A Palestinian Gandhi?
By George Lakey
We asked George Lakey – a longtime proponent of nonviolent direct
action - to interview Mubarak Awad - a Palestinian Christian psychologist
who organized a nonviolent resistance movement against occupation of Palestinian
lands at the end of the 1980’s. Israel expelled him to the United
States where he currently runs an NGO based in Washington D.C. –
Nonviolence International.
Awad has allowed that Palestinians had little use for nonviolent strategies
before the first intifada. Gandhi, for example, was not a popular figure
in the Muslim world because he was against the creation of Pakistan –
an Islamic state. Awad set out to try to develop an education program
of nonviolence in Islam a generation ago. He went to India to find a Muslim
who worked with Gandhi, Abdul Ghaffar Khan, who brought the Pathan people
into the Indian anti-colonialist struggle. Awad wrote a book about Khan
and he began to reach out to interested Muslims. (Sufis were immediately
responsive.) He started the Palestinian Centre for the Study of Nonviolence
and went to schools, cities, clubs -- to anyone who would hear him, telling
them that they could get rid of the Israeli occupation through nonviolent
means. Nonviolence, according to Awad, was a matter of not accepting the
authority of those who occupy you. He taught Palestinians how to turn
up the pressure by turning the other cheek. He recalls how “tough
it was for Palestinians not to look somebody in the face, not to argue
with them, not to fight them. I went to political meetings and gave a
training for the PLO people in Tunis about how nonviolence can work. They
thought I was crazy.”
Awad eventually wrote a position paper that was published in a Palestinian
magazine spelling out 120 ways in which the Palestinians could use nonviolent
struggle against the Israelis, (Including driving on the wrong side of
the road!)
Once an old man came to him whose land been taken by the Israelis. Awad
told him to get 300 or 400 people from his village -- children, young
people, old people -- anybody who wanted to come take down the fence the
settlers had put around the land. But he insisted that if the Israeli
army came, not a single person should throw a stone. They should sit in,
instead, and refuse to fight back even if they were attacked. The old
man and his community successfully took back his land back from the settlers.
That moved many Palestinians who started coming to Awad’s Centre
instead of to the PLO. He also began connecting with Israelis and Christians
who joined in nonviolent acts sponsored by the Centre. Awad focused in
particular on bringing Palestinian and Israeli women together. One of
his chief objectives was to teach Palestinians not to be afraid of Israelis
- “taking fear away from people and replacing it with courage is
the essence of nonviolence.”
Awad (MA below) began the following interview with George Lakey
(GL below) by acknowledging the “very unfortunate” fact
that the Palestinians are now being “heard more than any time in
their history” because of the suicide bombings. He allowed that there
was an “ingredient” of sacrifice in those acts but refused to
connect them with past nonviolent protests by individuals who immolated
– or starved – themselves without harming others. He noted the
intifada of the 1980’s was characterized, at least initially, by
a kind of resistance that was very different from that of the suicide
bombers…
GL: How would you compare the first intifada with this one?
MA: The first intifada was all about convincing the Palestinians
not to depend on outsiders – depend on yourself. And to do that you
had to have activities that would let people see that they were capable
of resisting occupation. We got people not to eat or drink any product
made in Israel; we said don’t pay taxes; if there’s a letter
sent to you in Hebrew, send it back because you’re an Arab and you
should be proud to be an Arab. We advised people to refuse to participate
in official Israeli occasions. Or even when the time came to change the
clocks, we insisted on keeping our own time. Just a complete rejection
of the concept of occupation. The activities were meant to show that the
occupation was wrong and evil and you have to resist it with your mind,
your body, your heart and your soul. And also with activities on a daily/weekly/monthly
basis. Unfortunately, in a cause where the armed struggle has been the
thing for the youth and the PLO - people have a difficulty understanding
how a revolution could be nonviolent. The first intifada was really an
introduction to nonviolence and to what could be done with it. Later,
unfortunately, people started throwing stones – and that becomes
central to the intifada rather than the continuation of the earlier kinds
of resistance. But for the first four or six months it was completely
nonviolent.
GL: The concept of the rejection of the occupation is very much like what
Gene Sharp talks about - the power of nonviolent, non-cooperation. Isn’t
that right?
MA: Yes that’s right. But the second intifada is really such a different
thing. The second intifada became a very religious one rather than a political
one. Because of the fear of the Palestinians that Sharon is going to go
to the mosque with all those soldiers - the fear that he would come one
time to destroy the mosque to build the temple – I’m talking
about the Dome of the Rock. On Al Haram Al Sharif. And then after that
so many people were shot at and died in Al Haram to protect Al Haram –
the whole thing became very Islamic, very religious. And there’s
always a difference in feeling between a religious and a political struggle.
And now the intifada has stopped being mixed, because the religious people
started the suicide bombing and the political types – Fatah and other
people start using what Hamas is using because it is very effective.
