Transcript of the audio:

Helena Cobban: (00:44)

Hey there, Yousef, how are things with you this week?

Yousef Aljamal: (00:48)

Everything is alright. Helena, what about you?

Helena Cobban: (00:52)

You know, waiting for springtime, fearing the outbreak of global nuclear war? I mean, what else can we worry about? 

Yousef Aljamal: (01:02)

It must be very worrying in DC these days.

Helena Cobban: (01:06)

It is a little bit, yeah, but I don't think the nuclear weapons are gonna fall this week. So let's focus on Palestine and let's focus on the podcast. 

Yousef Aljamal: (01:16)

Israel is a nuclear power too.

Helena Cobban: (01:20)

That's true, that's true. I've written a bunch about that. So you listen if let's get going, can you tell people about this podcast Series A little bit?

Yousef Aljamal: (01:28)

In this podcast series, Helena and I are exploring the intersections between designer, settler, colonial project in Palestine, which is still going on today and the many other settler colonial projects that Western European nations have pursued in the West, non European continents throughout the past 600 years.

Helena Cobban: (01:50)

Yousef and I believe that studying what's happening in Palestine today can help us all understand a lot about the roots of Western imperialism and vice versa. We also believe it's important to resurrect and honor the stories of anti colonial resistance throughout history and to strengthen the ties of solidarity among all the anti colonial activists still struggling today. In today's episode we're gonna discuss the ways that settler colonialists deal with the very rich cultures of the indigenous peoples, whose lands they settle in and steal. In Palestine, as elsewhere, these approaches can range from campaigns to completely erase the culture of the indigenes, to campaigns to steal and appropriate key aspects of that culture and claim it as their own. Both such approaches inflict real harm on the original peoples of the colonized lands, not least because they are a key part of the broader effort to dehumanize, deculture, control, dispossess and far too frequently throughout history, also, to kill off the natives. But before we dive into this week's discussion, I want to ask Yousef to bring us up to date on this week's main headlines from Palestine. 

Yousef Aljamal: (03:16)

Israeli forces have assaulted a young man with Down syndrome in Jerusalem, which went viral all over international media. Abbas had issued a decree concerning the PLO, an institution of the PA. Israel's Defense minister says there will be a Palestinian entity, not a Palestinian state, in the future. And last but not least, Israel authorities freeze the expulsion order of Fatima Salem from Jerusalem following protests by Palestinians in the city. 

Helena Cobban: (03:53)

It's always a lot happening there in historic Palestine with those settler colonialists that are controlling it and doing all those things. Interesting little piece there about Mahmoud Abbas, subordinating the PLO to the PA, I had not heard that. So thanks for sharing, that. Now we're going to get back to the topic of the approaches that settler colonial powers adopt toward the culture and the cultural expressions and artifacts of the indigenous peoples whom they encounter. How do you see this issue from your spot, Yousef?

Yousef Aljamal: (04:33)

Helena, I think this is part of their feeling of being inferior, so they try to subjugate the indigenous population and they’re stealing their own cultural heritage, cuisine, clothes and even habits and names. Because colonizers very often feel inferior, and so they try to convey this feeling of inferiority by stealing, you know, the indigenous peoples culture and history. And again, for this to happen they have to subjugate the indigenous people. Sometimes they have to crush them. The examples where indigenous people were eliminated completely and in other cases they were subjugated, which allows the colonizers to take over their language names, history, culture and cuisine. In the case of Israel. Cultural appropriation is not just a one time practice, it's a state policy and it has been going on for 73. This year they tried to remove Palestine off the map. At the same time, they try to remove Palestine from the imagination and the collective memory of the Palestinians, including our own food, names of our cities. For example, I come from a village called Aqir, which is a biblical town, and today it's named Kiryat Ekron. So they try to choose names that are closer to the original name. I think this is part of cultural appropriation. There are other examples, for example from North America, where Americans have borrowed Mexican hats during the Civil War when they were exposed to Mexico. And we have also, you know some Australians or Australian artists copying up original arts. And again, tattoos and Halloween costumes being appropriated by the settlers. So there are different examples also in sport when it comes to sports and we have the Cleveland Indians and Atlanta Braves are still, you know, names that are offensive to Native Americans that are still being used as of today.

