to inherit Ancient Egypt intellectually or politically. This history of racism within Egyptology and Egyptological institutions within Egypt itself made Arab nationalism more politically beneficial. Today Pharaonic association is 15

23 Michael Wood, "The Use of the Pharaonic Past in Modern not a symbol of national pride but rather a political Nationalism," Journal of the American Research Center in threat to authoritarian regimes. The pharaohs of Ancient Egyptian Egypt 35 (1998): 183. Egypt, whether Black or white, are so far engrained with 24 Wood, "The Use of the Pharaonic Past in Modern Egyptian Western colonialism that Pharaonic nationalism faces Nationalism:" 183. 25 Donald M. Reid,"Indigenous Egyptology: The Decolonization many obstacles to revival.

Notes By "natural," I am speaking to the geographic and environmental boundaries that are understood to inform Pharaonic Nationalism as I will discuss in more detail shortly. 2 Ancient borders did shift over time. However, the core of Egyptian territory from the Delta to the 1st cataract existed from the Old Kingdom. Exceptions to this are the political division of the intermediary periods. 3 Lorenzo Casini, "Muḥammad Ḥusayn Haykal’s AntiEnlightenment Modernity (1916–1925)," Oriente Moderno 99, 1-2 (2019): 36. 4 Ibid. 5 James P. Jankowski and I. Gershoni, Egypt, Islam, and the Arabs: The Search for Egyptian Nationhood, 1900-1930, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987): 37. 6 W.J. Berridge, “Imperialist and Nationalist Voices in the Struggle for Egyptian Independence, 1919–22,” The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 42, 3 (2014): 425. 7 For a more in-depth discussion on the translation of this passage, see Tristan Samuels, “Herodotus and the Black Body,” Journal of Black Studies 46, 7 (2015): 737. 8 British Periodicals, "Extracts from Denon's Travels in Upper and Lower Egypt, during the Campaigns of General Bonaparte," Universal Magazine of Knowledge and Pleasure, June 1747-Dec.1803 111, (1802): 203. 9 "Extracts from Denon's Travels:” 207. 10 Donald Malcolm Reid, Whose Pharaohs?: Archaeology, Museums, and Egyptian National Identity from Napoleon to World War I, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 33. 11 Edith R. Sanders, "The Hamitic Hypothesis; Its Origin and Functions in Time Perspective," The Journal of African History 10, 4 (1969): 526. 12 Sanders, "The Hamitic Hypothesis:” 528. 13Sanders, "The Hamitic Hypothesis:" 527. 14Tristan Samuels, “Herodotus and the Black Body,” Journal of Black Studies 46, 7 (2015): 724-726. 15 Donald Reid, “VIDEO Anxieties of Race in Egyptology,” May 23, 2017, Peabody Museum, 52:49, https:// www.peabody.harvard.edu/node/2851. 16 Reid, “VIDEO Anxieties of Race in Egyptology.” 17 Reid, “VIDEO Anxieties of Race in Egyptology.” 18 Reid, “VIDEO Anxieties of Race in Egyptology.” 19 Joel Rose, “King Tut Exhibit Prompts Debate on His Skin Color,” NPR, August 28, 2007, Accessed November 30, 2020., https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php? storyId=13992421. 20 Rose, 2007. 21 Rose, 2007. 22 “Tutankhamun Was Not Black: Egypt Antiquities Chief.” Dow Jones Factiva, September 27,2007. Accessed April 1, 2021. https:// global-factiva-com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/redir/default.aspx? P=sa&an=AFPR000020070925e39p003hi&cat=a&ep=ASE. 1

of a Profession?" Journal of the American Oriental Society 105, 2 (1985): 238. 26 Reid, "Indigenous Egyptology: " 246. 27 Wood, "The Use of the Pharaonic Past in Modern Egyptian Nationalism:"185. 28 Casini, " Muḥammad Ḥusayn Haykal’s Anti-Enlightenment Modernity (1916–1925)", 33. 29 Reid,"Indigenous Egyptology:" 244. 30 Reid,"Indigenous Egyptology:" 244. 31 Paul Betts, “The Warden of World Heritage: UNESCO and the Rescue of the Nubian Monuments,” Past & Present 226 (July 1, 2015): 104. 32 Betts, “The Warden of World Heritage:” 106. 33 Betts, “The Warden of World Heritage:” 113. 34 Raphael Israeli, "Egypt's Nationalism Under Sadat," Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies 21, 4 (Summer, 1998): 20. 35 Reid,"Indigenous Egyptology:" 246. 36 Jeffrey Bartholet, “Honoring the Pharaohs: In Cairo, a New Museum Plans Mummy Exhibit,” The Washington Post, October 31, 1986, accessed November 28, 2020, https://search-proquestcom.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/docview/139010292?pqorigsite=summon. 37 Wood, "The Use of the Pharaonic Past in Modern Egyptian Nationalism:" 186. 38 Israeli, "Egypt's Nationalism Under Sadat:" 20. 39 Israeli, "Egypt's Nationalism Under Sadat," 20. 40 Israeli, "Egypt's Nationalism Under Sadat," 20. 41 Israeli, "Egypt's Nationalism Under Sadat:" 21. 42 Samah Selim, "The New Pharaonism: Nationalist Thought and the Egyptian Village Novel, 1967-1977," The Arab Studies Journal 8/9, 2/1 (2000): 15.

Bibliography Bartholet, Jeffrey. “Honoring the Pharaohs: In Cairo, a New Museum Plans Mummy Exhibit.” The Washington Post, October 31, 1986. Accessed November 28, 2020. https://search-proquestcom.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/docview/139010292?pq-origsite=summon. Berridge, W.J. “Imperialist and Nationalist Voices in the Struggle for Egyptian Independence, 1919–22.” The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 42, 3 (2014): 420–39. Betts, Paul. “The Warden of World Heritage: UNESCO and the Rescue of the Nubian Monuments.” Past & Present 226 (July 1, 2015): 100–125 British Periodicals. "Extracts from Denon's Travels in Upper and Lower Egypt, during the Campaigns of General Bonaparte." Universal Magazine of Knowledge and Pleasure, June 1747-Dec.1803 111, (1802): 200-208. Casini, Lorenzo. "Muḥammad Ḥusayn Haykal’s Anti-Enlightenment Modernity (1916–1925)", Oriente Moderno 99, 1-2 (2019): 30-47. Israeli, Raphael. "Egypt's Nationalism Under Sadat." Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies 21, 4 (Summer, 1998): 1-23. Jankowski, James P., and Gershoni, Israel. Egypt, Islam, and the Arabs: The Search for Egyptian Nationhood, 1900-1930. Oxford: Oxford University Press,1987. Reid, Donald M. Whose Pharaohs?: Archaeology, Museums, and Egyptian National Identity from Napoleon to World War I. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. Reid, Donald M. "Indigenous Egyptology: The Decolonization of a Profession?" Journal of the American Oriental Society 105, 2 (1985): 233-46. Rose, Joel. “King Tut Exhibit Prompts Debate on His Skin Color.” NPR. published August 28, 2007. Accessed November 30, 2020. https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=13992421. Samuels, Tristan. “Herodotus and the Black Body.” Journal of Black Studies 46, 7 (2015): 723–741. Sanders, Edith R. "The Hamitic Hypothesis; Its Origin and Functions in Time Perspective." The Journal of African History 10, 4 (1969): 521-32. Selim, Samah. "The New Pharaonism: Nationalist Thought and the Egyptian Village Novel, 1967-1977." The Arab Studies Journal 8/9, 2/1 (2000): 10-24. “Tutankhamun Was Not Black: Egypt Antiquities Chief.” Dow Jones Factiva, September 27,2007. Accessed April 1, 2021. https://global-factiva-com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/redir/default.aspx? P=sa&an=AFPR000020070925e39p003hi&cat=a&ep=ASE. Reid, Donald. “VIDEO Anxieties of Race in Egyptology.” May 23, 2017. Peabody Museum. 52:49. https:// www.peabody.harvard.edu/node/2851. Wood, Michael. "The Use of the Pharaonic Past in Modern Egyptian Nationalism." Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt 35 (1998): 179-96.

Where is the ruler in the city? Corporeal Invisibility and Architectural Visibility in the Mausoleum of al-Ṣāliḥ Najm al-Dīn Ayyūb By Emily Fu In the accounts of al-Maqrīzī, who wrote during the Mamluk era (1250-1517 C.E., AH 648-923), he described what happened to the palace area, known as Bayn al-Qasrayn, after Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn’s (r. 1174-1193 C.E., AH 569-588) rise to power. Amīrs who were occupying the area set up their residences in the halls and pavilions, sold inventory, founded a hospital, and opened the area to wider circles of the population— all of these indicated that there was no plan to keep up the former palatial associations of the area.1 However, by the time of alṢāliḥ Ayyūb (r.1240-1249 C.E., AH 637-646), Ibn Saʿīd al-Maghribī’s report gave the impression of “narrow, dark alleys full of dust and smell, against which the wide space of Bayn al-Qaṣrayn appeared like a splendid array of royal buildings.”2 Eventually this street will come to be lined with seven royal mausoleum complexes, with al -Ṣāliḥ’s being the first.

What accounts for this transformation and the revival of the former place “between the two palaces”? Shajarat al-Durr chose to erect her late-husband’s mausoleum on this site — setting off a chain of Mamluk building projects on this central ceremonial passageway. Beginning with the mausoleum of al-Ṣāliḥ, this building type, the madrasa-mausoleum, and the site of Bayn alQaṣrayn, came to be the choice vehicle and locale for sultans to proclaim their presence in the city. Like any other ruler before or after her, Shajarat al-Durr was aware of architecture’s representational function and the ways in which it could indicate the importance of the patron. After a series of reigns by sultans pulled away from the city by the forces of war, and during the unusual rule of a woman from within the confines of the citadel, a new emphasis on tomb building emerged in the late-Ayyubid period. The void left by the absence of the sultan’s physical body came to be replaced by heightened visual and aural prominence. The mausoleum commissioned by Shajarat al-Durr represents a turning point, away from the tradition of the Fatimid forer-

-unners and towards the later developments of Mamluk architecture — marked by a demand for highly visible domes, visual access, the attention of passersby on the street, and a highly sophisticated aural and epigraphic system, which fashioned the public image of the ruler. Al-Ṣāliḥ Najm al-Dīn Ayyūb constructed his madrasa on the site of the former Fatimid eastern palace two years into his rule. After Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn’s rise to power, the Fatimids were removed, and Abbasid rule was restored along with Sunnī orthodoxy. As Creswell’s reconstruction shows, the plan of two iwans (rectangular vaulted halls) on the shorter eastern and western sides connected by cells and assembled around a courtyard are assumed to be mirrored on the southern half of the madrasa.3 The madrasa provided an iwan for each of the four Sunnī schools of law. During Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn’s rule, Bayn al-Qaṣrayn was possibly intentionally neglected to send the message that the heretical grounds upon which the Fatimids based their rule were justly decaying. On this basis, al-Ṣāliḥ’s choice to erect his madrasa on the site could have been a means of showcasing the pious monument that is the product of a “just ruler” taking possession of the royal grounds of an illegitimate dynasty. However, as Lorenz Korn points out, by the time the madrasa was erected, seven decades after the fall of the Fatimids, it was probably no longer conceived as an anti-Fatimid statement.4 If we are to conceive of al-Ṣāliḥ’s structure as more than just a reactionary measure against Fatimid traditions, then what does the madrasa-mausoleum say about itself? Looking beyond the city walls, the madrasa-mausoleum complex of imam al-Shāfiʿī’s dome has a comparable configuration and a similar emphasis on visibility, both from inside and outside the complex. Inside the complex, someone facing the qibla wall of the madrasa connected to the mausoleum would have had direct visual access to the cenotaph (the empty tomb).5 The complex was also highly visible from the citadel, as the cemetery was relatively empty at the time of its construction, and it was across from a spacious maydān (public square).6 There is little evidence of the original shape of the dome of the mausoleum, however, the 15th-century Mamluk reconstruction was likely modelled on the pointed profile of al-Ṣāliḥ’s dome, revealing a connection between the two structures that persisted two centuries later.7 Additionally, the Imam 21

was the founder of the four Sunnī schools of law and his complex inside the cemetery was a famous example of the madrasa-mausoleum building type. Aside from the madrasa-mausoleum of Imam alShāfiʿī, Shajarat al-Durr may have found inspiration before she even arrived in Egypt. She originally hailed from the Qipchaq people of the steppes of what is today southern Russia where she was enslaved and became the favoured concubine of the sultan while he was still governor of Ḥiṣn Kayfa‘.8 According to Ruggles, the Ayyubids were “more a consortium of distrustful allies, fighting each other much of the time and acting cooperatively only when it was profitable to do so or when threatened by external force.”9 As the sultan toured the provinces in an attempt to wrestle control from other princes, Shajarat al-Durr was by his side as he first took control of Damascus, and then Egypt.10 It would be fair to assume that Shajarat al-Durr would have seen madrasa-mausoleums in Damascus on these travels, as it was a popular building type there. During this period, Damascus witnessed the most “intense and sustained” patronage of religious architecture by women, in particular that of funerary monuments.11 In the eighty-five years after Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn, women commissioned sixteen percent of all religious monuments.12 Even more surprising, within the Ayyubid house, nearly half of the patrons were women.13 Notably, ʿIṣmat ad-Dīn Khātūn, wife of Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn, constructed a madrasa-mausoleum within the city, which is no longer extant.14 Shajarat-Durr’s experiences in Damascus may have informed her choice of building type, and revealed to her the possibilities of female patronage within the space of the city. Indeed, the madrasa-mausoleum combination was ideal for the ruling elite who were keen to be known as patrons (waqif) and eager to make charitable and pious endowments (waqf) to secure their legacy, while simultaneously establishing personal funerary monuments that elevated their status and rewarded them with blessings. While this combination existed outside the city, al-Ṣāliḥ’s was one of the first to appear within the city walls. This prompts some investigation into the nature of the urban madrasa-mausoleum and the additional functions that it served, as they were a departure from those of the cemeteries. The mausoleum appears differently inside of the city, as urban surroundings had a special impact on this type of architecture.15 Why did Shajarat al-Durr choose to introduce the mausoleum into the city and reinterpret its structure? Al-Ṣāliḥ ruled Egypt for a turbulent nine-year period, during which he not only warded off threats fr-

-om competing Ayyubid forces but also engaged in battle against the Seventh Crusade of Louis IX of France. When the sultan died from an illness on 14 Sha’ban 647 (November 22, 1249), Shajarat al-Durr, well-versed in statesmanship and already ruling in his absence, was positioned as regent until the sultan’s son by another wife, Turanshah, reached Cairo from his provincial post. Upon his arrival, Turanshah was assassinated by the Mamluks and Shajarat al-Durr was pronounced sultan.16 During this three-month period of transition, al-Ṣāliḥ’s death was kept a secret and his body was hidden on the island of Rawda. Shajarat al-Durr handled all the affairs of the state and waited until the Frankish threat subsided to announce his death and build his mausoleum.17 Al-Maqrīzī describes the official burial ceremony as such: The people came out on Friday to the castle of alRawda from where the body of the sultan was borne. They prayed over him after the Friday prayer. All the soldiers wore white and the Mamluks shaved their hair. Condolences were received and the sultan was buried that night. For three days all the markets in Cairo and Egypt were closed. The burial ceremony was performed with tambourines in Bayn al-Qaṣrayn. Consolation was received until Monday.18

Although Al-Ṣāliḥ died from illness, he became a martyr figure. The ceremonies surrounding his death in Bayn al-Qaṣrayn are reminiscent of the processions of the Fatimid caliphs who moved through the city and announced their presence along the ceremonial pathway. According to Doris Behrens-Abouseif, Fatimid ritual had a role in determining the placement and iconography of buildings and the structures in Bayn al-Qaṣrayn were conceived as “elaborate stage sets of ritual and procession.”19 In contrast, Ayyubid sultans had a tangible absence as they were increasingly enclosed in the citadel or away at war. On this same Fatimid processional pathway, the invisible body of the sultan arrived — concealed for political stability and monumentalized in absence. No longer is Bayn al-Qaṣrayn a stage set for celebrating the life of the sultan. With the absence of the subject of spectacle and the blessings that radiated from his being, the architectural fabric of Bayn al-Qaṣrayn and the structure of the mausoleum became substitutes for the sultan’s physical presence and took on the functions that it had for the urban population. As a woman, Shajarat al-Durr ruled from within the confines of the citadel and 22

was not permitted to participate in processions, funerals, or ceremonies the way that male rulers did. Since women could not hold public audiences, even Shajarat alDurr’s oath of office was administered privately.20 For the most part, women also could not study in madrasas and custom admitted them only reluctantly into public worship in mosques.21 Ruggles points out that, most importantly, Shajarat al-Durr could not lead the army. This would have made it difficult for her to win the favour of her citizens during periods when Egypt was under attack or instigating conflicts with its neighbours.22 Although her fellow Mamluks had supported her ascension to the throne, not everyone approved of her rule, as the caliph in Baghdad officially rejected her by citing a ḥadīth on the inauspicious rule of women.23 Despite these restrictions, Shajarat al-Durr had a strong claim to legitimacy. Through her relationship to al-Ṣālih, she gave birth to his son Khalil and became his wife. Not only was her legitimacy bolstered by her military and financial experience, but her official claim to the throne was as wife of al- Ṣālih and through her status as the mother of Khalīl (the title of “wālidat al-malik al-Manṣūr Khalīl”), though her son died in infancy.24 Shajarat al-Durr wrestled not only with her own lack of visibility, but also that of the men from whom she derived her authority, as their corporeal presence vanished in death. Although Shajarat al-Durr was hardly physically visible, she came to gain high aural, epigraphic, and architectural visibility. Her name was read in the public Friday sermon (the khuṭba), she had coins minted in her name, and she initiated a program of public texts on the façades and interiors of her monuments. She also signed official documents with her own seal, not as regent for al-Ṣāliḥ or Turanshah, but as “malikat al-muslimīn” and as mother of Khalīl.25 As evidenced by her title, she had an identity separate from the men from whom she derived her authority and did not hide the fact that she was a woman. As Wolf points out, the inscription on her coins follows tradition by using a common Ayyubid script and referencing the caliph by name. However, the dīnār also departs from tradition by emphasizing motherhood on its obverse side with phrases like “malikat almuslimīn” and “wālidat al-malik al-Manṣūr Khalīl, amīr al-mu’minīn.”26 To further establish her authority in the public realm, the khuṭba aurally fashions her image in the following terms: “Protect, oh God, the sultan [wearer] of the elevated curtain and of the inaccessible veil (al-sitr al -rāfi‘ w’al-˙hijāb al-māni‘), queen of the Muslims, mother of Khalil.”27 According to Fatimid tradition, “sitr” describes the curtain that hid and revealed the caliph during audience meetings and ceremonies. The veiling of

the caliph had many functions: it gave him personal privacy, protected regular civilians from his radiance and helped cultivate veneration.28 However, the inclusion “hijab” added spiritual gender and class dimensions as they were first worn by elite women in the Levant, and demonstrates a reinterpretation of the khuṭba for a female leader. Oral recitations like the khuṭba, often spoken inside spaces of prayer like the mausoleum, flowed out towards the street, while pious invocations flowed in. Communication with the interior is a significant feature of the madrasa-mausoleum building type. In the instance of the madrasa-mausoleum of al-Ṣāliḥ, this communication was difficult to establish since the mausoleum projected five meters into the street and did not have the usual full contact with the madrasa structure.29 The desire to expose the tomb as much as possible to pious invocations and the demand for high visibility from the street often resulted in structurally inexplicably openings, such as oblique cuts through the wall adjoining the two structures and window openings so thick that they became passages, with one of them almost five meters long.30 The placement of the tomb chamber on the street side, rather than the qibla side, which was the norm within cemeteries, was another means of grabbing the attention of passersby.31 AlṢāliḥ’s mausoleum is unusual, as it was built on the east side of the street in order to be joined to the earlier madrasa, while it became preferable later for mausoleums to be built on the west side for better alignment with the qibla.32 In her article on the spatial analysis of Mamluk architecture, Shatha Malhis draws from the concept of space syntax, which characterizes spatial systems in terms of how spaces relate to one another, and to individual users who travel in axial lines. In this mathematical paradigm, any spatial system can be configured into a hierarchy, in which some spaces are more “integrated” than others, that is to say, more strategic and accessible. According to Malhis, the more “integrated” a space is, the easier it is for individual users to reach it from other points in the complex.33 Drawing from the model of spatial analysis put forth by Malhis, the courtyard and the western iwan of the northern half of the madrasa are the most integrated. This level of accessibility had practical purposes since these areas were open to the public for prayer. The transitional space between the mausoleum and the western iwan also has a high degree of integration as it is near the entrance portals. These patterns would have motivated the visitor to stop in the courtyard and foll23

-ow the lines of visibility toward the qibla-iwan and the mausoleum. In contrast, the mausoleum appears removed from the rest of the building, as it required a higher degree of privacy and detachment. There is no visibility from the mausoleum to the educational parts of the madrasa at all. To be in the mausoleum is to just be in the mausoleum, and not a part of the complex system of educational spaces.

-rted and innovative, and suggests that the effects of the building are focused towards passersby in Bayn alQaṣrayn, rather than those who have already entered the structure.35 The twofold dynamic of the façade and the emphasis on simultaneous visibility and physical distance in the plan of the mausoleum can be interpreted as architectural manifestations of the transformations of the position of the ruler within the city in this period. Although Shajarat al-Durr ruled during a period of increasing seclusion for Ayyubid rulers and was further confined by her status as a woman, the architectural innovations that she introduced visually amplified her structures, and by extension, her presence, within the city of Cairo. During her short reign, Shajarat al-Durr reached across geographical and temporal distances to establish her authority and build her legacy. Gazing across the maydān, she reconceptualized structures like the madrasa-mausoleum of imam al-Shāfiʿī and continued the powerful tradition of female patronage that she found in Ayyubid Damascus. Reaching into the past, she revived the Fatimid palatial centre of Bayn alQasrayn and brought it into the future, as the new heart of the Mamluk capital. Notes 1 Lorenz

Figure 1. This heightens the experience of the mausoleum and visitors’ perception of it, as the structure was spatially distant but visually seen. These strong enclosures combined with direct visual connectivity allowed the mausoleum to co-exist with the educational part without violating traditions (fig. 1). Although the madrasa-mausoleum cannot compete with structures like the Mosque of Ibn Ṭūlūn in terms of sheer scale, it introduced new qualities which are characterized by large upwards and outwards motions. Without isolating motifs within the decorative program of the façade, the overall character expressed by the structure is this twofold dynamic rather than the playful combinations of motifs in Fatimid patterns of decoration. As Korn writes, “the rising from the bottom to the top, already signaled from afar by the minaret, and the expansion from inside out, best visible in the radiating niche above the portal, permeate the whole façade and create a hierarchy between the structural elements.”34 The command that the madrasa-mausoleum takes over public space is described by Korn as extrove-

Korn, "The Façade of as-Sālih 'Ayyūb's Madrasa and the Style of Ayyubid Architecture in Cairo," in Egypt and Syria in the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk Eras III (Leuven: Peeters, 2001), 113. 2 Korn,

“The Façade of as-Sālih 'Ayyūb's Madrasa:” 114.

3 K.A.C.

Creswell, The Muslim Architecture of Egypt, vol. II (New York: Hacker Art Books, 1978), 94-100. 4 Korn,

"The Façade of as-Sālih 'Ayyūb's Madrasa:" 113.

5 Stephennie

Mulder, “The Mausoleum of Imam Al-Shafi’I,” Muqarnas 2, no. 3 (2006): 21. 6 Mulder, 7 Ibid.,

“The Mausoleum of Imam Al-Shafi’i:” 22.

41.

8 Amalia

Levanoni, "The Mamluks' Ascent to Power in Egypt," Studia Islamica, no. 72 (1990): 122, 129. 9 D.

Fairchild Ruggles, “Visible and Invisible Bodies: The Architectural Patronage of Shajar al-Durr,” Muqarnas 32 (2015): 63. 10 Ruggles,

“Visible and Invisible Bodies:” 64.

11 R.

Stephen Humphreys, "Women as Patrons of Religious Architecture in Ayyubid Damascus," Muqarnas 11 (1994): 35. 12 Humphreys, 13 Ibid.,

36.

14 Ibid.,

43.

“Women as Patrons of Religious Architecture:” 35.

15 Christel

Kessler, “Funerary Architecture Within the City,” Colloque International sur l’Histoire du Caire: 257. 16 Ruggles,

“Visible and Invisible Bodies:” 64-65.

17 Nairy

Hampikian, "Restoration of the Mausoleum of Al-Salih Najm Al-Din Ayyub," in The Restoration and Conservation of Islamic Monuments in Egypt (American University in Cairo Press, 1995): 46. 18 Hampikan,

“Restoration of the Mausoleum of al- Salih Najm:”

47. 19 Mulder,

“The Mausoleum of Imam Al-Shafi’I:” 28.

20 Ruggles,

“Visible and Invisible Bodies:” 65.

21 Humphreys,

"Women as Patrons of Religious Architecture:" 35. “Visible and Invisible Bodies:” 65.

22 Ruggles, 23 Caroline

Olivia M. Wolf, "'the Pen has Extolled Her Virtues': Gender and Power within the Visual Legacy of Shajar Al-Durr in Cairo," in Calligraphy and Architecture in the Muslim World (Edinburgh University Press, 2013): 200. 24 Ruggles, 25 Ibid.,

“Visible and Invisible Bodies:” 64.

65.

