Good afternoon everyone. Thank You Omar (Shweiki) for the incredibly important work that
you and all members of Fobzu have done
and are doing in championing the right to
education for Palestinians and building
bridges of solidarity between London and Palestine.
It is my pleasure and honour to
be chairing this event which we're hosting.
Our outstanding scholar and dear
friend professor Omar AlShehabi who will
speak for about 30 to 40 minutes and
after which we're going to open the
floor. Omar is the Director of the Gulf
Centre for Development Policies and he
is also an Associate Professor in
political economy at the Gulf University
for Science and Technology. He completed
his DPhil in economics at Pembroke
College Oxford and previously worked at
the IMF, the World Bank, and McKinsey.
And he's also lectured at University
College Oxford. His latest book in
English,  "Contesting Modernity:
Sectarianism, Nationalism and Colonialism in Bahrain"
was released in 2019 with Oneworld Publications,
and he's also a Senior Advisor to Fobzu.
His earlier book, which was published in Arabic, was
titled, "Exporting Wealth and Entrenching
Alienation: a History of Production of
the GCC". It is an interdisciplinary
tour-de-force that tackles big
questions about the political and social
relationships shaping and being shaped
by the mode of economic production
prevalent in Gulf states.
Omar's bilingual publications,
his mastery of the context of global and
regional politics, his critical
scholarship and, unlike many of us, his
actual residence and work in the Arab
world following his education abroad
puts him, in my view, in a unique position
to speak about today's topic. Last but
not least I should share a detail about
Omar. This is decolonisation now, it's in
fashion, it's a trend. And one of the -
maybe if somebody decides to decolonise
James Bond and wants to produce Omar
007 I just learned that he
likes his rice fried not steamed.
So please join me in welcoming
Dr Professor Omar AlShebai.
Okay. Well thank you very much, and thank you very
much,  Hicham, for that great introduction.
And I want to begin by thanking
Friends of Birzeit University and the
University and College Union and the
National Education Union. Yeah I'd like
to begin by expressing solidarity and
thanks with those fighting for better
conditions for those who work in higher
education and research.
You're not only fighting for yourselves
and those in this country. You're also
doing it I think for everyone around the
world who works in higher education. So I
was today, well, when I told Omar
that I was coming a few weeks ago he
said the title of the talk is"Beyond
Decolonisation: Liberating the study of
the Arab world from the Gulf to
Palestine." So, you know, bring together
decolonisation, liberation movements, the
Gulf and Palestine and the past and the
present. So you know in the beginning I
was like okay this needs a bit of
thought of how to do this. But then I
realise these are actual issues that are
very close, I think, to me and
what I engage when - both in my work and
otherwise - and have been motivating
forces in my work and most of my adult
life really. I mean, as was mentioned, I
work in a university back in the Gulf -
the Gulf University in Kuwait - and also
in a research centre focusing on
critical social studies of the Gulf. Most
of my university education, in fact all
of my university education, was here
in England and in English, and indeed
that was most of my exposure in
academia until i went back home. And the
university I teach in now is also
largely in English. And you know there is
actually a word we use in the Gulf to
describe those whose primary language
and culture is in English, and it's
"western-oriented" which is usually called
as in chicken nuggets, which symbolizes
McDonalds and also that it's brown from
the outside and white from the inside.
So this is part of my constitution. A lot of
my involvement as well in Palestine-related
work and readings also happened
while I was here in England, something
which I'll come back to later on.
