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<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://www.palestinechronicle.com/palestinians-are-not-animals-in-a-zoo-on-kanafani-and-the-need-to-redefine-the-role-of-the-victim-intellectual/">palestinechronicle.com</a>
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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Palestinians ‘Are Not Animals in a Zoo’: On Kanafani and the Need to Redefine the Role of the ‘Victim Intellectual’</h1>
<strong>By <a href="https://www.palestinechronicle.com/writers/ramzy-baroud" title="Display all articles for Ramzy Baroud">Ramzy Baroud</a></strong>
- June 29, 2022</div>
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<img src="https://www.palestinechronicle.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Kanafani-678x455.jpg" alt="" title="Kanafani" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="392" height="263">
Late Palestinian writer Ghassan Kanafani. (Photo: File)
<p><strong>By <a href="https://www.palestinechronicle.com/writers/ramzy-baroud" title="Display all articles for Ramzy Baroud">Ramzy Baroud</a></strong></p><p><strong>(To
the memory of Ghassan Kanafani, an iconic Palestinian leader and
engaged intellectual who was assassinated by the Israeli Mossad on July
8, 1972)</strong></p>
<p>Years before the United States <a href="https://origins.osu.edu/milestones/march-2013-us-invasion-iraq-10-years-later?language_content_entity=en">invaded</a>
Iraq in 2003, US media introduced many new characters, promoting them
as ‘experts’ who helped ratchet up US propaganda, which ultimately
allowed the US government to secure enough popular support for the war.</p>
<p>Though enthusiasm for war <a href="https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2015/06/03/remembering-iraq">began</a>
dwindling in later years, the invasion of Iraq had indeed begun with a
relatively strong popular mandate that allowed US President George W
Bush to claim the role of the liberator of Iraq, the fighter of
‘terrorism’ and the champion of US global interests. According to a
CNN/USA Today/Gallup <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/8038/seventytwo-percent-americans-support-war-against-iraq.aspx">poll</a> conducted on March 24, 2003 – a few days after the invasion – seventy-two percent of Americans were in favor of the war.</p>
<p>Only now are we beginning to fully appreciate the massive edifice of <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/the-iraq-war-in-the-beginning-was-the-lie/a-43301338">lies</a>,
deceit and forgery involved in shaping the war narrative, and the
sinister role played by mainstream media in demonizing Iraq and
dehumanizing its people. Future historians will continue with the task
of unpacking the war conspiracy for many years to come.</p>
<p>With that task in mind, it is also important to acknowledge the role
played by Iraq’s own ‘native informants’, as late Palestinian professor
Edward Said would <a href="https://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/edwardsaidbio.pdf">describe</a> them. The “native informant (is a) willing servant of imperialism”, according to the influential Palestinian intellectual.</p>
<p>Thanks to the various American invasions and military interventions,
these ‘informants’ have grown in number and usefulness to the extent
that, in various western intellectual and media circles, they define
what is erroneously viewed as ‘facts’ concerning most Arab and Muslim
countries. From Afghanistan, to Iran, to Syria, Palestine, Libya and, of
course Iraq, among others, these ‘experts’ are constantly parroting
messages that are tailored to fit US-western agendas.</p>
<p>These ‘experts’ are often depicted as political dissidents. They are
recruited – whether officially via government-funded think tanks or
otherwise – by western governments to provide a convenient depiction of
the ‘realities’ in the Middle East – and elsewhere – as a rational,
political or moral justification for war and various other forms of
intervention.</p>
<p>Though this phenomenon is being widely understood – especially as its
dangerous consequences became too apparent in the cases of Iraq and
Afghanistan – another phenomenon rarely receives the needed attention.