Helena Cobban: (07:10)

So I have to interject here since I'm here in Washington DC, which by the way we want to rename it as Douglas Commons after Frederick Douglass and so it keeps the DC. Initials and then we would do away with the name of George Washington and and honor Frederick Douglass, but here we had a football team that used to be called the R******, and honestly, in a city that has a lot of racial divisions between the Black and white people, the Washington Redskins was the one thing that would bring people together, but native people quite likely protested over the course of. Decades against this use of a name, and so they finally were forced to too. Jettison the name and they have just announced another name, which I think is a terrible name. It's very militaristic. They're going to call it the Washington commanders, but who knows. So yeah, that happens everywhere, and for the for the settler colonialists, sometimes there's a sort of a progression. First of all, they might appropriate the name like when the Zionists first went well in the 1930s, let's say Early 1940s, when they were in Palestine, they were very proud to call themselves Palestinians. And you know, because they looked at the Jews in Europe as being old fashioned or decadent, or passive. And they said no, we are Palestinian Jews. We are the Palestinians. And then very soon after 1948 we had Golda Meir saying there's no such thing as Palestinians. You know, they they don't exist, so their whole kind of attitude toward Palestinian Ness shifted with the the power balance. On the ground so settler colonialists do, I think, use different tactics at different times. I grew up in England. And there we had a massive appropriation of cultural artifacts from India from Egypt from Iraq. They, just like they literally looted these huge great stone artifacts and beautiful sculptures and everything and took them back to the British Museum. And somehow they, they, they represent British culture. I'm not quite sure how that works, but yeah, that was a large-scale appropriation. Have you had things like that happen in Palestine?

Yousef Aljamal: (10:02)

So I will speak about the Gaza Strip, where in 1980s, during the second Palestinian Intifada. Moshe Dayan came to our refugee camp because Israelis have uncovered some, you know, archaeological. Discoveries and they took them to Israel, and they placed them in museums. That are now Israeli and they they again introduce it to tourists and Israelis alike as an Israeli. Thing so we have some similar things and I've been to the British Museum and I've seen how Britain. Has literally moved whatever it's called to this museum from other countries. It colonized except for food. I think the British people were not smart to learn. You know food habits and cuisines of other nations, but they stole their history. We've seen the Egyptian, you know, different items of Egyptian history. Iraqi Indian being moved to Britain. And there was this joke that Britain couldn't move. The pyramids because they were too heavy, otherwise we would have and that was the only. Yeah we have. We might have found them in in Britain today. And again, you know it's a continuation, I think of denying Indigenous people their existence in that case of Palestine. It's a continuation of ethnic cleansing. It's not just the physical presence of people, but their history. The memory, as Ellen Pepe, has called this process. The memory site that is done by Israel against the Palestinians trying to erase the Palestinian. And culture and memory, especially the collective memory of the Palestinians and and then, once this is done, this paves the way for Zionists and settler colonizers to claim that they have a place in Palestine, and hence we have what Israelis called today, the birthright, that they have a birthright connection to this land, even though they are not. They were not. Many of them were not born in Palestine. And again, this is a continuation of what was started in 1948. Nakba where thousands of Palestinian books. Was stolen from Palestinian houses, book shops and libraries. And there is a a movie, a film called The Great Book Robbery that I recommend people to to watch that speaks of of this reality and the theft of Palestinian books and paintings and arts which is happening also. As I said in other parts of the world in Australia where indigenous Aboriginal art is being stolen and appropriated. And not only this, they have continued with archaeological digs and the graves they found canaanite, you know graves of giant Palestinians and again international media have portrayed this as an Israeli discovery. However, that did not exist then.

Helena Cobban: (13:38)

So actually, regarding books, you know, when I was in Lebanon, there was a professor at the American University of Beirut called Kamal Salibi. I don't know if you've heard of him. Kamal Salibi was a very expert. Well, in the languages in the Semitic languages, not just you know Hebrew and Arabic, but all the very early ones. And he he would look at the early chapters of the Hebrew Bible and look at the place names, and he said none of these place names. When they say, you know I traveled three days and I came to a Ridge and beyond the Ridge there was a there was a river. None of them. You can't map them onto the map of Palestine. The place where you can map them is onto the map of eastern Saudi Arabia, and there you can actually follow, so he he. He wrote an amazingly powerful book called The Bible came from Arabia, which of course the Zionists have been trying to suppress ever since. But it is true that you know they're not finding. Historic Jewish relics in the area of today's Palestine. They're finding Canaanite. They're finding a lot of Muslim relics. They're finding crusader relics. So so. I think what you said at the beginning is that the reason that settler colonialists engage in cultural erasure is because of their kind of feeling of insecurity. Well, gosh, you know, we're not actually people from here. But you know, we have to work really hard to make it seem like we are. 