And indeed continues with organisations
such as Fobzu today. Now the Centre's
work however and the focus of most of
my research and I think most of my
general orientation and indeed where I
feel culturally and personally at home
is in Arabic. And this is indeed where
most of, I think, most of the work we try
to do has an impact and reaches a wider
group of people in the region. Now this
kind of the two worlds I guess, if you
want, that I have worked in
between meant different challenges and
focuses. So, for example, here the
research is very methodical and
voluminous and within established
research institutions with an entrenched
history of hundreds of years. By also
dealing with issues
of epistemology that will come up
and we will talk about later, about how
representation and about how to approach
different subjects. While on the other
hand maybe back home and and the work we
do in the Centre the - oh and people who work
generally in the region and in Arabic
maybe have their, you know, ears more to
the ground on what is happening
there, but also suffer from lack of
systematic, on basically entrenched
institutions. It's mainly more based on
individual efforts and interest, which
might reach a wider audience, but again
they face these institutional issues
which sometimes obviously could reach
the point of censorship or even
imprisonment as has happened to some of
our colleagues. And, again, also a lot of
the work I do on Palestine back home is
within these issues. So these tensions
between the discourse, language and
methods of teaching and ways of work
between here and those back home and how
to approach work on the Gulf and Western
universities and back home will be
basically some of the issues that we
will try to illuminate today. So this
will be a bit of a tour including
personal thoughts, some academic, I guess,
also some of my academic work and we'll
keep switching between the past and the
present. So I ask you to, you know, bear
with me a bit. But the overall basically
thrust will be how can the colonial
experience shed light on Arab traditions
of liberation that link the Gulf to
Palestine and how can this inform
discussions of decolonisation and
solidarity. Now it is in the West and
also in the Gulf, so I will try to
basically connect these with a wide
range of subjects including the British
imperial imprint in the Gulf, the
anti-colonial movements and their - that
emerged and their linkages to the
Palestinian liberation struggle in order
to explore how their traditions can
inform today's conversation on
Palestinian solidarity in the West and
the Gulf and the wider Arab world. So I
will start with
by I guess since we're, the first word
was decolonisation I will start with
looking at the relationship of
colonialism to the Gulf and how this can
inform our discussion. Now the Gulf - it might
not come to news to many of you - has a
large colonial imprint. Now what
usually this has meant in terms of focus
is looking at the international really
how the international relations of the
Gulf has been influenced through this
process and how basically the Gulf has
come to be under the influence of the
Western, what's usually called I guess,
the Western sphere. Usually this starts
with, you know, discussing the treaties
that Britain concluded with
different Gulf rulers starting in 1798
and then 1820 up until this changed into
US hegemony that continues until today
in one way or another in the region. But
what is not talked about is how as also
is the large imprint this has left
internally within the societies of the
Gulf, which is what I would like to talk
a bit about today. And so a lot of my
research in English has focused on how
the colonial experience has played a
part in a lot of the structures that
still existed in the modern Gulf. So I've
argued elsewhere that the kafala
sponsorship system of migrant labour
workers was a product of the British
colonial experience in the early 20th
century and how this has continuations
up until today. I've also looked at how
modernised absolutism, the system of rule
that I think also continues until today
was also born early in the first in the
early 20th century specifically in
Bahrain when Britain deposed the
previous ruler in 1923 and wanted to
establish a new rationalised form of
absolutist rule modeled on the India
princely states which then also spread
across the region. So, you know, against
this idea that it is a very age-old form
of ancient rule.
Also important - that I've tried to
focus on is also in terms of the outlook
and how the Gulf is perceived and
approached within Western academia and
studied today. And this has indeed, has
seeped into the wider, I guess, discourse
on the Gulf. And this is, I think, what I
would like to focus on for this first
part now. Indeed I think in many ways
maybe the Gulf is probably the last
great bastion of Orientalism in the
Middle East Studies. Now I think
obviously this also exists in other
parts of the Arab world when studying in
the Arab world and other parts of the
world but there have also been a lot of
changes and nuances and attempts to
address this, and I think when trying to
approach other areas and their study. In
the Gulf however I think it persists
heavily and it's probably the default.
It's still the modus operandi, I guess
this is called. So the, you know, the
region is mainly still seeing through
the prism of oil monarchs, USA UK
security relations, or in the case of the
leftist discourse imperialism and ethno
sectarianism. And it's this last one
which I will start our discussion with
today. Now ethno sect categories and
using them as the basis from what to
analyse is very prevalent when dealing
with the Gulf in academia today.
