"Palestinian Voices: Feminist Thought As A Tool For Resistance"

First International Conference, June 28-29, 2007

Ms. Janan Abdu Makhoul

Ms. Janan Abdu Makhoul was born in Nazareth and lives in Haifa. She is an activist and researcher in the public and feminist domains, and was formerly an activist in the student movement. She obtained a B.A. in public social work, and recently completed an M.A. in social education from the University of Haifa. Janan Abdu Makhoul is interested in history, and within history the oral tradition, and in women’s issues and feminist, public and pedagogical work, and has contributed to these fields through her writings and research. She took part in the establishment, founding and management of some local and feminist societies, including the emergency hotline for assisting victims of sexual violence in Haifa, the al-Badil coalition for combating the crime of “honor killing”, Kayan – Feminist Organization and Hewar: The Arab Association for Alternative Education in Haifa. She joined a project for a women’s studies unit at its inception, within a women researchers’ project, which subsequently became a studies unit, and she remains active as a member of the project’s steering and management committee. Through the unit a book of research that she authored was published entitled, “The Duality of the Presence and Absence of Palestinian Women in Written History – The Mandate Period”, as well as a further book that is pending publication entitled, “Palestinian Women of 48 and Collective and Individual Self-Writing: Women’s and Feminist Organizations – The Beginnings, the Lived Reality and the Future Vision. An Historical, Analytical Field Study.”

The Cairo Center for Human Rights Studies, within the Women’s Initiatives Series (3), a published a book that she wrote in 1999, entitled “The Crime of Family Honor in the Community of the 1948 Arabs in Palestine”. A series of articles about women, the Nakba and displacement was also published in the Haq al-Awda (Right of Return) magazine issued by the Badil Resource Center. An article of hers was recently published on Arab education in the Journal of Palestinian Studies (Vol. 66), as was a research paper on the Palestinian feminist movement in the 1948 areas, in the journal of the Institute for Women’s Studies at Birzeit University.

Palestinian Women of 48 and Collective and Individual Self-Writing: Women’s and Feminist Organizations – The Beginnings, the Lived Reality and the Future Vision

Because I believe that the self is political and the private is public, I have always been interested in issues relating to the Palestinian woman, which are also my own issues. I have played an active role in following these issues, at times though work in the field and at other times through writing and research. From the starting point of my being a Palestinian women activist in the feminist field, I was always concerned with beginnings. I wondered about the role which women played within the Palestinian national movement as a part of its people, and how British colonialism in the form of the Mandate, and thereafter the forcible declaration of the establishment of the State of Israel influenced the course of the development of the Palestinian people and its national institutions, and what was the trace it left on the Palestinian woman and her organizations in particular.

In seeking answers, it was always necessary, each time, to follow unconventional research methods and to use alternative means of obtaining information often absent in the literature for various reasons, a genealogical excavation was indispensable. In order to access what had been marginalized and sometimes silenced it was necessary to dig into the layers of knowledge and into what had been presented as the entire truth. On many occasions time, the political situation and other factors obliterated and erased information so that it was no longer part of the beginnings or the truth. Thus the living memory in the heart of women was very often the best way of reaching the complementary and alternative knowledge.

This paper raises several questions and endeavors to respond to some of the issues that are of concern to Palestinian society as a whole, in the 48 areas, and within it the organizations of the feminist movement – the associations.

To what extent did the Nakba affect the developmental path of the Palestinian people and hinder, even prevent, the establishment of its national and social organizations? To what extent did this intrusion influence the course of the work of the national movement, and within it the women’s movement? What is the role that the women’s movement took on in resisting exclusion and marginalization, both external and, frequently, internal. Have women and their organizations succeeded to present a different and alternative model of working or have they adopted the existing models, with their advantages and disadvantages? Have they offered an alternative discourse or sufficed with improving what already exists and giving it alternative names?

Have feminist organizations succeeded to become a feminist movement with a public dimension or have they remained as specialized groups that provide services? Have women’s organizations become preoccupied with dealing with everyday concerns and forgotten to document their experiences and to write their history? Or have they made a contribution towards that? To what extent have feminist organizations succeeded to deal with the concerns of Palestinian women, who suffer from the oppression of the state and society? And did they take on an active and effective role not only in the field, but also in the field of knowledge and in confronting the policies of marginalization and suppression reflected in this field? And did they put forward an alternative dialogue to the prevailing, occupying masculine dialogue? The question is whether or not women are able do so and what mechanisms they need in order to achieve this goal.