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FROM REVOLUTIONARIES TO MUSLIMS: LIMINAL BECOMINGS ACROSS PALESTINIAN GENERATIONS IN DENMARK

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 January 2016

Anja Kublitz
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Abstract

Exploring generational changes and continuities among Palestinian families in Denmark, this article investigates why the children of the fidāᵓīn (fighters) and many of the fidāᵓīn themselves have turned their backs on secular politics and embraced Islam. The Palestinians who arrived in Denmark from Lebanon in the wake of the Lebanese Civil War were members of the Palestinian Liberation Organization and were known as the generation of the revolution (jīl al-thawra). Extending Karl Mannheim's approach to generations, I argue that in order to explain the transition among Palestinians in Denmark from revolutionaries to Muslims we can rely on neither genealogy nor historical context alone, but need to pay equal attention to the structural continuities that crosscut generations. I suggest that rather than conceive of revolutionaries and Muslims as oppositions, we should think of them as substitutions, as liminal becomings that are actualized across historical generations.

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Articles
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International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 48 , Issue 1 , February 2016 , pp. 67 - 86
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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References

NOTES

Author's note: I am grateful to Andreas Bandak, Mikkel Bille, Regnar Kristensen, Simon Turner, and Bjørn Møller for reading and commenting on earlier drafts. I also thank the four anonymous IJMES reviewers for constructive comments that helped me sharpen the argument.

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9 In Lebanon, the Palestinians were not granted citizenship but rather categorized as foreigners. See Knudsen, Are, “Widening the Protection Gap: The ‘Politics of Citizenship’ for Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon, 1948–2008,” Journal of Refugee Studies 22 (2009): 51–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In Denmark, Palestinians were denied citizenship, even though Denmark had ratified the UN convention on the reduction of statelessness, which means that all stateless Palestinians were entitled to Danish citizenship. Birthe Rønn Hornbeck, who was minister for refugees, immigrants, and integration from 2007 to 2011, was fired because of what became known as “The Stateless Palestinians Case.” See Tynell, Jesper, Mørkelygten: Embedsmænd fortæller om politisk tilskæring af tal, jura og fakta (København: Samfundslitteratur, 2014), 143–61Google Scholar. It should be noted though that individual Palestinians could obtain citizenship in Denmark but since this required a high level of skill in Danish, the vast majority of my interlocutors remained stateless.

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21 See, for example, Kublitz, Anja, “The Sound of Silence: The Reproduction and Transformation of Global Conflicts within Palestinian Families in Denmark,” in Mobile Bodies, Mobile Souls: Family, Religion and Migration in a Global World, ed. Rytter, Mikkel and Olwig, Karen Fog (Aarhus, Denmark: Aarhus University Press, 2011), 161–80Google Scholar; Pedersen, Marianne Holm, “‘You Want Your Children to Become Like You’: The Transmission of Religious Practices among Iraqi Families in Copenhagen,” in Mobile Bodies, Mobile Souls: Family, Religion and Migration in a Global World, ed. Rytter, Mikkel and Olwig, Karen Fog (Aarhus, Denmark: Aarhus University Press, 2011), 117–38Google Scholar; Schmidt, Garbi, Muslim i Danmark—Muslim i verden. En analyse af muslimske ungdomsforeninger og muslimsk identitet i årene op til Muhammad-krisen (Uppsala: Universitetstryckeriet, 2007)Google Scholar; and Johansen, Karen-Lise, Muslimske stemmer: Religiøs forandring blandt unge muslimer i Danmark (København: Akademisk Forlag, 2002)Google Scholar.

22 Schmidt, Muslim i Danmark—Muslim i verden, 34–35; Johansen, Muslimske stemmer, 37.

23 Allan, Diana, Refugees of the Revolution: Experiences of Palestinian Exile (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2014)Google Scholar.

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25 Mannheim, Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge, 290–91.

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27 See, among others, Tom, O’Neil, “In the Path of Heroes: Second-Generation Tamil-Canadians after the LTTE,” Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power 22 (2015): 124–39Google Scholar; Scott, David, Omens of Adversity: Tragedy, Time, Memory, Justice (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2014)Google Scholar; Whyte, Susan R., Erdmute, Alber, and van der Geest, Sjaak, eds., Generations in Africa: Connections and Conflicts (Münster: Lit-Verlag, 2008)Google Scholar; Cole, Jennifer and Durham, Deborah, eds., Generations and Globalization: Youth, Age and Family in the New World Economy (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 2007)Google Scholar; and Christiansen, Catrine, Utas, Mats, and Vigh, Henrik E., eds., Navigating Youth, Generating Adulthood: Social Becoming in an African Context (Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 2006)Google Scholar.

28 Kecskemeti, Paul, Introduction to Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge, by Mannheim, Karl (London: Routledge, 1997 [1952]), 23Google Scholar.