I'm afraid I'm going to have to just interject here with my friendly reminder that this podcast is brought to you by just world educational. If you go to our website www.justworldeducational.org. You'll find a prominent link to the line learning Portal that presents all the past episodes of the world from Palestine, along with transcripts and lots of really interesting related background material that has been pulled together by our amazing cultural helper and audio engineer Amelle Zeroug. And on our website at www.justworldeducational.org you'll also find many other great educational resources and, crucially, a donate button that lets you support this podcast series and all the rest of our work. 

So anyway, back to our discovery of cultural erasure and cultural appropriation. I just wanted to run through a sort of little list of the kinds of things we're talking about. Here. We're talking about place names as as you did in the West. We always call your capital city Jerusalem, but the indigenous Arab name for it is actually a quad, so that that's one big example. Interestingly, here, in Turtle Island slash. North America a lot of the place names were appropriated from the indigenous people, so you started off like on the East Coast with New York and New Hampshire and New Jersey like they had brought them across the Atlantic. But then you also got Massachusetts and Idaho, and you know names of states of cities or neighborhoods, a lot of cultural appropriation going on there. We're talking about food and just on the food issue I have to say, the Indian food you get in London is pretty good. And right here in, in and around Washington DC. We actually have restaurants from all the places that the CIA has been active over the last 70 years, so you can get, you know, really fabulous Afghan food, Iraqi food, food from Ethiopia, food from every place the CIA has been. And then they have, you know, mounted failed coups and then as they do, that they bring out their local. Proxy people and set them up in restaurants around Washington DC. It's, I mean that is a weird thing about Washington DC, so we're also talking about dress. And of course we've seen the amazing efforts that Palestinians in diaspora and in inside Palestine have made to cling onto and continue to develop the art of Thai trees embroidery and which is just amazing. Because there was a time when when Israelis claimed it for themselves, you know they, they would say, oh, this is Israeli Bedouin embroidery. They still do. I guess that's true. Just lastly, on my little list is the is the issue of spiritual practice, which is an important aspect of culture and definitely here in the North America and South America and Caribbean cases. You know. First of all, there was very, very deliberate attempts to erase indigenous spiritual practice and force everybody to become so called Christians. And then you know, in a later stage people are saying. So let's rediscover this really interesting, spiritual practice of waving tobacco around, or, in the case of India, it was yoga which you know got appropriated as part of the kind of the hippie culture, yuppie, culture, and here, here, in the West. So you know all of these cultural expressions are what give a people, a community sort of meaning and and. And underscore their their relationship to the land they live in, and so that's why. I guess they have to be erased or appropriate it depending.

Yousef Aljamal: (20:23)

Yes, I think Speaking of Palestinian traditional addresses, we have a address for every single city that represents the city. For example, the one from Hebron al Khalil, Has grapes on it because alcohol is famous for grapes, so every single city is different if you get closer to Gaza, it becomes more. Somehow identical to each other, but if you go further to the north or to the coast, it's different. Yeah, and then they've been trying, they've been trying Zionists have been trying really hard to appropriate Palestinian dresses. Traditional dresses. Where, for example, recently when there was this beauty contest, Miss Israel, I think. Organized in Israel, they asked participants and there are some people who boycotted this contest for political reasons, they asked participants to wear the traditional Palestinian and dresses and and use as you said, they took them to the Naqab among some Palestinian bedouins to say oh look at Israel. You know it's a diverse country. And people are celebrating and these participants were somehow celebrating the theft of Palestinian culture. Not just Palestinian thobes, we have keffiyehs, keffiyehs mean a lot to Palestinians. It remains Palestinians of their history, of the Great Revolution of 1936, where villagers have worn keffiyehs so that British officers wouldn't identify fighters in their revolution because many of them used to wear keffiyehs and many of them came from villages. So every single one. For these keffiyehs, and they're still one of the most prominent symbols of the Palestinian culture. The colors of this keffiyehs is white and. Black, and again, the Israelis have their own version of this keffiyehs. Yeah, it's white and blue.

Helena Cobban: (22:59)

But sometimes sometimes the Palestinian keffiyeh is white and red. I I think that sometimes like a political marker that it's people in the Popular Front who wear the red and white. Yes and also many other people who wear red and white are the Saudis, as far as I know, which is bizarre.