26 Caroline

“the Pen has Extolled Her Virtues:” 202.

28 Ibid. 29 Korn,

"The Façade of as-Sālih 'Ayyūb's Madrasa:" 108.

30 Christel

Kessler, “Funerary Architecture Within the City,” Colloque International sur l’Histoire du Caire: 265. 31 Kessler, 32 Ibid.,

“Funerary Architecture Within the City:” 260.

265.

33 Shatha

Malhis, “Narratives in Mamluk architecture: Spatial and perceptual analyses of the madrassas and their mausoleums,” Frontiers of Architectural Research 5, no. 1 (2016): 77-78. 34Korn,

"The Façade of as-Sālih 'Ayyūb's Madrasa:" 112.

35 Korn,

"The Façade of as-Sālih 'Ayyūb's Madrasa:" 112.

Bibliography Creswell, K.A.C. The Muslim Architecture of Egypt, vol. II. New York: Hacker Art Books, 1978. Hampikian, Nairy "Restoration of the Mausoleum of Al-Salih Najm Al-Din Ayyub," in The Restoration and Conservation of Islamic Monuments in Egypt (American University in Cairo Press, 1995): 46. Humphreys, Stephen R. "Women as Patrons of Religious Architecture in Ayyubid Damascus," Muqarnas 11 (1994): 35. Kessler, Christel. “Funerary Architecture Within the City,” Colloque International sur l’Histoire du Caire: 257. Korn, Lorenz. "The Façade of aṣ-Ṣāliḥ 'Ayyūb's Madrasa and the Style of Ayyubid Architecture in Cairo," in Egypt and Syria in the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk Eras III (Leuven: Peeters, 2001), 113. Levanoni, Amalia. "The Mamluks' Ascent to Power in Egypt." Studia Islamica, no. 72 (1990): 121-44. Malhis, Shatha. “Narratives in Mamluk architecture: Spatial and perceptual analyses of the madrassas and their mausoleums,” Frontiers of Architectural Research 5, no. 1 (2016): 78. Mulder, Stephennie. “The Mausoleum of Imam Al-Shafi’I,” Muqarnas 2, no. 3 (2006): 21. Ruggles, Fairchild D. “Visible and Invisible Bodies: The Architectural Patronage of Shajar al-Durr,” Muqarnas 32 (2015): 64. Wolf, Caroline Olivia M."'the Pen has Extolled Her Virtues': Gender and Power within the Visual Legacy of Shajar Al-Durr in Cairo," in Calligraphy and Architecture in the Muslim World (Edinburgh University Press, 2013): 200. Figures Fig. 1. Fu, Emily. Axial analysis of visual lines of sight within the madrasa-mausoleum, after Rabbat, floor plan of complex (https://archnet.org/sites/1539/media_contents/44572). 2020. Drawing.

Victims of the Map: Dissolution of the Blessed Nubian Land By: Leena Badri Ethnic identities often fall victim to the creation of the modern political map, which ignores diversity in favor of a more homogenized national identity. Africa is certainly no exception, as the arbitrary carving of colonial borders has grouped together a wide array of tribes and ethnicities into single territorial units. The specific focus of this essay is the creation of the Egypt-Sudan border, which divided the Nubian peoples, an ethnolinguistic group indigenous to the land between the first Nile cataract in Egypt and the third cataract in Sudan, into two separate populations belonging to different countries.

the Byzantine and Nubian cultures combined to create a high level of art and culture, and some artifacts from that period are still visible today.5 However, due to increasing Arab incursions into Nubia in the seventh century, ties with the Constantinople Church were weakened, leading to a decrease in the practice of Christianity.6 However, the Arab rulers did not conquer the area, but instead adopted treaties with the Governor of Egypt which allowed for trade and tribute to commence between the two states. Although naturally Islam began to influence the people of Nubia.7 Frequent exchanges with the Ottoman Empire in the fifteenth and nineteenth century further diversified Nubian identity. The area came into contact with many groups and thus, “Nubians have some frequent claims of Bosnian, Magyar, Kurdish, and Turkish descent.”8 Furthermore, the influence of Muslim rulers further extended the impact of Islam.9 In the nineteenth century, the Nile at Nubia experienced three invasions: those of Mohamed Ali Pashaand Ismail Pasha, and the reconquest in 1896. In essence, “Nubia was the corridor through which all civilizations, religions, and wars entered the country.”10

The modern history of the Nubians has been colored by constant relocation, displacement, and economic struggle. By analyzing the experiences of the Nubians around the last heightening of The Aswan Low Dam in 1933 up until the immediate years following the construction of the High Dam in 1960, this essay argues that the consolidation of the Egyptian and Sudanese nation-states dissipated Nubian culture by enveloping the group within the nationalist framework of each respective country. However, this gradual assimilation also The complex history of the Nubians meant that resulted in the reinforcement of “Nubian” as a separate their modern identity grew to be increasingly diverse ethnic group, as exposure to the wider public increasing- and complex. The many religions, languages, and values ly emphasized the ‘otherness’ of this identity. they were exposed to developed into a cultural and linguistic mosaic. This is most evident through the array Firstly, it is imperative to understand the historiof local dialects that are spoken amongst the several cal significance and internal diversity of the Nubians, as tribes of the area, which are often jointly identified as these factors remain the foundation of their character. the “Nubian” language.11 However, although differing Professor Emerita of Anthropology at University of Calin tribal affiliation and dialect, Nubians self-identify ifornia, Los Angeles, Sondra Dungan Hale characterizes through their common social structures, strong comthe Nubians as, “a continuous population which has munal ties, shared oral literature, beliefs, artistic artiexperienced occasional eclipses and resurgences.”1 The facts, and, most importantly, their deep spiritual tie to territorial space identified as ‘Nubia’ extends from the the Nile and their agricultural lands.12 first cataract of the Nile at Aswan in Egypt to around Often referred to by inhabitants as, “The the third cataract at Dongola in Sudan.2 Historically, UpBlessed Land,” Nubia’s fortunate position alongside per Nubia was home to the magnificent Kush Kingdom the Nile and amongst fertile lands characterized it as an around 1070 BC, while the Meroe Kingdom around 700 almost magical utopia that bestowed infinite blessings BCE flourished in Lower Nubia.3 Nubia’s rich history amongst its peoples.13 It was certainly considered as meant that the region had frequent contact with diverse such by its inhabitants, who held deep pride and affecgroups such as the Romans, Greeks, Assyrians, and tion for their land.14 However, the carving of the EgypTurks.4 In the sixth century, Nubia was enveloped under tian- Sudanese border divided this beloved territory, the Church of Constantinople, which unified the territoeffectively sidelining its internal diversity and forcing it ry under one church and ruler. During this period, 30

to be shaped by modern political developments. The difference in treatment of the Egyptian Nubians and Sudanese Nubians by British colonial powers influenced the statuses and experiences of the two groups following independence. As Fleuhr-Lobban succinctly summarizes, “the British colonial master of the two lands…constructed the basic racial hierarchy in the Nile Valley, which placed Nubians in an intermediate position between the Egyptians of the Nile Delta and the [Black people]of Sudan.”15 Thus, Egyptian Nubians were considered to be of ‘lowly’ status due to their proximity to Blackness, while Sudanese Nubians were praised for their identity as more ‘Arabized’ Muslims who had Turkish and Bosnian heritages.

Sudanese Nubians were considered Arabized riverain Muslims, and thus were treated favorably, allowing them to assume high-level positions predating and following the formation of an independent Sudan. As discussed by Sharkey, “Arabized riverain Muslims” were the manufacturers of the “core culture” of Sudan which excluded the inhabitants of non-Muslim formerly slaveholding areas.16 The British reinforced this hierarchy by often hiring Nubians for various service positions and clerical jobs. Their involvement within the colonial bureaucracy also meant that they did not remain isolated but traveled to Khartoum frequently, which increased their contact with Arabic and Islamic culture.17 Furthermore, Nubians were also granted admission to Gordon College, which was the first educational institution in Sudan, and produced the engineers of the mainstream Sudanese national identity who would later on lead the country into independence.18 Their seamless acceptance into Sudanese national identity meant that once independence came, the Nubians were in a prominent position and were well-represented in civil and political arenas.19 Sayed Ibrahim Ahmed, one of the most recognizable Sudanese personalities and an educational activist, was a Nubian

-ble sect of Sudanese society, Nubians continued to value and nourish their distinct identities. They considered their territory a ‘sanctuary’, and their home village remained a ‘point of reference and identity.’24 This is significant because it shows how although the national identity happily incorporated the Sudanese Nubians within its fold, their ethnic affiliation remained the core of their identity. They still continued to partake in their traditional cultural practices, converse in Nubian dialects, and reside in their territorial area. As there was no pressure for them to conform, they enjoyed the stability their identity offered them. While Nubian affiliation to Arab ancestry served to benefit the Sudanese Nubians, Nubian affiliation to Blackness and tribal affiliations in Egypt disadvantaged and tainted the experiences of Egyptian Nubians. Kronenberg states how, “one who has become acquainted with Nubians from the viewpoint of the Sudan, comes at a surprise when reading about Nubians in Egypt, to find frequent references to ‘slaves’ and ‘blacks’, or to witness the efforts that are made to deny that Nubians are of slave origin.”25 It was not only the proximity to Blackness that exposed Egyptian Nubians to discrimination and ‘otherness’, but also the reality of their diverse linguistic and territorial groups. There were two main linguistic groups that existed in Old Egyptian Nubia amongst many others: the Kenuz who spoke a Matoki dialect of Nubian, and the Fedija who spoke a related but different dialect.26 Although they shared many cultural similarities, there remained sharp intra-Nubian differences, and each major tribe lived together in their respective district.27 It is important to note that although the Nubians aligned themselves based on district and tribe, they were all relegated to the same position within the greater Egyptian domain. Nubians were constantly treated as a collective in order to more efficiently prescribe and brand their ‘otherness’. This also increased the amount of discrimination and stigmatization they faced.28

who fought for the independence of the country.20 Since independence there have been eight Nubian prime minAfter the last heightening of the Aswan Low isters.21 Sudanese history books reflect a strong Nubian Dam in 1933, Egyptian Nubians suffered the loss of presence; their ability to assimilate within the nationalist their agricultural land which forced them to migrate in framework shows that their distinctive identity did not droves to metropolitan centres in search of economic hinder their ability to assimilate. opportunities.29 Labor migration increased their contact Although they were well-represented and assimi- with suburban Egyptians which both exposed them to lated in the public sphere, Sharkey explains how “they mainstream culture and the Arabic language and cebecame a part of the mainstream without losing a sense mented their ‘outsider status’. Nubians were often reof their distinct Nubian identity.”22 Researcher Hasan ferred to as “barabra” in Egyptian Arabic, a word deDafalla corroborates this, stating, “It is generally obrived from the Greek word ‘barbaros’ used to describe served that the Nubians…do not freely mix with other foreigners. They also worked as domestic servants or in Sudanese. They tend to cling together.”23 As an honora31

As Egypt and Sudan gained independence in the 1950s, they grew to become deeply nationalistic states – particularly Egypt, where Gamal-Abdel Nasser’s populist fervor had captivated the Arab world. This political period witnessed an increase in the marginalization of Nubians as the strengthening of the independent nation-state required them to assimilate and sacrifice for the ‘greater good.’ Before their resettlement in 1964, Egyptian Nubians had lived with an ‘illusion of independence’ as their territories had remained isolated from the wider population. Each district had a local Nubian chief official responsible for reporting to the government and executing their orders.37 Similarly in Sudan, ‘The Nubians had clung to their narrow strip of fertile land along the banks of the Nile…they were separated from the rest of mankind… their Nile remained their sole life-giver.”38 The descriptions of Nubian life in both Sudan and Egypt during the time leading up to the construction of the dam are reminiscent of an isolated utopia. Their way of life was sacred to them, as their ceremonies and traditions remained the core of their social and cultural lives. However, each heightening of the Aswan low dam in 1913 and 1933 resulted in damage to the crop and agricultural area, which increased the migration of men into the city in search of income.39 This meant that men would often be away for extended periods of time, which put a dent in the traditional way of life. The strengthening of the independent state would only bring more disruption as the fabric of Nubian cultural identity would Therefore, it is unsurprising that the exclusion of slowly begin to unravel. the Nubians from the framework of Egyptian nationalist As the post-independent Egyptian state posiideology resulted in the reinforcement and strengthening tioned itself as the leader of the free Arab world it reof Egyptian internal identity. As noted, the Nubians had quested the unfaltering loyalty of its citizens as dedicatdistinct inter-tribal affiliations which relegated them into sub-categories. However, during the years leading up to ed and passionate nationalists. As DiMeo states, “Few the Aswan High Dam, the root of their shared common modern states experienced this combination of populist enthusiasm and systematic imposition of nationalism identity grew to be “based on political and economic grievances from the Egyptian government.”35 They grew more fully than Gamal Abdel-Nasser’s Egypt.”40 Although the political period witnessed the rapid industrito take even more solace in the protection which their villages and land gave them. In contrast, the harsh envi- alization and emancipation of Egypt, it was also characterized by the development of a specific national comronment of the city led migrants to seek the comfort and companionship of one another. Working-class Nu- munity. This effectively united modern Egyptians but bians remained within their social groups in the city and isolated the Nubians, whose darker skin and lack of mastery of the Arab language was ill-suited for the Panestablished unofficial ‘clubs’ where they would often gather, which eventually came to include, “recreational Arab nationalist structure being crafted. facilities, lessons in Arabic, and job recruitment.”36 In The ‘otherness’ of the Egyptian Nubians did this way, they continued to be isolated even amongst not mean they were exempt from being asked to sacrisuburban populations as their failure to integrate into fice for the ‘greater good’ of the nation. After all, it was the Egyptian ‘national’ image – as their fellow Nubians President Nasser who first used the term Nubian offiin Sudan had done – regulated and cemented their cially as he drew attention ‘to the great patriotic sacri‘outsider’ status. fice of the Nubians’ who would soon have to lose their service jobs.30 Fernea describes how, “to most baladi [meaning of the country] Egyptians, Nubians were not ‘baladi’ enough, they lacked the necessary qualities of Egyptian-ness.”31 Nubians were often ridiculed for their tribal dialects as Egyptians claimed they spoke ‘barbari’, pointing to their imperfect recitation of Arabic words and Islamic prayers.32 Egyptian Nubians’ inability to speak perfect colloquial Egyptian Arabic and recite Islamic prayer flawlessly also represented their inability to conform to the Egyptian nationalist identity. As David DiMeo discusses, “the presence of a distinctive Nubian language within the borders of Egypt disturbed this straightforward definition of Egypt as an Arabicspeaking nation. Egyptian nationalists could thus find more to bind them linguistically to fellow Arabs in Morocco or Yemen than with some of the people within their own borders.”33 This formal separation was also expressed within the political sphere: Maja explains how “because Egyptian nationalist leaders tended to view minorities as being incompatible with nation-building, census data thus effectively erased indigenous and minority presence, and it is therefore almost impossible to estimate the current number of Nubians in Egypt.”34 Thus, discrimination against Nubians was evident within multiple arenas, and implemented most strongly after a nationalist vision arose. Nationalism suggests the existence of a perfect ‘national subject’ and by adopting certain defining features that will reinforce this idea, nationalism simultaneously rejects the wide array of identities that exist within the state.

land and homes ‘for the benefit of all Egyptians.’41 The use of the word ‘patriotic’ is significant because by framing their resettlement as an act of duty to the nation, Nasser sent a subtle reminder that their ethnicity came second to their national identity. The Nubian connection to indigenous land is not merely symbolic but deeply cultural and personal, and making their displacement a direct attack on their ethnic heritage. On November 8, 1959 an agreement was reached between the United Arab Republic and the Sudan which outlined the construction of at least two dams, the Aswan High Dam in Egypt and the Roseries Dam in Sudan.42 The only mention of Nubians was in Item 7 on the agreement, which outlined each government’s responsibility to transfer inhabitants from the affected area.43 The development of the Aswan High Dam symbolized Nasser’s triumph, and was his crowning project that promised to elevate Egypt to a new status and spur its development.44 Its completion was thus imperative, as Nasser had much to prove to the international community and his fellow countrymen. However, the excitement over the construction concerning the dam was not shared by the Nubians who would have to uproot their lives and relocate to unknown areas. The experience of Egyptian Nubians under Nasser had grown to be increasingly characterized by radical change and frequent disruption to their way of life. The regime’s focus on security had isolated Egyptian Nubians, as it became difficult for them to enter Sudan and visit their relatives – they had to complete a long bureaucratic process in order to register themselves and enter Sudanese Nubia.45 This further weakened the fabric of the greater Nubian community as many relatives were divided from each other. The worst came with the construction of the dam, which increased the anxieties and concerns of both Egyptian and Sudanese Nubians. At a conference in 1986, Sudanese Nubian Ali Osman proclaimed that, “there was no doubt in our minds and sentiments that the building of the High Dam was a selfish political and cultural aggression mounted by the…governments of Egypt and Sudan against the peaceful Nubians.”46 Osman’s opinion was reflected in many traditional Nubian songs, tales, and poems which expressed similar disapproval and dissatisfaction.47 Even in Sudan where Nubians enjoyed a certain level of comfort, political rallies and protests against relocation took place. Some leaders were even arrested and jailed for months as a result of their dissent.48 Loss of land was not the only point of contention: their resettlement also symbolized that “they are not a single

people, but they are in fact Egyptian Nubians and Sudanese Nubians who could and would live apart.”49 Relocation represented how the state would enforce the continued physical separation of the Nubians, and signified the state’s lack of respect for their collective identity. Furthermore, the aloof attitudes of their respective governments signaled that the Nubians had no autonomy and would remain victim to the modern nation-state and its apparatus. While the Sudanese government did attempt to approach relocation in a somewhat just and considerate manner, the evacuation of Egyptian Nubians was a “relatively orderly affair” that did not seek to accommodate the concerns of Egyptian Nubians.50 The Sudanese government made efforts to maintain the appearance of taking the Sudanese Nubian population’s interests into consideration.51 They implemented a national committee for the High Dam which aimed to “safeguard the interests of the settlers.”52 The committee eventually decided upon Khashim Al-Girba, a town in the north-east, as the area of resettlement.53 The town was suburban, which meant that the Nubians would come into frequent contact with urbanized populations. It is unlikely that this arrangement was a coincidence. As Hasan Dafala, the Sudanese civil servant placed in charge of the Sudanese relocation efforts explains, “the planners followed an evolutionary concept of development and modernization: a better society and economy would replace the antiquated, traditional way of life of the Nubians.”54 The phrase “replaced the antiquated, traditional way of life” is important to analyze because it depicts how the government hoped that the Nubian’s movement to suburban areas would assimilate them into the mainstream national identity. As their villages isolated them from the wider population, their existence remained a point of contention for the government. Even though Sudanese Nubians were treated more favorably than Egyptian Nubians, their distinct identity remained a looming presence that threatened the composition of modern Sudanese society. The remarks of the respective heads of state to the Nubian people serve as another indication of their frame of mind and level of concern for the group. Sudanese President Abboud arrived in Wadi Halfa, the unofficial capital of Sudanese Nubia, on December 6, 1960 and delivered a passionate speech. He began by stating, “I had the impression that the impact of the event was hard upon you…and so I thought of coming here to stand by during this critical moment; but when I saw you today, I found you in a morale higher and spirit better than our own.”55 Dafalla, who witnessed 33

the speech, remarks how, “At this point his voice was choked…and tears were seen to fall from under his glasses.”56 The sincerity of Abboud’s emotion is undermined by the fact that it was clear that significant efforts were made to showcase that the administration was concerned. He continued on to say, “I promise to accept your choice of place, none of you will be forced to go anywhere against his will.”57 Abboud’s sentiments were perhaps an attempt to demonstrate how important Nubians were to Sudanese society. After all, he landed in Wadi Halfa with the Nubian Minister of Health Dr. Mohamed Ali. However, many Nubians considered Abboud’s speech merely a performance, aimed at quelling any dissent that might threaten his nationalist ideology.58

relatives and strangers.”64 This put a dent in the practies and identities of the distinct tribes as the organic nature of the community was disrupted. In Egypt in particular, new foreign neighbors posed another source of concern, as Kom Ombo was inhabited by a large number of upper-class Egyptians, or The Sayiidis.65 These new segregated communities disconnected Nubians from their tribal elders and networks and left them to integrate into the suburban atmosphere. Contact with mainstream Egyptian life also increased after the government failed to properly execute land compensation. Each household received about one acre upon arrival, and were promised the same amount of land they had in Old Nubia. However, according to Fahim, by 1979 only 60 percent of resettled families received new land.66 Furthermore, the quality of the new land was incomparable to that of Old Nubia. For example, the soil of Old Nubia was rich and plentiful, and the proximity of tribal networks meant that it was often cultivated in a communal way.67 Furthermore, after resettlement, a new law dictated that, “every person receiving land must become a member of the local government controlled ‘co-operative’ which can require the planting of certain crops, in the instance of New Nubia, each landowner was required to put 40% of his land to sugar cane.”68 The consequent disruptions to both Nubian communities and agricultural practices further distanced Nubians from the practices that constituted their unique identities.

Nevertheless, Abboud’s passionate remarks paralleled Nasser’s speech to Egyptian Nubians on January 10, 1960 in Aswan. Nasser considered the High Dam an irrefutably positive development: he proclaimed to the Nubians that “this will be an opportunity for you to also participate in the industrial renaissance in which we are walking today.”59 Framing the High Dam as an ‘opportunity’ for Nubian participation in the modern nation-state is representative of Nasser’s continued push for Nubians to prove their commitment to the country. He described acceptance of resettlement as “cooperation based on preserving our sovereignty and independence”60 – once again invoking nationalistic terminology to emphasize the importance of the state. While Nasser’s speech is a testament to his dedication to the build-up and modernization of Egypt, it is also indicative of how any resistance or opposition to thesedeThe lack of agricultural income also meant that velopment efforts was synonymous with a lack of na- Nubians in both Egypt and Sudan migrated in droves tionalistic vision and devotion. to major cities following resettlement in order to seek The construction of the High Dam in 1964 was opportunities for wage labor.69 In Egyptian Nubia, a devastating blow as it submerged Old Nubia and all of some villages had no adult men present due to the inits villages along with its agricultural land, date trees, and crease in labor migration.70 Increased contact with the historic remains.61 The relocation of Egyptian Nubians city centers meant Nubian men grew to be exposed to had taken place in 1963: they were transported from the orthodox Islamic practice that differed from their own land along the Nile and the Sudanese border to an area religious practices, and were required to converse more frequently in the Arabic language.71 However, both at Kom Obo, 40 kilometers north of Aswan.62 MeanNubian women and men were continuously aware of while, Sudanese Nubians were also evacuated in 1963 from Wadi Halfa to Khashim al Gharbia. The resettle- their status as ‘other.’ They continued to be stigmatized ment communities built by the government were uncer- for their skin color and grew to be more aware of their ‘otherness’ amongst the mainstream population.72 Altemoniously arranged according to family size, with no regard for the established tribal ties that existed in Old hough the Egyptian government hoped resettlement would ignite Nubian assimilation into the national fabNubia.63 The houses in Old Nubia were organized by tribal district and kinship networks and were often large ric, the Nubians only grew to be increasingly conscious and spacious, with distinct artistic patterns on the out- of the differences between them and their fellow countrymen. side of significance to Nubian culture. However, the new spatial organization in the resettled organizations The pre-relocation ritualistic way of life was meant that “tribes and families who used to live next to distorted and erased by mainstream Arabic and Islamic each other, were separated and dispersed amongst non- culture in both the Egyptian and Sudanese nation-

states. The protection of the Nubian village was lost, and exposure to the established national culture slowly diluted traditional Nubian rituals and practices. Although there were significant attempts to hold on to customary practices, the new structure and environment made it increasingly difficult to preserve the blending of pagan religious practices and Islamic components which formed the core of Nubian identity. Loss of traditional practices extended to the commemoration of life-events such as weddings, deaths, and births, which involved the Nile as the symbolic heart of Nubia.73 Soon, pressure from male labor migrants to, “stamp out pagan and popular practices,” as they were ‘unorthodox’ and ‘religiously incorrect’ began to develop.74 Fahim details this experience in Egypt, and explains how religious factionalism was not unique to Nubians, but was, “an extension of a nation-wide movement.”75 Increased contact between Nubian men and orthodox leaders during their urban work experiences produced the pressures to conform.76 Nile ceremonies were almost completely eliminated as the new resettlement location was too far from the river.77 The slow death of Nubian cultural practices is simultaneously evidence of their slow assimilation into mainstream culture. Their proximity to urban centres infiltrated their ethnic structures and gradually eroded the internal composition of Nubian societies. Sudanese Nubians were acquainted with the cultural structure of the country, and thus were able to assimilate more seamlessly. Khartoum was home to many Nubian clubs, which allowed migrant laborers to assimilate into the urban work structure while also maintaining their heritage.78 Furthermore, they did not face heavy discrimination against their skin color and thus had a different experience than did Egyptian Nubians. Geiser states that “unquestionably, one of the major objectives of the Egyptian administration in planning the resettlement has been to integrate Nubians more fully into national life.”79 Young Nubians were enrolled in the national education system which operated exclusively in the Arabic language, and promoted Egyptian popular culture and nationalist ideology.80 Their proximity to upper-class Egyptians and the wider population also meant an increase in the influence of orthodox Islamic practices. Men began to pray at the local mosque before wedd-

-ings – a practice that was unusual in Nubian culture – while women began to pray five times a day and prioritized the memorization of the Quran.81 Exposure to Egyptian society was also exacerbated by television, which was a staple of the resettled Nubian household.82 Through modern devices and communal networks mainstream culture flowed into the crevice of every Nubian home. The exposure of Nubians to the Arabic-Islamic structure in their respective countries both eroded Nubian linguistic and cultural diversity, and also reinforced their self-perception as a distinct ethnic group. As noted, the populations of Old Nubia were not cohesive nor uniform but were divided amongst tribal lines. In their former home, these differences were apparent and inherent to their societal structure. While resettlement led to a significant rise in assimilation, which continued to grow throughout the years, it also resulted in Nubians discarding their tribal markers and uniting under the umbrella term of ‘Nubian’ – the identity prescribed to them by outsiders.83 As the distance grew between them and their intra-group affiliations, they tended to hold on to their core identity. By identifying simply as Nubian, they effectively preserved the image of their ‘blessed land’ and declared their fondness for it. In the present day, Nubian languages continue to die out, with only elders being able to speak their dialect fluently.84 Nubian customary practices have also become a relic of a historic past, as popular Egyptian and Sudanese culture has become dominant. However, the Nubian experience is not uncommon. The carving of arbitrary modern borders has often threatened the very existence of ethnic groups as they become vulnerable to the nationalist ideologies that glorify a specific ethno-linguistic and religious identity as indicative of the ideal citizen. The Arab world itself has a unique history of nationalisms. The rise of independent Arab states in the 1950s and 1960s laid the structure for the ideologies that would characterize the Arab nations for years to come. Gamal Abdel-Nasser’s preoccupation with thwarting European influence and Ibrahim Abboud’s concern over internal oppositions to his rule meant that the internal stability of both the Egyptian and Sudanese nation was the main priority of their governments. The price of this stability was that Nubians had to endure constant hardship for the ‘greater’ good of the nation – a sacrifice that resulted in the dissolution of their traditional societies and practices. The Nubian experience demonstrates that the nationalist framework remains a 35

rigid and unforgiving structure that often leaves little room for alternative expressions of reality and individuality. The resettling of Nubians and the erasure of their cultural identity represents the modern nation-state’s declared requirement of assimilation, and its willingness to control ‘outsiders’ in order to maintain the cohesive image of a united peoples. Notes Sondra Dungan Hale, “The Changing Ethnic Identity of Nubians in an Urban Milieu Khartoum, Sudan,” PhD diss., (University of California, Los Angeles, 1979), 96. 1

Christine Gilmore, “‘A Minor Literature in a Major Voice’: Narrating Nubian Identity in Contemporary Egypt,” Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics 35 (2015): 53. 3 Gilmore, “A Minor Literature:” 53. 4 Ibid. 5 Hale, “The Changing Ethnic Identity,” 82. 6Ibid. 7 Hale, “The Changing Ethnic Identity,” 84. 8 Ibid. 9 Ibid. 10 Hassan Dafalla, The Nubian Exodus. (London: C. Hurst. in association with the Scandinavian Institute of African Studies Uppsala, 1975,), 45. 11 Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban and Richard A. Lobban, “New Social Movements in Nubian Identity among Nubians in Egypt and Sudan,” in New Social Movements in the African Diaspora: Challenging Global Apartheid, ed. Leith Mullings and Manning Marable, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, 314. 12 Gilmore, “A Minor Literature,” 53. 13 Robert A. Fernea and Aleya Rouchdy, “Contemporary Egyptian Nubians,” (presentation, Nubian Culture: Past and Present: Main Papers Presented at the Sixth International Conference for Nubian Studies, Uppsala, Sweden, 11-16 August 1986), edited by T. Hägg, 365–88. (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International), 1987. 2

370. 14 Ibid. 15 Fluehr-Lobban and Lobban, “New Social Movements,” 315. 16 Heather J. Sharkey, Living with Colonialism: Nationalism and Culture in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 30.