29 The movement from revolutionaries to Muslims was not restricted to daughters, but included sons as well. The transition, however, influenced my access to potential interlocutors. Whereas I could develop close relations to both men and women of the parental generation, I only became close to the young women of the generation of the children since this generation was more segregated according to gender. My entrance points to the two families in this article were Hiba and Layal and each happened to have a close relationship with her father.

30 Mannheim, Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge, 284, 293.

31 Ahmed Abu Laban was a Palestinian–Danish imam, who in the course of 2005–6 became a central figure in the Danish Muslim mobilization against the cartoons of the Prophet. Klausen, Jytte, The Cartoons That Shook the World (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2009)Google Scholar.

32 On the French prohibition of headscarves, see Bowen, John R., Why the French Don't Like Headscarves (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Scott, Joan W., The Politics of the Veil (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2007)Google Scholar.

33 Schulz with Hammer, The Palestinian Diaspora, 106–7.

34 The “War of the Camps” was a series of sieges and attacks on Palestinian refugee camps by the Syrian-backed Amal militia between 1985 and 1987. Peteet, Julie, Landscapes of Hope and Despair: Palestinian Refugee Camps (Philadelphia, Pa.: Pennsylvania University Press, 2005), 151Google Scholar. The Amal militia was one of the most important Shiʿi Muslim militias during the Lebanese Civil War.

35 Hizb al-Tahrir is an international, pan-Islamist, Sunni political party whose goal is to unite all Muslim countries in a unitary Islamic state or caliphate. Unlike in most other countries, Hizb al-Tahrir is legal in Denmark. Its spokesperson in Denmark is a Palestinian. He has been found guilty of distributing racist propaganda and of making threats against the Danish prime minister.

36 Al-Ahbash follows the teaching of Shaykh ʿAbd Allah al-Hirari, who was born in Ethiopia but settled in Lebanon in 1950. Knudsen, Are, “Islam in the Diaspora: Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon,” Journal of Refugee Studies 18 (2005): 225CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

37 Layal's experiences working for Amnesty International are also described (in relation to a different context) in Kublitz, Anja, “The Cartoon Controversy: Creating Muslims in a Danish Setting,” Social Analysis 54 (2010): 107–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38 Portes and Zhou, The New Second Generation, 530:74–96.

39 Sayigh, Palestinians, 98–144.

40 Ibid., 147–52.

41 Ibid., 136.

42 Ibid., 147.

43 Ibid., 144.

44 Ibid., 160–63.

45 Ibid., 146.

46 Swedenburg, Ted, Memories of Revolt: The 1936–1939 Rebellion and the Palestinian National Past (Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minnesota Press, 1995)Google Scholar; Swedenburg, , “The Palestinian Peasant as National Signifier,” Anthropological Quarterly 63 (1990): 18–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

47 Sayigh, Palestinians: From Peasants to Revolutionaries, 167.

48 Ibid., 168.

49 Ibid., 100; and Shiblak, Abbas, “Palestinians in Lebanon and the PLO,” Journal of Refugee Studies 10 (1997): 261–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

50 Fatah is the largest member organization within the PLO. Like DFLP, PFLP is a left-wing member organization within the PLO.

51 Sayigh, Palestinians: From Peasants to Revolutionaries, 169.

52 Feldt, Jakob. E., “Vejen til fred—Betragtninger om vejen til fred gennem Israel–Palæstina konfliktens historie,” in Et andet nyt Mellemøsten, ed. Seeberg, Peter and Valbjørn, Morten (Odense, Denmark: Syddansk Universitetsforlag, 2008), 125–48Google Scholar.

53 Coban, Helene, The Palestinian Liberation Organisation: People, Power and Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 221–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

54 Cf. Mannheim, Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge, 277–82.

55 Cainkar, No Longer Invisible, 26.

56 Hanafi, Sari and Long, Taylor, “Governance, Governmentalities, and the State of Exception in the Palestinian Refugee Camps of Lebanon,” Journal of Refugee Studies 23 (2010): 134–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Knudsen, Islam in the Diaspora, 216–34.

57 Lybarger, Loren D., Identity and Religion in Palestine: The Struggle between Islamism and Secularism in the Occupied Territories (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2007)Google Scholar.

58 For an overview on how the discourse on immigrants in Denmark has developed, see Kublitz, The Cartoon Controversy; Hervik, Peter, Mediernes Muslimer: En antropologisk undersøgelse af mediernes dækning af religioner i Danmark (København: Nævnet for Etnisk ligestilling, 2002)Google Scholar; and Schwartz, Jonathan M., “On the Representation of Immigrants in Denmark: A Retrospective,” in Every Cloud has a Silver Lining: Studies in Cultural Sociology, no. 28, ed. Røgilds, Flemming (København: Akademisk Forlag, 1990), 42–52Google Scholar.

59 The Danish People's Party is a nationalist right-wing party that was established in 1995. In the national election of 2001 it became the third biggest party in Denmark.