And it is become part of the discourse
and talked about in a way that I think
now it is if you talk the same about
other places would be rejected and would
not be - would be seen as too simplistic
and not being a way to approach it. This
is not something that is an issue of the
right by the way only. Indeed many people
are labeled usually as being part of the
left or as progressives also sometimes
engage in this. And indeed I suspect
maybe a large proportion, maybe a
majority thereof, maybe who are here in
this room would consider themselves to
hold more progressive or leftist
leanings. So I will I think try to focus
on that part more. I think we talk a
lot about the, of how the right
usually approaches these things, so
please indulge me and as we hope to try
to discuss, critique and unsettle some of
these issues instead of, let's say,
preaching to the choir. So I will for
example begin with a quote that Noam
Chomsky gave in a speech in 2011 and he
started this quote by saying Bahrain is
about 70 percent Shia and it's right
across the causeway from eastern Saudi
Arabia which is also majority Shia and
happens to be where most of the oil is.
By a curious accident of history and
geography the world's major energy
resources are located pretty much in
Shia regionsThey are a minority in the
Middle East but they happen to be where
the oil is. And then he continues to
analyse the region in terms of these
main two categories of Sunnis and Shias.
Now disregarding the veracity of the
questionable information and data in
there, my main concern is more that the
region is, how the region is primarily
read through these ethno sect categories.
Now obviously in the current post-Iraq
2003 invasion sectarianism plays an
important role in the region and any
analysis would have to approach this
subject. But my my concern here is that sects are
made the main unit of analysis and they
are - and from which basically the rest of
the outlook emerges. They become
basically the essence of each person is
either a Shia or a Sunni and political
analysis flows from that, which I think
is a very problematic way of approaching,
and I think you know in different areas
that's as most people would say this. But in the Gulf and Bahrain specifically
seems to be still the very base from
which things emerge. Now you might think
I'm exaggerating but I invite you
to look up the last few books that have
been published in Bahrain over the last
two years. Other than the fact that the
main focus is sectarianism, which i will
come t,o the epistemological outlook, the
base from which everything  flows is
ethno sect categories. Now what I want to
talk about here a bit is that this
actually has a long colonial legacy and
I think, too, if we're going to talk about
decolonisation this would be at least an
important part to start off. I'm gonna
start by talking a bit about Lorimer's
Gazetteer. Now I don't know if any of you
know Lorimer and the gazetteer he wrote.
So Lorimer was a colonial British
officer in the British Raj who wrote
probably the most famous reference in
Western academia on the Gulf. More than
4,700 pages detailing as much as possible of the
Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula in the
early 1900's. Now although
it's the main reference not used nowadays  it was back then written for the
purposes of colonial control through
knowledge, which as Edward Said has
discussed eloquently in his book,
"Orientalism". So Bahrain by the early 20th
century was basically the eye of the
storm of the expanding British presence
in the Gulf. Ever since Curzon's
forward policy at the end of the
19th century.  And basically this book, well it's not a
book, it's actually like a volume, if you
look at it Bahrain gets very much more
intense and detailed treatment compared
to other places reflecting the, this
the fact that basically it was, it played a
bigger role, or a big role let's say, at
least within the forward policy. Now, so
the opening basically sentences when
Lorimer discusses Bahrain is basically
of the whole population of about a
hundred thousand souls some 60,000 - chiefly townsmen - are Sunnis and
about 40,000 - mostly villagers -
are Shia. Now again disregarding the
veracity of these statistics, what most interests me here is that basically
the analysis, the basic building blocks
of the analysis from which everything
else flows, is basically having ethno
sect cleavages, which basically become
the underlying fault lines that
shaped local society and basically its
political power, practice and discourse.