In the second scenario, the ‘intellectual’ is not necessarily an
‘informant’, but a victim, whose message is entirely shaped by his sense
of self-pity and victimhood. In the process of communicating that
collective victimhood, this intellectual does his people a disfavor by
presenting them as hapless and lacking no human agency whatsoever.</p>
<p>Palestine is a case in point.</p>
<p>The Palestine ‘victim intellectual’ is not an intellectual in any classic definition. Said <a href="https://delphinius56.wordpress.com/2014/04/13/edward-w-said-representations-of-the-intellectual-intellectuals-as-representatives/">refers</a>
to the intellectual as “an individual endowed with a faculty for
representing, embodying, articulating a message, a view, an attitude,
philosophy or opinion”. Gramsci <a href="https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/231299688.pdf">argued</a>
that intellectuals are “(those) who sustain, modify and alter modes of
thinking and behavior of the masses”. He referred to them as “purveyors
of consciousness.” The ‘victim intellectual’ is none of those.</p>
<p>In the case of Palestine, this phenomenon was not accidental. Due to
the limited spaces available to Palestinian thinkers to speak openly and
truly about Israeli crimes and about Palestinian resistance to military
occupation and apartheid, some have strategically chosen to use
whatever available margins to communicate any kind of messaging that
could be nominally accepted by western media and audiences.</p>
<p>In other words, in order for Palestinian intellectuals to be able to
operate within the margins of mainstream western society, or even within
the space allocated by certain pro-Palestinian groups, they can only be
‘allowed to narrate’ as ‘purveyors’ of victimhood. Nothing more.</p>
<p>Those familiar with the Palestinian intellectual discourse in general, especially following the first major Israeli <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/jan/04/israel-gaza-hamas-hidden-agenda">war</a>
on Gaza in 2008-9, must have noticed how accepted Palestinian
narratives regarding the war rarely deviate from decontextualized and
depoliticized Palestinian victimization. While understanding the
depravity of Israel and the horrendousness of its war crimes is
critical, Palestinian voices who are given a stage to address these
crimes are frequently denied the chance to present their narratives in
the form of a strong political or geopolitical analyses, let alone
denounce Israel’s Zionist ideology or proudly defend Palestinian
resistance.</p>
<p>Much has been written about the hypocrisy of the West in handling the
aftermath of the Russia-Ukraine war especially when compared to the
decades-long Israeli occupation of Palestine or the genocidal Israeli
wars in Gaza. But little has been said about the nature of the Ukrainian
messaging if compared to those of Palestinians: the former demanding
and entitled, while the latter mostly passive and bashful.</p>
<p>While top Ukrainian officials often tweet such <a href="https://www.farsnews.ir/en/news/14010305000475/%E2%80%98G-F**k-Yrselves%E2%80%99%27-Ukrainian-Diplma-Tells-Wesern-Officials">statements</a>
that western officials can “go f**k yourselves”, Palestinian officials
are constantly begging and pleading. The irony is that Ukrainian
officials are attacking the very nations that have supplied them with
billions of dollars of ‘lethal weapons’, while Palestinian officials are
careful not to offend the same nations that support Israel with the
very weapons used to kill Palestinian civilians.</p>
<p>One may argue that Palestinians are tailoring their language to
accommodate whichever political and media spaces that are available to
them. This however hardly explains why many Palestinians, even within
‘friendly’ political and academic environments can only see their people
as victims and nothing else.</p>
<p>This is hardly a new phenomenon. It goes back to the early years of
the Israeli war on the Palestinian people. Palestinian leftist
intellectual, Ghassan Kanafani, like others, was aware of this
dichotomy.</p>
<p>Kanafani contributed to the intellectual awareness among various
revolutionary societies in the Global South during a critical era for
national liberation struggles everywhere. He was the posthumous
recipient of the Afro-Asia Writers’ Conference’s Lotus Prize for
Literature in 1975, three years after he was <a href="https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Ghassan-Kanafani-the-Palestinian-Revolutionary-Killed-by-Israeli-Intelligence-20170708-0022.html">assassinated</a> by Israel in Beirut, in July 1972.</p>
<p>Like others in his generation, Kanafani was adamant in presenting
Palestinian victimization as part and parcel of a complex political
reality of Israeli military occupation, western colonialism and US-led
imperialism. A <a href="https://newint.org/columns/letters-from/2002/12/01/legacy">famous story</a> is often told about how he met his wife, Anni, in South Lebanon. When Anni, a Danish journalist, <a href="https://newint.org/columns/letters-from/2002/12/01/legacy">arrived</a>
to South Lebanon in 1961, she asked Kanafani if she could visit the
Palestinian refugee camps. “My people are not animals in a zoo,”
Kanafani replied, adding, “You must have a good background about them
before you go and visit.” The same logic can be applied to Gaza, to
Sheik Jarrah and Jenin.</p>
<p>The Palestinian struggle cannot be reduced to a conversation about
poverty or the ills of war, but must be expanded to include wider
political contexts that led to the current tragedies in the first place.
The role of the Palestinian intellectual cannot stop at conveying the
victimization of the people of Palestine, leaving the much more
consequential – and intellectually demanding – role of unpacking
historical, political and geopolitical facts to others, some of whom
often speak on behalf of Palestinians.</p>
<p><span>It is quite uplifting and rewarding to finally see more
Palestinian voices included in the discussion about Palestine. In some
cases, Palestinians are even taking a center stage in these
conversations. But for the Palestinian narrative to be truly relevant,
Palestinians must indeed assume the role of the Gramscian intellectual,
as “purveyors of consciousnesses” and abandon the role of the ‘victim
intellectual’ altogether. Indeed, the Palestinian people are not
‘animals in a zoo’ but a nation with political agency, capable of
articulating, resisting and ultimately winning their freedom, as part of
a much greater fight for justice and freedom throughout the world.</span></p>
<div><p><br></p><p><span><i><span>-
Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle.
He is the author of six books. His latest book, co-edited with Ilan
Pappé, is “Our Vision for Liberation: Engaged Palestinian Leaders and
Intellectuals Speak out”. Dr. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research
Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA). His website is</span></i><a href="http://www.ramzybaroud.net/"> <i><span>www.ramzybaroud.net</span></i></a></span></p></div>
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