Yousef Aljamal: (23:11)

Yes traditionally it's white and black, but there are some people. Who were white and red for political reasons? As you said, many of them are leftists. Also, white and red is more popular in Jordan than you know the mixture that Jordan has of Palestinians. So some Palestinians prefer to wear the red and the white one, but it's not as popular as the white and black one.

Helena Cobban: (23:54)

So when the Zionists are trying to like appropriate your culture or this thing that you mentioned, the movie about them stealing whole libraries of books. I mean that that really sounds terrible to me. If somebody came and stole my library. But what can Palestinians do? What have they done that has been successful in resisting this? These attempts at cultural erasure? I mean, what are you seeing either in Palestine or around the world, that that seems to be most successful?

Yousef Aljamal: (24:38)

I think the most successful example we have here is Palestinians in the diaspora, little Palestine in Chicago, where you go there. You feel like you are in Ramallah or Jerusalem rather than the US. You find all types of Palestinian restaurants and shops names in Arabic. You would eat the best maqluba in the world in the US. Palestinian maqluba, so I think the example of Palestine is desperate that despite. 73 of colonization starting from 1948 and before that almost 20 years of British Columbia colonization, Palestinians still stick to their culture and food and names and language. You would find Palestine anywhere you travel. Wherever Palestinians are there is Palestine. and and again this proves that all Zionist attempts to erase the Palestinian culture. Have failed and Palestinians still. Many of them are still committed to their culture and food. We have falafel and hummus being appropriated, and Israel is trying to introduce it as Israeli food and cuisine. But I think regardless of what they they're trying to do and the majority of the world agree that falafel and hummus today are Palestinian. So this again speaks of the failure of the Zionist project.

Helena Cobban: (26:18)

You know, when Laila El-Haddad first came to the United States, for she came to college here, and I think her elder brother was already here, and he took her to. She has this beautiful story about how he took her to New York and she saw Falafel stands everywhere and she was like wow. They even have falafel here in New York, he said, yeah, they're they're all run by by Israelis. You know the the whole infrastructure. Of Falafel stands in New York at that time, so that must have been, let's say, in the 90s, early 90s. That's why I was really, you know, delighted to publish her books. The guys at Kitchen and there have been so many other Palestinian cookbooks and Palestinian restaurants that over the past 20 years have arisen and have really reclaimed this fine cuisine. For for Palestinians so you know, I, I think one of the things. B. Israelis do. I mean they still try to open restaurants here and they call it Mediterranean cuisine. You know they kind of don't call it usually Israeli cuisine 'cause they understand that that will really…

Indeed, I just thought of another thing that's like a way for that. Palestinians hang on to their culture and other people too. And that's dance. Actually, the Dabke and you know, in several of the Palestinian American community centers, having you know Dabke teams and Dabke classes for for young men. I mean that that's kind of a big new thing. Which it is. It's fun to see you know 'cause it. Gets the young people together and they. Use up a lot of energy and keep that Dabke tradition alive, and music. I suppose we should also say like music and you know traditional forms of cultural expression in general. Very important often. In other cultures around the world, both dance and music and art are very important for spiritual practice.

Yousef Aljamal: (28:36)

Music is important. We have thousands of songs about Palestine and Palestinian culture, so some of them were poems that were turned into songs. For example poems by Mahmoud Darwish. “I miss my mother's bread” and now it has become a very popular song. We have songs talking about very important historical events. For example, the execution of three prominent Palestinians 1936 from the prison of Acre and there is a song that says, there was a funeral coming out of Acre Prison and it is still, you know, this song is still popular as of now. It's been, you know, spent almost 90 years, more than 90, years since 1930s. There also songs about the first Palestinian intifada and how Palestinians. I remember this song, “you are, you know, the most beautiful among flowers, Mohammed. And Muhammad is a baby who throws his milk bottle at Israeli soldiers and they think that it's a bomb, so they run away. I think songs are really important in documenting you know these historical events.

Helena Cobban: (30:17)

That's great, yeah, maybe you could write something about that Yousef, I mean yes, yes, it's a great idea for an article. So we're probably getting toward the end here, and you know, it's really scratched the surface. So. Thanks so much Yousef for bringing like you're the richness of your personal culture and your experience onto our podcast. See you again next week.

Yousef Aljamal: (30:46)

Thank you Helena, and see you next week.