Fluehr-Lobban and Lobban, “New Social Movements,” 315. Sharkey, Living with Colonialism, 13. 19 Hale, “The Changing Ethnic Identity,” 132. 20 Dafalla, The Nubian Exodus, 66. 21 Andreas Kronberg, “Nubian Culture in the Sudan in the 20th Century: State of Research,”(presentation, Nubian Culture: Past and Present: Main Papers Presented at the Sixth International Conference for Nubian Studies, Uppsala, Swedden, 11-16 August 1986), edited by T. Hägg, 390-418. (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International), 1987. 17 18

391. 22 Sharkey, Living with Colonialism, 30. 23 Dafalla, The Nubian Exodus, 62. 24 Kronberg, “Nubian Culture in the Sudan,” 396. 25 Kronberg, “Nubian Culture in the Sudan,” 391. 26 Robert A. Fernea and John G. Kennedy, “Initial Adaptations to Resettlement: A New Life for Egyptian Nubians,” Current Anthropology 7, 3 (1966): 398. 27 Fernea and Kennedy, “Initial Adaptations to Resettlement:” 368. 28 Ibid. 29 Fernea and Kennedy, “Initial Adaptations to Resettlement:” 369. 30 Fernea and Kennedy, “Initial Adaptations to Resettlement:” 369. 31 Fernea and Kennedy, “Initial Adaptations to Resettlement:” 370. 32 Fernea and Kennedy, “Initial Adaptations to Resettlement:” 379. 33 David DiMeo, “Unimaginable Community: The Failure of Nubian Nationalism in Idris Ali's Dongola,” Research in African Literatures 46, 1 (2015): 78. 34 Maja Janmyr, “Nubians in Contemporary Egypt: Mobilizing Return to Ancestral Lands,” Middle East Critique 25, 2 (2016): 131. 35 Fernea and Kennedy, “Initial Adaptations to Resettlement:” 368. 36 Fernea and Kennedy, “Initial Adaptations to Resettlement:” 369 -370. 37 Fernea and Kennedy, “Initial Adaptations to Resettlement:” 371. 38 Dafalla, The Nubian Exodus, 92. 39 Alan W. Horton, “The Egyptian Nubians: Some Information on Their Ethnography and Resettlement,” Northeast Africa Series 11, 2 (March 1964), 286. 40 DiMeo, “Unimaginable Community:” 73. 41 Fernea and Kennedy, “Initial Adaptations to Resettlement:” 369. 42 DiMeo, “Unimaginable Community:” 76. 43 Dafalla, The Nubian Exodus, 86. 44 DiMeo, “Unimaginable Community:” 77. 45 Sherif Mohyeldeen, The Egypt-Sudan Border: A Story of Unfulfilled Promise, (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2020), 2. 46 Ali Osman Moh Salih, “Nubian Culture in the 20th Century: Comments on Session IV,” (presentation, Nubian Culture: Past and Present: Main Papers Presented at the Sixth International Conference for Nubian Studies, Uppsala, Sweden, 11-16 August 1986), edited by T. Hägg, 419-432. (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International), 421. 47 Ibid. 48 Kronberg, “Nubian Culture in the Sudan,” 408. 49 Salih, “Nubian Culture in the 20th Century,” 42. 50 Kronberg, “Nubian Culture in the Sudan,” 390. 36

Ibid. Ibid. 53 Dafalla, The Nubian Exodus, 403. 54 Ibid. 55 Dafalla, The Nubian Exodus, 92. 56 Ibid. 57 Dafalla, The Nubian Exodus, 92. 58 Ibid. 59 Gamal Abdel Nasser, “The address by President Gamal Abdel Nasser to the People of Nubia,” translated by Leena Badri (speech, January 11, 1960), Bibliotheca Alexandrina, http:// www.nasser.org/MediaViewer.aspx?VideoID=SPCH-AUD-23392en. 51 52

Gamal Abdel Nasser, “The Address by President Gamal Abdel Nasser at the Opening of the Power Plant of the Aswan Low Dam,” translated by Leena Badri (speech, January 10, 1960), Bibliotheca Alexandrina, http://www.nasser.org/TextViewer.aspx? TextID=SPCH-806-en. 61 Maja Janmyr, “Nubians in Contemporary Egypt:” 128. 62 Mary Youssef, “The Aesthetics of Difference: History and Representations of Otherness in Al-Nubi and Wahat Al-Ghurub,” Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics 35 (2015): 36. 63 Horton, “The Egyptian Nubians:” 295. 64 Ibid. 65 Peter Geiser, “The Myth of the Dam,” American Anthropological Association 75, 1 (1973): 186. 66 Fernea and Kennedy, “Initial Adaptations to Resettlement:” 374. 67 Ibid. 68 Horton, “The Egyptian Nubians:” 296. 69 Naglaa Mahmoud, “Islam, Migration, and Nubian Women in Egypt: Muhammad Khalil Qasim's Al-Shamandurah & Al-Khalah Aycha,” Dotawo: A Journal of Nubian Studies 5 (2018): 151. 70 Gilmore, “A Minor Literature in a Major Voice:” 287. 71 Mahmoud, “Islam, Migration, and Nubian Women:” 151. 72 Ibid. 73 Hussein M. Fahim, “Change in Religion in a Resettled Nubian Community, Upper Egypt,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 4, 2 (1973): 167. 74 Fahim, “Change in Religion:” 173. 75 Ibid. 76 Fahim, “Change in Religion:” 176. 77 Fahim, “Change in Religion:” 173. 78 Hale, “The Changing Ethnic Identity,” 369-370. 79 Geiser, “The Myth of the Dam:” 354. 80 Ibid. 81 Fernea and Rouchdy. “Contemporary Egyptian Nubians,” 377. 82 Ibid. 83 Geiser, “The Myth of the Dam:” 354. 84 Fluehr-Lobban and Lobban. “New Social Movements in Nubian Identity,” 313. 60

Bibliography

Dafalla, Hassan. The Nubian Exodus. London: C. Hurst. in association with the Scandinavian Institute of African Studies Uppsala, 1975. DiMeo, David. “Unimaginable Community: The Failure of Nubian Nationalism in Idris Ali's Dongola.” Research in African Literatures 46, 1 (2015): 72-89. Fahim, Hussein M. “Change in Religion in a Resettled Nubian Community, Upper Egypt.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 4, 2 (1973): 163–77. Fernea, Robert A., and Rouchdy, Aleya. “Contemporary Egyptian Nubians.” Presentation, Nubian Culture: Past and Present. Main Papers Presented at the Sixth International Conference for Nubian Studies, Uppsala, Sweden, 11–16 August 1986. Edited by T. Hägg, 365–88. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1987. Fernea, Robert A., and Kennedy, John G. “Initial Adaptations to Resettlement: A New Life for Egyptian Nubians.” Current Anthropology 7, 3 (1966): 349–54.

Fluehr-Lobban, Carolyn, and Lobban, Richard A. “New Social Movements in Nubian Identity among Nubians in Egypt and Sudan.” In New Social Movements in the African Diaspora: Challenging Global Apartheid, edited by Leith Mullings and Manning Marable, 312–24. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. Nasser, Gamal Abdel. “The address by President Gamal Abdel Nasser to the People of Nubia.” Translated by Leena Badri. Speech, January 11, 1960. Bibliotheca Alexandrina, http://www.nasser.org/ MediaViewer.aspx?VideoID=SPCH-AUD-23392-en. Nasser, Gamal Abdel. “The Address by President Gamal Abdel Nasser at the Opening of the Power Plant of the Aswan Low Dam.” Translated by Leena Badri. Speech, January 10, 1960. Bibliotheca Alexandrina, http:// www.nasser.org/TextViewer.aspx?TextID=SPCH-806-en. Geiser, Peter. “The Myth of the Dam.” American Anthropological Association 75, 1 (1973): 184–94. Gilmore, Christine. “‘A Minor Literature in a Major Voice’: Narrating Nubian Identity in Contemporary Egypt.” Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics 35 (2015): 39–57. Hale, Sondra Dungan. “The Changing Ethnic Identity of Nubians in an Urban Milieu: Khartoum, Sudan.” PhD diss. University of California, Los Angeles, 1979. Horton, Alan. “The Egyptian Nubians: Some Information on Their Ethnography and Resettlement.” Northeast Africa Series 11, 2 (March 1964): 283-302 Janmyr, Maja. “Nubians in Contemporary Egypt: Mobilizing Return to Ancestral Lands.” Middle East Critique 25, 2 (2016): 127–46. Kronberg, Andreas. “Nubian Culture in the Sudan in the 20th Century: State of Research.” Presentation, Nubian Culture: Past and Present. Main Papers Presented at the Sixth International Conference for Nubian Studies, Uppsala, Sweden, 11–16 August 1986. Edited by T. Hägg, 390-418. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1987. Mahmoud, Naglaa. “Islam, Migration, and Nubian Women in Egypt: Muhammad Khalil Qasim's Al-Shamandurah & Al-Khalah Aycha.” Dotawo: A Journal of Nubian Studies 5 (2018): 147-165. Mohyeldeen, Sherif. The Egypt-Sudan Border: A Story of Unfulfilled Promise. Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2020. Salih, Ali Osman Moh. “Nubian Culture in the 20th Century: Comments on Session IV.” Presentation, Nubian Culture: Past and Present. Main Papers Presented at the Sixth International Conference for Nubian Studies, Uppsala, Sweden, 11–16 August 1986. Edited by T. Hägg, 419-432. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1987. Sharkey, Heather J. Living with Colonialism: Nationalism and Culture in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003.

Youssef, Mary. “The Aesthetics of Difference: History and Representations of Otherness in Al-Nubi and Wahat 38 Al-Ghurub.” Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics 35 (2015): 75-99.

What Gets Lost in Translation: An Analysis of Political Discourse and the Periphery in Mohamed Choukri’s For Bread Alone By: Yasmeen Atassi With tragedy abruptly setting the tone of the novel, For Bread Alone by Mohamed Choukri portrays a jarring personal narrative focused not on creating the perception of idealized nationhood and national struggle, but instead on Choukri’s experience of its shortcomings. Much like other popular works of Arabic literature, For Bread Alone, or Al-Khubz Al-Hafi, was made accessible to the Western literary sphere through an English translation, but unlike other Arabic novels, this novel was published in English translation before publication in Arabic. Through the tragic first-person narrative of Mohamed Choukri, For Bread Alone exposes the horrific realities of poverty and social marginality in Morocco under the Spanish Protectorate and challenges assumptions about political dispositions by representing the narrator’s forced social ignorance. For Bread Alone further demonstrates the problematic nature of these assumptions through the implications of the novel’s English translation, as compared to the authentic narrative of Mohamed Choukri.

voice through which these sentiments are portrayed and, therefore, the motive that inspires them, are adjusted to reconfigure the dynamics of power. The language of struggle and pain, and frank grotesqueness, carries the potential to elevate the reality of poverty at the fringe of Moroccan society. Through the work he puts forward in For Bread Alone as well as his testimonies in The View from Within, Choukri testifies that this rather fervent narration was not told in vain, but rather in a deliberate effort to create a space for the unwelcome and the indigestible.1 It is through his narrative as a socially detached individual throughout his childhood and early adolescence that he critiques Moroccan society and the political irresponsibility that created his circumstances. For Bread Alone emerges from both the oral tradition, and Mohamed Choukri’s narration of his personal memoirs to the translator Paul Bowles.2 Given the unique and complex process of its first transcription, For Bread Alone has literary and—most importantly—cultural significance in its process of publication and popularization. Between the difficulty presented by the multiple linguistic passages that the novel initially underwent and the positionality of the translator, For The expression of personal narrative in the pop- Bread Alone faced many challenges in how the translation was conceptualized and produced. ularized English edition of Choukri’s For Bread Alone Given these challenges, the narrative of struggle passes through a filter of translation that is, consequentis portrayed differently by Paul Bowles than the original ly, heavily informed by the Orientalist expectations of its Moroccan text because of Bowles’ conceptualization of translator, Paul Bowles. The significance of Bowles’s the novel was formulated through his preconceived contributions to the novel lies largely in his cultural and notions about the illiteracy of Moroccan society. In the scholarly predispositions as an American author and introduction of For Bread Alone, Bowles highlights the translator who dedicated most of his life and work to “beautiful illiteracy” which he believes to be instrumen3 Tangiers. His motivations in bringing Choukri’s narra- tal to the raw emotional appeal of the novel. He implies that this illiteracy in itself allows for a narrative tive to English-reading readers, consequently, produces like this to emerge, as illiterates, “not having learned to a story meant for an English-reading audience. By ex- classify what goes into [their] mind, remember everyploring the process of translation, the dichotomy be- thing.”4 As Bowles brings his fascination with tween the meaning embedded by the author, and the “illiteracy” to the experiences of an adolescent Choukri, meaning—or presumption—superimposed by the trans- the tone of the novel shifts from being heartwrenching, to critical. As Choukri bares his most vullation becomes obvious and cannot be ignored in a ho- nerable experiences to the readers for the sake of politilistic and intersectional critique of the novel’s transla- cal commentary, Bowles’s fascination with an Orientaltion. Though the overarching sentiment of unglorified ist portrayal of the subaltern creates a narrative that no longer reproduces to Choukri’s central purpose of unstruggle is present throughout Choukri’s narrative, the glorification.5 At the outset of the novel, Choukri lives 40

his formative years as a frequently displaced, abused and neglected child who eventually escapes home and essentially lives as an orphan at his own will.6 The series of unfortunate events that Choukri survives—presented to the readers in a precarious sense as one tragedy befalls him after then next—give rise to minute instances of self-reflection that are consequently expanded in the novel. Choukri reflects primarily on the state of affairs that, out of his control, have resulted in his pitiful situation. Choukri shows this keen awareness and misery because of his familial misfortunes when he says to himself, “Why does my father go to prison, and my mother sells vegetables, leaving me alone with nothing to eat, when this man stays at home with his wife? Why can’t we have what other people have?”7 These musings indicate a larger theme of autonomy that Choukri aims to capture and portray in his novel. It is through these brief moments of introspection that Choukri portrays his early awareness of the gravity and dreadfulness of his circumstances compared to others around him in society. In those formative years of his childhood and early adolescence, Choukri delivers his critique of the societal failures that have trapped him and those like him: the narrator’s periodic moments of self-reflection point to a larger political argument, embedded in his critique of his circumstances.. As a former ‘illiterate’ far removed from the sphere of political discourse, his narration of his experience on the socio-economic national periphery speaks heavily to structural failures in the national discourse. The awareness that Choukri personifies in his autobiographical novel shows that the pain and suffering that is so central to the novel’s realism are deliberately used to superimpose these self-reflections. It is the use of these sordid scenes throughout the novel that becomes a point of contention when the intentions of the translation come up. A full understanding of the novel’s significance as a seminal work of Arabic realist literature warrants a critical analysis of the translation itself, as well as the message to which Choukri dedicates his narrative. Bowles’s literary predispositions and ethnographic idealizations of a ‘primitive’ Morocco obscure Choukri’s message in the novel and use narratives idealizing the “third world” to push his own agenda onto the novel.8 This idealization fits into Edward Said’s concept of Orientalism as it highlights the chaotic and disorderly aspects of this particular Arab society, and presents it through a romantic lens that places the onus of misfortune onto a people’s own nature rather than on external despotic forces.9 The romanticization of illiteracy, and of the people and nations of the “third world”, as previously mentioned, portrays a major barrier to the protag-

onist as an endearing trait that adds character to the narrative. Through this lens, Bowles mischaracterizes an individual’s misfortunes in order to fulfill his own vision of Moroccan charm. He does not use his power of translation to portray the reality of the subaltern of Morocco, but rather further idealizes this image of illiteracy and passive oblivion and uses it to inform the privilege of political detachment of the West. Bowles takes away the explanations and regret of the grotesque and instead replaces it with futile and dehumanizing feelings of sexual pleasures and vindication. A comparison between the Arabic and English translation of one of the central scenes of the novel demonstrate this exact detachment from internalized regret or humiliation as a crucial sentence seems to have gotten lost in the English translation. In the Arabic publication of For Bread Alone, Choukri explicitly expresses the overbearing desire to cry after he inadvertently prostitutes himself to the ‘maricone’ in the luxury car.10 Though a small omission, the choice to overlook this overpowering emotion in Choukri’s narrative represents Bowles’ Orientalist perception of these sexual encounters. In addition to this omission, Bowles seems to have added a small sentiment of affirmation that contradicts the feelings of disgust reflected by the Arabic narration. “Are all the ‘maricones’ as nice as he was?” Choukri seems to ask himself in Bowles’s translation of the incident.11 At the end of the same incident in the Arabic narrative, Choukri instead asks himself, “Do they [maricones] all enjoy sucking as well”?12 Filled with self-loathing and a flurry of emotions that can only be labelled as sexual confusion, Choukri’s perception of the situation through an Arabic narration reflects suffering whereas Bowles’ translation reflects autonomy. Choukri directly addresses this use of explicit imagery in The View from Within by stating that he depicts these, “immoral scenes to search for morality and ideals”; the purpose of such imagery is to show that there is no pleasure in the awareness of immorality and that, “they do not rejoice in their corruption as they are compelled to act corruptly under the strain of disgraceful social oppression.”13 The author’s own words highlight that there is no benefit to the censorship that the novel eventually suffered when published in Arabic: he shows that each detailed moment is essential to grasping the full image of the lives of the Moroccan underclass. Choukri’s testimony in For Bread Alone, when compared to the Bowles’s narrative, serves as a cautionary tale about how damaging relishing immorality for the sake of it can be to a portrait painstakingly painted by grueling personal experience. 41

The translation of For Bread Alone by Paul Bowles shifts the narrative of the novel from a political critique of the faults of Moroccan society to a socially detached personal narrative that chronicles the personal downfalls of the narrator rather. Bowles’ translation thus also fails to situate the narrator in the broader political sphere that defines the post-colonial Arabic novel. By personifying the struggles of Choukri and posing them as personal shortcoming or products of circumstance, Bowles erases the structural forces that dictate the narrator’s existence, and instead replaces them with a sense of unconcerned melancholy that governs the narrator’s life. Although Choukri articulates the cruciality of political underpinnings, Bowles’ translation renders the political as minor oversights. The critical difference in both authors’ literary obligations is most apparent in their placement of political responsibility. While Bowles’ portrayal holds the narrator himself and the “community” he is part of liable, Choukri’s portrayal of family and community life shows that communal engagement is almost obsolete. Mohamed Choukri distances himself from the political sphere and climate at the time of his childhood, during the French and Spanish Protectorates in Morocco, to highlight the social imbalances that act as barriers to the romanticized political involvement. Choukri’s place in society does not allow him to participate in the fight for nationhood or unity against the oppression of the Protectorate because, according to him, these colonial powers are not the only ones responsible for his victimhood. Ignorance about political upheavals in Morocco at the time of the novel is most evident during Choukri’s narration of the events unfolding on the proposed ending date of the Protectorate – what is described in the Arabic version as the “fateful” day.14 In this chapter, Choukri emphasizes the dialogue that informs him about the presumed importance of that day and contrasts it with the ease with which Choukri dismisses the reality of the Protectorate he exists under This section demonstrates that a lack of awareness about political issues under the colonial Protectorate – rather than the absence of Spanish influence – has produced an apathetic response on the part of the Moroccan body to looming colonial authority.

word choice and narrative tone affect the novel’s message, For Bread Alone by Muhammad Choukri, translated by Paul Bowles, demonstrates the significance of nuances in language in constructing a politicized and realist narrative.

Notes Ferial Jabouri Ghazoul and Barbara Harlow, The View from within: Writers and Critics on Contemporary Arabic Literature: a Selection from Alif: Journal of Contemporary Poetics, (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 1994), 223.

Nirvana Tanoukhi, “Rewriting Political Commitment for an International Canon: Paul Bowles’s For Bread Alone as Translation of Mohamed Choukri’s Al-Khubz Al-Hafi,” Research in African Literatures 34, 2 (2003): 129. 3 Tanoukhi, “Rewriting Political Commitment:” 134. 4 Mohamed Choukri, For Bread Alone 2nd edition, trans. Paul Bowles.(London: Telegram, 2006). 5. 2

Subaltern here refers to the colonial communities that are socially and politically removed from the hierarchies of power. The notion of the subaltern emerges from the postcolonial theories such as those posed by Antonio Gramsci and explored by intellectuals such as Edward Said. 5

6 7

Choukri, For Bread Alone, 56 Choukri, For Bread Alone, 21.

Tanoukhi, “Rewriting Political Commitment:” 130. See Tanoukhi for more details. 8

Edward W. Said, Orientalism, (New York: Vintage Books,1994.). 10 Mohamed Choukri, Al-Khubz Al-Hafi 6th edition, (Beirut: Dar Al-Saki, 2000), 107. 9

Choukri, For Bread Alone, 99.

12 Choukri,

Al-Khubz Al-Hafi, 107.

13 Ghazoul

and Harlow, The View from within, 222.

14 Choukri,

Al-Khubz Al-Hafi, 119.

Choukri’s dedication of his personal narrative to the outcry against social and political structural failures in Morocco unearths the importance of realism in Arabic postcolonial literature. Though the novel For Bread Alone serves as a standing symbol for nuanced Arab political commentary, a close analysis of the translation speaks to the significance of the novel beyond the scope of its literal content. By analyzing how discrepancies in 42

Bibliography Choukri, Mohamed. Al-Khubz Al-Hafi 6th edition. Beirut: Dar Al-Saki, 2000. Choukri, Mohamed. For Bread Alone 2nd edition. Translated by Paul Bowles. London: Telegram, 2006. Ghazoul, Ferial J., and Harlow, Barbara. The View from within: Writers and Critics on Contemporary Arabic Literature. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 1994. Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books. 1994. Tanoukhi, Nirvana. “Rewriting Political Commitment for an International Canon: Paul Bowles’s For Bread Alone as Translation of Mohamed Choukri’s Al-Khubz Al-Hafi.” Research in African Literatures 34, 2 (2003): 127– 44.

