May 29, 2012 Basma Guthrie

Embodying a Stateless Nation: A Closer Look at Representations of

Palestinian Women in Nationalist Posters, 1960s-1980s

Women often figure as the embodiment of the idealized nation-state in nationalist constructions (Philippa 1992, Ranchod-Nilson et al. 2000, Wilford and Miller 1998). This paper explores the interdependent relationship between struggles for Palestinian national liberation and Palestinian women’s liberation by examining the symbolism and messages conveyed by posters printed by the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). More specifically, it considers the significance of common iconography in Palestinian nationalist posters commissioned by the PLO’s member and mass organizations, including Fateh, the General Union of Palestinian Women, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Women were portrayed in a striking number of these posters. For this analysis, I selected seven Palestinian nationalist posters printed during the 1970s and 1980s, in which the representation of women is central to each image’s message.

Gender in colonial contexts, like that of Palestine, is an understudied and neglected field (Fleishmann 2003, Sharoni 1995). The marginalization of women in the writing of Palestinian history has been further exacerbated by the Palestinian people’s wide geographic dispersion across the diaspora since the Nakba (1948). Israeli authorities’ efforts to limit access to archival materials, as well as their destruction and confiscation of primary documents throughout the decades of conflict, also have constrained scholars’ consideration of Palestinian women’s societal roles and experiences throughout history, as well as the general development of Palestinian studies. Additionally, women’s activities in Palestine are often labeled as “social,” leading social scientists to overlook the political undertones of the Palestinian women’s movement and fail to appreciate its intricate role in constructing modern notions of nationalism in Palestine. In the nation-building project in Palestine, gender has emerged as a pivotal, contentious issue. The relationship between gender and nationalism has had major implications for the women’s movement and Palestinian society more generally, and merits more attention.

From the early 20th century, elements of feminism began to emerge as a locus for generating collective action and solidarity in Palestine, but this cannot be understood in isolation from the budding Palestinian nationalist movement. A “nationalist” or “national” feminism, which advocated for women’s active participation in the nationalist struggle for independence and universal political rights, gained strong momentum from the 1920s onward (Fleischmann 2003: 9). With the extension of the formerly male-dominated realm of education to elite and wealthy Palestinian women, more women became more active in the public sphere by establishing women’s societies and organizations (Fleischmann 2003: 44, Peteet 1991: 35). These societies initially focused on the nexus of social improvement and humanitarian aid, coordinating educational and health projects, as well as job training and vocational programs.

In this capacity, women were perceived as utilizing their “natural” roles—as caretakers, mothers, and educators—to contribute to the nascent Palestinian national movement (Fleischmann 2003: 96). While these projects were characterized as fundamentally “charitable” and “social” in their nature, women’s “social” and “humanitarian” actions often communicated a political critique of colonialism. Women’s societies and organizations frequently—and often publicly—criticized the British Mandate’s poor provision of basic social services and enunciated Palestinians’ needs (Fleischmann 2003: 97).

As the Palestinian women’s movement evolved, women’s groups rarely identified as overtly “feminist.” For many Palestinian women activists, articulating a “feminist” agenda is conceived as a potentially divisive action that could further factionalize the national unity movement and incite accusations of mimicking or copying “the West” (Peteet 1991: 172). Consequently, women’s organizations in the first half of the twentieth century rarely promoted issues pertaining strictly to gender equality within the greater Palestinian nationalist movement. As women’s participation in the national liberation movement expanded, women became a focal point in the nationalist movement’s discourse. In turn, Palestinian women became a perpetual site of objectification and contestation in the process of nation-building. The nationalist concept of the “new woman” projected a variety of expectations and possibilities projected onto Palestinian woman. The “new woman” concept, an idealized and valorized nationalist serving her nation through a variety of activities, was expressed through a hybrid of features in newspaper articles, speeches, and other media (Fleischmann 2003: 70). The “new woman” was also a reoccurring theme in Palestinian art that was produced for political organizations and purposes throughout the twentieth century.

