Between construction and destruction: the experience of educationalists at Gaza’s universities

ABSTRACT

Drawing on 36 in-depth semi-structured interviews with students and lecturers at Gaza’s universities, this article explores the past and present higher education (HE) experience for educationalists in Gaza, and how this experience may be evolving in the shifting socio-political context in the Arab world. The research was conducted during the period 2012–2017 as part of an inductive PhD in Education study at the University of Cambridge. Combining Western theory and literature with Southern empirical data from the Gaza Strip, this paper reveals a simultaneous process of construction and destruction that continues to undermine the academic functioning of Gaza’s universities. Highlighting this structure of ‘de-development’ is important in order to gain a deeper understanding of the Palestinian HE experience, and to empower academic reform at Gaza’s universities and beyond.

KEYWORDS:

• Higher education
• Gaza universities
• de-development
• conflict
• reform

Introduction

This article explores the past and present higher education (HE) experience for educationalists at Gaza’s universities, and how this experience may be evolving in the shifting socio-political context in the Arab world. Due to decades of occupation, Roy (1995, 110) maintains that education in Gaza should be contemplated as part of a structure of ‘de-development’. In this paper, ‘de-development is defined as a process which weakens the ability [… of Gaza’s universities] to grow and expand by preventing [them] from accessing and utilising critical inputs needed to promote internal growth beyond a specific structural level’ (Roy 1987). This research sheds light on the structure of ‘de-development’ through exploring educationalists’ experiences, indicating whether it may extend to Gaza’s universities. The term ‘educationalists’ refers to students and lecturers at the Faculties of Education at two of Gaza’s universities. Since ‘teachers are at the heart of educational improvement’, donor investment and educational reform at Gaza’s universities will be more effective if they are based on educationalists’ experiences (Hopkins and Stern 1996).

The paper; firstly, presents a context review on Education and Conflict, the University in Gaza, and on the Arab Spring. Secondly, it explains the research study in terms of methodology, and the theoretical insights. Thirdly, it includes a construction of the findings on the HE experience in Gaza through past, present and future. Finally, a simultaneous process of construction and destruction is discussed, enhancing our understanding of ‘de-development’ in relation to Gaza HE. The article concludes by putting forward a few recommendations on how to empower Gaza’s universities, as well as highlighting the contributions of this study. (Jebril 2018)

Gaza, conflict and HE: an emerging field of knowledge

Defining the Gaza strip

Strand and Dahl (2010) explain that Gaza’s position on the conflict spectrum is controversial. According to Brock (2011), a problem of controversial definitions is common within the conflict domain, which is an ‘emerging field’ of knowledge (Leach and Dunne 2007). In this article, Gaza is considered an area of conflict, which is under occupation. Despite the Peace Accords of 1993, The UNCTAD (2015, 9) states that ‘Gaza’s airspace, maritime space and land crossings’ remain controlled by Israel.

Education and conflict: a complex relationship

Davies (2004, 7) states that ‘the link between education and conflict is a grossly under-analysed area’. There are ‘no two contexts […] are the same, no two development trajectories are congruent, and educational realities vary widely from one country to the next’ (Rappley 2011, 59). Justino (2010) observed complexities between destruction and rebuilding where the experience post-conflict may be one of devastation, or rapid growth depending on the area. The available literature suggests, nonetheless, that the relationship between Education and Conflict is one of reciprocity and non-linearity (see: Barakat, Karpinska, and Paulson 2008; Brock 2011). This means ‘the “wicked” end of change’ since a change to education depends on a change to the conflict and vice versa (Davies 2004, 21).

Education and conflict: research gaps

Barakat, Karpinska, and Paulson (2008) argue that Education and Conflict research is limited and not amenable to comparison. HE in conflict zones remains seriously under-researched, since pursuing a university degree is perceived as a luxury under conflict conditions (ibid.). Due to challenges of access, research on education and conflict is usually based on library study (ibid.), or on work conducted by aid and humanitarian agencies (Leach and Dunne 2007). Most of the available research has been conducted post-conflict (Alzaroo & Hunt, 2003).

Roy (1995, 122) emphasises that ‘in the absence of adequate theoretical explanations of the peculiar problems confronting development in Gaza, an analytic approach is needed that gives primacy to empirical data’. This article widens the geographical scope of an emerging field of knowledge by focusing on Gaza, an area, which is under siege and ongoing conflict. It reports on an inductive research, which collected empirical data from students and lecturers at Gaza’s universities, giving them voice to talk about their own experiences. (Jebril 2018)

The university in Gaza: a background

Gaza has existed from around 3200 B.C. and is ‘one of the oldest cities in the world’ (Roy 1995, 14). Despite its limited geographical size (approx. 365sq km), Gaza has witnessed successive patterns of destruction and dispossession by several occupations (Roy 1995). These historical and political changes were translated into educational changes (Also common in Western Europe, and in Chile from 1964 to 1998, see: Broadfoot, Brock, and Tulasiewicz 1981, 5).

History, development and current challenges

History

Palestinian education/HE has been conceived as important not only by the Palestinians but also by their occupiers. It was controlled during the Ottoman rule (1516–1917) by Ottoman cultural and missionary agenda (see: Barakat 2007; Nicolai 2007); and during British Mandate (1917–1948), by British colonial expansion agenda (Nicolai 2007). (A common practice in colonial contexts. Nehwevha (2002) explains that even in post-colonial contexts, the old colonial impetus continued to affect teachers).