The Copts and Egyptian National Identity From the 1919 Revolution to the Early Mubarak Period By: Lara Hovagimian This paper studies how Egypt’s changing national identities affected Copt-state-Church relations. It examines how the evolving character of Egyptian national identity affected the state’s Coptic community and its identification with the Egyptian nation-state. It considers the various ways in which Coptic identity was marginalized and illustrates how various Egyptian regimes isolated the Copts from the Egyptian state from 1919 to the early Mubarak era. The paper also examines how the Egyptian state’s “national unity” narrative hindered Coptic integration in the Egyptian nation. It illustrates how the rhetoric of “national unity” turned any discussion of anti-Coptic discrimination into a taboo, and thus left Coptic concerns largely unaddressed. The paper argues that the emergence and sustainment of a distinct Coptic identity was a response to the state’s marginalization of Coptic identity, exclusion from national narratives about the Egyptian nation, and the creation and sustainment of the neo-millet partnership between the Coptic Church and the state during the Nasser and Mubarak periods. 1919 Revolution and the Birth of National Unity Rhetoric Both the colonial and nationalist models of social order promised the Copts a higher status in Egypt after centuries of dhimmi status. On one hand, colonial society broke the legacy of Muslim dominance in Egypt. However, it also placed barriers to the advancement of all indigenous Egyptians.1 Coptic advancement was blocked by the predominance of the old Turkish elite and the influx of Syrians – many of whom were Christians – and by Europeans. After 1882, the British “damage[ed] Coptic interests by favouring Muslims in order to buy political credit with the khedive and the Ottomans.”2 Most educated Copts thus supported the Urabi movement and its slogan, “Egypt for the Egyptians.” However, many remained reluctant to fully embrace the nationalist cause: they appear to have been alarmed by the rhetoric of holy war against the British “infidel” that the nationalists adopted after the British bombardment of Alexandria in 1882.3 On a popular level, some Muslims often did not distinguish between anticolonial and anti-Christian sentiment.4 Many Copts thus questioned whether a nationalist state would accept them as equals. This concern was expressed in the two

Coptic-held newspapers, al-Watan and Misr, where some (usually urbanized) Copts articulated nuanced support for the British occupation of Egypt until 1919. They argued that the dominance of a Christian foreign power was preferable to Muslim rule.5 These arguments, as well as a popular belief that European colonialists favoured Christians, helped lead many Muslim nationalists of the National Party and the Constitutional Reform Party to conclude that the Copts served British colonial interests. Copts were denounced and portrayed as traitors in many Muslimrun newspapers, such as Mustafa Kamil’s pro-Ottoman Liwa.6 Some even accused the Copts of trying to build a separate nation and planning to take over the Egyptian government with the help of the British.7 The accusation that the Copts were working with foreign governments to undermine Egyptian sovereignty would continue to haunt the Coptic community in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, particularly during the Sadat era.8

While some Copts were clearly on a collision course with the nationalist movement, others joined it. Prominent Coptic notables such as Wisa Wasif and Wasif Butrus Ghali refused to attend the Coptic Congress, and instead met with Muslim leaders at the Egyptian Congress in May 1911 to demonstrate unity and discuss national issues.9 In the beginning, the antagonism between Egyptian territorial nationalism or Egyptianism, and Ottoman-Islamic nationalism was a hindrance to Coptic integration in the nationalist movement. However, the September 1911 Italian invasion of Tripoli helped ignite an inclusive struggle for independence that overlooked the differences between Copts and Muslims.10 By 1919, the growing unpopularity of British imperialism, the pronounced Turkish nationalist character of the Ottoman government, and the demise of the Ottoman Empire helped Egyptianism gain leverage over the Ottomanist or pan-Islamist alternatives. The 1919 Revolution, a pan-Egyptian popular revolt against British colonial authority, was deemed a triumph for Egyptianism and became a symbol of national unity. Its slogan, “Religion belongs to God and the Nation belongs to everyone”, and its famous logo of a crescent embracing a cross continue to shape the public representation of Muslims and Copts in conte45

-mporary Egypt.11 The idea of Egyptians as a “single and unique race” gained popular support during the 1919 Revolution.12 The revolution has remained a significant marker for the articulation of a uniquely “Egyptian” national identity, marked by MuslimChristian cooperation. This show of national unity remained a pillar in the definition of “Egyptianness” in the Egyptian national imagination.13 The national unity discourse of the 1919 Revolution sought to create a “nation” where one had previously not existed. However, in many ways, Egyptian national unity was a tree without roots. While the 1919 Revolution and the Wafd Party seemed to provide a formula for bridging differences due to religious affiliation through promises of brotherly cooperation and anticolonial solidarity, the place of religion and religious communities within this formula remained undefined. The new nation-state had no program for the social and legal implementation of equality between Muslims and Copts. In fact, the Wafd denied that inequality between Muslims and Copts even existed: it preached the unity of the nation in an effort to counter British attacks that it was not representative of the Egyptian people.14 This “emphatic denial of the significance of religious differences, even if they continued to exist in legal, institutional, and social terms… [thus became] a matter of dogma.”15 Dogma was then used to make the discussion of Coptic grievances seem taboo and “un-Egyptian.” “National unity” was portrayed as a necessary pillar of Egyptian identity. The Coptic members of the Wafd thus largely embraced a homogenizing nationalist outlook.16 They rejected the notion of the Copts as a “minority” as defined by international law in order to prevent the British government from claiming jurisdiction over the Copts and other Christian minorities, as it had done in other Middle Eastern states.17 Claiming “minority” status for the Copts would be seen as an invitation for the British to act on behalf of the Copts, British involvement would threaten Coptic Wafdist leaders’ power as it would place their nationalist credentials into question and make them seem like British stooges.18 As a result, most members of the Coptic elite ignored the sectarian issues that emerged after 1923 – after all, they enjoyed substantial freedom and equality following the 1919 Revolution. Traditional boundaries between Muslims and Copts thus remained resilient for the vast majority of Copts, leading many of them to feel betrayed by the nationalist movement.19 The apprehension of exacerbating Muslim-Copt relations by publicly discussing them clearly made it impossible for the “Coptic Question” to be fully addressed.20 The liberal democrat-

-ic experiment in Egypt was almost stillborn, and the territorial conception of Egyptian national identity was immediately contested in the interwar period. King Fouad expressed hatred towards the leaders of the Wafd Party as he suspected them of harbouring republican sentiments. He violated Egypt’s constitutional life and kept the Wafd out of power, despite its popular mandate, by cooperating with the British.21 As a result of his actions, “Liberalism as an ideology and political system was discredited by the deficiencies and contradictions of the constitutional monarchy under the shadow of colonialism and its failure to address growing social unrest.”22 The inability of the Wafd to grapple with increasing unemployment and poverty exacerbated Egyptians’ disenchantment with the party. Large numbers of Egyptians became disillusioned with democracy and turned away from the Wafd Party, gravitating towards new religious and semi-religious groupings like the Muslim Brotherhood, Shabab Muhamed, and Young Egypt. These groups’ ideologies included a strong anti-Christian element: they were opposed to the emancipation of Copts from their former status as dhimmis. The Liberal Constitutionalist Party exploited this climate of fanaticism for its own political gain. Liberal Constitutionalist leaders accused the Wafdist Copts of trying to sabotage the second treaty of independence that was being negotiating, and insinuated that there was a Coptic conspiracy to rule Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood further exacerbated Muslim-Christian hostilities by criticizing the Wafd – whose leaders consisted of both Muslims and Copts – as anti-Islamic. Their rhetoric increased sectarian violence in Egypt, resulting in the stoning of churches, the destruction of schools, the beating of priests, and the disruption of Christian religious processions.23 Nevertheless, Coptic Wafd members did not question Egyptian national unity or the existence of a single Egyptian nation, as they would have been seen to be collaborating with foreign powers.24

Growing Islamization and the Rise of “Coptism” Relations between the Coptic and Muslim elites slowly began to deteriorate with the rise of Islamic revivalism in the interwar period. Coptic Wafdist politicians initially refused to accept the term “minority” to describe the Coptic community for details previously outlined. Until after the signing of the 1936 Treaty of Independence, all the Coptic Wafdist politicians maintained their 1922 stance of objecting to the minority protection clause in the constitution. However, the growth of Muslim belligerence in the interwar period and the 1940s led some Coptic elites to reconsider their 46

previous stance.25 In 1946, the Coptic newspaper Misr, which had always been Wafdist, demanded that the new Anglo-Egyptian treaty then under negotiation include a clause clearly guaranteeing equality to Egypt’s minorities.26 This directly contrasted from what the editor of Misr, Salama Musa, had written in the newspaper al-Akbar in 1922 when a similar clause was under discussion: “Let Tewfik Dos know that the Copts prefer to sustain all the sufferings he fears… rather than to record in Egypt’s constitution… that which makes them look like foreigners… and impute to their compatriots the charge of fanaticism.”27 Islamic revivalism thus clearly weakened the “national unity” discourse propagated during the 1919 Revolution. It redefined Egyptian national identity in Islamic terms, excluding the Copts and other non-Muslims from the Egyptian nation. This led to the rise of “Coptism” and Coptic revivalist parties in the 1930s, 1940s, and early 1950s. For example, the Coptic Nation, which was founded in 1952, was created as a mirror image of the Muslim Brotherhood. The party modeled its slogans on those of the Muslim Brotherhood, trained paramilitary units, and propagated Coptic Egyptianism as a counteridentity to revivalist Islam. The Coptic Nation and similar parties were banned by Nasser when he banned all Egyptian political parties in 1954. From the 1950s on, the Coptic revival movement became part of the Coptic Church establishment.28 Through the “Sunday School Movement”, Coptic youth became increasingly aware of their unique heritage: they “rediscovered” a glorious past and sought to revive it. 29 By 1963, the Coptic Sunday School Movement had reached one million students between the ages of five and sixteen through 4000 branches and 5000 teachers.30 Such programs reinforced the notion of a distinctive Coptic identity. For example, many young Copts became exposed to ideas articulated in Yaqub Nakhla Rufila’s Tarikh al-Umma al-Qibtiyya, which established the pattern for nearly all subsequent works on modern Coptic history. In his pioneering work in Coptic historiography, Rufila described the Copts as a “race.” and traced Coptic history from the Tower of Babel and the “Pharaonic state” to the Persian, Greek, Roman and Muslim invasions and “occupations” of Egypt, until the nineteenth-century “return to existence of the “Coptic nation.”31 This did not mean that Copts no longer identified as “Egyptian”: on the contrary, the Coptic identity was perceived to be the “authentic” Egyptian identity, as it was “untainted” by Arab or Muslim blood. The Coptic religious revivalist movement of the interwar period formed the basis of modern Coptic identity.32

Nasser, the Politicization of the Coptic Church, and the Arabization of Egyptian Identity President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s repression of civil society groups further suppressed public debates about Coptic concerns: “the crushing dominance of a rather sterile and dogmatic discourse of national unity, [deepened] the tendencies already present in the liberal era.”33 By abolishing liberal institutions like the Parliament in which the Coptic lay elite held significant power, Nasser weakened the Christian secular aristocracy, and instead politicized the Coptic Church. Nasser also greatly weakened the Communal Council. His land reform decree authorized the Agrarian Reform Authority to confiscate all church holdings beyond 200 feddans; he placed the remaining land in the hands of a new body, the Coptic Orthodox Waqf Organization, whose members were to be chosen by the Coptic Pope. This deprived the Communal Council of its financial control and expanded the Church’s power by default.34 Pope Kirollos VI further politicized the Church by modeling the Church’s interactions with the state on that of his predecessors during the millet era. He developed a “millet partnership” with Nasser, setting a precedent for Copt-state relations that has lasted – albeit with greater strains – until the present day. Pope Kirollos presented the concerns of the Coptic community directly to President Nasser and promoted loyalty to the regime among the Copts.35 He instrumentalized the teachings of Christianity to promote Nasser’s Arab Socialism: The church has a right to guide its sons towards what is beneficial for them in religious and social matters. And it has a right to exhort them and inform them about their spiritual and moral duties. To serve the fatherland is first and foremost a spiritual duty. The person who lives for himself is an egotistical human being. And our religion denies us selfishness, individualism, isolationism, and passivity. Our religion enjoins us to participate in building society in an active and effective way…The Bible says: “Let no one seek his own, but each one the other’s well-being” (1 Corinthians 10:24) and “Be of the same mind toward one another.” (Romans 12:16).36 In exchange for Pope Kirollos’s loyalty, Nasser pledged to guarantee the security of the Coptic community and acknowledge the status of the Pope as the Copts’ legitimate representative and spokesperson.37 The Church thus became the sole representative of Copts in Egypt 47

to make Egypt a Christian state.47 Sadat later went as far as to falsely accuse the Copts of scheming with the Lebanese Phalange to partition the Arab countries into religious entities. As detailed by Sana Hasan, he claimed that the Copts, ““were being trained for military operations by the Phalange to realize the Coptic goal of creating a Christian state in Upper Egypt, aided by donations from the CIA, West German intelligence, and the Nasser’s repression of the Muslim Brotherhood, Christian Democratic Party of Germany.”48 These conintroduction of top-down single-party politics, creation spiracy theories further alienated the Copts from an of an elaborate security apparatus, strict control of the already Islamized Egyptian state and society. media, and establishment of a secular official ideology Whereas Pope Kirollos had been an advocate facilitated the temporary disappearance of sectarian tenof the national unity discourse, Pope Shenouda threatsions which had begun to resurface during the last years 40 ened to lead the Church in the opposite direction.49 He of the monarchy. However, Nasser’s efforts to unite refused to support Sadat’s policies, thereby temporarily the nation using pan-Arabist rhetoric were not always embraced by the Coptic intelligentsia or the population rupturing the neo-millet partnership between the at large.41 Most Copts saw a tension between their Cop- Church and state. He attacked the idea that Sharia Law tic Egyptian identity and Arab identity.42 They perceived should be the principal source for legislation and claimed that “Islam was being made the new form of Nasser’s immersion of Egypt in the Arab world as an nationalism.”50 Pope Shenouda demanded government effort to shape Egyptian national identity in “uncompromising Arabic colours, [entailing] a thorough protection of Christians and their property, an end to redirection of society towards Islamic culture.”43 Many government seizures of church property, freedom from harassment to convert to Islam, and that the Sadat reof them felt excluded from pan-Arabism because they saw themselves as members of the Coptic “race.” They gime abandon all efforts to apply Sharia Law to nonMuslims.51 In 1980, he canceled Christian Orthodox saw this race as inherently Egyptian, not Arab. NeverEaster celebrations in protest of what he perceived to theless, Nasser’s relatively secular policies and crackbe President Sadat’s government’s passivity and inacdown on the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist tion toward acts of violence waged by militant Islamist organizations were generally welcomed by the Coptic groups against Christians. This attracted global attencommunity. tion to sectarian violence in Egypt.52 As a result, in Coptic Conspiracies and the Islamization of Egyp- 1981, Sadat deposed Pope Shenouda as the head of the Coptic Orthodox Church, sent him into rural exile and tian Identity kept him under house arrest until 1985.53 President Anwar Sadat excluded Copts from the “we-group” of the Egyptian nation by Islamizing Egyp- The Increasing Relevance of Coptism/Coptic Cultian nationalism and recreating myths of Coptic conspir- tural Nationalism acies.44 Sadat’s conciliatory attitude towards militant IsSadat’s Islamization of Egyptian identity in the lamist groups and support for the Islamization of Egyp- 1970s excluded many Copts from Egyptian public life, tian society contributed to an increase in sectarian vio- more so than during the Nasser era. This led more of lence. In July 1972, the Assembly of Christian Churches them to become involved in distinctly Coptic cultural in Egypt called for the elimination of restrictions on events. The Church “capitalized on the great value church construction. Four months later, an unauthor- placed on religious identity in fin de siècle Egypt to ized church in al-Khankah was set ablaze.45 Sadat denied outbid the state for the loyalty of its beleaguered Christhe sectarian nature of this incident and similar acts of tian citizens.”54 The Church now began to sponsor varviolence against churches. In a famous speech on the ious social and religious groups, including Bible, hagianniversary of the May “Corrective Revolution”, Sadat ography, and Coptic archaeology groups. Videotaped claimed that the “issue of al-Khankah Church” was legends of Coptic saints and martyrs became ubiquiraised by telegrams from Canada, the United States, and tous as the only music many children were allowed to Australia.46 He delegitimized the Copts’ protests against listen to were Church hymns. These efforts at nurturthe al-Khankah incident – and other instances of sectari- ing a potent Coptic religious culture marked an inan violence – as a Coptic effort to undermine Egyptian creased dedication to the Coptic revivalist movement national unity and sovereignty and incite sectarian strife of the 1930s and 1940s. The Church’s aim was to – and “religious affiliation became the Copts’ main marker, not their citizenship.”38 The state has since tried to control the Copts primarily as a separate sectarian group rather than as Egyptian citizens. Political sectarianism in Egypt and the confessionalization of Coptic identity can therefore be understood as a by-product of authoritarian corporatism.39

“imbue the faithful with the conviction that the church is the social space where one receives one’s true identity.”55 It is clear that the exclusion of the Copts from the Egyptian state on a religious basis in the interwar period and in the 1970s allowed the Church to play a significant role in shaping the Coptic community’s identity.56 The Return to the Neo-Millet Partnership Pope Shenouda had to make a choice: he could either assert Coptic rights and thus criticize the state, or he could avoid the political marginalization of the Coptic Church. There is substantial evidence to suggest that President Hosni Mubarak terminated Pope Shenouda’s house arrest in 1985 in exchange for Pope Shenouda’s commitment to abandon his confrontational style of politics. As Paul Sedra describes, “The Patriarch came to the difficult realization that, in the end, he is on the lap of the government.” 57 Pope Shenouda cooperated with the Mubarak regime and embraced its rhetoric of national unity throughout the late 1980s and 1990s. He also adopted a non-confrontation policy toward sectarian incidents, although they continued unabated throughout Mubarak’s presidency. In exchange, Mubarak acknowledged Pope Shenouda’s role as the only legitimate voice of the Coptic community in political affairs. It is clear that this acknowledgment remained the sine qua non for the Pope’s support of the state; he only withdrew unconditional support for Mubarak’s NDP Party in 2006, when Mubarak indirectly challenged his leadership over the Copts by tolerating the expansion of a parallel church, whose leader claimed to be the Pope of the Coptic Orthodox people. Nevertheless, Pope Shenouda and many Copts generally remained loyal to the regime because “Pope Shenouda [was] dependent upon Mubarak, the church hierarchy [was] dependent upon Shenouda, and the Coptic community [was] dependent upon the hierarchy for social services and political leadership.”58 The renewed neo-millet partnership sustained the confessionalization of Coptic identity that had begun during the Nasser era. This policy helped maintain the Coptic community’s sectarian identity by it reinforcing their “otherness” from the Egyptian state and society.59

Most of the Coptic laity remained loyal to Pope Shenouda, who had largely abandoned the struggle against sectarian violence and anti-Copt discrimination. However, the relatively liberal atmosphere of the 1990s and 2000s allowed for a gradual decrease in the taboo surrounding the discussion of sectarian violence and Coptic grievances.61 Groups like the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR) developed into vigorous advocates of “persecution discourse”, a narrative which, contrary to the national unity discourse, referred to the Copts as a “minority” and criticized government support for Islamist attacks against Copts.62 “Persecution discourse” soon also came to be advocated by Coptic media. Increasing press freedom in the 1990s allowed the only major Coptic newspaper in Egypt, Watani, to adopt a direct approach to Coptic grievances during the late 1990s and early 2000s.63 While there had been a clear shift in Coptic historiography and public opinion from the national unity discourse to one of persecution in the 1970s in response to Sadat’s rhetoric and polices, the liberal period of the 1990s and 2000s allowed the Coptic middle class to more openly articulate these grievances. It emphasized its identity as distinct from the notion of Egyptian identity constructed by the Egyptian state.64

The public expression of persecution discourse radically challenged common assumptions that Muslims and Copts always lived in harmony in Egypt, and the Egyptian nation-state’s founding The public expression of persecution discourse radically challenged common assumptions that Muslims and Copts always lived in harmony in Egypt, and the Egyptian nation-state’s founding myth which emphasized Muslim-Coptic cooperation dating back to the 1919 Revolution. Coptic counter-discourses, both in the press and social media, made it clear that a considerable part of Coptic public opinion demanded a greater recognition of Coptic perspectives in the history and identity of the Egyptian nation.65 Egyptian national narratives failed to consider the experiences of a vast majority of Copts, often alienating them from Egyptian society and leading them to adopt their own, separate Coptic identity. While Coptic identity has often been framed as the “authentic” The Coptic Citizenry and the Dawn of “Persecution Egyptian national identity, it has vastly differed from the state’s conception of Egyptian identity and histoDiscourse” ry.66 From the 1919 Revolution to the early Mubarak Conclusion era, the search for collective rights for the Copts was seen as “a sectarian aberration from the national consenThis paper argued that the emergence and sussus.”60 Protests against sectarian violence, rather than tainment of a distinct Coptic identity was clearly a rethe violence itself, were criticized by the state as threats sponse to the Wafd Party’s and the Egyptian state’s to national unity and therefore labelled “un-Egyptian.” marginalization of Coptic identity, its exclusion from 49

national narratives about the Egyptian nation, and the creation of the neo-millet partnership between the Coptic Church and the state during the Nasser and Mubarak periods. It examined the evolution of Coptic identity from the 1919 Revolution to the early Mubarak era, illustrating how Egyptianist, Arabist, and Islamist conceptions of Egyptian identity affected the state’s Coptic community and Coptic identification with the Egyptian nation-state. The paper examined how the Egyptian state’s “national unity” narrative hindered Coptic integration in the Egyptian nation, as it turned the discussion of anti-Coptic discrimination into a taboo. The relative liberalization of the Egyptian media in the early Mubarak era allowed for middle class Copts to discuss these taboos more openly. Notes 1

Sebastian Elsasser, The Coptic Question in the Mubarak Era (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 27. 2 Christopher A. Bayly, “Representing Copts and Muhammadans: Empire, Nation, and Community in Egypt and India, 18801914,” in Modernity and Culture: From the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean, ed. Leila Tarazi Fawaz and Christopher A. Bayly (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 171. 3 Bayly, “Representing Copts and Muhammadans,” 177. 4 Elsasser, The Coptic Question in the Mubarak Era, 31. 5 Elsasser, The Coptic Question in the Mubarak Era, 27. 6 Bayly, “Representing Copts and Muhammadans,” 178. 7 Elsasser, The Coptic Question in the Mubarak Era, 30. 8 Sana S. Hasan, Christians Versus Muslims in Modern Egypt: The Century-Long Struggle For Coptic Equality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 116. 9 Elsasser, The Coptic Question in the Mubarak Era, 30. 10 11

Bayly, “Representing Copts and Muhammadans,”180.

Elsasser, The Coptic Question in the Mubarak Era, 32-33. 12 Israel Gershoni and James P. Jankowski, Egypt, Islam, and the Arabs: The Search For Egyptian Nationhood, 1900-1930 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), 43. 13 Vivian Ibrahim, “Tracing the Coptic Question in Contemporary Egypt,” in Routledge Handbook of Minorities in the Middle East, ed. Paul S. Rowe (New York: Routledge, 2019), 80. 14 Elsasser, The Coptic Question in the Mubarak Era, 33-39. 15 Elsasser, The Coptic Question in the Mubarak Era, 36. 16 Mariz Tadros, Copts at the Crossroads: The Challenges of Building Inclusive Democracy in Egypt (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2013), 35. 17 Nicola Pratt, “Identity, Culture, and Democratization: The Case of Egypt,” New Political Science 27, 1 (2005): 78-79. 18 Saba Mahmood, “Religious Freedom, the Minority Question, and Geopolitics in the Middle East,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 54, 2 (2012): 435.