So basically this way of looking at
things was a view of - way of viewing and
categorising the social world in which
(a) there were communities, basically they
thought there were communities, and these
were separate communities and they are
clearly defined as different and these
communities were primarily defined and
composed of different sects and
ethnicities. Okay. So the local population,
its actions, laws and social makeup were
to be analysed mainly based on these
ethno sect divisions which are presented, you
know, as very clear cuts in Sunni versus
Shia,  Baharna versus Hola versus
tribes, rather than highlighting, you know,
any kind of commonalities between them
e.g. Arab or Muslim. So then basically
censuses, institution, laws and forms of
mobilisations were to be organised
mainly based around these ethno sect
fault lines which are elevated from
everything else, whether it's class or
regional place or let's say more rural
versus urban, that there are professions,
that basically these are elevated to
become the core that basically
everything else flows from. So like I
said other socio-economic factors, kinship,
geography etc, production
relations, take a backseat to these
different quote primordial elements. So
obviously this does not mean these other
factors did not play a role. In fact the
British displayed a knack for
documenting the minutiae of all of
the different aspects, but the basic
building blocks that compose society in
politics were to be distinct sects and
ethnicities. Now this also this world you
would also have real effects on the
ground where basically these
institutions which I talked about before
when the British started forming them -
courts, basically city councils, police
forces - these institutions are the ground,
were formed basically with this
categorisation based on ethno sect being
taken to primacy and, you know,
setting up consociational structures
similar to maybe what you have in
Lebanon today, back in there that were
based on this kind of ethno sectarian
way of looking at the world. Now this
kind of outlook, I mean with changes
obviously they are still analysing
like I said basically analysing Bahrain
still flows from this look of having
kind of two distinct communities - Shias
and Sunnis - and then different blocks of
ethnicity as well
within them. So obviously 
critiquing such an approach and the
world view through which Bahrain or the
Gulf is seen is an important part maybe
if we wanted to approach decolonisation
of curricula or study etc but here is
what I think is the more important part
and where maybe the part of liberation
comes in. The problem with such a gaze or
fee or way of approaching the place is
not only that it propagates this kind of
way and also has material effects on the
ground but also what it hides and
importantly what are the issues that
basically don't have a light shed on
because we approach everything through
this way. And, you know, including what I
will focus on now which will bring us
I guess to the liberation part, is often there
were anti-colonial or anti-imperial or
more nationalist or even explicitly anti-sectarian movements that tried to
transcend such ethno sect mobilisation
or labeling, which
basically then get trapped in this way
of approaching things so everything
whether it comes from a different
outlook - nationalist etc - has been caged
within these labels. So no matter what
the person's outlook or how he
approached it it's still, oh he's a Shia
or
he's a Sunni, and this is where we're
gonna approach it. And they are projected
throughout the different phases of
history. So this is actually what I will
spend a bit of time talking about now. One of the examples of the groups that
no one talks about, at least in the
Western literature, is in the same time
period where the British established -
they're basically increasing presence
in Bahrain in the early 20th century -
and for those who might, you know, know
what was going on in the other parts of
the Arab world this was a period of what
is usually called within the literature, the al-Nahda, so we're talking here
about people like you know Rashid Rida,
Mohammad Abduh or Al-Afghani etc.
That basically it's a new
movement that tried, or let's say group
of people of very diverse leanings, that
basically wanted to contribute or try to
transform some form of Renaissance. So
now this also, this al-Nahda, let's say
Renaissance, also had its reverberations
with in the Gulf, and within including
the Gulf is Bahrain, which I will talk
a bit now. I mean I this is what my,
one of the main focuses are of the books
that Hicham mentioned which
unfortunately, sadly, it's pretty much the
first book that focuses on Bahrain, on
that period and this group of people,
although there have been many books that
focus on that period but they pretty
much never approach this because it's
always usually based on the British
colonial archives and it's usually
always reads things within these Sunni
Shia discourse I guess, if you want.