60 See Hervik, Peter and Rytter, Mikkel “Med ægteskab i fokus,” in Ægtefællesammenføring i Danmark, ed. Olsen, Birgitte Kofod, Liisberg, Maria Ventegodt and Kjærum, Morten (København: Institut for Menneskerettigheder, 2004), 131–60Google Scholar.

61 Konservative Landsråd, “Kulturminister Brian Mikkelsens tale 2005,” Konservative Landsråd, accessed 7 October 2015, http://jyllands-posten.dk/kultur/ECE4769343/Dokumentation%3A+Kulturminister+Brian+Mikkelsens+tale/.

62 On Danish neoracism, see Hervik, Peter, The Annoying Difference: The Emergence of Danish Neonationalism, Neoracism, and Populism in the Post-1989 World (New York: Berghahn, 2011)Google Scholar; and Klausen, The Cartoons That Shook the World.

63 Thomas Faist, “The Migration–Security Nexus: International Migration and Security before and after 9/11” (working paper, University of Bielefeld, Centre on Migration, Citizenship and Development [COMCAD], 2005), accessed 18 September 2015, https://www.uni-bielefeld.de/tdrc/ag_comcad/downloads/workingpaper_9.pdf.

64 Jyllands-Posten, “Leder: Landsforræderne,” 13 July 2007.

65 Cf. Cainkar, The Social Construction of Difference, 246.

66 See, for example, Mandaville, Transnational Muslim Politics.

67 Mannheim, Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge, 297.

68 See Cainkar, The Social Construction of Difference, and Naber, Arab Americans for a description of the same phenomenon in the United States. See also Mandaville, Transnational Muslim Politics.

69 See also Turki, Fawaz, The Disinherited: Journal of a Palestinian Exile (London: Monthly Review Press, 1974)Google Scholar.

70 Deeb, Lara, An Enchanted Modern: Gender and Public Piety in Shiʿi Lebanon (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2006), xxiiiGoogle Scholar; Mahmood, Saba, Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2005), 44Google Scholar.

71 Deeb, An Enchanted Modern, 28; Mahmood, Politics of Piety, xv, 70.

72 Johnson, Nels, Islam and the Politics of Meaning in Palestinian Nationalism (London: KPI, Routledge, and Kegan Paul PLC, 1984)Google Scholar.

73 Ibid., 40–42ff, 76–77ff. See also Schulz with Hammer, The Palestinian Diaspora, 128–30.

74 Sayigh, Palestinians: From Peasants to Revolutionaries, 148.

75 Ibid., 149.

76 For similar statements among Palestinians in the West Bank, see Kelly, Toby, “The Attractions of Accountancy: Living an Ordinary Life during the Second Palestinian Intifada,” Ethnography 9 (2008): 351–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

77 Mannheim, Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge, 293.

78 Ibid., 289.

79 Malkki, Purity and Exile, 5.

80 Ibid., 6.

81 Ibid., 4–8.

82 Ibid., 7.

83 Kublitz, The Mutable Conflict, 51.

84 De Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, xix; cf. Sayigh, Palestinians: From Peasants to Revolutionaries, 49; Kublitz, Seizing Catastrophes, 117.

85 For an analysis of the demonstration and the cartoon controversy, see Kublitz, The Cartoon Controversy.

86 As I write this article, the cartoon controversy has been re-actualized. On 14 February 2015, a young Danish Palestinian man opened fire at a cultural center in Copenhagen where Swedish artist Lars Vilks, who is known for his cartoons of the Prophet, was speaking. One man was killed. The same night the gunman also killed a Jewish security guard in front of Copenhagen's main synagogue, after which he himself was shot and killed by the police.

87 In Palestinian national discourse, al-Nakba refers to the catastrophe of 1948 when the State of Israel was declared and the Palestinians were dispelled. See Abu-Lughod, Ahmad H. Saʿdi and Lila, eds., Nakba: Palestine, 1948, and the Claims of Memory (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007)Google Scholar.

88 Anja Kublitz, “The Ongoing Catastrophe: Erosion of Life in the Danish Camps,” Journal of Refugee Studies (forthcoming).

89 Knudsen, Are, The Law, the Loss and the Lives of Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon (Bergen: CMI Working Papers, 2007), 4Google Scholar.

90 Glick-Schiller, Nina, Basch, Linda, and Blanc, Christina Szanton, “Transnationalism: A New Analytic Framework for Understanding Migration,” in Towards a Transnational Perspective on Migration: Race, Class, Ethnicity, and Transnationalism Reconsidered, ed. Glick-Schiller, Nina, Basch, Linda, and Blanc, Christina Szanton (New York: New York Academy of Sciences, 1992), 1–24Google Scholar.

91 Schulz with Hammer, The Palestinian Diaspora, 121; Sayigh, Rosemary, “Palestinian Camp Women as Tellers of History,” Journal of Palestine Studies 27 (1998): 53CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

92 Sayigh, Palestinians: From Peasants to Revolutionaries, 148.