Unfettering the Voices of Palestinian Women: Counterstorytelling Against Dehumanization, Suppression, and Genocide

Abstract

My thesis uses the opportunity and its platform to amplify the voices of Palestinian women while Palestine is enduring a holocaust by the settler-colonial regime known as ‘israel.’ I have chosen to read the life writing of four Palestinian women to provide a historical survey that contextualizes Palestine—whose people and voice has long been dehumanized and suppressed within western cultural and political spaces. These women, who include Fadwa Tuqan, Leila Khaled, Bisan Owda and Jenan Matari, participate in an overall objective towards counterstorytelling for the purpose of social justice for Palestine, Palestinians, and Palestinian women. I believe it is necessary to understand the circumstances and context of the Palestinian reality in order to recognize the depth of the propagandic nature of the dominant western narrative and locates the necessity of counterstorytelling which dismantles hegemonic narratives, highlights double standards, and strives for the liberation of Palestine.

In the Introduction I include: my positionality while introducing background information to help situate the reader in discourse of Palestinian feminist liberation, the culture of resistance which has developed historically in Palestine, an introduction of my voices and offer a brief history of Palestinian women’s activism and popular resistance.

In Chapter One I analyze and compare two Palestinian women’s autobiographies, Tuqan’s A Mountainous Journey: An Autobiography and Khaled’s My People Shall Live: Autobiography of a revolutionary by Leila Khaled as told to George Hajjar which are read through a Critical Race Theory (CRT) and feminist lens. Tuqan’s autobiography provides an emotional and poetic description of conservative patriarchy as her foremost oppressor as she lived through the imperial British Mandate, the growing zionist threat/invasion, the Nakba and Naksa. Khaled’s autobiography is written much closer to counterstorytelling as she presents the suppressed history and brutality of imperialism and zionism against Palestinians. She completes her counterstory by using her personal narrative as a central structure from which to tell the collective story of Palestine.

In Chapter Two I first illustrate how Palestine/Palestinians are being silenced through habitual media and social media censorship. After illustrating the pro-‘israel’ bias of western media/institutions/politics I present the voices of Bisan Owda and Jenan Matari as examples of digital counterstorytelling and analyze how they challenge the dominant western narrative. While Owda is literally surviving a genocide she manages to share her own personal stories as well as those in Gaza also trying to survive the holocaust. Matari, a storyteller from the diaspora, uses her platform to illustrate the vile depravity of ‘israeli’ society while simultaneously amplifying the voices of Palestinians in her homeland.

In the conclusion I include the results of a survey on the concept of “auditioning for humanity,” addressing the October 9th “ceasefire,” and the need to remain vigilant by following the lead of Palestinians as they alone must determine when justice has been applied in a Free Palestine.