GL: So I hear you saying that as long as you conceive of the struggle
politically it also becomes more pragmatic whereas when it’s religious
it’s more symbolic and people may be more willing to do desperate
acts of violence. Are there other examples of nonviolent tactics that
Palestinians have used over the years either in the first intifada or
more recently?
MA: Even in the second intifada, there have been many, many uses of non-violence.
But the Israelis now under Sharon have 30 new settlements and nobody’s
thought about how to stop it. One thing that we used to do was go to land
where there was going to be a settlement and plant olive trees on it.
The Israelis have a law that if the land has olive trees – any fruit
trees on it – they cannot confiscate it. So we used Israeli law to
protect some of that land by planting the trees. And we did that on thousands
of acres. We always pushed hard to ensure we included some Israelis in
whatever kind of protest activity we were engaged in. It’s logical
for us because it lets the Israelis see the suffering of the Palestinians
and what the government is doing in their name.
GL: What are the prospects for getting Palestinians (and Israelis) involved
in some of these nonviolent activities now?
MA: In the first intifada we were able to get a lot of people thinking
about nonviolent struggle and asking if it could be done and could be
successful. So now, nonviolence is not something strange to the Palestinians.
People say they believe it might work. Or it might not work. Or maybe
we should act on it. But it’s not something that’s now identified
with American ideology - or with some Israeli group or American group
that has seduced the Palestinians with notions of nonviolence. But the
Palestinians must start debating it and accepting or rejecting it. It
will become most powerful if it is a home-grown activity by the Palestinians
with their own culture and ideology. It’s uniquely suited to the
Palestinians. In the midst of the new intifada, for example, the Israelis
wouldn’t allow a lot of people to go and pray. And so thousands of
people went out to pray in the streets in front of the checkpoint. They
were making a very strong nonviolent statement. They were saying: “We
wanted to go pray over there and they’re not allowing us so we’re
going to block the roads here and stop everything.” And just recently
in Ramallah, the Israeli army wanted to go into the hospital and the doctors
of the hospital came and said no way – we will not allow you to come
in the hospital. Many times people don’t say “this is non-violence”
– but that’s the way they act because it’s a necessity.
People have to do something and this is what they do. And later on we
could call it non-violence.
GL: Can you think of any reasons why Palestinians might at some point
use more and more non-violence?
MA: Well to me, it seems that the more blood is shed between people, the
more time will be required for healing, for reconciliation. And in any
struggle the less bloodshed - the fewer people killed – the faster
the two sides can get together to work on their problem. I don’t
think that at this time the Israelis can have adequate security or can
be trusted by the Palestinians. No-one can trust each other now because
of the killing and the destruction. If we use nonviolent activities in
our efforts to achieve a Palestinian state we will be able to convince
the majority of the Israelis that we are not trying to harm them, but
we cannot live under slavery, under colonization. That’s something
that belongs to the past. They cannot destroy our nationalism, our aspirations
to having a state of our own. And we could show it by having thousands
and thousands of people in the street.
My last idea before the invasion of so much of the Palestinian land was
to press for an election. Two months ago I was arguing that we needed
to pour our energy into a democratic election. And it doesn’t matter
if Hamas wins or anyone else. Let’s have the whole world see that
we’re interested in an election. And I was saying loud and clear
that we should have all the refugees come home for it. We should start
walking – we don’t need permission – back to Palestine
from Jordan, from Syria, from Egypt, from Lebanon, from anyplace. And
the whole world would say: “those are serious people - they’re
willing to die.” And they would pressure the Israeli government,
the Arab governments and the international community to do something.
GL: That’s a very bold idea. The whole world’s attention would
be on refugees coming from various countries, asserting their right to
return, putting their own bodies on the line. If at some point people
agreed to do that – to take nonviolence on the offensive (and I hear
you emphasizing the election as another kind of demonstration) then would
you imagine there could be a useful role for these third party people
from Europe and the U.S. who are even now showing good will by saying
that we’d like to go over and perhaps provide some protection in
an unarmed way by intervening and encouraging people not to use violence
on each other? Do you imagine there being a role for such people in the
scenario you’re developing?
MA: Yes, definitely. Very much so. I think that when two peoples
engage in this kind of a conflict, they don’t see the humanity in
each other. They have to look at someone else to really direct them in
that kind of engagement – to tell them just sit back, look and see
that this person is a father, a mother - has kids who want to go to school,
want to get educated, want to ride a bike. The third party can help make
the “other” into a human being. When we don’t see that,
all we can see is death and the other person has to die. That’s when
you need a third person who can say: “Look, look! Easy now, easy.”
You need someone to just sit with them, talk with them, engage with them.
To have coffee with them and coffee with the other side. It’s important.
Third parties allow you to rethink.
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