After Al Nakbah in 1948, Palestinians became scattered (Ṣāyigh 1997), and Gaza’s history took different trajectories from other areas of Palestine. The Gaza Strip was firstly occupied by Egypt for 19 consecutive years (1948–1967); and since 1967 by Israel. Under Egyptian administration (and long after), Egyptian education dominated Gaza schools (Nicolai 2007). Although Egyptian education was irrelevant to Palestinians, it facilitated their enrolment in Egyptian universities for HE. Palestinians also studied in other Arab and foreign universities.

Development

The first university in Gaza was established in 1978; the second in 1992. These universities’ ‘sub-culture remains very Egyptian at heart’; an Egyptian influence is also common on other Muslim and Arab countries (Anabtawi 1986, 45–46). Under Israeli administration (1967–1994), Gaza schools and universities faced increased Israeli punitive measures, especially after the outbreak of the Intifada in 1987. This resulted, inter alia, in a significant ‘loss of literacy and numeracy skills’ for a generation of Palestinian students (Barakat 2007, 193); an increased influence of Palestinian political factions on Gaza’s universities; and serious challenges for these universities to adapt to the Intifada generation, with new forms of learning (Abu Lughod 2000).

With the Peace Process, the first Palestinian Ministry of Education and HE (MoEHE) was established in 1994. It faced immense challenges for reform as it inherited ‘an outdated, second-hand amalgam [system] from other cultures’(Nicolai 2007, 41). Palestinian internal ‘political divisions, corruption, and incompetence have [too] played their own part in holding [back] educational progress further’ (Nicolai 2006, 25). Such challenges in educational reform are a common problem in post-conflict settings (see: Fergusson and Masson 1997).

Current Challenges

Since the election of Hamas¹ government in 2006, Gaza universities have been operating under conditions of severe Israeli and Egyptian blockade, and economic sanctions on Gaza. The Palestinian schism increased the challenges to Gaza’s universities as it created two Palestinian governments: the Palestinian National Authority (Fatah²-dominated) in the West Bank, and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. MoEHE (2011–12) statistics for HE states that there are 29 Palestinian HE institutions in the Gaza Strip of which only seven are universities (five traditional, two open). Since then, more HE institutions were opened. There is hardly anything in the literature about how all these changes have affected the HE sector in Gaza.

The Arab spring and the Palestinian experience of HE

The Gaza Strip is connected to the Arab world, inter alia, by history, culture, religion, and geopolitical borders. In December 2010, unexpected ‘grassroots and home-grown’ revolutions swept over Arab countries including Egypt, toppling bureaucratic rulers that have continued in power for decades (Andersson and Djeflat 2012, 5). This so called Arab Spring implies a shifting socio-political context in the Middle East (Muasher 2014). The majority of authors seem convinced that these revolutions will lead to a new phase in the history of the Arab world (Brynen et al. 2012, 301), and that achieving a democratic and pluralistic society requires a focus on intellectual activity and educational reform (Muasher 2014). Gerges (2014,1) explains that the Arab Spring ‘reinvigorated academic interest in bottom-up’ research as opposed to ‘the past fixation with top-down politics and the elite’. This shifting socio-political context in the Arab world implies new challenges and promises for the region (Danahar 2013). The developments in Egypt are of particular relevance to Gaza’s universities, because Gaza is at close proximity from Egypt, and also since these HE institutions have an Egyptian sub-culture. Palestinian writings on the impact of the Arab Spring on Gaza’s HE are non-existent. This article foregrounds educationalists’ perceptions of the influence of the revolutions on Gaza’s universities. (Jebril 2018)

The research study

To explore the HE experience in Gaza, I conducted an inductive qualitative research. Using in-depth semi-structured interviews, I collected data from 36 educationalists (15 academic staff; 21 students) from the Faculties of Education at two of Gaza’s universities. The interviews were conducted via Skype from Cambridge. I reached the academic staff through using purposeful sampling as their CVs were available on the Universities’ website; CVs were also used to chart academics’ past HE experiences in relation to historical events in Gaza. For students, however, I used the snowballing method. Equal gender, age and institution distribution was pursued as much as possible.

In order to address issues arising from my positionality as an insider-outsider to the Gaza Strip, I used a self-interview protocol which I developed prior to conducting the research. I also developed a power-relations analysis sheet, and an interview guide, which helped me to have a more conscious start to the interview situations. I created a digital journal on Scrivener Software, which was useful to document notes and insights throughout the interview process. I developed risk assessment forms specific to the Gaza Strip, and also developed a safe storage system which ensured participants’ anonymity. All participants’ and universities’ names in this article are pseudonyms. I refer to the universities as UA and UB. Academic participants are referred to as [Mr./ Ms. + name + UA/UB (university = surname)]; and students as [name + UA/UB (university = surname)]. For example, ‘Mr. Omar UB’ is an academic from the UB; and ‘Dalal UA’ is a student from the UA.

Using the social constructionist-interpretive paradigm to analyse the data, I combined between insights from the literature, the researcher and the participants to construct the findings, by linking the subjective and the objective. MAXQDA software was used to transcribe the recorded interviews and code them into categories. The coded data was printed out, and analysed thematically using the traditional piling and sorting method. Since the research is not a comparative study, the analysis focused on interpreting participants’ views in relation to themes rather than each other; findings were constructed from all responses to gain a perspective into the past, present, and future HE experience at Gaza’s universities, and the structure of ‘de-development’. As relevant, expressions such as ‘most’ and ‘majority’ in text indicate an overwhelming consensus within each, and both of the two interviewee groups.