It is imperative to contextualize Palestinian nationalist posters, the focus of this paper, within the social and political circumstances under which they were produced. Throughout the early and mid-twentieth century, Palestinian photographers, graphic designers, painters, and other artists were mostly self-taught, or received some degree of formal art training in Palestine or abroad (Boullatta 2003: 70). Although the military authorities in the occupied territories initially ignored Palestinian artistic and cultural events, deeming them as marginal activities, exhibitions soon “became rallying events,” attracting widespread interest and massive audiences (Boullata 2003: 72). Beginning in 1967, the Israeli occupation authorities began to strictly censor art shows and require permits to hold exhibitions in the occupied territories (Boullata 2003: 72). The Israeli military often raided and closed down exhibitions, at times dispersing attendees with considerable force (Sabella 2009). Many artists were arrested and interrogated, and some were sentenced to prison for long terms (Sabella 2009). Israeli soldiers also confiscated works displaying the “forbidden colors of the Palestinian flag” and other icons “with political significance,” which were banned at various junctures (Boullatta 2003: 72).

Despite this repression, Palestinian artists continued to prolifically produce and exhibit their work, and convene conferences and seminars. Many visual artists considered it a “badge of honor to be treated as harshly as writers” by the Israeli state (Boullata 2003: 72). Consequently, the visual arts began to take on new importance alongside conventional forms of oral art, such as poetry, which had long been revered in Palestinian society. As the visual arts were increasingly patroned and sponsored by various Arab and international organizations supportive of the Palestinian cause, Palestinian visual arts gained greater visibility. As many prominent Palestinian artists assumed a direct role in conveying nationalist messages, Palestinian visual arts gained greater legitimacy and recognition in occupied Palestine and the diaspora (Boullatta 2003: 73).

By the mid-twentieth century, Palestinian visual artists in the West Bank and Gaza developed a collective space in which they could manufacture and disseminate images of resistance for local and international audiences. The League of Palestinian Artists served as one major umbrella for such collective expression, especially among Palestinian visual artists (Sabella 2009: 16). Soon after its founding in 1964, the Palestine Liberation Organization established information offices in many countries around the world. Mandated to direct the Palestinian liberation movement’s representation, narrative, and visibility, these offices supported Palestinian artists from an early stage (Murphy 2004: NP).

The PLO considered cultural and artistic production as integral to mobilizing popular support for the Palestinian cause internally, regionally, and internationally (“Interview with Jihad Mansour”: NP). The Union for Palestinian Artists was another significant exhibition-coordinating body for Palestinian artists. Numerous artists, filmmakers, poets, and novelists were employed by the PLO’s information offices to produce films, posters, books, and other works of art. The PLO also employed many of these artists to organize cultural events, including art exhibitions (Boullatta 2003: 73, Sabella 2009: 14). The PLO supported a particular style of Palestinian visual arts, leading to the rise of pamphleteer art and nationalist paintings that employed iconic imagery, symbols, and slogans for the Palestinian struggle (“Interview with Jihad Mansour”: NP). The Palestinian poster was seen as an especially useful medium for generating solidarity, representing narratives, and even mediating internal disagreements in Palestinian society (Walsh 2010: NP). By the late 1960s, the production of Palestinian nationalist posters was prolific; the production of this genre of Palestinian art continues today (Walsh 2010: NP, Boullata 2003: 73).[1]

According to Marc Rudin, a Swiss-born graphic designer who was recruited by the PLO to create posters with other Palestinian artists, Palestinian nationalist posters were “often posted by the PLO’s youth wing,” the Shabiba movement (“Interview with Jihad Mansour”: NP). Most members of the Shabiba were school children and young activists. In an interview, Rudin describes how the Shabiba functioned as an organization in which “the young people of the camps could meet to discuss issues or to educate themselves further,” and organize activities that “were meant to cherish the cultural heritage of the Palestinians” (“Interview with Jihad Mansour”: NP). In terms of the arts, the Shabiba organized dabka dancing troupes and art exhibitions, as well as painting and drawing courses.[2] According to Rudin, the Shabiba closely cooperated and consulted with graphic artists who were employed by the PLO to organize artistic events. Rudin also stated, “A lot of the feedback for my posters, which was very important to me, came through people organized in the Shabiba” (“Interview with Jihad Mansour”: NP).

Until the 1990s, there were no major professional institution or gallery spaces available to display work in the Gaza Strip and West Bank (Boullatta 2003: 74). Therefore, Palestinian poster artists often hung their art in schools, town halls, union offices, public libraries, and other shared, public spaces. Rudin explained, “The posters had to be designed to be posted in the camps, in its narrow alleys, in Palestinian homes. But they were also to be used for information campaigns abroad” (“Interview with Jihad Mansour”: NP). Therefore, artists had to carefully design their posters to be aesthetically pleasing, meaningful, and communicative for both the Palestinian public and an international audience.[3] Many Palestinian nationalist posters were displayed not only in public spaces in Palestinian towns and cities, but also in major urban spaces and capital cities throughout the Arab world and Europe.