Gorman, Historians, State, and Politics in Twentieth Century Egypt, 152. 25 It is important to note that given the political climate of the time, this reconsideration was likely to have called the nationalist credentials of many Coptic leaders into question. 26 Hasan, Christians Versus Muslims in Modern Egypt, 47-53. 27 Hasan, Christians Versus Muslims in Modern Egypt, 53. 28 Elsasser, The Coptic Question in the Mubarak Era, 53-54. 29 Paul Sedra, “Class Cleavages and Ethnic Conflict: Coptic Christian Communities in Modern Egyptian Politics,” Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 10, 2 (1999): 224-225. 30 Paul Sedra, “Writing the History of the Modern Copts: From Victims and Symbols to Actors,” History Compass 7, 3 (2009): 1058. 31 Sedra, “Writing the History of the Modern Copts:” 1054. 32 Sedra, “Class Cleavages and Ethnic Conflict:” 219. 33 Elsasser, The Coptic Question in the Mubarak Era, 73. 34 Hasan, Christians Versus Muslims in Modern Egypt, 103. 35 Sedra, “Class Cleavages and Ethnic Conflict:” 225. 36 Elsasser, The Coptic Question in the Mubarak Era,123. 37 Sedra, “Class Cleavages and Ethnic Conflict:” 225. 38 Mahmood, “Religious Freedom:” 436. 39 Elsasser, The Coptic Question in the Mubarak Era, 80. 40 Elsasser, The Coptic Question in the Mubarak Era, 73. 41 Tadros, Copts at the Crossroads, 40. 42 Tadros, Copts at the Crossroads, 40. 43 Tarek Osman, Egypt on the Brink: From the Rise of Nasser to the Fall of Mubarak (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2010), 166. 44 David Zeidan, “The Copts: Equal, Protected or Persecuted? The Impact of Islamization on Muslim-Christian Relations in Modern Egypt,” Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 10, 1 (1999): 57. 45 Sedra, “Class Cleavages and Ethnic Conflict:” 226. 46 “Al-Sadat Speech On May Corrective Revolution Anniversary,” Cairo Domestic Service (May 15, 1980), Translation by the Foreign Broadcast Information Service, FBIS Daily Report, Middle East and Africa, FBIS-MEA-80-096, May 15, 1980, page 15, 23, heading: Al-Sadat Speech on May Corrective Revolution Anniversary, Arab Republic of Egypt, NewsBank, Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) Daily Reports. 47 “Al-Sadat Speech On May Corrective Revolution Anniversary,” 20-25. 48 Hasan, Christians Versus Muslims in Modern Egypt, 116. 49 Sedra, “Class Cleavages and Ethnic Conflict:” 226. 50 Tadros, Copts at the Crossroads, 68. 51 Sedra, “Class Cleavages and Ethnic Conflict:” 226. 52 Tadros, Copts at the Crossroads, 67. 53 Mahmood, “Religious Freedom:” 437. 54 Hasan, Christians Versus Muslims in Modern Egypt, 201. 55 Hasan, Christians Versus Muslims in Modern Egypt, 201. 56 Hasan, Christians Versus Muslims in Modern Egypt, 201-208. 57 Sedra, “Class Cleavages and Ethnic Conflict:” 227. 58

Sedra, “Class Cleavages and Ethnic Conflict:” 228. Mahmood, “Religious Freedom:” 436. 60 Elsasser, The Coptic Question in the Mubarak Era, 158. 19 61 Elsasser, The Coptic Question in the Mubarak Era, 212. Elsasser, The Coptic Question in the Mubarak Era, 3362 Sedra, “Class Cleavages and Ethnic Conflict:” 232. 39. 63 20 Anthony Gorman, Historians, State, and Politics in Twentieth 64 Elsasser, The Coptic Question in the Mubarak Era, 162. Ibrahim, “Tracing the Coptic Question in Contemporary Century Egypt: Contesting the Nation (London and New York: Egypt,” 81. Routledge, 2003), 152. 65 21 Elsasser, The Coptic Question in the Mubarak Era, 211-220. Sana S. Hasan, Christians Versus Muslims in Modern Egypt: 66 Elsasser, The Coptic Question in the Mubarak Era, 211-220. The Century-Long Struggle For Coptic Equality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 47-48. 22 Elsasser, The Coptic Question in the Mubarak Era, 41. 23 Hasan, Christians Versus Muslims in Modern Egypt, 43-53. 59

Bibliography “Al-Sadat Speech On May Corrective Revolution Anniversary.” Cairo Domestic Service (May 15, 1980). Translation by the Foreign Broadcast Information Service. FBIS Daily Report, Middle East and Africa, FBISMEA-80-096, May 15, 1980, page 15, 23, heading: Al-Sadat Speech on May Corrective Revolution Anniversary, Arab Republic of Egypt. NewsBank, Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) Daily Reports. Bayly, Christopher A. “Representing Copts and Muhammadans: Empire, Nation, and Community in Egypt and India, 1880-1914.” In Modernity and Culture: From the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean, edited by Leila Tarazi Fawaz and Christopher A. Bayly, 158-203. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002. Elsasser, Sebastian. The Coptic Question in the Mubarak Era. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). Gershoni, Israel and Jankowski, James P. Egypt, Islam, and the Arabs: The Search For Egyptian Nationhood, 1900-1930. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987. Gorman, Anthony. Historians, State, and Politics in Twentieth Century Egypt: Contesting the Nation. London and New York: Routledge, 2003. Hasan, Sana S. Christians Versus Muslims in Modern Egypt: The Century-Long Struggle For Coptic Equality. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Ibrahim, Vivian. “Tracing the Coptic Question in Contemporary Egypt.” In Routledge Handbook of Minorities in the Middle East, edited by Paul S. Rowe, 79-88. New York: Routledge, 2019. Mahmood, Saba. “Religious Freedom, the Minority Question, and Geopolitics in the Middle East.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 54, 2 (2012): 418-446. Nicola Pratt, “Identity, Culture, and Democratization: The Case of Egypt,” New Political Science 27, 1 (2005): 69-86. Osman, Tarek. Egypt on the Brink: From the Rise of Nasser to the Fall of Mubarak. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2010. Sedra, Paul. “Class Cleavages and Ethnic Conflict: Coptic Christian Communities in Modern Egyptian Politics.” Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 10, 2 (1999): 219-235. Sedra, Paul. “Writing the History of the Modern Copts: From Victims and Symbols to Actors.” History Compass 7, 3 (2009): 1049-1063. Tadros, Mariz. Copts at the Crossroads: The Challenges of Building Inclusive Democracy in Egypt. Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2013. Zeidan, David. “The Copts: Equal, Protected or Persecuted? The Impact of Islamization on Muslim-Christian Relations in Modern Egypt.” Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 10, 1 (1999): 53-67.

Revival of Bektashism in Post-Communist Albania: Internal Developments and Transnational Connections By: Foti Vito On 27 January 1991, following the end of the communist dictatorship and the ban on all religious practices in Albania, a provisional committee for the revival of the Bektashi community was formed in Tirana.1 This was a defining moment for the revival of Bektashism in Albania and, more generally, the revival of Islam in the post-communist Balkans. When the World Headquarters of the Bektashi (Kryegyjshata Botëtore Bektashiane) subsequently reopened in Tirana on 22 March 1991, on the occasion of Nevruz, a new community emerged which has been increasingly active in reviving Bektashi religious institutions and practices in postcommunist Albania.2 While religious revival was more complex in Albania than other Balkan countries due to the experiences of multi-denominationalism and twentythree years of state atheism,3 the revival of Bektashism in Albania has proven to be a particular case, worth further examination. Among the dervish orders in Albania, Bektashism is considered the most influential and enjoys a separate organizational structure from the Muslim community of Albania, the latter being the main organization of Sunni Islam.4 This paper sets out to examine the efforts made by the Bektashi community to revitalize Bektashi religious institutions and practices in postcommunist Albania, and links these efforts to internal developments and transnational connections during the period under discussion. It strives to offer insight into the larger question regarding what extent could elements of Islam, particularly Bektashism, survive the communist regime and how Islam reorganized itself in the fragmented religious field that characterized postcommunist Albania.

-ary Haji Bektash Veli, who lived in Anatolia in the second half of the thirteenth century, where he is said to have founded the order (tarikat).6 Bektashi doctrines are characterized by their Shiite and pantheistic beliefs which have integrated various traditions, including elements of Christianity and folk religions.7 This syncretism contributed to the establishment of Bektashism as one of the leading dervish orders during the Ottoman period, where it spread to the Balkans and made significant contributions to the formation of Muslim communities in the region.8 By the fifteenth century, the Bektashis gained considerable influence and their tekkes (convents, lodges) became widespread in the Balkans partly due to their close ties with the Janissaries, the elite infantry troops of the sultan. While the date of arrival of the Bektashis in Albania is contested, historical records establish their noticeable presence in Albanian lands by the seventeenth century.10 When the Janissary corps were dismissed in 1826 in an effort to modernize the Ottoman military, the Bektashi order also became the subject of state persecution and was threatened by major decline.11 Doja describes how the Albanian lands, which were outside of the direct authority of the central Ottoman administration, consequently became a sort of “exile” for members of the Bektashi order.12 Clayer similarly underscores that “a ‘solidification’ of a properly Albanian Bektashism took place in the western confines of the Empire”13 as elements of Albanian nationalism were incorporated into Bektashi lore, especially in the southern Albanian lands where most Bektashi tekkes were located.14 Scholars generally agree that the Bektashis played a noteworthy role during the Albanian “national awakening” (Rilindja) from 1878 onwards as many leading figures of the movement belonged to the order, although this may be one of the myths surrounding Albanian Bektashism.15 Following the independence of Albania in 1912/13, it is estimated that approximately 15 to 20 percent of the Albanian population were members of Understanding Bektashism and Its Historical Presthe Bektashi order.16 For context, the multience in Albania denominationalism in the new frontiers of Albania Over the course of its development, Bektashism meant that approximately 70 percent of the population survived several crises and gradually became deeply were Muslims, 20 percent were Christian Orthodox, rooted in Albania. The Bektashi order of dervishes is and the remaining 10 percent were Catholics.17 The considered one of the many heterodox Sufi groups of Bektashi, located mainly in central and southern AlbaIslam that spread from Central Asia to Anatolia and lat- nia, were of numerical importance within the country er to the Balkans.5 The name originates from the legend- and many dervishes outside of the country were also of 52

there were two tekkes outside of the country that sought to carry on Albanian Bektashism but their impact on isolated communist Albania was insignificant.32 One was in Gjakova, Kosovo under the direction of Baba Qazim Bakalli, and the other near Detroit, Michigan was founded in 1954 under the direction of the notable Baba Rexheb.33 Bektashi activity, which continued towards for- Fragmented Religious Arena and Internal Develmalizing a religious congregation within the new Albani- opments an nation, was gradually weakened when the Communist Since the restoration of religious freedom in 1990, the Party of Enver Hoxha came to power in 1944. The communist regime led an ideological campaign against Albanian Bektashis have sought to re-organize their religion in order to root out competing centres of loyal- community in a fragmented religious arena marked by ty, and state efforts to undermine Islam were particularly the communist legacy. The socialist heritage and experiences of state atheism led to skepticism on the rempronounced due to the Muslim majority population.20 nants of religion in Albania, and rationalist approaches Similar to other religions, the communist authorities to religion became viewed as old-fashioned.34 While the gained complete control over the Bektashi order through ongoing purges and an atmosphere of political end of the religious ban brought about the revival of multiple denominations, Bria underscores that the reterror.21 Most of the Bektashi babas (heads of a tekke) vival of Islam was “rather complicated as a result of its were forced into submission and many faced their historically mosaic character in Albania.”35 During the deaths, as outlined by Trix in a tentative list of babas who suffered during early communist rule.22 While the early years of the post-communist period, Clayer notes 1945 statute of Albanian Bektashism showed clear op- how the institutions of Sunni Islam repeatedly asserted that the Bektashism did not constitute a separate reliposition to the communist leadership, the Kryegyjshata gious organization, arguing that there were only three was assumed by Baba Ahmet Myftari two years later religions in Albania: Islam, Christian Orthodox, and who was forced into serving as a “puppet of the re23 gime.” These developments contributed to fracturing Catholicism.36 If the unknown percentage of Bektashis became recognized by successive governments as an the transnational connections of Bektashism, as the clandestine Bektashis in Egypt and Turkey declared their independent religion, and therefore separate from the independence from the Kryegyjshata in 1949 and elected percentage of Muslims in the country, some were concerned this could lower the percentage of Muslims to Baba Ahmed Sirrî as head of the order in Cairo.24 After 1967, when the communist regime formal- less than 50 percent, making them a relative majority.37 ly banned all forms of religion from Albanian public and Therefore, there was considerable competition between Sunni Islam and Bektashism during the early postprivate life, little is known about the development of Bektashism afterwards. The regime embarked on a cul- communist period, and Clayer notes how this also led tural revolution which Briar describes as an attempt “to to internal struggle within the Bektashi leadership as expel any form of reference to the transcendent except some clerics argued Bektashism should be recognized the cult of the Dictator and the myth of rationalist pro- as a sect of Islam while others argued in favour of a separate organizational structure.38 This question was gress.25 Places of worship, including most Bektashi tekkes and tybres (shrines) were closed or destroyed, with thoroughly debated from 1993 to 1998, until both sides came to emphasize Bektashism as “another” Islam, one their babas imprisoned or killed.26 Out of fifty-three that was more acceptable, non-fundamentalist and mysBektashi tekkes in Albania, Trix notes that only six re27 tical.39 Concurrently, nationalist rhetoric and references mained standing. Although Clayer underscores that to the religion of “Albanianism”40 increasingly framed religious traditions were secretly passed down in some the post-communist period, also influencing the develfamily circles, particularly in rural areas,28 the punishment for those found carrying out private religious ritu- opment of Bektashism.41 The Bektashis became more als was imprisonment or exile.29 Accordingly, the ban on accommodationist in their statutes, attempting to create a patriotic image of Bektashism by hearkening back to religion largely prevented the transmission of religious 30 the Rilindja.42 Many Bektashi individuals involved in the traditions to those who grew up in an atheist society. As Elsie describes, “the Bektashi community had been Albanian national movement became revered, most wiped out. All that remained were the memories of the notably Naim Frashëri,43 who was nearly canonised as a Baba of Honour on the occasion of Nevruz in 1999.44 faithful, old people who were too frightened to pass their knowledge on to the next generation.”31 Notably, While the most reliable statistics note that approximateAlbanian origin.18 After the newly established Republic of Turkey abolished all mystical orders in 1925, the Albanian Bektashi established the Kryegyjshata in Tirana in 1927, solidifying Bektashism as a part of Albanian national myth and identity.19 Bektashism Under The Communist Regime

particular, a considerable re-composition took place due to the arrival of Islamic groups from the neighbouring Balkan countries, the Gulf States, Iran, Turkey, Indonesia, and Malaysia.56 As Clayer underscores, “each of them [brought] its own version of Islam, its own financial power, its own networks, its own pieces of religious corpus from which the local actors can draw according to their sensibilities, their needs and their interests.”57 Considering the Bektashis, they primarily received support from Iran and Shiite oriented groups due to some common beliefs.58 Doja notes that Iran created various publication programmes, financed research and cultural activities in Albania, and provided educational opportunities for new Albanian Bektashi dervishes to study in Iran.59 However, Elsie argues that the Bektashis did not have a “patron” to fund their revival in the same way that other religious communities did,60 and Babuna similarly notes that the Bektashis received substantially less support than the Muslim community.61 After the re-establishment of ties with Bektashis abroad, the international authority of Bektashism also emerged as a main issue. In order to reaffirm Bektashism as an international religious community with its centre in Albania, the Albanian Bektashis adopted various statutes proclaiming the international character of the Kryegyjshata.62 To this end, the Kryegyjshata also convened various international congresses in Tirana, but as Clayer argues, “the Albanian Bektashi leaders have theoretically reaffirmed the international dimension of their Community and their head, but in reality have only reinforced their control over the pan-Albanian network of Bektashi tekkes.”63 For instance, Clayer notes that only five out of twenty-four members of the newly created General Council of the Bektashi Community were tekkes from outside of Albania: two tekkes representing the Albanian populated Tetovo region in Macedonia, the tekke of Gjakova in Kosovo, the tekke of Detroit, and the last one being the tekke of the Albanian diaspora in IstanTransnational Connections and Influences bul.64 Elsie similarly notes that “it is mostly only the As Albania was strictly isolated during the latter half of Albanian Bektashi abroad who respect the authority of communist rule, the collapse of communism attracted the Kryegyjshata in Tirana,” while other Bektashis, such various transnational actors who influenced the religious as those remaining in Turkey, only uphold cordial ties revival process in the country. Clayer describes how all with the Kryegyjshata.65 Accordingly, the re-established of the religious communities became “part of a broader international authority of Albanian Bektashism is better external religious scene” as Albanians from abroad, mis- described as pan-Albanian.66 sionaries, and members of transnational networks arrived in Albania and created various relations with reli- Conclusion gious communities.54 Notably, the lack of material reThe internal developments and transnational sources in post-communist Albania gave these external connections that influenced the revival of Bektashism actors significant influence, even among the larger religious communities.55 Focusing on the revival of Islam in in post-communist Albania have significantly affected -ly 2 percent of the population of Albania is Bektashi,45 Elsie estimates that up to 10 percent of Albanians might identify as Bektashi through cultural affiliation rather than religious belief.46 This distinction is emblematic of the historically mosaic character of Islam in Albania and the accommodationist contours of Albanian Bektashism. The rehabilitation of religion after 1990 also meant importance was placed on rebuilding Bektashi tekkes and tyrbes, as well as recreating an administrative structure. Considerable amounts of volunteers from around the country, particularly from the Bektashi heartlands of Mallakastra, Tepelena, and Skrapar, offered their labour and construction materials to reconstruct and maintain viable structures.47 Since the mid-1990s, most of the tekkes and tyrbes destroyed after the ban on religion have been reconstructed, albeit in mostly simpler forms.48 In some cases, brand new and larger tekkes were redesigned where old ones stood.49 A functional administrative structure was also recreated based on an earlier system, dividing the country into the six gjyshatas (administrative districts) of Gjirokaster, Korça, Kruja, Elbasan, Vlora, and Berat.50 However, as Mustafa notes, the primary challenge for the revival of Bektashism in Albania has not been rebuilding sacred sites, instead it has been the significant lack of clergy and apprehension towards those ostensibly wishing to join the Bektashi community.51 Elsie similarly underscores the severe shortage of babas in comparison to the continual restoration of tekkes in the country, noting that most of the babas who survived the communist regime are now very elderly and there is little hope of finding younger replacements.52 In addition, there has been serious concern regarding those with no interest in becoming Bektashi per se but interested in gaining rewards from the rebuilding project, especially due to the financial benefits associated with increasing Bektashi pilgrimages and tourism to notable sites such as Mount Tomorr.53

the features and hallmarks of Bektashi authority. The communist legacy resulted in continuing skepticism towards religion in Albania, which contributed to the reorganization of Bektashism as a more accommodationist religion. In addition, the fragmented religious arena that characterized post-communist Albania placed the Bektashi community in competition with the Muslim community, informing the development of Bektashism as an alternative form of Islam, as well as one that attempted to leverage its role during the Albanian national movement in order to gain credibility. Further, while many destroyed Bektashi tekkes and tyrbes were successfully reconstructed, the small number of remaining babas has seriously threatened the future of Bektashi authority in Albania. In terms of transnational influences, the Bektashis received relatively less support from external actors when compared to the other religious communities in Albania, but these new transnational connections should not be overlooked. Perhaps most notably, the international authority of Bektashism has significantly weakened following the communist regime, as the revival of Albanian Bektashism has become a rather panAlbanian development than an international one. Notes

Frank Kressing, “A Preliminary Account of Research Regarding the Albanian Bektashis: Myths and Unresolved Questions,” in Albania - A Country in Transition: Aspects of Changing Identities in a South-East European Country, ed. Frank Kressing and Karl Kaser (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2002), 66. Bektashi tekkes were particularly found in Albanian lands, Thracia, Dobruja, and Bosnian lands. 9

10 Florian

Bieber, “Muslim Identity in the Balkans Before the Establishment of Nation States,” Nationalities Paper 28:1 (2002), 17. 11 Kressing,

“A Preliminary Account of Research Regarding the Albanian Bektashis,” 66. 12

Doja, “A Political History of Bektashism in Albania,” 86.

Nathalie Clayer, “La Bektachiyya,” in Les Voies d'Allah. Les ordres mystiques dans l'Islam des orgines à aujourd'hui, ed. Alexandre Popovic and Gilles Veinstein (Paris: Fayard, 1996), 470. Author’s translation. 13

Kressing, “A Preliminary Account of Research Regarding the Albanian Bektashis,” 77. 14

Ibid., 77. See for a discussion on the contested influence of the Bektashi during the Rilindja. 15

Ibid., 78.

Clayer, “God in the ‘Land of the Mercedes’,” 3.

Doja, “A Political History of Bektashism in Albania,” 87.

Ibid., 87.

Clayer, “God in the ‘Land of the Mercedes’,” 6.

Elsie, The Albanian Bektashi, 12.

Frances Trix, “The Resurfacing of Islam in Albania,” East European Quarterly 28:4 (1994), 546-547. 22

Robert Elsie, The Albanian Bektashi: History and Culture of a Dervish Order in the Balkans (London: I.B. Tauris, 2019), 13. 1

Elsie, The Albanian Bektashi, 12.

Ibid., 13.

24 Doja, “A Political History of Bektashism in Albania,” 99. Nathalie Clayer, “God in the ‘Land of the Mercedes’: the Religious 25 Gianfranco Bria, “Post-Socialist Sufi Revival in Albania: Public Communities in Albania Since 1990,” in Albanien, ed. Peter Jordan, Marginality or Spiritual Privatisation?” Journal of Muslims in Europe Karl Kaser, Walter Lukan et al. (Bern: Peter Lang, 2003), 1. 8:3 (2019), 317. 4 Enis Sulstarova, “Islam and Orientalism in Contemporary Alba26 Elsie, The Albanian Bektashi, 13. nia,” in The Revival of Islam in the Balkans: From Identity to Religiosity, ed. Arolda Elbasani and Olivier Roy (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 27 Trix, “The Resurfacing of Islam in Albania,” 537. 2015), 31. 28 Nathalie Clayer, “Saints and Sufis in Post-Communist Albania,” 5 Marta Kolczyńska, “On The Asphalt Path to Divinity: Contempo- in Popular Movements and Democratization in the Islamic World, ed. Kisaichi Masatoshi (London: Routledge, 2006), 35. rary Transformations in Albanian Bektashism: The Case of Sarri Saltik ‘Teqe’ in Kruja,” Anthropological Journal of European Cultures 29 Bria, “Post-Socialist Sufi Revival in Albania,” 317. 22:2 (2013), 54. See Clayer (1996); Elsie (2019); Rexhebi (1996); 30 Ibid., 318. Trimingham (1998) for more on the Bektashi order. 3

Ibid., 54. Although some historians argue he may not have founded the order; see Clayer (1996), 468. 6

Elsie, The Albanian Bektashi, 13.

Ibid., 13. Albert Doja, “A Political History of Bektashism in Albania,” Total- 33 Ibid., 13. itarian Movements and Political Religions 7:1 (2006), 85. Many scholars 34 Mentor Mustafa, “Commemorative Religion After Communism: agree Shiite influence may have been a development of the sixteenth century. The Bektashi Pilgrimage to Mt. Tomorr, Albania,” Ethnologie Française 47:2 (2017), 319. 8 Ibid., 85. 32

Bria, “Post-Socialist Sufi Revival in Albania,” 319.

Nathalie Clayer, “The Bektashi Institutions in Southeastern Europe: Alternative Muslim Official Structures and their Limits,” Die Welt des Islams 52:2 (2012), 190. 36

Ibid., 190. The last census that included religion was held in 1942.

Ibid., 190-191.

Ibid., 193-194.

40 Pashko

Vasa (1825-1892), a prominent Albanian writer, remarked: “The religion of Albanians is Albanianism.” 41

Bria, “Post-Socialist Sufi Revival in Albania,” 318.

Ibid., 322.

Naim Frashëri (1846-1900) was a prominent Albanian poet and one of the leading figures of the Albanian national movement for independence from the Ottoman Empire. 43

Bria, “Post-Socialist Sufi Revival in Albania,” 322.

“The World Factbook: Albania,” Central Intelligence Agency, February 1, 2018, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/theworld-factbook/geos/al.html#field-anchor-people-and-societyreligions. 45

Elsie, The Albanian Bektashi, 14.

Ibid., 16.

Ibid., 15.

Kolczyńska, “On The Asphalt Path to Divinity,” 58.

Elsie, The Albanian Bektashi, 14.

Mustafa, “Commemorative Religion After Communism,” 12.

Elsie, The Albanian Bektashi, 14.

Mustafa, “Commemorative Religion After Communism,” 12.

Clayer, “God in the ‘Land of the Mercedes’,” 13-14.

Ibid., 14.

Ibid., 16.

Doja, “A Political History of Bektashism in Albania,” 103.

Elsie, The Albanian Bektashi, 14. In comparison, the Catholic community was given substantial support from Italy, Austria and the Vatican; the Muslim community was given substantial support from Turkey and the Gulf States; and the Orthodox community was given substantial support from the Greek Orthodox Church. 60

61Aydin

Babuna, “Albanian National Identity and Islam in the PostCommunist Era,” Perceptions: Journal of International Affairs 8:1 (2003), 5. 62

Clayer, “God in the ‘Land of the Mercedes’,” 22.

Clayer, “The Bektashi Institutions in Southeastern Europe,” 197.

Ibid., 197.

65 Elsie, 66

Albanian Bektashism,

Clayer, “The Bektashi Institutions in Southeastern Europe,” 198.