Theoretical insights

The inductive data pointed towards theoretical insights from Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, and Bourdieu’s work on ‘symbolic violence’. In order to give primacy to the ‘Southern’ experience of participants from the Gaza Strip, their theoretical insights were casted on the interpreted data, retrospectively (Connell 2007). Combining Freire’s with Bourdieu’s conceptual tools is useful to this study; although both theorists’ share common thoughts about power – relations, they differ substantially regarding their perspective to the role education can play in situations of oppression (Burawoy 2012). While Freire is convinced that critical education can have an emancipatory impact, Bourdieu perceives critical pedagogy as ‘an intellectual illusion [… which] focuse[s] on the pedagogic relation and thereby obscure[s] its class underpinnings’ (ibid, p. 112). This study may, conversely then, deploy a theoretical triangulation of Bourdieu’s and Freire’s concepts, as it constitutes a unified platform of real-life situations where the selected concepts from both theorists can be in dialogue with each other, and with the empirical data, offering an in-depth understanding of Gaza’s universities social context.

Freire’s pedagogy of the oppressed

The ‘intimate connections between life and philosophy’ in Freire’s work makes it relevant ‘to the contemporary analysis of education and culture’ (Irwin 2012, 1 & 8). Nonetheless, Freire’s work originates from a different historical time and social context. It is not feasible to assume that the analysis of the empirical data from Gaza ‘should emerge normalized and “well-behaved”’ from the Freirean text (Freire 1996, 161).

Oppression is defined by Freire as ‘any situation in which “A” objectively exploits “B” or hinders his or her pursuit of self-affirmation as a responsible person’ (Freire 1996, 37). Oppression in the Gaza context is wide-ranging in its themes; it varies in meaning according to the situation, as well as operating interactively, and on different levels. The article in hand draws on the following Freirean concepts, only as ‘landmarks’ of an oppressive experience: (1) ‘De-humanization’ refers to the distortion of participants’ humanity by, for example, the conditions of siege and occupation (1996, 26); ‘false generosity’ to the soft ways in which this distortion may have taken place, such as using welfare programmes as an instrument for factional recruitment (26); ‘fear’ (30), ‘duality’ (30), ‘fatalism’ (43), and ‘silence’ (87) to the impact of an oppressive experience on the participants, in which their human capacity to express themselves and act upon the injustices that they encountered in Gaza was obstructed; ‘horizontal violence’ to Palestinian-Palestinian/ Egyptian violence (e.g. the antagonistic feelings between Palestinians and Egyptians, which resulted after the 2011 revolution) (44); and ‘anti-dialogics’ (161) refers to dysfunctional methods used to facilitate oppression (e.g. universities’ acts of ‘conquest’ (129), and ‘manipulation’ (128) towards their students). Also, ‘Prescription’ refers to the instances in which there is a direct ‘imposition of one’s individual’s choice upon another’ (e.g. family’s favouring of a teaching career for females) (p. 29). The above Freirean concepts have rarely been used in the HE literature, and never have they been applied together on one set of data.

Bourdieu’s ‘symbolic violence’

The research also draws on Bourdieu’s concept of ‘symbolic violence’ (Bourdieu 1990b, 133). Since it is a form of domination, ‘symbolic violence’, presupposes the existence of ‘symbolic power’(Bourdieu 2001, 1–2); and ‘symbolic capital’ (Bourdieu 1990b, 133). What makes this domination symbolic is its ability to operate through ‘schemes of perception, appreciation and action’ (Bourdieu 2001, 37). Consequently, the dominated ‘participate[s] in their own domination’ (Swartz 2013, 98); with misrecognition, or partial recognition (Bourdieu 1990a). The dispositions of the dominated make them ‘naturalize’ the limits that serve the dominant, and voluntarily choose to ‘comply’ with them (Bourdieu 1984, 471). This ‘reinforce[s] and reproduce[s] social hierarchies [… and] inegalitarian arrangements’ without resistance (Swartz 2013, 100).

Bourdieu’s view on the relationship between symbolic and overt violence requires a deeper contextualisation in war settings. Bourdieu maintains that ‘domination, even when based on naked force, [… such as] arms […] always has a symbolic dimension’ (Bourdieu 2000, 172), for example, a cultural, social or economic dimension. But, he simultaneously, states that ‘symbolic violence is the gentle disguised form which violence takes when overt violence is impossible’ (Bourdieu 1990b, 133). However, symbolic violence in Gaza co-exists and interacts with overt violence – the physical embodiment of aggression as witnessed in the war, and the physical restrictions on people’s mobility. Therefore, I use concepts related to symbolic violence tentatively, in order to benefit from the posteriori knowledge of the research on Gaza (Connell 2007). (Jebril 2018)

Findings: the Palestinian HE experience from past, to present, to future

This section has been constructed based on the empirical data, the literature, and the theoretical insights. It explains; firstly, the past experience of HE; secondly, the present HE experience for students at Gaza’s universities; and finally, how the HE experience at Gaza’s universities was influenced by the Arab Spring revolutions. The findings enhance our understanding of how a structure of ‘de-development’ in Gaza may reflect on educationalists’ experiences, weakening the universities’ overall ability to grow and expand, and what can be done to support reform efforts at Gaza’s universities.

Studying in the past

What the different stories from the academic participants shared in common was that as Palestinians who lived in Gaza, pursuing their HE was a ‘de-humanizing experience’, that was ‘thwarted by injustice, exploitation […] oppression [… and] violence’ (Freire 1996, 26, 25). Below are three themes, which give a snapshot of this experience.