Documentation of the Palestinian nationalist posters genre’s evolution was fragmented, and at times violently interrupted, in the mid and late twentieth century. Ezzedin Kalak, the PLO’s representative in France, was collecting hundreds of posters and postcards for a book about the significance of Palestinian posters when he was assassinated by the Israeli national intelligence agency (Mossad) in 1978. Kalak’s project was never completed or published.[4]

As a Peace Corps volunteer in Morocco during the 1970s, Dan Walsh began a lifelong hobby of collecting Palestinian posters, the majority of which dealt with themes of nationalism (Walsh 2010: NP). In the early 2000s, Walsh founded the Palestine Poster Project Archives, an online, public database that currently holds more than 2,000 posters, mainly for the intended audience of historians, educators, and advocates of public diplomacy (Walsh 2010: NP).[5] More than one-fifth of these posters are archived in a special collection entitled “Women/Female,” displaying compelling, powerful imagery concerning Palestinian women’s expectations and roles in society, and elucidating women’s integral relationships to both the process of nation-building and the evolution of the national liberation movement.

This paper considers the significance and meaning of iconography and symbols conveyed in seven posters, all of which are archived in the Palestine Poster Project, in relation to the Palestinian women’s movement and the Palestinian national liberation movement. The Palestine Poster Project provides little context about the production of each poster beyond the date that it was printed, organization for which it was commissioned, and the artist’s name. In this image discourse analysis, I briefly summarize basic background information for every mentioned artist to help contextualize each poster. For the sake of brevity, I have given priority to what appear as recurring motifs in these works, rather than discussing every element in each image. Furthermore, in terms of self-reflexivity, my background as an American artist who has studied African and Middle Eastern art in western academies may influence some of my observations and conclusions.

“The PLO is Our Only Legitimate Representative”

A poster entitled “The PLO is Our Only Legitimate Representative” was commissioned and printed by Fateh in 1980 (Annex 1). The poster’s designer, Abdel Rahman Al-Muzayen, was a prominent Palestinian poster artist who was best known for a poster he created to commemorate “Land Day” in 1984 (Liberation Graphics 2008: NP). Al-Muzayen now lives and works in Gaza. At the time of producing this poster, he was a general in the PLO, and he had formally studied art at the College of Fine Arts of Helwan University in Alexandria, Egypt. “The PLO is Our Only Legitimate Representative” provides a striking example of the ways in which nationalism can be configured onto women’s bodies in the Palestinian context. In the poster, a Palestinian woman is positioned in the foreground as the central focus.

The central female, who is drawn largest in scale, is standing still and gazing forward. In between her hands, she holds a dove. As the international symbol of peace, the dove is also used to symbolize harmony and good news in Palestinian art (Hasan et al., 2011: 207). The woman wears a long thawb with ornately stitched tatreez patterns, a mark of authenticity and peasant background that will be further discussed in relation to other posters analyzed in this paper. Her beauty is idealized, in parallel with the pre-1948 Palestinian nation that is often represented as “lost paradise” in the reconstructive art that was popular during this period. Across the lower skirt portion of her thawb, the poster’s title, “The PLO is Our Only Legitimate Representative,” is inscribed in flowing text. Behind her, four figures, drawn to a much smaller scale, are undertaking forms of activism and creating art.

The centrality of women in this poster indicates Fateh’s recognition of women’s participation in the national liberation struggle, yet it noticeably refrains from articulating any explicitly feminist messages. PLO posters rarely address internal issues of gender inequality in social and political structures, ranging from the family unit to political organizations. For Fateh, the largest PLO faction, the feminist agenda has typically taken “second place to the nationalist issue” (Fleischmann 2003: 137). Fateh has been less concerned with “social transformation and internal forms of domination” in Palestinian society, and instead focuses on confronting “externally imposed forms of repression and domination,” particularly from the Israeli state but also from some Arab nations’ governments (Peteet 1991: 65). Fateh’s position on women’s role in the national liberation movement generally reflects the greater PLO’s stance. Under the framework of a “two-stage liberation theory,” most PLO factions assume that women’s rights would naturally flow from membership in a free and independent nation-state (Fleischmann 2003: 138).