So this is, for example, one of the people
who was one of the major figures during
this period his name is a Quasem al-Shirawi, who I always like to quote this
description that the British Agency and
its, some of its supporters would
describe, quote, as a "dangerous political
intriguer and called the cleverest
rogue in Bahrain, an evil genius who
spares no pain to lessen the dignity and
authority of the British Agency, actively
promoting such seditious concepts such
as the freedom of the nations". So now
Qasem al-Shirawi was a complex figure who
interacted with the al-Nahda figures in the
wider Arab world. He also helped
establish the first institutionalised local school and the
first anti-colonial organisation, but he
also then - and he also had different
professions including being a merchant
and then at the head of the Custom House,
and he was also close to an adviser to
the ruler, so it's a very, you know,
complex, you know character. Now he is
also, he's also, his son after him became
one of the main leading figures in the
1950s of the National Movement then and
which basically and he was in many ways
in charge of helping establish the
19 - the first labour law in the Gulf,
the 1957 Bahrain Labour Law, and then his
his son's son or I guess his grandson was
also an active and important figure in
the Popular Front for the Liberation of
the Occupied Arabian Gulf as it was
called, the Popular Front in the Gulf
in the 1970s,. So this was kind of like a
family that had about you know three
generations at least of people who are
involved in politics. Now on the
other hand, I mean just to give you an
example, so one of the most recent books
in Bahrain, which basically like a lot of
the other books focuses nearly
exclusively on the British colonial
archives when approaching things, in 
this period where he was involved he
gets a treatment of a few sentences
where he's basically just reduced to a
Sunni tribal affiliate. Now disregarding
that anyone who knows much about Bahrain
would tell you that his family is not a
tribal family, but even then basically
this complex character was basically
reduced to, you know, treacherous, and he
was deported by the British. Now this
might not necessarily come out of, you
know, malicious intent, but you know if
you completely depend on the British
archives and basically the viewpoint
that comes from
from basically British colonial officers,
no matter how critical you are of the
archives you will not get this other
information that would give you this
different viewpoint of where he comes
from and you end up basically applying
the ethno sectarian gaze, I guessI should call it. He's basically a tribal Sunni.
That's all he is. So basically this is
what I try to talk about a bit as
well in terms of how we can approach
this. Now comes in, we'll bring in the
Palestine part because it is actually
from these movements than those tied to
them that basically the legacy or I
guess the long movement of Palestinian
solidarity in the Gulf began to take
root, which stretches back to the 1920s.
Indeed the Gulf-Palestine connections
and solidarities have been
seldom explored within the Western
literature. In fact it's nearly
you know, it's it's very, very minute and
which we'll come to now, and again this
is another area where the entrenched
Orientalism on the Gulf in some of
today's foreign politics are reflected
historically. There isn't, yeah, there
hasn't been much, but I mean it's also
important to consider what has been
there. So probably you know one of the
most important figures that have wrote
on this, the very few that is written on
this is Rosemarie Said Zahlan, who you
know, has not I think taken her due
enough within the work on the Gulf for
the work here and she has done and she's
probably, you know, more  known for her
connection as well to her brother, Edward
Said. That is not known as so much, but
she's one of well, yeah, she was one of
the most foremost scholars on the Gulf.
And we also, you know, are lucky here to
have as well Talal Al-Rashoud with us who
is probably the best expert on this, of
the early Gulf and Palestine connections,
which is, you know, he explores the
surprisingly rich connection starting
from the 1920s up until today. So you
know we can, and this again, his work has
explored this much more so I encourage
you to to look at it more. So for example
in 1924 during the British Mandate and
after the League of Nations authorised
Jewish migration to Palestine,
Haj Amin al-Husseini headed a
a delegation from the Supreme Muslim Council that visited
Kuwait and Bahrain to raise funds
for the upkeep of the al-Aqsa Mosque and
this was during a phase when the
Palestinian national movement first
started to seek support for this cause
and this pretty much continued
throughout all the major, I guess, events
that you could look for. So for example
this became more crystallised during the
Great Arab Revolt between 1936 and 1939,
and Kuwait, if we take an example of a
place that probably had the most
pro-Palestine work during this time, I mean,
remember during this time pretty much