A structure of ‘de-mobility³’

The academic staff, when they were students, faced Israeli restrictions on their mobility, not only from and to the Gaza Strip but also within it, through borders, barriers, road blocks and checkpoints. Mr. Medhi UA, a winner of a scholarship, while travelling from Gaza to Egypt using one of the humanitarian buses, he experienced the following:

The Israelis used to cover the bus sides with blankets […], so that we don’t look at Sinai and at their troops there. Israeli soldiers used to accompany us in the bus during our journey. The bus used to keep moving until we reach Suez Canal. [… Afterwards,] the Red Cross would take us and hand us to the Egyptians […]. We used also to return to Gaza for the summer vacation in the same way.

Gaza students were ‘de-humanized’ by the very experience that was to bring them empowerment. Winners of scholarships were taken as if they were goods packed into buses to be exported to their universities. These members of academic staff, when they were students, had to follow the ‘prescribed’ rules of the Israeli occupation, which had the actual and ‘symbolic power’, to ‘naturalize’ their practical adaptation to these rules as a pre-requisite to access HE. This bus trip provides a profound analogy of ‘symbolic violence’, where even in the freedom of the desert, human perception is dictated and controlled.

The restrictions on Palestinian movement amounted to a structure of ‘de-mobility’ that discouraged Palestinians’ travel, even when the borders were open. When they were students, academic participants’ decisions about where and when to study for HE were controlled by the ‘unconscious calculation of what is possible, impossible, and probable for people in their specific locations in [their occupied …] social order’ (Swartz 2013, 90). Studying for his master’s in the US, Mr. Zeyad UB, said: ‘I did not try to go to Gaza; I was afraid to go and not to come back’; Mr. Majid UB, ruled out studying in Egypt, because of his ‘fear’ that he ‘didn’t want to undergo adventures [such as investigations; jail] beyond [his] purpose’; and Mr Ashraf UB postponed his study for a PhD for 14 years as he ‘feared’ the Israeli Intelligence would blackmail him at the border to recruit him as an agent.

Israeli occupation rules ‘appear[ed] as something essentially law-like [… and thus] external to practice’ (Mitchell 1990, 571). Mr Omar UB, living for 55 years between borders and barriers in Gaza, argued:

I am not allowed to visit Israel. Suppose I have relatives in Lydda and I want to visit them. Why am I not allowed to? I want to visit them with a formal passport and let them check me on the border if they want to […]. It is my natural right to go out [of Gaza]. Isn’t it? […]. I want to see the world, because the world exists.

Being investigated on the border, and asked for his passport to visit his relatives in Lydda (An area of Palestine that was occupied by Israel in 1948; currently known as Lod) was ‘naturalized’ by Mr Omar UB, as a social order for Palestinians who live in Gaza. The quote above also shows Omar’s plea to see the world, which he perceives, as other to the Gaza Strip. Newman (2006) points out that ‘borders create (or reflect) difference and constitute the separation line […] between “us” and “them”, the “here” and “there”, and the “insiders” and “outsiders”’.

A structure of ‘de-mobility’ in Gaza affected the quality of academic work at Gaza’s universities. Mr Zeyad UB stated:

It would take me three or four hours sometimes to reach my work place, […]. When I enter the lecture hall, I would find that the students were equally late, or have not come at all.

The impact of Israeli structure of de-mobility is best recapped by Edward Said, who explains that, Palestinians’ lives became ‘scattered, discontinuous, marked by […] rhythms of disturbed time’,[… where] all events are accidents, [and] all progress is digression’ (Said 1998, 20–21). A structure of de-mobility for educationalists is a manifestation of the general state of ‘de-development’ in Gaza, as well as exacerbating it.

A ‘useful’ social network

The difficult context of Gaza, and it being a traditional society that emphasises kinship and social relations made it necessary for Palestinians to rely on a social network of ‘symbolic power’ so as to take advantage of opportunities of HE and of employment. This proved to be a process of both empowerment and of ‘horizontal’, and ‘symbolic violence’. For example, Mr Majid UB sought the assistance of his neighbour in applying for HE in Russia and this was helpful; Mr Hassan UB relied on his Palestinian contacts to transfer money to him from Gaza when he was in the US; and Ms Randa UA was able to study in the US only because her brother assisted her with admission and was there for her to rely on whenever this was necessary.

Increased social dependency gave way to nepotistic (or the so-called wasta) practices in Gaza. Although ‘wasta favors those connected to well-established families and social groups’ (Cunningham, Sarayrah, and Sarayrah 1994, 38), it is not limited to kinship or friendship as wasta ‘may [also] involve strangers’ (Mohamed and Mohamad 2011, 414). Moreover, ‘leaders [could be] as wasta-oriented as the rest of society and profit most from the wasta system’ (Cunningham, Sarayrah, and Sarayrah 1994, 38). Mr Sulieman UA regretted that he was promoted to a permanent position at his university because of a favour that he did to the university president and not because of his qualifications. Mr Ashraf UB also argued: ‘If you have wasta you get a job, if not, then not’. It was the difficulties of life and travel in Gaza under occupation that naturalised a ‘cultural norm of dependency’ on social relations (ibid., 30), which increased wasta as a form of ‘horizontal violence’ among the oppressed people of Gaza (Freire 1996, 44). Although ‘the negative view of wasta extends to those who use it’, the ‘de-developed’ context created by the occupation, combined with the peculiarities of a traditional culture in Gaza, allowed wasta to be socially tolerated (Mohamed and Mohamad 2011, 420).