Bibliography Babuna, Aydin. “Albanian National Identity and Islam in the Post-Communist Era.” Perceptions: Journal of International Affairs 8, no. 1 (2003): 1-21. Bieber, Florian. “Muslim Identity in the Balkans Before the Establishment of Nation States.” Nationalities Paper 28, no. 1 (2002): 13-28. Bria, Gianfranco. “Post-Socialist Sufi Revival in Albania: Public Marginality or Spiritual Privatisation?” Journal of Muslims in Europe 8, no. 3 (2019): 313-334. Clayer, Nathalie. “God in the ‘Land of the Mercedes’: the Religious Communities in Albania Since 1990.” In Albanien, ed. Peter Jordan, Karl Kaser, Walter Lukan et al., 277-314. Bern: Peter Lang, 2003. Clayer, Nathalie. “La Bektachiyya.” In Les Voies d'Allah. Les ordres mystiques dans l'Islam des orgines à aujourd'hui, ed. Alexandre Popovic and Gilles Veinstein, 468-474. Paris: Fayard, 1996. Clayer, Nathalie. “Saints and Sufis in Post-Communist Albania.” In Popular Movements and Democratization in the Islamic World, ed. Kisaichi Masatoshi, 33-42. London: Routledge, 2006. Clayer, Nathalie. “The Bektashi Institutions in Southeastern Europe: Alternative Muslim Official Structures and their Limits.” Die Welt des Islams 52, no. 2 (2012): 183-203. Doja, Albert. “A Political History of Bektashism in Albania.” Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 7, no. 1 (2006): 83-107. Elsie, Robert. The Albanian Bektashi: History and Culture of a Dervish Order in the Balkans. London: I.B. Tauris, 2019. Kolczyńska, Marta. “On The Asphalt Path to Divinity: Contemporary Transformations in Albanian Bektashism: The Case of Sarri Saltik ‘Teqe’ in Kruja.” Anthropological Journal of European Cultures 22, no. 2 (2013): 53-71. Kressing, Frank. “A Preliminary Account of Research Regarding the Albanian Bektashis: Myths and Unresolved Questions.” In Albania - A Country in Transition: Aspects of Changing Identities in a South-East European Country, ed. Frank Kressing and Karl Kaser, 65-92. Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2002. Mustafa, Mentor. “Commemorative Religion After Communism: The Bektashi Pilgrimage to Mt. Tomorr, Albania.” Ethnologie Française 47, no. 2 (2017): 309-320. Rexhebi, Baba. Misticizmi Islam e Bektashizmi. Tirana: Shtëpia Botuese Urtësia, 1996. Sulstarova, Enis. “Islam and Orientalism in Contemporary Albania.” In The Revival of Islam in the Balkans: From Identity to Religiosity, edited by Arolda Elbasani and Olivier Roy, 23-41. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. “The World Factbook: Albania.” Central Intelligence Agency. Central Intelligence Agency, February 1, 2018. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/al.html#field-anchor-people-andsociety-religions.

Trimingham, Spencer J. The Sufi Orders in Islam. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. Trix, Frances. “The Resurfacing of Islam in Albania.” East European Quarterly 28, no. 4 (1994): 533-549.

The Instrumentalization of Minority Populations in the Middle East: The

Cases of the Armenians, the Assyrians, and the Jews By: Lauren Vieira The First World War culminated with the fall of one of the world’s most enduring empires, ushering in a new international order founded upon Wilsonian principles of liberal internationalism. The Ottoman Empire had fallen into a state of decline in the years preceding the War due in part to European intervention in its internal affairs.1 The British and French, who precipitated the Empire’s decline, constructed plans for its post-war partition; under the auspices of the newly formed League of Nations, the former Ottoman territories fell under the British and French mandates respectively as Iraq and Palestine, and Syria and Lebanon. With the notion of empire having become an anachronism, the nation-state replaced it as the globally endorsed ideal, with the mandates to be conduits to national sovereignty. Under the guise of nation-building, the British and French undertook demographic engineering through the mass transfer of “minority” populations and, when this proved futile, through partitions based on perceived ethnic divides. Laura Robson discusses the international acceptance of ethnonational separatism as a nationbuilding tactic and its imperial abuse in States of Separation: Transfer, Partition, and the Making of the Modern Middle East.2 She argues that the emerging notions of nationhood and minority protection were used to justify colonialism in the interwar Middle East, instituted through the mandate system and legitimized through the League of Nations. In this paper I will discuss how the Armenian, Assyrian, and Jewish people were instrumentalized by imperial powers to continue the legacy of empire, refashioned under legal and morally righteous terms; I will argue that this was done through the rhetoric of minority protection, the promulgation of notions of cultural and racial superiority, and the imposition of resettlement schemes of which the primary benefactors were imperial regimes. To garner an understanding of the motives behind British and French involvement in the Levant, a study of historical precedents and modern incentives is

necessary. Europe’s past is deeply connected to the Arab world, with goods, ideas, and people having been transported bilaterally along the ancient Silk Road.3 As the sun of the British Empire dawned, its trade interests expanded globally; policy towards the Levant and surrounding regions, which the British summarily denominated as the “Middle East”, became increasingly crucial after the arrival of French military leader Napoleon Bonaparte in Egypt in 1798.4 French presence threatened British trade routes to India, resulting in a coalition of British and Ottoman retaliatory forces that expelled the French by 1801.5 The French had held deep economic ties with the region since the early 18th century, for a time occupying the role of its lead trading partner.6 They established colonies in Northern Africa on the Southern banks of the Mediterranean in the early 19th century, solidifying their sphere of influence for the next century to come.7 In the 20th century economic incentives continued to shape British and French interests, escalated by the emergence of oil as a popular commodity and the need for continued access to Middle Eastern goods. Author Elizabeth Monroe describes the psychological incentive of power projection in British Interests in the Middle East.8 With the rise of fascism and Axis aggression in the years leading up to WWI, the need to appear as a virile nation was more potent than ever, and there was no better way to do so than to maintain a far-reaching neo-empire. Augmented by religious ties to minority groups, both the British and French had strong personal convictions to maintain their Middle Eastern spheres of influence; the Mandate system presented such an opportunity. The term “minority rights” as a descriptor for the rights of a group sharing an ethnic, religious, and cultural identity not held by the majority of their state’s population had been attached to external intervention since the capitulation agreements of the Ottoman Empire.9 The capitulations were privileges bestowed upon European powers by the Ottomans wherein foreigners within the empire would be granted extraterritoriality; this led to a proliferation of commercial colonies in Ottoman lands, primarily under the auspices of the British and French. Upon the Empire’s fall and subsequent division by the British and French,10 minorities became a means of justifying continued interference in the Middle East. Notions of ethnic transfer and resettlement were tied to imperial uses under the guise of 58

minority protection and nation-building. This rhetoric was employed as a solution to the problems of minority resettlement when dealing with the Armenian, Assyrian, and Jewish populations displaced after 1918. The Armenians and Assyrians, who were administered respectively by the French and British mandates, were predominantly Christian groups situated in refugee camps during World War I in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon.11 In these camps, officials encouraged nationalism through the construction of ethnic-based education systems and the separation of refugees from surrounding Arab populations in an effort to preserve national and religious identities; by preventing assimilation, the Great Powers ensured the continued existence of minority populations, receptive to European aid. Assyrian and Armenian nationalisms had been developing of their own accord for many years. The ancestors of both ethnic groups had adopted Christianity as their religion in the early years of the Common Era, positing them as a minority in a region largely populated by Muslims. The Assyrians presided relatively peacefully with their neighbours in Iraq up until the mid-19th century; European missionaries infiltrated the region and actively pitted the Christian Assyrians against the Muslim Kurds by providing the former with extensive assistance so as to solidify their connection to God through the trials and tribulations of a contrived holy war.12 This aid was readily accepted, as the steadfastly religious Assyrians saw European Christians as the vanguard of the Christian world. Against a backdrop of increasing regional tensions and the eruption of international ones in WWI, both the Assyrians and the Kurds came to envision themselves as ethnic states worthy of recognition; the Assyrians even possessed their own armed forces, who acted as an arm of the British and French governments by policing the region and suppressing Arab and Kurdish rebellions.13 The Armenians did not seek to carve out a distinct nation for themselves immediately; at first, they merely pursued an acknowledgement of their rights from the Ottoman government and an end to attacks on Assyrian communities.14 It is important to note that, under the Ottoman system, Christians were not granted equal status with their Muslim compatriots, as they paid higher taxes and were attacked by the Kurds with impunity from the Ottoman legal system.15 After the genocide of the Armenians during WWI, Christian solidarity and sympathy solidified and came to buttress the rhetoric of minority protection upheld by the Mandate Powers. The relationship between Zionists and the British was one which was symbiotic and pursued heavily by both parties; this differs from the cases of the Assyrians

and the Armenians as while they all played an active role and sought independence, Zionists advocated the importation of their people into an already occupied land. In effect, the Zionists endeavoured to construct a nation, while the Assyrians and Armenians endeavoured to achieve recognition for their existing ones. The Zionist movement, which gained prominence as a coherent international movement in the late 19th century,16 encouraged the mass resettlement of Jewish people to a region where they could establish their own sovereign ethnonational state. Seeing Zionism as a way to employ tactics of minority transfer, the British offered their support to the movement in the Balfour Declaration of 1917; Lord Arthur Balfour had been persuaded to pledge British support by Chaim Weizmann, a prominent Zionist and the future president of Israel.17 Though sharing the notion of a Jewish national identity and a need for this to be expressed, there were internal divisions in the Zionist ideology of which one proved most beneficial to the British: Zionist territorialism. When this narrowed the scope of the movement to the creation of a nation-state in the area under the British Mandate of Palestine, the British correspondingly encouraged Jewish immigration there, regarding it as an opportunity to transfer a cooperative group of white, educated people into the Middle East.18 The Zionists, who understood the colonial desires of the British, accordingly employed the interwar era’s liberal imperialist rhetoric to garner their support. The indigenous Palestinians, considered part of the barbaric Muslims of the Middle East and unworthy of national minority status, suffered under the influx of Jewish immigrants as they were unable to mobilize politically in comparison to the Zionists; this was undoubtedly due to the British support for Jewish institutions and the fact that the transfer of power from the Arabs over to the Zionists was written into the Palestinian mandate.19 As citizenship became tied to ethnicity in the world of nation-states, this would leave the Arab Palestinians stateless. This realization was met with riots in the 1920s and 1930s as they believed their livelihoods threatened.20 In response, the British administration attempted a balancing act of Palestinian and Jewish interests, publishing the Peel Commission’s report in 1937 which detailed intractable tensions plaguing the Mandate and proposed its partition into independent Arab and Jewish states; this paved the way for the eventual United Nations partition plan of 1947, after the Mandate’s termination.21 To the selfpurported promoters of democracy, the Arabs with their different religion and culture seemed to be an anachronism in the new world order many Western 59

powers believed was underway. The Jews, on the other hand, fit the League of Nations’ liberal narrative and were cooperative, and even friendly, with the British throughout the Palestinian mandate. Minority status was not granted to all populations who constituted a demographic minority within a state; for example, the Kurds, who formed a minority with a distinct language and culture, were not granted minority rights under the British mandate.22 The primary reason for this selectivity was their racial and religious composition. Central to the European support of the Armenians and Assyrians was their shared Christianity with the Western world.23 Though faced with increasing anti-Semitism within Europe, Jews were considered useful to the imperial establishment and were declared national minorities. They were thought of as “white settlers” that would cooperate with the British government in return for the promise of aid in their nationalist goals. Robson discusses racial superiority and prejudice against Arabs in States of Separation, stating that British and French mandate governments “...tended to group together Jewish, Armenian, and Assyrian diasporas as representatives of “civilization and modernity in regions generally lacking both.”24 These ‘civilizing missions’ were by no means a new invention, and the racial and religious superiority of the Great Powers and the League of Nations highlighted the irony of institutions proclaiming to be spreading liberal democracy and promoting sovereignty whilst simultaneously maintaining as firm a group as they could on empire. With regards to resettlement, European powers often ignored the desires of the populations on the ground. This was exacerbated by the role of the diaspora communities scattered throughout Europe who voiced opinions on the settlement of communities to which they belonged to abstractly. Proceeding World War I, the concept of assimilation lost its appeal in favour of the homogenous nation-state due to the promulgation of Wilsonian ideals. This included the spread of democracy through the self-determination of people united by nationality or ethnicity. The Allied powers and the League thus began their attempts at separating the multifarious ethnic and religious groups of the Middle East, through resettlement schemes to alienate them from their regional oppressors; these minorities, however, were not given much say, as is evidenced by the eruption of Assyrian refugee protests against the resettlement and segregation forced upon them by the mandates.25 The desires of many refugees for assimilation in Iraq and Lebanon were ignored in favour of bolstering the European claim as a regional arbitrator. Even as the Assyrians lobbied for integration into Iraq and a return

to Hakkari, the French mandate, along with the voices of their Europeanized diaspora community, lobbied instead for the separatist movement. Robson states how these plans “...reflected the anxieties and needs of a diaspora community trying to demonstrate its whiteness, Christianity, and “civilization” in the context of an often xenophobic and hostile host country that tended to understand Middle Eastern immigrants as part of an undifferentiated Muslim barbarism.”26 This highlights the entrenched racialization of Europeanoriented diasporas, and their lack of authority to represent the desires of those undergoing the lived experience of fighting for their identity in a region delineated by borders drawn up with little regard to the realities of the ground. Lobbying for the creation of an ethnic nation-state for their own benefit rather than for those undergoing the lived experience, the diasporas sought to reduce prejudice and bolster their reputation within their host nations. The mandate system engaged in what can only be described as neocolonialism in the fledgling states of the interwar Middle East. Employing popular nationalist rhetoric of the era, the British and French garnered support for their continued presence in the region by positing themselves as protectors of minorities and chairmen of a new global order. The “minority” title was assigned to the Christian minorities in the Middle East and the white Jewish settlers as they were deemed culturally superior to the local Arab population. Moreover, the projection of their superiority on the global scale provided further fodder for the role of the mandates in their protection. While putting forth a noble image, the British and French paradoxically ignored the pleas of actual inhabitants of the Middle East in favour of appealing to their European diaspora counterparts; it was they who formed voting constituencies and held sway in domestic politics, but whose lived experience was nonexistent. The actions and ideology of these European powers have left a legacy in the region which remains potent to this day. For instance, the intractable problem of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be directly linked to the early dealing of the British, while regional conflict between disparate ethnic and religious groups shoddily grouped together within a fabricated ‘nation’ plagues the region to this day. This is not to mention the continued intervention of foreign powers in the Middle East under pretenses incredibly similar to those of the mandate era; the same rhetoric of bringing democracy to the region was used to justify the Iraq and Afghanistan wars by the United States, while nearly all ‘Great Powers’ seek to maintain a foothold in MENA to assure their continued access to oil and oth60

-er resources. The liberal international order first attributed to Woodrow Wilson remains a dominant worldview today, often with devastating impacts for developing countries as their needs are often expendable in the pursuit of capitalist ends.

17Reinharz,

Notes

1 Isa

Blumi, "Reorientating European Imperialism: How Ottomanism Went Global," Die Welt Des Islams 56, no. 3/4 (2016): 292-294, accessed April 10, 2021, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24893995.

Jehuda Reinharz, "The Balfour Declaration and Its Maker: A Reassessment," The Journal of Modern History 64, no. 3 (1992): 455, accessed March 31, 2021, http://www.jstor.org/ stable/2124595. 18Laura

Robson, “The Transfer Solution, ” in States of Separation, 128-130. Robson, Laura, “The Partition Solution,” in States of Separation, 192. 20Penny

Sinanoglou, "British Plans for the Partition of Palestine, 1929-1938," The Historical Journal 52, no. 1 (2009): 132, accessed March 30, 2021, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40264161.

21Penny Sinanoglou, "British Plans for the Partition of Palestine, Robson, States of Separation Transfer, Partition, and the Making of 1929-1938," The Historical Journal 52, no. 1 (2009): 145-50, accessed the Modern Middle East, 1st ed., Ewing: University of California March 30, 2021, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40264161. Press, 2017. 22Laura Robson, “The Refugee Regime,” in States of Separation, 84. 3Ursula Sims-Williams, "The Silk Road: Trade, Travel, War and 23Laura Robson, “Origins,” in States of Separation, 32. Faith," Bulletin of the Asia Institute, New Series, 15 (2001): 163, accessed April 10, 2021, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24049044. 24Laura Robson, “Diasporas and Homelands,” in States of Separa2Laura

4Güven

Dinç, "The Ports of Cyprus and the French Invasion of Egypt (1798–1801)," Mediterranean Studies 24, no. 1 (2016): 24, accessed April 5, 2021, doi:10.5325/mediterraneanstu.24.1.0023. 5Ibid,

25-29.

tion, 254. 25Laura

Robson, “The Refugee Regime,” in States of Separation, 103.

26Laura

Robson, “The Transfer Solution,” in States of Separation,

253.

6Arthur

Leon Horniker, "Anglo-French Rivalry in the Levant from 1583 to 1612," The Journal of Modern History 18, no. 4 (1946): 291, accessed April 10, 2021, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1876305. 7Salam

Al Quntar, "Repatriation and the Legacy of Colonialism in the Middle East," Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology & Heritage Studies 5, no. 1 (2017): 19, accessed April 10, 2021, doi:10.5325/jeasmedarcherstu.5.1.0019. 8Elizabeth

Monroe, "British Interests in the Middle East." Middle East Journal 2, no. 2 (1948): 132-33, accessed April 10, 2021, http:// www.jstor.org/stable/4321964. 9Laura

Robson, “Origins,” in States of Separation Transfer, Partition, and the Making of the Modern Middle East, 61–62, (Ewing: University of California Press, 2017). 10Ibid,

28.

11Laura

Robson, “The Refugee Regime,” in States of Separation, 78-

85. 12Petrosian

Vahram, "Assyrians in Iraq," Iran & the Caucasus 10, no. 1 (2006): 118-19, accessed April 10, 2021, http://www.jstor.org/ stable/4030946. 13Andrekos

Varnava, "French and British Post-War Imperial Agendas and Forging an Armenian Homeland After the Genocide: The Formation of the Légion d’Orient in Octobr 1916,” The Historical Journal 57, no. 4 (2014): 999, accessed April 10, 2021, http:// www.jstor.org/stable/24531973. 14Ahsan

I Butt, "The Ottoman Empire’s Escalation from Reforms to the Armenian Genocide, 1908–1915," in Secession and Security: Explaining State Strategy against Separatists, 130, Ithaca; London: Cornell University Press, 2017, accessed April 2, 2021, http:// www.jstor.org/stable/10.7591/j.ctt1w0d9w9.9. 15Ibid. 16William

L. Cleveland, and Martin Bunton, “Part Three: The Struggle for Independence,” in A History of the Modern Middle East, 4th ed., 242 (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2009. 61

Bibliography Al Quntar, Salam. "Repatriation and the Legacy of Colonialism in the Middle East." Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology & Heritage Studies 5, no. 1 (2017): 19-26. Accessed April 10, 2021. doi:10.5325/ jeasmedarcherstu.5.1.0019. Blumi, Isa. "Reorientating European Imperialism: How Ottomanism Went Global." Die Welt Des Islams 56, no. 3/4 (2016): 290-316. Accessed April 10, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24893995. Burrows, Mathew. "'Mission Civilisatrice': French Cultural Policy in the Middle East, 1860-1914." The Historical Journal 29, no. 1 (1986): 109-35. Accessed April 10, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2639258. Butt, Ahsan I. "The Ottoman Empire’s Escalation from Reforms to the Armenian Genocide, 1908–1915." In Secession and Security: Explaining State Strategy against Separatists, 125-62. Ithaca; London: Cornell University Press, 2017. Accessed April 10, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7591/j.ctt1w0d9w9.9. Cleveland, William L., and Martin Bunton. A History of the Modern Middle East. 4th ed. Boulder , CO: Westview Press, 2009. Dinç, Güven. "The Ports of Cyprus and the French Invasion of Egypt (1798–1801)." Mediterranean Studies 24, no. 1 (2016): 23-46. Accessed April 10, 2021. doi:10.5325/mediterraneanstu.24.1.0023. Horniker, Arthur Leon. "Anglo-French Rivalry in the Levant from 1583 to 1612." The Journal of Modern History 18, no. 4 (1946): 289-305. Accessed April 10, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1876305. Lewis, Bernard. "The Ottoman Empire and Its Aftermath." Journal of Contemporary History 15, no. 1 (1980): 27-36. Accessed April 10, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/260456. Monroe, Elizabeth. "British Interests in the Middle East." Middle East Journal 2, no. 2 (1948): 129-46. Accessed April 10, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4321964. Pamuk, Şevket. "Institutional Change and the Longevity of the Ottoman Empire, 1500-1800." The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 35, no. 2 (2004): 225-47. Accessed April 10, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3656813. Reinharz, Jehuda. "The Balfour Declaration and Its Maker: A Reassessment." The Journal of Modern History 64, no. 3 (1992): 455-99. Accessed April 10, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2124595. Robson, Laura. States of Separation Transfer, Partition, and the Making of the Modern Middle East. 1st ed. Ewing: University of California Press, 2017. Sartori, Andrew. "The British Empire and Its Liberal Mission." The Journal of Modern History 78, no. 3 (2006): 62342. Accessed April 10, 2021. doi:10.1086/509149.

Sims-Williams, Ursula. "The Silk Road: Trade, Travel, War and Faith." Bulletin of the Asia Institute, New Series, 15 (2001): 163-70. Accessed April 10, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24049044. Sinanoglou, Penny. "British Plans for the Partition of Palestine, 1929-1938." The Historical Journal 52, no. 1 (2009): 131-52. Accessed April 10, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40264161. Thayer, Lucius Ellsworth. "The Capitulations of the Ottoman Empire and the Question of Their Abrogation as It Affects the United States." The American Journal of International Law 17, no. 2 (1923): 207-33. Accessed April 10, 2021. doi:10.2307/2188106. Vahram Petrosian. "Assyrians in Iraq." Iran & the Caucasus 10, no. 1 (2006): 113-47. Accessed April 10, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4030946. Varnava, Andrekos. "French and British Post-War Imperial Agendas and Forging an Armenian Homeland After the Genocide: The Formation of the Légion d’Orient in Octobr 1916.” The Historical Journal 57, no. 4 (2014): 997-1025. Accessed April 10, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24531973. Woodhouse, C. M. "Britain and the Middle East." Pakistan Horizon 62, no. 1 (2009): 81-106. Accessed April 10, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24711057.

Abolishing the Victim Complex: Reframing Palestinian Nationalism By: Saarah Khan Navigating mainstream media sources on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be tricky – there is an abundance of politically skewed reports, someone always drags in the argument of morality, and there are always two camps that seek to discredit one another.1 Yet, it is one of the few ways that diasporic Palestinians can receive updates on families, friends, and fellow Palestinians in their homeland.2 How have Palestinian mass media and social media in non-Arab countries aided the construction and maintenance of a national identity in Palestinian diasporic communities, in the post-1967 period? The transition from the consumption of mass media to Arab social media in Palestinian diasporic communities from the 1970s to present-day can be explained by the transnational and empowering nature of the latter. Not only is social media a more suitable tool for Palestinians in diasporas, whose political rights and freedoms are often restricted by their host countries, but it also grants disenfranchised Palestinian’s agency in forming and exercising their national identity through political means. A short note on the definitions used in this essay. Transnationalism is understood as “the processes by which immigrants forge and sustain multi-stranded social relationships that link together their societies of origin and settlement.”3 I have also used Rashid Khalidi’s characterisation of Palestinian national identity, where their bid for statehood, as well as the advocacy of human rights violations carried out against Palestinians living in the occupied territories, is key to their national identity.4 Three main types of sources constitute the research used in this essay: mass media and social media platforms in non-Arab countries, and secondary literature on identity-formation and identity-maintenance within the Palestinian diaspora. This essay aims to explore the transnational nature of contemporary Palestinian national identity, and its relationship with modern media. Thus, I limit my scope to Arab social media rather than more traditional forms of media, like the Arab press, radio and television which can be restricted by political borders. First, I will be looking at the construction of a diasporic identity for

Palestinians in the 1970s and 80s. This development will be contextualised against their exodus in 1967, which consequently introduced the dominant image of a displaced, and helpless Palestinian people to international discourse.5 The need for scattered Palestinians to maintain links to their homeland was primarily addressed by Arab political organizations like the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), who used mass media to further their political agenda.6 Then, I will be considering examples to explain the prominence of Arab social media and its contributions to the maintenance of a contemporary Palestinian national identity. Arab social media influencers and initiatives highlight the Palestinian national struggle by engaging Palestinian creative capacities in the resistance movement and providing platforms for dialogue. This allows for transnational engagement and freedom of political expression. Thirdly, I will be analysing the use of social media as a tool for diasporic mobilisation of Palestinians during times of conflict. Here, I will be using Elizabeth Mavroudi’s definition of diasporic mobilisation to mean “helping the homeland in material ways” i.e., sending remittances, donating to charity, participating in social activism.7 I posit that while it is a welcome tool for Palestinians in diasporas, social media may not always inspire them to pursue action.8 To better understand the extent of diasporic engagement, I strive to answer a secondary research question: How politically active are Palestinian diasporic communities? I will take social activism and diasporic mobilisation focused on the Palestinian cause to mean the same thing. Finally, I will be examining the limits that social media as a platform imposes on the maintenance of a Palestinian national identity, as content can be controlled by political groups who have interests in seeing an outcome favourable to Israel.9 After the Palestinians lost their state in 1947, as well as any hope of reclaiming it with the Arab military defeat in 1949, they also lost their status as a people in the international system.10 Due to the lack of a focused national narrative, Palestinians of this time became socially and politically adrift as they were all made to follow separate paths of integration into the respective nation-states whose authority they were under: Palestinians in the West Bank received Jordanian citizenship but no political rights, Palestinians in Israel received 64

