LEAVING MOTHER-LAND: THE ANTI-FEMININE IN FIDA'I NARRATIVES

Abstract

This article analyzes the way retired Palestinian fighters in Lebanon narrate their years of combat with the Palestinian Resistance Movement. I argue that these narratives exhibit a shunning of “feminine” spatial and symbolic spheres, which serves to bolster a discursive mutual dependency between nationalism and hegemonic masculinity. Drawing on the veterans' departure stories, in which they depict their transition from camp homes to military encampments and their removal from the civilian spheres of non-combat and domesticity, I frame this shunning within notions of transformation from boyhood to manhood. I understand this shunning as symptomatic of an official nationalist discourse characterized by a blind spot over women's histories and desires and of a reluctance to register women's challenges to prevailing gender constructs. Finally, I read these “anti-feminine” narratives as mechanisms of resistance to a refugee condition that bears emasculating connotations and to emergent non-soldierly notions of masculinity.

Key Words:

• masculinity
• nationalism
• gender
• refugeeness
• Palestine

I thank all the men who participated in this research; without their generosity of spirit and candor this work would not have been possible. I thank members of the Anthropological Society in Lebanon for their constructive criticism during the early stages of writing. I also thank the Mellon Foundation, which supported me through a grant administered by the Center for Behavioral Studies at the American University of Beirut. Finally, my deepest gratitude goes to Diane E. King, for her unwavering encouragement and valuable suggestions.

Notes

1. Fida'i (vernacular plural fida'yeen) translates literally from Arabic to “one who sacrifices himself (for his country),” but it also implies “one who risks his life voluntarily or recklessly” (Baalbaki 2001: 818). Yazid Sayigh translates the word to “men of sacrifice” (Sayigh 1997: 63), while “freedom fighter” has also commonly been used in the English-language literature about Palestinian fighters. Speaking of the “culture of death” among Islamic militants and mujahideen at a panel in Beirut in May 2007 on the book Being Arab by Samir Kassir, Lebanese novelist Elias Khoury (2006) remarked that the self-sacrifice of fida'yeen was based on their willingness to die for the betterment of others’ lives, not because death had any inherent religious or symbolic value. Khalili's discussion of self-sacrifice corroborates that when she points out that the notion of heroism as related to the commemoration of fida'yeen lay in their ability to survive extremely perilous situations, whereas the heroism of martyrdom lay in death as a redeeming cultural value in and of itself (Khalili 2007: 146).

2. All names mentioned in this article are pseudonyms. Palestinian combatants and resistance leaders are often known as “Abu So-and-So.” “Abu” means “father of,” and this is followed by the eldest son's name. This patrilineal naming pattern is used throughout the Arab world as a show of respect to middle-aged and elderly men. Some combatants adopted an “Abu” name as a nom de guerre, prior to or even without ever conceiving a son by that name. The most prominent case in point is Yasser Arafat, who was best known in the nationalist movement as Abu Ammar.

3. See for example Elias Khoury's (2006) novel Bab el-Shams and Yousri Nassrallah's filmic rendition of it by the same title.

4. The Sibline Training Center is a vocational training center run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), a UN agency set up in 1949 to provide social services and aid to Palestinians exiled in 1948. It has branches in Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria, as well as in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

5. The Arab Nationalist Movement was a political movement that formed the PFLP as its military offshoot in 1967.

6. Bint Jbeil is a village in South Lebanon, close to the Lebanese-Israeli border, where Palestinian as well as Lebanese troops were deployed for attacks against Israel.

7. Abu Hadi and other informants used “not good” and “loose” (in the plural vernacular Arabic faltaneen or mish mnah) as euphemisms for unchasteness.