A critical interaction between solidarity and adversity

Adversity under occupation ‘helped people discover a deep sense of community because of their need for mutual help’ (Moffat 2001, 69). At other times, adversity weakened the relationships between Palestinians. Mr Zeyad UB and Mr Omar UB provide illustrative cases of this contradiction. Both of these academic staff were previously imprisoned by Israel for political activism. While Zeyad stated that prisoners ‘had serious challenges [… that required] cooperating with each other’, Mr Omar said: ‘I retreated into myself a bit […]. I did not make relationships with people […], [… not all people there] might be trusted’. Kanninen, Punamäki, and Qouta (2003, 98) explains that prisoners of the Gaza Strip differed ‘in their strengths and vulnerabilities depending on whether the torture was psychological and interpersonal or physical in nature’.

In an effort for solidarity, most academic participants when they were students, showed ‘true generosity’ in helping their oppressed Gaza society through education (Freire 1996, 27). Mr Majid UB’s studied psychology in order to assist his people. Mr Omar UB, while being a PhD student in art education, he refused to work except on Palestinian-themed paintings. Graduating between 1996 and 1997, Suleiman and his colleagues initiated new diploma and master’s programme at the UA which widened Palestinian access to HE in Gaza. During the Intifada, and the Israeli closure, Ms Amna UA also stated that her ‘biology teacher took many of the teacher’s tools including slices of live cells to her home’. This concurs with Gray’s (1990) reporting that ‘the meeting place maybe the home of the faculty member or a student, the back room of a shop, or even an automobile’. Under ‘de-humanizing’ conditions, people in Gaza worked to sustain the educational process and preserve the community’s welfare. That said, ‘because of the purpose given [to this action], [these Palestinian efforts] constitute an act of love’ among the oppressed (Freire 1996, 27). This supports Moffat’s (2001) argument that ‘adversity tends to encourage the building of community’.

Weakening Palestinian solidarity was a deliberate Israeli strategy that exacerbated a structure of ‘de-development’ in Gaza, as it aimed at dismantling the society’s fabric through encouraging ‘horizontal violence’ (Freire 1996, 44). Gray (1990) writes that the Israeli forces used a ‘tactic [… of …] dehumanization’ in the Palestinian territories which ‘seem[ed] to be an end in itself’. Mr Suleiman UA explained:

Sometimes [the Israeli soldiers] would stop students on their way to the university, the UA. They would stop [… .] particularly university students [… And then out of provocation] order one to hit his friend, to beat him [… and] to spit on his face.

This is another example of the conflicting mix of oppression and empowerment in Palestinians’ HE experiences. For their own safety, Gaza students were forced to follow Israeli ‘prescription’ of ‘horizontal violence’ and practise ‘silence’.

A mechanism of collective punishment inflicted not only by Israeli, but also by Egypt, impacted on Palestinian solidarity. Jensen (2006, 60) reports that ‘after 1977, [Egypt] had begun to deny access to a large number of Palestinian students [… mainly because] a Palestinian group had been responsible for the murder of a prominent Egyptian intellectual’. Mr Omar UB, one of the students at the time who had their application rejected, said: It was ‘outrageous. If one has committed a crime, why should the whole community be punished’. Egypt had the ‘symbolic power’ to withhold its ‘generosity’ with regard to HE scholarships.

Palestinian factionalism in Gaza has also contributed to increased ‘horizontal violence’. Mr Abdel Rahman UB commented: ‘The factional atmosphere appeared on the level of the family, and the institution […]. We lacked democracy’. This affected the HE experience for the academic staff when they were students, and afterwards. Political factions ‘used civil society to recruit members and build public support’ (Pace 2013, 54). Mr Ashraf UB explained that when he was student, ‘every faction started to actively recruit supporters from the university’; Mr Suleiman said that ‘Hamas and Fatah student supporters used to quarrel at the […] campus’; and Mr Zeyad UB pointed out that after the peace process, and the establishment of the Palestinian National Authority: ‘Everyone’s concern was how to get a job, regardless of whether he deserved it or not, or of whether he was put in the right position or not’. Politically driven appointment/assistance is an example of ‘false generosity’ that exacerbated ‘horizontal violence’ among the members of the Gaza community (Freire 1996, 26, 44). Freire explains that ‘welfare programs as instruments of [political] manipulation ultimately serve the end of conquest [… and] splinter[s] the oppressed into groups of individuals hoping to get a few benefits for themselves’ (ibid, 133). (Jebril 2018)

Studying in the present

At Gaza’s universities today, students face serious challenges as a result of a context of ‘de-development’ in Gaza, which impacts negatively on their HE experiences. This section highlights four of these challenges: unemployment, factionalism, a gendered campus, and the experience of war.

Unemployment

Studying under conditions of siege and a deteriorating economy, most of the students seemed to have started their HE journeys ‘without aim, without hope’ (Ms. Etaf UB). For the majority of students, studying for HE was not a rational choice; it flowed from one family member to another and from school to university level, as of on ‘conveyor belts’ (Reay 2016, 135). Ferial UA explained: ‘Well it’s like life has to go on. I’ve never thought of finishing high school and staying at home’; and Nawal UA: ‘I was raised in an environment where all my family are educated, so I followed their footsteps’.

Leathwood and Read (2009, 5) argue that with regard to ‘women’s participation in [HE], in many cases there are larger differences within regions than between them’. These differences are contingent upon ‘social, economic and cultural factors’ (Leathwood and Read 2009, 28). Mr Ashraf UB stated:

University education costs money. I know people who have three outstanding students. They said, ‘We could educate the males, and then the females, and we could educate only one of the two girls’ … (Mr Ashraf UB)

Kirdar (2006) explains that in the Arab world, ‘women’s education is [perceived] of less importance than men’s’. Ashraf’s quote evokes images of ‘water ripples’: the Israeli oppression triggered parental discrimination, in response to a resulting deteriorating economy, and this in turn reaffirmed traditional constructions of gender, providing a further practical justification for the ‘symbolic violence’ against women in the Gaza society.