all of the Gulf with the exception of Saudi
was under one form or another of British
colonialism. And so needless to say
usually this kind of work went together
with also anti-colonial work against the
British. The British were nervous of
these kind of repercussions elsewhere so
usually, for example, in this period it
focused more on clandestine
collection of funds and arms smuggling,
and which was done in Kuwait and they
also established in 1936 a committee to
assist the Palestinians and they also
then started basically they created a
group called Shabab al Kuwait, or the
Youth of Kuwait, that also tried to,
basically they sent telegrams of protest
to the League of Nations, the House of
Commons, and the Secretary of State for
the Colonies. And then basically also
they set up a committee specifically to
raise funds for these issues and these
same people, a lot of them would form
the backbone for the 1938
constitutional movement, oppositional
movement in in Kuwait. So, and I mean, this
continued so again we could go again to
1948 and the riots that happened in
Bahrain during or in response to al-Nakba
and you know of course then once we
entered the 1950s it becomes much more
of a nationalist oriented movement, so
this is, for example, probably from one of
the biggest movements in Bahrain which
was called the Higher Executive
Committee in the 1950s which basically
in the end was, which up until then was
the biggest political movement in the
history of Bahrain. They even forced
recognition as a political party, and it
was then sent to its deathbed in 1956
following protests against the, basically
the tripartite aggression by Britain and
Israel and France against Egypt, and its
leaders were exiled and
sent to St Helena by the British, well
jailed and then exiled, where at least
some of them continued the rest of their
lives. By the way the the guy in the
middle there holding the microphone,
that's my grandfather, so yeah. Now this
again we can also, you know, once we enter
the 1960s, once there is the turn let's
say towards their more revolutionary
movements, and then you have, you have
first the movement of Arab Nationalists
and then the Popular Front as they took
a leftist turn. This also continued
in the Gulf and with the connections in
Palestine even through the name, the
Popular Front, right? And in fact as we
all know one of the main founders of the
movement of Arab Nationalists with
George Habash and Nayef Hawatmeh was Dr Ahmad al-Khatib from Kuwait. And indeed
this connection went both ways. So you
know, many of the people that then came
and through during the Palestinian
revolution of the 1960's and 1970's were
in Kuwait, like Yasser Arafat, Ghassan
Kanafani and Naji al-Ali.  Indeed Handala,
the famous cartoon figure, appeared
first in a Kuwaiti newspaper, al-Siyasa,
in 1969. And obviously also we can also
discuss the more Islamist groups such as
Hamas and this connection.
Now needless to say there are
also several issues of critique that
came up within this movement as was the
case with the visa restrictions
immortalised by Ghassan Kanafani in
his novel "Men of the Sun" about three
Palestinians who want to be smuggled
into Kuwait and end up dying in the
process. Now, and this is important, but
what I'm saying here is not about, you
know, tooting the Gulf's horn or
trying to, you know, present a different
picture, or that all the Gulf has a bad
deal in how it's being portrayed, or
pushing against lazy narratives etc.
There is actually a deeper reason. Which
again is to come back to this, is to
uncover and reclaim these movements and
this history which is being buried and
forgotten and it becomes more of a
disconnect. Not only in the West, which is
I guess there wasn't even the connection
to begin with, but also in the
Gulf and in the Arab world. And here I
can also invoke the work of two other
great people who've I think given lectures
here in Fobzu before - Karma Nabulsi
and Abdel Razazk Takriti - who
basically emphasised that at the core of
this as traditions - traditions of
solidarity, traditions of different
movements and how they approach their
outlook to politics and how they
approach different things. So, you know, an
anti-colonial tradition, a more
liberation tradition, a nationalist
tradition etc. So the, and the many of the
Gulf's movements built that or that
emerged in the Gulf throughout thee
periods, Palestine and the struggle of
the Palestinians was a fundamental part
of the outlook and view and the
traditions of these peoples. Indeed to -
in some cases going to the core of them,
such as with the Popular Front, with the
movement of Arab Nationalists etc. And,
you know, these traditions are important
to again critique, uncover,
and talk about it. And here again is
the part where we'll bring it to 
today and maybe we'll also talk about,
but you know, potential synergies and
ways of solidarity maybe when we're
trying to approach the West or the Gulf
or the Arab world etc. So for example
it's no secret I would argue today that,
you know, Palestine-related work has been
