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Arab Cultural Nationalism in Palestine during the British Mandate

Key takeaways

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Reading notes

• Arab world pre-ww1 saw a cultural and national revival at which Palestinians in their student days were witness to such

• Arabs from Palestine took part in nationalist activities; 1904, Najib Azuri of Jerusalem launched a campaign in Paris for Arab independence

• The arab revolt of 1915 against ottomans

• In the face of threat from Zionism after allied occupation, Arabs in Palestine took a more localist approach to nationalism

• Palestinian nationalists were restricted to towns, and were small in comparison to the total Arab population

• The Educational And Cultural Environment

• Two institutions ought be mentioned; the school system set up by the mandate, and the thirty or so cultural clubs to which educated Palestinians belonged

• Instruction was entirely in Arabic, which allowed for greater Arab consciousness

• Most teachers were taught from abroad, and were given ideas of western nationalism

• The curriculum apart from science was devoted to literature, history, and traditions of Arabs

• Students participated in strikes in 1929,33,36 and participated in the movement of civil disobedience which forced the mandate to close all schools for six months

• Teaching of Arab culture was marked best in private schools

• Foreign schools on the other hand played an inferior role in spreading national consciousness

• After graduation students could then go onto join clubs specifically designed to foster national consciousness

• Creative Writing

• Majority of short stories reflected the impact of foreign occupation and of Jewish migration and the purchase of land on Palestinian families

• As the political situation developed, so too did the Palestinian novel- the direct conflict between Jews and Arabs

• Were shor stories looked to the west for development and refinement, poems looks back upon Arab history itself to encapsulate a unique Arab consciousness within its writings

• The Growth of Popular Writing

• Reactions of Palestinians towards Zionism and the British mandate was expressed in a flood of political publications

• Writers treated Arab national issues somewhat differently from writers of other Arab countries

• Arab writers thought of nationalism as a movement toward a final state of Arab unity, whereas Palestinians saw themselves fighting for national existence rather than national independence

• Christian writers such as Bulos Abbud wrote about the worries of Christians if the Balfour declaration were to be envisioned, long had relative religious peace been established between Christians and Muslims

• The twenties saw a lull in political writings, partly due to economic conditions improving

• But soon came back due to increased Jewish migration and then soon saw armed revolt from 1936-39

• This resulted in the white paper restricting Jewish immigration

• The revival of the past

• Interest in nationalism was stimulated also by that os Palestinian historians

• Some emphasised the intellectually and cultural accomplishments of Arab civilisations at its zenith

• Palestinian historians had a tendency to dismiss internal Arab divisions as insignificant

• In the telling of Arab history two Palestinian strands came about; traditional and purely Islamic, (thought the stronger) was the pan-Arab tendency to see the history of the Arab world as one and indivisible through the ages

• The era of the crusades was given special importance to Palestinian writers and was compared with struggles against Zionism