According to the World Bank (2015), unemployment in Gaza is the highest in the world at 43 per cent, with 60 per cent unemployment among the youth in late 2014. Since ‘teachers constitute the largest employment sector in Palestine’ (UNDP 2004, 49), for the majority of students, a specialisation in education has been mainly a practical choice. At least eight out of 19 students who were studying as pre-service teachers did not want a teaching career. Ferial UA said: ‘I don’t want to be a teacher’; and Talal UA stated: ‘I hated teaching and still hate it’.

Gaza’s economic reality of ‘de-development’ has limited young people’s access to opportunities, imposing education as the only practical route to employment. Dalal UA explained: ‘In Gaza, people tell you must choose education, because this job has a few hours of work and it is better for you when you become a mum’; Ahmed UA pointed out that teaching is ‘the expected future for most Palestinians in Gaza’; and Lubna UB argued: ‘I didn’t think about it […]. The only job available is teaching’. The anticipation of unemployment as a ‘fate’ gave a further ‘symbolic power’ to societal and family ‘prescription’ of a teaching career. Students, males and females, studied education as a way of practical adaptation to ‘de-humanizing’ conditions in Gaza.

Factionalism

The relationship between the two sampled Gaza universities, UA and UB, remains largely adversarial due to having political roots in the competing political factions, Hamas and Fatah. Very little literature exists on factionalism in Gaza’s universities (Jensen 2006), and the extent to which the sampled universities remain factional nowadays was contested in the interviews. However, students’ accounts showed that their HE experiences were affected by the political culture of Gaza’s universities: its ‘antidialogics’, and ‘horizontal violence’.

According to Mr Ashraf UB, ‘All universities in Gaza are factional [… which is] seen in that the members of the academic staff would be from [the same] faction [of their university]’. Samah UA explained that ‘The students are normal students, Palestinians, […] some of them might be Hamas, some of them might be Fatah, and some might support other movements. Universities’ factionalism reflected on students’ experiences as follows:

Firstly, students experienced biased distribution of grants and scholarships. Khaled UA argued: ‘It affects us, because you feel that scholarships go to politics people, but these scholarships come to people who cannot pay like me’. Secondly, students complained about being exposed to factional celebrations on campus. Khadra UA who said: ‘I go to the UA only to have my lecture so why should I [… be] besieged by ceremonies about Hamas’. This concurs with Perry (2003, 31) who explains that ‘symbolic barriers such as national […] symbols can create a hostile atmosphere for a student who is not in the majority and for whom the symbol may have highly negative connotations’. Thirdly, at least two UB students and one academic member of staff witnessed factional quarrels at their university, which Yasser UB described as ‘a horrible scene’; fourthly, factionalism at Gaza’s universities impacted on students’ freedom of expression. Ms Lamia UB, said: ‘It depends on the lecturer whether he would give a breathing space for students ’. For Lamia, ‘Freedom of speech, […] should not be to the extent that would affect academic work’. Lamia ‘misrecognized’ the impact of factionalism on lecturers who could use their authority to ‘conquer students of contesting political affiliations; and finally, factionalism seems to have affected cooperation between the UA and the UB. Mr Ashraf UB argued: ‘I would not ask a lecturer from the UA to be an external examiner for master’s students here, unless I have a good relation with a particular person there’. But, Ms Amna UA explained that ‘nowadays there is more cooperation than it was in the 90’s’.

Rethinking factionalism: The data shows that the student participants (and a few of their lecturers) remained in a neutral (intermediary) position, regarding whether to be factional or not. One reason underling this inclination to neutrality could be their ‘fear’ to indicate their political affiliation. Participants’ frustration with Hamas and Fatah policies and the resulted Palestinian schism is another reason. Ferial UA commented: ‘We are fed up with the political things in Gaza, so why do they bring political issue into the university?’; and Yasser stated: ‘If the traditional political parties are not able to find solutions for this crisis and for these miserable conditions, what about young people?’. Samira UA argued: ‘I feel that my mind is more open-minded than to fully support a certain faction’. These examples suggest,inter alia, that HE encouraged students at Gaza’s universities to adopt a critical stance from factional narratives.

According to Mr Sulieman UA, the UA seemed concerned to present itself as a neutral HE institution. He mentioned: ‘the university attempts to hold the stick from the middle. Those who are responsible for the UA now are from the moderate group’. In contrast, UB academics were less defensive about their university’s factionalism: Ms Etaf UB perceived a link of its university to Fatah as ‘natural’, since this view was in congruence with that of the Palestinian National Authority being a legitimate representative of Palestinian society.

To recap, students continue to study for their HE in a counterproductive political culture at Gaza’s universities, which is characterised by ‘antidialogics’ and ‘horizontal’, and ‘symbolic violence’.

A gendered campus?

Gaza’s universities suffer from contradictory impulses and practices with regard to gender issues. Traditional dispositions related to women’s role seem to be in synchrony with a continuing unjust context of ‘symbolic violence’ in the society at large. As mentioned above, female students chose a specialisation in education both as a safe route to employment, and also as they ‘naturalized’ the traditional dispositions regarding their gender role. Mr Ashraf UB explained: ‘I am registering my daughters in education […]. People say that the best specialization for a female is education.’ This consolidates Bradley’s (2000) view that ‘cultural ideas on gender relations and the roles of women and men in society influence the formation of educational options and choices’.