facing setbacks in the Arab world over
the last two decades. Not only with the
normalisation of regimes and governments
of which the Gulf now seems to be, or at
least some countries in the Gulf, seem to
be taking a leading role, but also on the
level of people, where again, organised
movements have been facing setbacks. Now
this has seemed to have coincided with the
rise in Palestine-related solidarity
work in the in the West, showing diverging
movements. Now so maybe if one who tries
to talk about this in the end a bit, of
how to be able to approach this and
where maybe there can be a benefit so
for example we all know that now as part
of the decolonisation framework that is
being used, and again I I prefer to say
anti-colonialism or liberation, but
we'll come to that, you have works of
greats like Frantz Fanon and Ghassan
Kanafani which were part of how
Palestine and other places under
colonial rule are now part and included
in many curricula in Western
universities. And obviously we have, you
know, the works of Edward Said etc
playing a role
in this. But we need to take this, I think,
beyond this and to try to basically look
at, like I just mentioned and others have
mentioned, into looking at anti-colonial
and trying to bring to the centre these
movements and the way that they have
approached. But this, you know cross, I
guess, fertilisation if you want to call it,
can also go the other way. And you
know, productively and not, you know, if
we've always talked about imperialism of
the West of the Arab world, also we can
maybe talk about the work of solidarity
movements can also help, you know, and again work together with those
in the region and vice versa. So I, for
example, a lot of the, I guess, work that I
got involved in in Palestine happened
in the West, and in fact in university
you know, whether it was, you know, being
involved in Israel Apartheid Week or the
Occupation Movement in what was it,
2008? I don't know that was a long time
ago. Anyway. That all happened, you know,
when I was
here. And you know, I got you know,
introduced to the idea of like, you know
demonstrations, vigils, boycott campaigns
etc. Now these obviously existed as well
back back at home but they took
different forms. So you know these new
discourses, strategies, tactics,
friendships, traditions cross-pollinated
with the ones I had at home, and still
animate much of what I do today. Indeed I
met my wife through Palestine-related
work. And still, for example, she and those
who work with her were the first to do
Israel Apartheid Week in the Gulf, and
have one of the most active groups from
Palestine working in the Gulf now it is.
So now, obviously, again this comes with
cautions and pitfalls and critiques such
that what might apply in the West may
not apply in the Gulf and vice versa and
for example the bar historically has
been much higher in the Arab world and
so for example when we're talking, you
know, 1967 borders that would be
considered, you know, normalisation, or you
know, not good enough in a lot of
the movements that were in the Gulf and
that were basically liberation, or
freedom is the main goal of
Palestine and Palestinians and everyone
who lives on the land of of Palestine.
Now let's try to, you know, to bring
all of these different divergent themes
that I've tried to talk about together.
So I began with talking about the
colonial imprints in the Gulf and the
need to recognise it and critique it and
the imprint it still leaves on the
region today, not only on its foreign
relations but also on its internal
structures, and as well on the way
the Gulf is approached in academia and
more widely in the West. And I tried to connect this
and show that this has actually a long
colonial tradition. So, you know, the
usual canned categories that you get
when dealing with the Gulf or the Arab
world, we might want to, you know, rethink
them. And because these can shape a whole
project and the premise from, and a
discourse from which they emerge, and
obviously the material effects that come
from this. And then we try to talk about
how this also hides other readings and
movements which had a more anti-colonial,
liberatory trajectory which get, you know,
hidden through this. And we took the, you
know, the al-Nahda group as an example and
we tried to explore through this the
connections with Palestine from then and
the Gulf up until the current times. And
how these also can get hidden and, you
know, put aside. But also, so we want to
reach a point where we, you know, can talk
about them and highlight them and maybe build
on them and how maybe this can reflect
on how can there be a productive
interplay on the, based on the traditions
of solidarity on Palestine whether it's
in the West or in the Gulf or the Arab
world which could, you know, work with
each other and not only bring in new
outlooks, interpretations, readings but
offer ways to build further and open up
different ways of, and traditions of
solidarity. Because this is, at the end,
what is important: building traditions of
solidarity towards the goal of a free
Palestine. Thank you very much.
