Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Transnational movements and discourses
- 3 Palestinian lives and local institutions in the camps of Lebanon
- 4 Forms of commemoration
- 5 Contents of commemoration: narratives of heroism, suffering, and sumud
- 6 Guerrillas and martyrs: the evolution of national “heroes”
- 7 Between battles and massacres: commemorating violent events
- 8 Commemoration in the Occupied Palestinian Territories
- 9 Conclusions
- Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Middle East Studies 27
8 - Commemoration in the Occupied Palestinian Territories
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Transnational movements and discourses
- 3 Palestinian lives and local institutions in the camps of Lebanon
- 4 Forms of commemoration
- 5 Contents of commemoration: narratives of heroism, suffering, and sumud
- 6 Guerrillas and martyrs: the evolution of national “heroes”
- 7 Between battles and massacres: commemorating violent events
- 8 Commemoration in the Occupied Palestinian Territories
- 9 Conclusions
- Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Middle East Studies 27
Summary
Yasser Arafat's keffiyeh, folded and fixed in place with symbolic and folkloric importance, became the moral and political guide to Palestine … Yet, surprises were brewing elsewhere. When venturing back from the heights of Hellenic hermeneutics, the symbolic being had to shed some of the burden of his epic stature. A country had to be built and administered and new means were needed to end the occupation. He was now exposed and vulnerable; he could be touched, whispered about, brought to account. It was also the hero's misfortune to have to conquer his enemies in uneven battles and, simultaneously, to safeguard his image in the public imagination from festering protuberances.
Mahmud Darwish, “Farewell Arafat”Arafat's funeral in Cairo and Ramallah, on 12 November 2004, exemplified the distinction between two sorts of heroic commemorative narratives: the first, an official ceremony mourning a founding father and head of state, and the other, that of a liberationist-nationalist movement burying a “martyred” icon of armed resistance. The entire spectacle was inflected through the lens of Israeli military occupation, which had made itself “invisible” for three days but which had ultimately set the parameters of the ceremony and subsequent burial (Jerusalem Post, 16 November 2004). In Cairo, attendance at the funeral organized by President Husni Mubarak was limited to dignitaries and was strictly closed to the public.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Heroes and Martyrs of PalestineThe Politics of National Commemoration, pp. 187 - 213Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007