Even on campus, female students were treated differently from males who seemed to enjoy more autonomy and freedom. Firstly, female students complained from segregation on campus, with the UA being stricter in this regard. Huda UA criticised: ‘If you want to go to the administration, you should check whether it is a male time or female time […]. This problem is stupid’. Esposito (2002, 87) points out that, still, ‘many, though not all, Muslim societies practice some gender segregation […] – to various degrees, in public spaces such as mosques, [and] universities’. Secondly, female students criticised UA’s surveillance on their dress. Khadra UA said: ‘They are very strict about the dress […] I and all the girls at the university hate this point’; and Samira UA felt annoyed from this imposed surveillance as she argued: ‘You won’t find anyone who would support you in this matter, it is like it is forbidden and that’s it’. Thirdly, female students suffered from restrictions on their travel to study for HE abroad. Nora UA said: ‘Females shouldn’t be studying for more than their four years of undergraduate studies. Some say that a female should be married instead of continuing their education’. Fourthly, the research shows that despite female students’ high academic achievement, their representation in the public sphere in Gaza remains limited. Esposito (2002, 100) explains that ‘while women in most [Muslim] societies have access to education and employment, they continue to face obstacles and challenges as they seek gender equality and forge new paths in defining their role in society’.

The 2014 war experience in Gaza

The Israeli war on Gaza in 2014 affected the HE experience at Gaza’s universities, as students and their lecturers had ‘no possibility of escape or adequate shelter to avoid the life-threatening situation’ (Shehadeh 2015, 284).

Participants’ reflections on their experiences during the war showed tension between vulnerability and resilience. Students continued to be haunted by ‘fear’, ‘fatalism’ and war memories even after the attack came to halt. Ferial UA argued: ‘People are just survivors; they are not living normal lives […] there is something inside their minds from the past and this thing hurts very badly’. Simultaneously, the participants strove for resilience. During the war, Khaled UB was reading lots of novels, he said: ‘I am trying to make something of myself’; and Ms Etaf UB published a research paper, she said: ‘I was trying to escape [the war], and to feel that I was still alive’. Educationalists clung to any possible means to survive a situation of oppression as a ‘fate’.

The war disruption caused dilemma for Gaza’s universities which under conditions of decades of blockade, rely heavily on students’ tuition fees for funding. Ms Lamia UB explained: ‘The university did not consider [us]. They wanted to hurry and open the new semester for registration, because the university has financial and economic pressures. The result was the ‘duality’ of these HE institutions which although acted to support their academic staff and students, at times, they prioritised financial considerations, and in the process ‘de-humanizing’ them. Gaza’s universities were targeted with bombardment and suffered destruction resulting from attacks near to their campuses.

In brief, the Israeli war of 2014 undermined further the already existing structure of ‘de-development’ at these universities (Roy 1995, 110). The UNCTAD (2015, 7) reports that as a result of this ‘most recent military operation [.,] development is not merely hindered but reversed’. (Jebril 2018)

Studying in the future

The ‘Arab Spring has clearly brought a change in the way that, particularly, young people engage in societal issues, and also in the way governments and public authorities [including HE institutions] view themselves and their constituents’ (Andersson and Djeflat 2012, 1). This has reflected on Gaza’s universities. The data shows that students held ambivalent views towards whether the Arab revolutions should have happened or not. While Abdulla UA said: ‘Arab Spring? I don’t believe in it’; another student Moeen UA argued: ‘Of course it should have happened, the past was much worse’. Despite this, students’ responses indicate that the students have benefited from the revolutionary experience of the youth elsewhere, their successes and failures. Samira UA explained: ‘This is one life, so why should one accept it to be unfair?’; and Nawal UA argued: ‘No right is lost for one who demands it’.

The majority of the participants, however, acknowledged that the turbulence in Egypt reflected on the living conditions in Gaza negatively as Egypt tightened the siege on educationalists and HE institutions. Consequently, students have developed antagonistic attitudes towards Arabs, including Egyptians. Khaled UB, angrily commented: ‘They closed the border; nothing enters to us’; and Alaa UB stated: ‘Egypt is the only exit from Gaza. Egypt punished Gaza as responsible for the incidents that happened’, perceiving Egypt to have the power to oppress Palestinians.

The revolutions in the Arab world seem to have prompted the academic staff and the universities to become more aware of students’ grievances and discontent. For example, Khaled UB pointed out that after the Arab Spring, lecturers ‘started to feel [students] more’.

On a few occasions, students attempted to capitalise on the spirit of the revolution to call attention of their universities to their discontent. Students held protests, and used some of the slogans that were used by the youth in Egypt’s Tahrir Square. However, students’ attempts to voice their discontents were discouraged and ‘silenced’, so often by themselves, as they ‘feared’ the anticipated consequences for their expression in the traditional context of Gaza’s universities. Yasser UB reported: ‘we wanted to change at our university], but students were afraid’. Their silence was prompted by them considering educational problems ‘trivial’ compared to the political problems which they face as Palestinians who live in Gaza. The data indicates that students are confused between ‘compliance’, and resistance. Consequently, how the HE experience at Gaza’s universities may evolve out of this context of ‘de-development’ in the future remains largely uncertain. (Jebril 2018) (Also see Jebril 2021).