Israeli citizenship but were oppressed by military laws and Palestinians across the Fertile Crescent and the Mashreq faced barriers to organization and political expression because of their refugee status.11 It is also important to note that Palestinians of younger and older generations were divided on their understanding of national identity: post-1947 generations associate the Nakba with the failure of their country’s leadership to assert their claim to the land.12 This association also ties back into how Diana Allan stresses upon the significance of the Nakba in making the modern Palestinian identity.13 Despite this deep-set fragmentation, a national movement begun to stir in Palestinian communities in the 1950s.14 The movement would go on to establish the primary political objective of Palestinian nationalism: liberation from Israeli occupation. Introduced to the international stage in 1964, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) would become the Palestinian people’s national representative.15 While Palestinians had first became a diasporic people with the Nakba of 1948, the phenomenon of their dispersion gained greater international attention with the 1967 Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. This trend occurred precisely because the modern Palestinian identity had only emerged with the efforts of the recently established PLO.16 Here, ‘modern Palestinian identity’ is understood purely through the terms of self-determination – it is the aim to liberate Palestine from Israeli occupation by granting it the status of a nation-state.17 After its military defeat in the 1967 Arab Israeli war, the PLO scrambled to take advantage of the politically charged situation. By using existing institutions and structures, the PLO implemented a framework that would transform the grassroots resistance movement into a legitimate national political organization.18 Its network of political groups also helped provide a form of transnational engagement as Palestinians in the occupied territories and Palestinians in the diasporas were now represented under one cohesive entity.19 When the PLO had engaged in armed conflict against Israel during its formative years, it motivated Palestinians to recognise the organization as their sole political representative.20 In 1974, the Arab League and the United Nations General Assembly also recognised the PLO’s status in the international system as the sole authority on Palestine.21 This dual vote of confidence in the PLO’s legitimacy, from the nation and from the international community, was the catalyst in augmenting the transnational spread of its message and ideology. Recognising the deep divergence between Palestinians in refugee camps and Palestinians in diasporic communities, the PLO began to actively define and

shape Palestinian national identity during the 1970s and 80s.22 Palestinians living in diasporas were still highly scattered and had not formed communities yet, for the most part, they had assimilated into the social framework of their respective host countries.23 In order to form a Palestinian civil society in diasporas, the PLO began establishing civil institutions like youth associations, medical clinics, local militias, and pottery shops.24 However, these were established only in those diasporas where the PLO had an existing sphere of control, or political connections. 25 So, when their political influence in an area faded, the civil society institutions of that area would also collapse, or be forcibly removed. Thus, the PLO needed to reach Palestinians and its allies without requiring bilateral political support. By the early 1970s they had an answer: party elites devised and implemented mobilisation programs, which would coopt mediums from popular culture like news, poetry, songs, and cartoons.26 In a move she identifies as “cultural activism”, Dina Matar argues that the PLO began investing in formal cultural spaces by the early 1970s to not only mobilise the Palestinians in the diasporas, but also to engage allies in dialogue.27 In 1971, the PLO formed the Unified Information Unit as its public relations division, which would disseminate the organization’s ideology and fight disinformation efforts from the Israeli camp.28 A variety of mass media was used to reach the audience through different popular channels: Filastin alThawra was inaugurated as the official PLO newspaper in 1971, WAFA was the PLO-controlled news agency, Sawt al-Assifa was the official PLO radio.29 Additionally, PLO-backed art and cultural associations were responsible for producing films, theatrical performances, and political posters about Palestine’s national movement.30 As part of its efforts, the PLO also allocated funds towards institutionalizing and growing existing local-scale media that had been maintained by Palestinian guerrilla groups.31 Best explained by Benedict Anderson’s term “imagined communities”, the PLO employed the use of mass media to disseminate a newly-imagined national identity and history during the 1970s.32 The PLO’s pursuit of cultural activism sought to accustom Palestinians and international allies’ to the symbols of the Palestinian national movement; important figures and their stories of heroism and struggle were infused in popular songs and poems as part of the Palestinian national consciousness.33 The PLO also exclusively employed Palestinian writers, designers, and artists to enable their political capacities and create new ways for them to engage with the national movement.34 65

Still, one of the most common ways that Palestinians engaged with their national movement was to join the armed struggle against Israeli forces, as they perceived it to grant them greater agency, as publicized by PLO’s media outlets.35 In fact, the primacy of ‘armed struggle’ as a way to achieve the PLO’s political objectives was enshrined in Article nine of the Palestinian National Charter.36 The first indication that the PLO was successful in forming a new type of Palestinian identity, was when the Palestinians living in camps reconceptualized their identity. More specifically, they shifted from “refugees” to “militants, activists, or revolutionaries”.37 Another example of the PLO’s role in forming the modern Palestinian identity, was with their free distribution of Filastin al-Thawra to groups that had been directly disenfranchised by Israeli forces – guerrilla fighters, refugees in camps, and those living in the occupied territories.38 The newspaper was cleverly constructed to inspire Palestinian national sentiments, and further develop the Palestinian national movement: it commemorated politically significant dates, like the Nakba of 1948, and its first two pages would usually be emblazoned with colourful posters of guerrilla fighters or images of the flag of Palestine.39 Filastin al-Thawra also used diction in a way that presented Palestinians as the agents of their own liberation, rather than victims of an occupying force.40 Moreover, Filastin al-Thawra introduced phrases like “Palestinian personality” to the local lexicon because it sought to recognise Palestinians by their common national identity and suppress differences in gender and class.41 By disseminating the newspaper amongst politically vulnerable groups, PLO authorities believed they would encourage Palestinians to join the armed struggle, strengthening their politically active base. Thus, the narrative of organized, large-scale mobilization of Palestinians was very much embedded in the aesthetics of popular culture that was being produced by the PLO.42 Despite their significant role in reframing Palestinian national identity in the 1970s and 80s, the PLO’s use of mass media was limited in its ability to empower Palestinians in the diasporas to join the national movement. Diasporic Palestinians often lived outside the sphere of control wielded by the PLO which was mostly based in Lebanon – it was the centre of their activity in the 1970s.43 Moreover, the organization was more concerned with mobilizing the Palestinians in camps and occupied territories during this time.44 On the other hand, any Palestinians who responded to the PLO’s mobilization programs and joined the armed struggle as

guerrilla fighters, were automatically characterised as “terrorists” by rival political groups in attempts to discredit the Palestinian cause.45 The more recent advent of social media platforms, like online blog forums, has managed to satisfy the Palestinian diasporas’ demand to easily access information about their homeland as well as provide them with a way to engage with their national identity.46 With its ability to enable dispersed Palestinians to engage in the Palestinian national movement, social media has become the superior tool for participation versus the PLO’s mass media of the 1970s and 80s. Looking at a case study of the Palestinian diaspora in the UK, they seem to agree that Palestinian media is “irrelevant” as it is only concerned with promoting political interests which do not always align with the Palestinian national interest.47 Instead, the British-Palestinian community endorses the use of the Internet as a medium for media consumption – blogging sites allow them to engage transnationally with Palestinians from other countries in a way that newspapers and news channels cannot provide.48 Similarly, the use of virtual spaces by the diaspora residing in Malmö allows second and thirdgeneration Palestinian-Swedes to explore what it means to be Palestinian.49 Thus, the emergence of social media has transformed the way that diasporic Palestinians interact with their national identity. Additionally, Arab-American influencers and platforms are creating new ways for diasporic Palestinians to maintain links to their national community.50 Firstly, community-based cultural initiatives are enabling Palestinians in diasporas to contribute to the national cause. Take for example, Dar Collective by Palestinian-Filipino social media personality Subhi Taha.51 Nominated for “Breakout Youtuber of the Year” in the 11th Annual Shorty Awards which showcase the best of social media and digital content, Taha has built a large social media following through comedic skits.52 His content destigmatizes cultural differences, addresses misconceptions about Islam, and calls attention to topical issues across platforms like YouTube and Instagram. Along the same lines, Taha founded Dar Collective at the start of 2020. By collaborating with indigenous and diasporic artists, the initiative aims to highlight the cultural identity of one community at a time.53 The first community that Dar Collective focused on was the Palestinian community, reflecting Taha’s own heritage. Artistic pieces that are a part of the Palestine series range from clothing to posters.54 Going one step further, the initiative has a philanthropic aspect, as it ensures that a portion of the funds accrued from the sales of the 66

series are set aside for donation to the UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East).55 Another similar community-based initiative is PaliRoots.56 With a big presence across artistic and cultural mediums – songs, podcasts, vlogs (video blogs) – PaliRoots was also created with the objective to raise awareness about Palestinian cultural identity.57 In addition to clothing and jewellery, PaliRoots makes and sells items that are endemic to the Palestinian national identity like olive-oil soap from Nablus and “the only kufiyah to be authentically made in Palestine.”58 The unique aspect about PaliRoots is the way it has encompassed so many non-Palestinians in its pursuit of educating the public about Palestinian national identity.59 Both Dar Collective and PaliRoots have enabled diasporic Palestinians and allies to contribute to the Palestinian national movement, in a creative capacity – something that they were previously not able to do easily. This effect relates back to how the PLO had also employed Palestinian artists and writers as part of its attempt to carry out cultural activism. and mobilize Palestinians in camps and occupied territories.60 As initiatives based in America, Dar Collective and PaliRoots also seek to broaden the scope of what it means to be Palestinian and encourage identity-maintenance in diasporic communities. Secondly, influential Arabs on social media (colloquially known as ‘influencers’) are providing diasporic Palestinians with platforms for expression of their national identity. When these influencers voice their pro-Palestinian sentiments, they end up encouraging like-minded individuals and groups to come out with their own support for the Palestinian cause. For example, Ameer al-Khatahtbeh’s brainchild Muslim.co is an online publication for Gen-Z and millennial Muslims that dually seeks to inform people about topical Muslim issues like the mistreatment of Uyghurs as well as break down cultural barriers through entertainment.61 Coming from a Palestinian and Jordanian background, alKhatahtbeh continuously calls attention to political developments on the Palestinian cause and engages with the online Palestinian liberation movement under the hashtag “freepalestine”.62 He is an influential figure on social media, as he was just honoured by the Forbes 30 Under 30 List for 2021 and Muslim.co has almost amassed 600 thousand followers on Instagram, which is why it is significant when he uses his platform to highlight the Palestinian cause.63 If social media following is a barometer for influence, then the Hadid family is a highly influential ally and advocate for the Palestinian liberation movement.

The family members in focus are the patriarch Mohamed Hadid, a Palestinian who immigrated to the USA in the wake of the Nakba, and his celebrity children – Gigi Hadid and Bella Hadid, the supermodels, and their brother, Anwar Hadid.64 Amongst the four of them, their social media presence on Instagram alone reaches up to 102.8 million people.65 As stated on Mohamed Hadid’s Instagram account, they are all “unapologetically Palestinian” as they frequently use their platform to raise awareness about the Palestinian movement. Situated in America the Hadid family’s role is significant, as it allows Palestinians in diasporas to see their political views represented by mainstream celebrity figures. This representation can help PalestinianAmerican’s identify with their national cause and inspire Palestinian-allies to participate in the liberation movement. These examples illustrate the important role that Arab social media platforms and influencers play in maintaining Palestinian diasporic communities. They create new ways to express the Palestinian national identity, sustain the Palestinian narrative in mainstream media, and influence others to support the liberation movement. They also allow Palestinians to form online communities as a way of transnational engagement. Thus, we see a key difference between Arab social media and PLO’s mass media – the former gives agency to diasporic Palestinians while the latter had focused on mobilising only the displaced and oppressed Palestinians of the territories. In all the given examples, social media was welcomed by Palestinian diasporas as it gave them greater agency than they had before. Palestinians use news media not just for active participation, by way of reading comments and writing blog posts under published reports, but also to socially engage with their national identity.66 Khalil Rinnawi argues that once they become a part of this “virtual community” they also become less of a marginalised community.67 Diasporic Palestinians are a vigilant audience – they must receive daily news updates whether they be informed by media sources or by family and friends living in Gaza and the West Bank.68 Yet, despite its ability to politicize Palestinian diasporic communities, social media cannot fulfil all aspects of their national identity. Since diasporic Palestinians use social media primarily as a means of transnational engagement and social contact with one another, they are not always well connected to the Palestinians living in the occupied territories or refugee camps.69 Thus, there is no guarantee that social media will be able to inspire diasporic mobilisation during a crisis in their homeland.70 67

Their inability to act can be explained through two distinct reasons. The first reason considers the political status of Palestinians living in diasporas. For example, Palestinians in Greece are usually not granted citizenship because of a law that does not allow non-Greeks to gain Greek citizenship.71 So, a lack of formal political rights means that the Palestinian diaspora in Greece is unable to mobilize. Efforts to mobilize the diaspora are rendered more difficult when you consider that Palestine’s national authority is not as concerned with reaching out to the dispersed Palestinians or providing them with formal ways of engaging.72 Thus, there is a lack of any inclusive political entity that encompasses the different types of Palestinians: those living in the occupied territories, those living in Israel, those living in refugee camps, and those living in diasporic communities. Even after being granted citizenship, Palestinian diasporic communities may face restrictions in exercising their political rights, as the governments of their host countries may be influenced by lobby groups – let us take the example of the Palestinian-Canadian community. In 2011, the government of Canada cut the budgets of certain Arab community organizations, on the basis that they were promoting anti-Semitism and extremism.73 These organizations, like Palestine House, were important as they fundamentally opposed Israeli occupation in the Canadian context and allowed diasporic Palestinians to engage with their community.74 Therefore, the Canadian government’s move was a direct attempt at trying to decentralize the Palestinian national identity in Canada. Then in 2019, local Canadian governments tried to codify the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism into law, which included criticism of Israel as essential to its meaning.75 If implemented on social media platforms, it would suppress Palestinian freedom of expression and prevent diasporic mobilisation during times of conflict. Thus, if they had been successful, the Canadian government would have disempowered the politically active Palestinian diaspora.76 Therefore, the political status of Palestinians and their lack of governmental allies in the non-Arab world means there is a constant risk of being formally prevented from engaging in diasporic mobilisation. The second reason why Palestinian diasporas may be unable to mobilize through social media stems from the nature of social media itself – digital content is open to control and regulation by groups who have an interest in the Israeli cause. In a case study, it was found that posts with moderate Palestinian voices found greater support and circulation on Facebook than posts with

more emotional Palestinian voices or personal stories of suffering.77 Best example being the Canadian case as detailed above, political groups may try to encourage a particular narrative if that suits their agenda better.78 Conversely, they may also use social media to actively stifle the Palestinian diaspora’s efforts at mobilisation during a conflict.79 So, even though Palestinian diasporic communities are highly politicised – as seen through their active online participation and political efforts to create spaces for maintaining their national identity80 – they are not always able to mobilise during times of crisis.81 While both aimed to form a modern Palestinian identity, Palestinian mass media and Arab social media have empowered two different audiences. The PLO adopted popular culture for disseminating the Palestinian national movement, and mobilising its people during the 1970s and 80s. This allowed Palestinians living in refugee camps and the occupied territories to form and maintain links to their national homeland. On the other hand, Arab social media has allowed for the creation of virtual spaces where diasporic Palestinians are able to socialize and engage with their identity.82 While they do pursue activism and express personal stories, and generally maintain strong links to their national identity, diasporic Palestinians may not always be able to mobilize during a crisis. It is also clear to see that perhaps there are two distinct forms of Palestinian national identity – one belongs to those who live nearer to the homeland (refugee camps, occupied territories, and even the Gulf) and one belongs to those who live further away from the homeland (diasporic communities across Europe and North America). While social media does seek to transcend geographical distance, there may be something to say for the role played by the proximity of the homeland, and all its conflicts, in maintaining the collective bid to return. Notes 1 Ola

Ogunyemi, Ola Ogunyemi, and Amira Halperin, “The Use of New Media by the UK’s Palestinian Diaspora,” in Journalism, Audiences and Diaspora (London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2015), 218. 2 Ogunyemi and Halperin, “The Use of New Media by the UK’s Palestinian Diaspora:” 218. 3 Linda Basch, Nina Glick Schiller, and Cristina Szanton Blanc, Nations unbound: Transnational projects, postcolonial predicaments, and deterritorialized Nation-States, (Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Gordon and Breach, 1994), 7. 4 Rashid Khalidi, Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997). 5 Dina Matar, “PLO Cultural Activism: Mediating Liberation Aesthetics in Revolutionary Contexts,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 38, no. 2 (2018): 359. 68

6 Matar,

“PLO Cultural Activism:” 354. 7 Elizabeth Mavroudi, “Deconstructing Diasporic Mobilisation at a Time of Crisis: Perspectives from the Palestinian and Greek Diasporas,” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 44, no. 8 (2018): 1310. 8 Mavroudi, “Deconstructing Diasporic Mobilisation:” 1310. 9 Abigail B. Bakan and Yasmeen Abu-Laban, “Palestinian Resistance and International Solidarity: The BDS Campaign,” Race & Class 51, no. 1 (July 2009): 45. 10 Khalidi, Palestinian Identity, 178. 11 Ibid., 179. 12 Ellen Fleischmann, The Nation and Its "New" Women: the Palestinian Women's Movement, 1920-1948, Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 2003, 13-14. 13 Diana K Allan, “Commemorative Economies and the Politics of Solidarity in Shatila Camp,” Humanity (Philadelphia, Pa.) 4, no. 1 (2013): 133. 14 Khalidi, Palestinian Identity, 180. 15 Helena Cobban, The Palestinian Liberation Organisation: People, Power and Politics. Cambridge Middle East Library, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 28-30. 16 Khalidi, Palestinian Identity, 181. 17 Khalidi, Palestinian Identity, 191. 18 Jamil Hilal, "PLO Institutions: The Challenge Ahead," Journal of Palestine Studies 23, no. 1 (1993): 47. 19 Hilal, “PLO Institutions:” 47. 20 Helena Cobban, The Palestinian Liberation Organization: People, Power and Politics. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 57. 21 Hilal, “PLO Institutions:” 47. 22 Ibid., 50. 23 Ibid., 50. 24 Ibid., 50. 25 Ibid., 51. 26 Matar, “PLO Cultural Activism:” 357. 27 Matar, “PLO Cultural Activism:” 359. 28 Ibid., 357. 29 Ibid., 357. 30 Hilal, “PLO Institutions:” 362. 31 Ibid., 360-362. 32 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. (London: Verso, 1991), 20. 33 Hilal, “PLO Institutions:” 356. 34 Hilal, “PLO Institutions:” 358. 35 Cobban, The Palestinian Liberation Organization: People, Power and Politics, 27. 36 Ibid., 43. 37Hilal, “PLO Institutions:” 359. 38Ibid., 360. 39Ibid., 360. 40Ibid., 361. 41Hilal, “PLO Institutions:” 361. 42Ibid., 364. 43Ibid., 358. 44Ibid., 356. 45Cobban, The Palestinian Liberation Organization: People, Power and Politics, 3. 46Ogunyemi and Halperin, “The Use of New Media by the UK’s Palestinian Diaspora:” 218. 47Ogunyemi and Halperin, “The Use of New Media by the UK’s Palestinian Diaspora:” 222. 48Ibid.,231. 49Jessica Retis and Roza Tsagarousianou, The Handbook of Diasporas, Media, and Culture, (John Wiley & Sons, 2019), 542.

50Anderson,

Imagined Communities, 12. “Dār Collective,” Dar Collective, accessed December 12, 2020, https://darcollective.com/. 52 “Subhi Taha - The Shorty Awards,” The Shorty Awards - Honoring the best of social media, accessed December 12, 2020, https://shortyawards.com/11th/subhitaha_. 53 “Collaboration,” Dar Collective, accessed December 12, 2020, https://darcollective.com/pages/collaboration. 54 “Palestine Series,” Dar Collective, accessed December 12, 2020, https://darcollective.com/collections/palestine-all-1 55 “Giving Back,” Dar Collective, accessed December 12, 2020, https://darcollective.com/pages/giving-back. 56 “The Palestine Movement,” PaliRoots, accessed December 12, 2020, https://www.paliroots.com/. 57 “Our Mission,” PaliRoots, accessed December 12, 2020, https://www.paliroots.com/pages/our-mission. 58 “Hirbawi Kufiya,” PaliRoots, accessed December 12, 2020, https://www.paliroots.com/collections/kufiya. 59 “Palirooters Come from Different Walks of Life,” PaliRoots, accessed December 12, 2020, https://www.paliroots.com/pages/ what-is-a-palirooter. 60Matar, “PLO Cultural Activism:” 359. 61 “Muslim,” Muslim, accessed December 12, 2020, https:// muslim.co/. 62 “Muslim,” Muslim, accessed December 12, 2020, https:// muslim.co/. 63“Ameer Al-Khatahtbeh,” Forbes (Forbes Magazine), accessed December 12, 2020, https://www.forbes.com/profile/ameer-alkhatahtbeh/?list=30under30-media. 64 “Anwar Hadid Is the Palestinian Advocate We've Been Waiting For,” Mille World, February 15, 2020, https:// www.milleworld.com/anwar-hadid-palestinian-activist/. 65I calculated this amount by totalling each of the member’s ‘Followers’ values on Instagram, up to date as of December 14, 2020. 66Ogunyemi and Halperin, “The Use of New Media by the UK’s Palestinian Diaspora:” 224. 67Khalil Rinnawi, ‘Instant Nationalism’ and the ‘Cyber Mufti’: The Arab Diaspora in Europe and the Transnational Media, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 9, no. 38 (2012): 1456. 68Ogunyemi and Halperin, “The Use of New Media by the UK’s Palestinian Diaspora:” 225. 69Retis and Tsagarousianou, The Handbook of Diasporas, Media, and Culture, 543. 70Mavroudi, “Deconstructing Diasporic Mobilisation:” 1309. 71Ibid.,1313. 72Ibid.,1316. 73Rafeef Ziadah, “Disciplining Dissent: Multicultural Policy and the Silencing of Arab-Canadians,” Race & Class 58, no. 4 (April 2017): 13. 74Ziadah, “Disciplining Dissent:” 13. 75Candice Bodnaruk, "Canadian Activists Challenge Adoption of Problematic Anti-Semitism Definition," The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, 05, 2020, 34. 76Bodnaruk, “Canadian Activists Challenge Adoption of Problematic Anti-Semitism Definition:” 35. 77Yifat Mor, Yiftach Ron, and Ifat Maoz, “‘Likes’ for Peace: Can Facebook Promote Dialogue in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,” Media and Communication 3, no. 4 (2016), 16. 78Ziadah, “Disciplining Dissent:” 13. 79Ibid., 13. 80Ogunyemi and Halperin, “The Use of New Media by the UK’s Palestinian Diaspora:” 224. 51

81 Mavroudi,

“Deconstructing Diasporic Mobilization:” 1309. and Tsagarousianou,The Handbook of Diasporas, Media and Culture, 543. 82 Retis

Bibliography Allan, Diana K. “Commemorative Economies and the Politics of Solidarity in Shatila Camp.” Humanity (Philadelphia, Pa.) 4, no. 1 (2013): 133–48. “Ameer Al-Khatahtbeh.” Forbes. Forbes Magazine. Accessed December 12, 2020. https://www.forbes.com/profile/ameer-al-khatahtbeh/?list=30under30-media. Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, 1991. “Anwar Hadid Is the Palestinian Advocate We've Been Waiting For.” Mille World, February 15, 2020. https:// www.milleworld.com/anwar-hadid-palestinian-activist/. Bakan, Abigail B., and Yasmeen Abu-Laban. “Palestinian Resistance and International Solidarity: The BDS Campaign.” Race & Class 51, no. 1 (July 2009): 29–54. Basch, L., Glick Schiller, N., & Szanton Blanc, C. Nations unbound: Transnational projects, postcolonial predicaments, and deterritorialized Nation States. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Gordon and Breach, 1994. Cobban, Helena. The Palestinian Liberation Organisation: People, Power and Politics. Cambridge Middle East Library. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984. “Collaboration.” Dar Collective. Accessed December 12, 2020. https://darcollective.com/pages/collaboration. “Dār Collective.” Dar Collective. Accessed December 12, 2020. https://darcollective.com/. Fleischmann, Ellen. The Nation and Its "New" Women: the Palestinian Women's Movement, 1920-1948. Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 2003. “Giving Back.” Dar Collective. Accessed December 12, 2020. https://darcollective.com/pages/giving-back. Hilal, Jamil. "PLO Institutions: The Challenge Ahead." Journal of Palestine Studies 23, no. 1 (1993): 46-60. “Hirbawi Kufiya.” PaliRoots. Accessed December 12, 2020. https://www.paliroots.com/collections/kufiya. Khalidi, Rashid. Palestinian Identity: the Construction of Modern National Consciousness. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. Matar, Dina. “PLO Cultural Activism: Mediating Liberation Aesthetics in Revolutionary Contexts.” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 38, no. 2 (2018): 354–64. Mavroudi, Elizabeth. “Deconstructing Diasporic Mobilisation at a Time of Crisis: Perspectives from the Palestinian and Greek Diasporas.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 44, no. 8 (2018): 1309–24. Mor, Yifat, Yiftach Ron, and Ifat Maoz. “‘Likes’ for Peace: Can Facebook Promote Dialogue in the IsraeliPalestinian Conflict?” Media and Communication 3, no. 4 (2016). https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.v3i4.298. Muslim. Accessed December 12, 2020. https://muslim.co/. Ogunyemi, Ola, Ola Ogunyemi, and Amira Halperin. “The Use of New Media by the UK’s Palestinian Diaspora.” Essay. In Journalism, Audiences and Diaspora, 218–34. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2015. 70

“Our Mission.” PaliRoots. Accessed December 12, 2020. https://www.paliroots.com/pages/our-mission. “Palestine Series.” Dar Collective. Accessed December 12, 2020. https://darcollective.com/collections/palestineall-1. “Palirooters Come From Different Walks of Life.” PaliRoots. Accessed December 12, 2020. https:// www.paliroots.com/pages/what-is-a-palirooter. Retis, Jessica, and Roza Tsagarousianou. The Handbook of Diasporas, Media, and Culture. John Wiley & Sons, 2019. Rinnawi, K. (2012) ‘Instant Nationalism’ and the ‘Cyber Mufti’: The Arab Diaspora in Europe and the Transnational Media. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 38(9): 1451–1467.

