Palestinian Collective Memory
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In recent years, as the various disciplines of the social sciences have undergone a period of soul searching, various issues have experienced a sort of academic re-examination, as new theories and ideas emerge to challenge or update old and accepted "truths". In anthropology the issue of memory, and especially collective or group memory has been the subject of intensely renewed interest and academic debate, as deeper connections between memory and a host of other issues are discovered. Personal narratives, identity, nationalism, all these and more are now believed to be intricately linked to memory and history, and investigations into the implications of these connections abound in the academic arena. In this paper, I intend to examine some of the aspects, and significance, of collective memory in helping to form a Palestinian national identity, especially among the nearly 2 million Palestinians living under Israeli occupation, either in the Occupied Territories or as internal refugees within the State of Israel. By examining what is remembered by Palestinians to be a major historical event, the Palestinian Revolt of 1936-39, and the significance that this event had in creating, shaping and strengthening the idea of Palestinian nationalism through the introduction of a collective memory, I hope to gain a deeper understanding of the interactions between memory and identity.
One of the most important aspects of collective memory is the importance it plays in creating a sense of identity, a feeling of belonging to a large group of people. "The need of groups for a collective identity and the power of group identification to unify and mobilize group members are indisputable" (Rouhana, 1997: 4). This being the case, anthropology has had to wrestle with the fact that experience, either first hand or shared and passed down through some other means (i.e. traditions, stories) is the primary generator of memories, and as Michael Kenny states "all experience is individual in that collectivities do not have minds, or memories either, though we often speak as if they did" (Kenny, 1999: 421)...