Discussion: educationalists between visible and invisible oppression

The above accounts give a snapshot of the various injustices which have shaped and continue to shape the HE experiences of Gaza educationalists in the past, present and future. The article explained several instances in which educationalists were oppressed mainly by the Israeli occupation, but also by other parties, including their own community, Arab and Palestinian, even when this was sometimes camouflaged by ‘false generosity’. Bourdieu’s ‘symbolic violence’ wove its way through participants’ accounts, resonating with Freirean perspectives on oppression, and thickening the description of the Palestinian HE experience in the Gaza Strip. Shaped by overt and covert oppression, educationalists’ actions, despite attempts to develop resilience, were largely characterised by prescribed behaviour and a culture of ‘silence’. Consequently, the oppressive experience has been reinforced at Gaza’s universities across time, reproducing the general state of ‘de-development’ in Gaza.

A simultaneous process of construction and destruction

The data on the past, present and future HE experiences in Gaza pointed towards a simultaneous process of construction and destruction. This process resonates with Roy’s (1995, 110) observation on an inherited structure of ‘de-development’ in the Gaza Strip. As far as HE is concerned, the findings suggest that the educationalists’ at Gaza’s universities work under two layers of oppression: the external (visible) and the internal (invisible). External oppression refers to the violent context in which educationalists live. Mr Omar UB stated:

In Gaza, we are considered as if in a prison, albeit a large one. The airplanes and bulldozers are surrounding us from all sides. The sea is for a long time restricted. Everything here is hit with frustration […]. No one can leave or enter. Everything is closed, and our internal resources are zero.

Internal oppression is harder to elicit. Both students and their lecturers suffered from conflicts and contradictions. The invisible in this study is best explained in Freirean terms:

The conflict lies in the choice between being wholly themselves or being divided; between ejecting the oppressor within or not ejecting them; between human solidarity or alienation; between following prescriptions or having choices; between being spectators or actors; between acting or having the illusion of acting through the action of the oppressors; between speaking out or being silent, castrated in their power to create and recreate, in their power to transform the world. This is the tragic dilemma of the oppressed which their education must take into account … (1996, 30)

The two layers of oppression, the external and internal, are interactive and influence each other. In this sense, educationalists contribute to counterproductive dynamics at Gaza universities or what Mr Zeyad UB points out as a ‘simultaneous process of construction and destruction’.

To explain this simultaneous process, there is a physical construction (e.g. projects, teaching and learning) and destruction (e.g. bombardment, lack of resources) happening at Gaza’s universities. Educationalists, as citizens of the Gaza Strip, are affected by this context of ‘de-development’. They live in multiple sieges (the occupation as well as the limitations and the ‘prescriptions’ imposed on their freedoms and life choices, sometimes by their society, family and even universities). Edward Said points out that, in general, Palestinians themselves are ‘constructed and destructed […] since [they] authorize no part of the world and can only influence increasingly small bits of it’ (Said 1998, 37). As Freire asserts ‘one of the gravest obstacles to the achievement of liberation is that oppressive reality absorbs those within it and thereby acts to submerge human beings’ consciousness. Functionally, oppression is domesticating’ (Freire 1996, 33). This negative personal context reflects back on Gaza’s HE institutions through, for example, reproducing ‘symbolic violence’, ‘silence’, ‘horizontal violence’, ‘fear’, and ‘antidialogics’ within the campuses of these universities. It is therefore, as Freire argues, ‘the concrete situation of individuals conditions their consciousness of the world, and […] in turn this consciousness conditions their attitudes and their ways of dealing with reality’ (ibid., p. 111). (Jebril 2018)

Conclusion

This study has revealed a simultaneous process of construction and destruction at Gaza’s universities, implying that a ‘structure of de-development’ extends to Gaza’s universities, undermining their capacities for internal growth, and reproducing the general state of de-development in the Gaza society under occupation. The study has indicated the structure’s hybrid nature at Gaza’s universities, in which both the construction and the destruction emanates from within as well as outside educationalists. This enhances our understanding of why some international projects have not been successful (see: Le More 2008), as it highlights that ‘the role of subjectivity in the struggle to change [oppressive] structures’ is as important as ‘the objective transformation’ (Freire 1996, 32). Articulating the problem is the first step towards finding a solution for reform.

The scale of what needs to be done in order to reverse the process of ‘de-development’, and increase the weight of construction in comparison to destruction at Gaza universities is huge. There is a need for focused research on Gaza universities’ structure of de-development, and how it operates at different levels, interacting with issues such as agency and governance, class and gender, and trauma. Empowering Gaza’s universities and their educationalists requires interventions that would connect the besieged universities with a lifeline of ‘truly generous’ international academic support that is based on the Palestinian experience. Combining the local perspectives (the voices of participants in Gaza), and the international insights (Western theory and the literature), the paper in hand can act as an initial memorandum of understanding on the HE experience in Gaza. Mapping the past, present and future HE experience, it offers a holistic picture of this experience that could be useful to ‘revers[ing] the […] starting point’ of understanding Gaza universities’ situation (Freire 1996, 86). With an interdisciplinary orientation, this research has the potential to inspire scholarly and practitioner work in various fields, pertaining to the Gaza Strip, and beyond.

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank the participants from Gaza for sharing their experiences, and Diane Reay for supervising this research. The author appreciates feedback from Diane, and two anonymous reviewers on drafts of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, (Gates Cambridge Scholarships; [Award ID: OPP1144]).

Notes

1. ‘Hamas’ is an Arabic acronym of Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement.

2. ‘Fatah’ is an Arabic acronym of Palestinian National Liberation Movement.

3. The use of ‘de-mobility’ is influenced by Roy’s (1995) ‘de-development’, indicating a structure that discourages mobility.