“Subhi Taha - The Shorty Awards.” The Shorty Awards - Honoring the best of social media. Accessed December 12, 2020. https://shortyawards.com/11th/subhitaha_. “The Palestine Movement.” PaliRoots. Accessed December 12, 2020. https://www.paliroots.com/. Ziadah, Rafeef. “Disciplining Dissent: Multicultural Policy and the Silencing of Arab-Canadians.” Race & Class 58, no. 4 (April 2017): 7–22.

The Impacts of the Six-Day War on the Israeli National Consciousness and Global Geopolitics By: Yasamin Jameh In August 1967, Israel’s Defence Minister, Moshe Dayan, declared the following in a speech during a memorial service following the Israeli victory in the Six-Day War: “We have returned to the Mount, to the cradle of our nation’s history, to the land of our forefathers, to the land of the Judges, and the fortress of David’s dynasty.”1 This comment was strange coming from the staunchly atheist Dayan, however, his speech presented a turning point in Zionism’s history in Israel. This paper will attempt to answer the following questions: how did the Six-Day War transform Zionist politics in Israel? What impact did Israel's victory have on ideological movements in the Arab world and how geopolitics in the Middle East, given the Cold War context? Israeli victory over the Arab coalition facilitated the emergence of religious Zionism in mainstream Israeli politics due to a surge of religious zeal that arose in response to the acquisition of territories significant to Jewish history, like the Temple Mount and the Cave of the Patriarchs. On the other hand, for the Palestinian Arabs, the Israeli victory demonstrated the futility of Arab nationalism as whole, including the Nasserist branch espoused by President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt and the Ba’athists of Syria. The war demonstrated that neither of these Arab nationalist ideologies truly cared for Palestinian national aspirations, but rather saw the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as a useful stage to assert their dominance. This caused many Palestinians to lose faith in the ability of Arab countries to defend them and prompting them to take their national struggle into their own hands, hence leading to a resurgence of Palestinian nationalism. Lastly, the war strengthened US-Israeli relations as the United States recognized Israel as an imperative asset in its Cold War struggles in the Middle East. Zionism is a modern ideology that emerged among the European Jewry in the context of the Enlightenment in the late 18th century. Jewish thinkers were pressed to reconceptualize their Jewish identity, due to the pressures of secularization.2 Some intellectua-

-ls proposed total assimilation into their host societies, while others promoted the rejection of modernity and the adoption of Jewish Orthodoxy.3 Zionism rejected all these notions since it saw Jewishness as a nationality. In Judaism, redemption refers to God redeeming the Jewish people from their exile to the Land of Israel through the coming of the Messiah.4 However, Zionists were mainly atheists who rejected this core tenant, and decided to establish Israel through political means. One of the earliest progenitors of this was the GermanJewish philosopher Moses Hess, who in his two books Holy History of Mankind (1837) and Rome and Jerusalem (1862), set the foundations of what would later become Labour Zionism.5 In Holy History of Mankind, Hess asserts that the original harmony that the Jews had with God was lost, but Jews have the opportunity to reestablish this harmony through socialism.6 In Rome and Jerusalem, Hess protests against assimilation and defines Jews as a distinct race: “The Germans hate less the Jews’ religion than they hate their race... Neither religious reform nor baptism, neither Enlightenment nor Emancipation, will open the gates of social life to the Jews...You cannot reform the Jewish nose, dark curly hair.”7 Theodore Herzl, the founder of modern political Zionism, was deeply inspired by Hess and took his ideas further by writing The Jewish State in 1896, where he advocated for the establishment of a Jewish State in Palestine.8 This secularist interpretation of Jewish identity alienated many Rabbis, who in a letter wrote that “the Jews comprise a separate community solely with respect to religion,” and emphasized that Jews were only loyal towards the countries they lived in, and that a Jewish state contradicted the “messianic promises of Judaism.”9 Furthermore, many non-religious Western European Jews opposed Zionism, because they believed it was counterproductive to the painstakingly long process of assimilation that they endured following the Age of Enlightenment. Jewish assimilation is a complicated socio-historical concept, given the varied experiences of Jewish communities in different parts of the world, but Jewish emancipation in Western Europe began around the 18th century. As Enlightenment values such as equality, tolerance, and secular government took hold in many European countries, many Jews got the opportunity to escape their traditional confines in the ghettos and participate in civil society alongside non-Jews.10 Many of these assimilated Jews opposed 72

Zionism, because they believed the movement made them seem like foreigners in their own countries, thus heightening the xenophobia of their non-Jewish neighbors towards them. These Jews were happy with the wealth and status emancipation had provided them, and they were comfortable with being considered only as French, English, German, or American.11 However, assimilationist anti-Zionism lost its intellectual coherence with the rise of European anti-Jewish sentiment in the interwar period, culminating with the Nazi Holocaust. Evidently, this demonstrated to many Jews the urgent need for a Jewish homeland. Though the Zionist movement had already proved its organizational and financial prowess before WWII by securing British approval for a Jewish homeland through the Balfour Declaration of 1917 and facilitating Jewish settlement in Palestine, the Holocaust was the final push which popularized statecentered Zionism among the European Jewry.12 Moreover, the Allied powers viewed the establishment of Israel as a remedy to the violence of the Holocaust, while many anti-Zionist Jews realized the deadly shortcomings of their emancipation in Europe, leading them to support the Zionist cause. In the three decades following the establishment of Israel in 1948, the predominant force in Israeli politics was Labour Zionism, which was the left-wing faction of the Zionist movement. However, the Israeli victory in the Six-Day War (1967) contributed to the gradual emergence of right-wing Zionism, including religious Zionists, into the mainstream. The astounding victory against a much larger enemy had led to pride and solidarity in all segments of Israeli Jewish society, but it also led to a crisis of identity.13 Israel’s founding ideology was Labour Zionism, which, ironically, was more influenced by the socialist and nationalist movements of Europe than Judaism.14 Early Labour Zionists believed that the redemption of Israel could only occur if a large influx of Jewish workers would come to Palestine to build settlements, and cultivate the land.15 Cultivating the land through agricultural communes (called kibbutz in Hebrew) not only would lay the foundations of modern Israel, but it would also consolidate the imagery of a new, modernized Jew. This “new Jew” was free both from external oppression he faced in the Diaspora, and internal restrictions within hierarchical Jewish religious traditions as he could now reinvent himself as an Israeli through his labour.16 Many early Israeli founding figures were Labour Zionists, like David Ben-Gurion and Golda Meir, who were both irreligious and started their careers through serving as leaders of the Histadrut trade union. The Histadrut was the most powerful Jewish institution in Mandatory Palestine, as it was responsible

for much of the state-building during Israel’s early years through its roles as the owner of many businesses and factories, and the employer of the majority of Israelis.17 However, Labor Zionism began to lose its prominence as Israel matured due to a combination of different interplaying developments, namely the influx of nonEastern European Jews into the country who did not identify with the Labour Zionist ideology. Even prior to the Six-Day War in 1967, Israeli cultural and political life was undergoing some major conundrums as the government attempted to assimilate large quantities of new Jewish immigrants from surrounding Arab countries, many of whom did not identify with Labour Zionism. Labour Zionism was a movement founded primarily by Eastern European Jews, who also comprised the majority of early immigrants to Israel; hence they quickly formed the political elite of the country.18 However, Middle Eastern Jews tended to be more religious and traditional, and therefore did not strongly associate themselves with the Labour Zionist ethos of the Eastern European elite.19 Consequently, the increasing presence of religious Middle Eastern Jews brought back traditional Jewish themes and language to the cultural atmosphere of the state.20 Due to the Israeli victory in the Six-Day War, and its acquisition of many Jewish holy sites such as the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Temple Mount, Labour Zionism with its purely secular outlook seemed anachronistic as it could not provide a justification for the annexation of such large swaths of land.21 However, religious Zionism did provide an answer to this identity crisis caused by the failure of secular nationalism to adequately legitimize Israeli state and society.22 For the religious, the victory was proof of God’s will, though they were baffled that the return of the Jewish people to the Promised Land was carried out by a group of atheists. However, the first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Mandatory Palestine, Abraham Isaac Cook (1865-1935), had long before interpreted this phenomenon differently. He argued that the atheists of early Zionism were actually doing God’s work even if they claimed otherwise, because God was ultimately guiding these individuals to the Messiah.23 Cook died before seeing his vision gain any influence, but his son, Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Cook, carried on his father’s legacy. Zvi Yehuda argued that redemption would come in three stages: first the restoration of Jews to the Land of Israel, then a war against Amalek (Old Testament term for the enemies of the Israelites), and finally the rebuilding of the Third Temple.24 The Rabbi’s interpretation of redemption attracted attention in the aftermath of the Six-Day War because the conflict fit 73

into his messianic prophecy. This formulated into NeoZionism, a right-wing, nationalistic and religious ideology which promotes the concept of “Greater Israel” and the settlement of Palestinian territories. Greater Israel is a highly controversial irredentist concept which has several biblical and political meanings, but generally refers to an imprecise portion of land in the Levant called the “Land of Israel,” which was promised to the Jews by God in the Torah. Greater Israel has been evoked by Zionists over the years in different contexts, but generally it has been embraced as an actual political goal by right-wing factions, such as the religious Zionists.25 In one his most famous speeches given a few weeks before the war, Zvi Yehuda protested against the 1947 UN Partition Plan – a UN plan which divided the territory of Mandatory Palestine into a Jewish and Arab state, and a Special International Regime for the city of Jerusalem26 – on the basis that it granted portions of the land to the Arabs, that according to Jewish texts, was promised entirely to the Jews: “And where is our Hebron?...And where is our Shechem?….Where is Lord’s land? Can we sacrifice a single millimeter of it? God forbid!”27 The UN Partition Plan was never implemented, because soon after it was adopted into a Resolution in the UN General Assembly, a war between Jews and Arabs of Palestine broke out. The overall shift towards the right in Israeli politics could be felt as early as the first meeting of the Knesset after the war, demonstrated by Prime Minister Levi Eshkol’s speech: “Jerusalem is united. For the first time since the establishment of the state Jews can pray at the Western Wall, the relic of our Temple and our historic past.”28 Even for many secular Israelis and Jews in the diaspora who were anxious about the fate of the Jewish State in a hostile region, the victory was interpreted as divine redemption, and led to increased national solidarity through a return to traditional Jewish values and symbols.29 Renewed interest in the teachings of the Cook in the aftermath of the Six-Day War resulted in the formation of the Gush Emunim by their followers, a religious Right-wing group which advocated for the Jewish settlement of the Occupied Territories as a way of hastening the Messianic Age.30 The Gush constructed several illegal settlements, starting with Kedumim in the West Bank, near the Palestinian city of Nablus (Shechem in Hebrew) in 1975.31 Although the Gush no longer exists as an institution, its ideology has left a permanent legacy on Israeli society and Israeli-Palestinian conflict.32 The presence and ongoing expansion of existing settlements, and the construction of new outposts is a severe obstacle in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process which has been criticized by Palestinians, third parties

such as the UN and the European Union, and even many Israelis.33 However, the general right-ward shift which Israeli politics has experienced ever since the election of Menachem Begin and his Likud Party in 1977, has made the Israeli political establishment more complacent about the illegal settlements, hence why little is done to stop them.34 One of the main international consequences of the Six-Day War was that it triggered the decline of the Arab nationalism, amplified by Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser. Arab nationalism is an ideology that asserts the unity of the indigenous inhabitants of the Arab world, based on a common language, history, and culture grounded in an Islamic past.35 Nasserism and Syria’s Ba’athism were the two main sects of Arab nationalism, and both espoused a syncretism between nationalism and socialism as the path forward for the Arab world. This came with the goal of establishing a United Arab Republic (UAR) between Egypt and Syria, as the first step towards a much larger pan-Arab state.36 However, the unity between Egypt and Syria was ultimately shattered when national loyalties began to supersede the pan-Arab goals of the UAR, and both countries began accusing one another of trying to dominate the political union with their individual nation’s interest.37 Nevertheless, all Arab nationalists believed that the major obstacle preventing transnational unity amongst them was Western imperial intervention in their affairs following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, and they saw Israel as an outpost of Western influence in the region. This sentiment is evident in a speech given by Nasser in May 1967: “The circumstances through which we are now passing are in fact difficult ones because we are not only confronting Israel but also those who are behind Israel...the West, which created Israel and which despised us Arabs and which ignored us before and since 1948.”38 Before the war, Nasser had made exaggerated claims about the military capacities of Egypt and its allies, and he was confident about an Arab victory due to his triumph in the Suez Crisis: “Today, some eleven years after 1956, I say such things because I am confident. I know what we have here in Egypt and what Syria has...This is Arab power. This is the true resurrection of the Arab nation.”39 However, the defeat in the Six-Day War completely caught Arab nations off-guard and destroyed the credibility of Arab nationalism as a whole. The defeat also gave a pretext to the domestic opposition to Nasser — namely the ultraconservative Islamist Muslim Brotherhood — an excuse to attack him.40 In a way, the war gave Islamists across the Arab world a 74

means to discredit the secular model of Arab nationalism.41 Although there were several other factors which allowed the rise of Islamism as a political force in the 1970s and 1980s, the Six-Day War and the failure of Arab nationalism to defeat Israel was certainly a key contributor. Though the Six-Day War marked the decline of Arab nationalism, it also marked the resurgence of Palestinian nationalism. Neither Nasserists nor Ba’athists saw Palestine as a separate entity, but rather saw it as part of a much larger Arab nation.42 Palestinians, who were scattered all across the Arab world following their expulsion from their homeland in 1948, were the biggest supporters of Arab nationalism.43 However, following the catastrophic defeat of 1967, Palestinians realized that the Arab countries did not really believe in Palestinian self-determination and were too embroiled in their own internal divisions to effectively pose a resistance to Israel, so they themselves had to take charge of their destiny.44 Consequently, the experiece of the Six-Day War reinforced the distinctiveness of the Palestinian national identity from the rest of the Arab world, and strengthened the power of independent Palestinian nationalist parties like the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). The PLO began to organize an armed resistance against Israel, through various Intifadas (“rebellion” in Arabic) and signed its own agreements with Israel like the Oslo Accords in the 1990s, which created the Palestinian Authority to govern Gaza and parts of the West Bank.45 Although the Six-Day War weakened the collective Arab resistance to Israel, it strengthened Palestinian resolve to take control of their national sovereignty. Another major international consequence of the Six-Day War was that it solidified positive US-Israeli relations, as the United States officially recognized Israel as a critical asset in its struggles against the USSR in the Middle East. In the Cold War context, the victory of Western-backed Israelis against the primarily Sovietarmed Arabs was a political victory for the Western bloc.46 Before the war, the US was more ambivalent with regards to its relationship with Israel, and saw it as a burden incurred on it by Britain in the aftermath of WWII when the latter country was experiencing a dramatic decline in its imperial power.47 But the Six-Day War proved to American leaders that Israel was a preeminent military power in the region, thus incentivizing the Americans to give their firm financial support and political backing in Israel’s future military engagements.48 As a result, US influence in the Middle East grew at the expense of the USSR as evident in Egypt’s turn towards the US in the 1970s.49 For the remainder of the Cold War, Israel served as the defender of US

interests in the region by keeping the Soviet-allied Syria in check and preventing the spread of “radical” movements harmful to American interests in neighboring Lebanon and Jordan.50 The war also had some often overlooked domestic impacts in the US, namely that it increased the support of Israel among Evangelical Christians, an outspoken demographic in the American electorate.51 To devout Evangelicals, the founding of Israel and the acquisition of Jerusalem in 1967 signified to them Jesus’s Second Coming. American evangelist Hal Lindsey interpreted the event in his book The Late Great Planet Earth as follows: “The Jews would have to be dwelling in Jerusalem at the time of the Messiah’s advent...Then came the war of June 1967...When Moshe Dayan marched into the last remnant of the Old Temple. The Jews had unwittingly further set up the stage for their trial and conversion.”52 The Six-Day War not only made Israel a geopolitical asset among the US foreign policy establishment, but it also increased Evangelical support for Israel, two factors which increased the strength of the so-called “Israel lobby” in the US.53 The Six-Day War changed the orientation of Zionism, shifted the balance of power in the Middle East, and had a lasting impact on US-Israeli relations. From the Israeli perspective, its victory in the Six-Day War greatly facilitated the emergence of religious Zionisism in Israeli politics, because the acquisition of territories significant to Judaism reaffirmed their messianic prophecies. The newly emboldened religious Zionists started the Gush movement and began forming Jewish settlements in the Occupied Territories, an illegal action which has done long-lasting damage to the IsraeliPalestinian peace talks. For the Palestinians, Israel’s victory signified the defeat of the secular Arab nationalist ideology, and prompted the Palestinians to take their cause into their own hands, rather than rely on Arab countries for help – hence leading to a resurgence of Palestinian nationalism. Nasser and other Arab nationalists were humiliated, thus giving Islamists across the Arab world a pretext to attack the credibility of secular nationalism, triggering the beginning of the spread of Islamism in the region. Feeling betrayed by the Arabs, the Palestinians were forced to reorganize and lead their own armed struggle against Israel and carry out independent peace negotiations. Additionally, the war strengthened the US-Israeli relations as the US recognized Israel as an imperative asset in its Cold War struggles in the Middle East. Christian Evangelical support also increased since the victory was in line with their eschatological beliefs. The Six-Day War not only increased Israel’s geopolitical importance among the 75

US foreign policy establishment, but it also increased Evangelical support for Israel. Overall, these two factors increased the strength of the “Israel lobby” in the US. The Six-Day War was one of the shortest in history, but one with immense geopolitical implications which are still evident to this day. For the Israelis, the war ensured its security by eliminating immediate threats, but it also indirectly led to the rise of Islamic fundamentalism which still poses a threat to it. The war also ensured Israel the full backing of the US in all its future endeavors in the region since the interests of the two countries became aligned. From the Arab and Palestinian perspective, the war marked another downward slide in the Arab-Israeli conflict which seems more unsolvable as decades pass and mutual antagonisms increase. Notes Gideon Gera, “Israel and the June 1967 War: 25 Years Later,” Middle East Journal 46, no. 2 (1992): 235. 1

Elizer Don-Yehiya, “Jewish Messianism, Religious Zionism and Israeli Politics: The Impact and Origins of Gush Emunim,” Middle Eastern Studies 23, no. 2 (1987): 229. 13

Neil Rogachevsky, “The Not-So-Strange Death of Israel's Labor Party,” American Affairs Journal, May 20, 2020, https:// americanaffairsjournal.org/2020/05/the-not-so-strange-death-ofisraels-labor-party/#notes. 14

Ibid.

Lilly Wissbrod, “ Lilly. "From Labour Zionism to New Zionism: Ideological Change in Israel." Theory and Society 10, no. 6 (1981): 779-780. 16

Ibid.

Lilly Wissbrod, “ Lilly. "From Labour Zionism to New Zionism: Ideological Change in Israel." Theory and Society 10, no. 6 (1981): 2 Uri Ram, “Zionist Historiography and the Invention of Modern 792 . Jewish Nationhood: The Case of Ben Zion Dinur,” History and 22 Elizer Don-Yehiya, “Jewish Messianism, Religious Zionism and Memory 7, no. 1 (1995): 98. Israeli Politics: The Impact and Origins of Gush Emunim,” Middle 3 Ram, “Zionist Histriography:” 99. Eastern Studies 23, no. 2 (1987): 229. 21

23 Richard L. Hoch, “Sovereignty, Sanctity, and Salvation: The Koren Noé Talmud, “The William Davidson Digital Edition of the Koren Noé Talmud, with commentary by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz Theology of Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Ha-Kohen Kook and the Actions Even-Israel,” Rosh HaShanah, 11b, https://www.sefaria.org/ of the Gush Emunim,” Shofar 13, no. 1 (1994): 91 Rosh_Hashanah.11b?lang=bi 24 Ibid., 92. 5 Isaiah Berlin, Against the Current: Essays in the History of Ideas, ed. 25 Joel Greenberg, “The World: Pursuing Peace; Netanyahu and Henry Hardy (New York: Viking Press, 1980): 243. His Party Turn Away from 'Greater Israel',” The New York Times 6 Moses Hess, The Holy History of Mankind and Other Writings, ed. (The New York Times, November 22, 1998), https:// Shlomo Avineri (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004): www.nytimes.com/1998/11/22/weekinreview/the-world95. pursuing-peace-netanyahu-and-his-party-turn-away-from-greaterisrael.html. 7 Moses Hess, Rome and Jerusalem: A Study in Jewish Nationalism , 26 Ibid. trans. Meyer Waxman (New York: Bloch Publishing Co, 1918): 58. 4

Theodore Herzl, The Jewish State, trans. Sylvie D'Avigdor (New York: American Zionist, 1946): 15. 8

Ibid., 97.

Levi Eshkol, “Sitting 183 of the Sixth Knesset,” Sitting 183 of the Sixth Knesset (June 12, 1967), https://jcpa.org/wp-content/ uploads/2013/08/Israel_Wins_the_Six-Day_War.pdf) 28

Tamara Zieve, “This Week In History: Herzl, Rabbis Clash on Zionism,” The Jerusalem Post, July 15, 2012, https:// www.jpost.com/features/in-thespotlight/this-week-in-history-herzl 29 Elizer Don-Yehiya, “Jewish Messianism, Religious Zionism and -rabbis-clash-on-zionism) Israeli Politics: The Impact and Origins of Gush Emunim,” Middle Eastern Studies 23, no. 2 (1987): 231-232. 10 Todd M. Endelman, Leaving the Jewish Fold: Conversion and Radical 9

Assimilation in Modern Jewish History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015), 53-54. Robert S.Wistrich, "Zionism and Its Jewish "Assimilationist" Critics (1897-1948)." Jewish Social Studies 4, no. 2 (1998): 60. 11

Robert S.Wistrich, "Zionism and Its Jewish "Assimilationist" Critics (1897-1948)." Jewish Social Studies 4, no. 2 (1998): 61. 12

Lilly Wissbrod, “ Lilly. "From Labour Zionism to New Zionism: Ideological Change in Israel." Theory and Society 10, no. 6 (1981): 777. 30

Allan Gerson, Israel, the West Bank and International Law (London: Frank Cass and Company Limited, 1978), 150-151. 32 Elizer Don-Yehiya, “Jewish Messianism, Religious Zionism and Israeli Politics: The Impact and Origins of Gush Emunim,” Middle Eastern Studies 23, no. 2 (1987): 215. 31

“EU's Ashton Says Israeli Settlement Plans Hurt Peace Moves,” Reuters (Thomson Reuters, March 15, 2010), https:// af.reuters.com/article/egyptNews/idAFLDE62E1M320100315) 33

Gideon Gera, “Israel and the June 1967 War: 25 Years Later,” Middle East Journal 46, no. 2 (1992): 235. 34

Martin Krammer, "Arab Nationalism: Mistaken Identity," Daedalus 122, no. 3 (1993): 172. 35

E.G.H. Joffé, “Arab Nationalism and Palestine,” Journal of Peace Research 20, no. 2 (1983): 165. 36

Ibid.

Gamal Abdel Nasser, “Nasser's Speech to the Egyptian National Assembly ,” Nasser's Speech to the Egyptian National Assembly (May 29, 1967), https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/nasser-s-speech-to-the -egyptian-national-assembly-may-1967). 38

Gamal Abdel Nasser, “Nasser’s Speech to Arab Trade Unionists,” (May 26, 1967), https://israeled.org/wp-content/ uploads/2013/01/1967.5.26-Nasser-Speech-to-Arab-TradeUnionists.pdf). 39

Sigal Samuel, “How the Six-Day War Transformed Religion,” The Atlantic (Atlantic Media Company, June 5, 2017), https:// www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/06/how-the-sixday-war-changed-religion/528981/) 40

Ibid.

Shibley Telhami, “The Dual Effects of the 1967 War on Palestinians Reverberate 50 Years Later,” Brookings (Brookings, May 31, 2017), https://www.brookings.edu/blog/markaz/2017/05/31/the -dual-effects-of-the-1967-war-on-palestinians-reverberate-50-yearslater/) 42

Ibid.

Gideon Gera, “Israel and the June 1967 War: 25 Years Later,” Middle East Journal 46, no. 2 (1992): 241. 46

Steven L. Spiegel, “The American-Israeli relationship: Past and future.” Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs, 3. (2008): 17. 47

48 Gideon

Gera, “Israel and the June 1967 War: 25 Years Later,” Middle East Journal 46, no. 2 (1992): 241 49

Ibid.

Stephen Zunes, “Why the U.S. Supports Israel,” Institute for Policy Studies, May 1, 2002, https://ips-dc.org/ why_the_us_supports_israel/) 50

Hal Lindsey, The Late Great Planet Earth (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1970): 55. 52

John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, “The Israel Lobby,” London Review of Books, March 23, 2006, https://www.lrb.co.uk/thepaper/v28/n06/john-mearsheimer/the-israel-lobby). 53

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Vol XIII (2021)

Articles inside

The Impacts of the Six Day War on the Israeli National Consciousness and Global Geopolitics Yasamin Jameh

Abolishing the Victim Complex: Reframing Palestinian Nationalism Saarah Khan

The Instrumentalization of Minority Populations in the Middle East: The Cases of the Armenians, the Assyrians, and the Jews Lauren Vieira

Victims of the Map: Dissolution of the Blessed Nubian Land Leena Badri

What Gets Lost in Translation: An Analysis of Political Discourse and the Periphery in Mohamed Choukri’s For Bread Alone Yasmeen Atassi

Revival of Bektashism in Post Communist Albania: Internal Developments and Transnational Connections Foti Vito

Where is the ruler in the city? Corporeal Invisibility and Architectural Visibility in the

The History of Racism in Egyptology and its Impact on Pharaonic Nationalism