| Title | 6. Being Palestinian |
|---|---|
| Contributor | Karma Nabulsi (author) |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0345.07 |
| Landing page | https://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0345/chapters/10.11647/obp.0345.07 |
| License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ |
| Copyright | Karma Nabulsi |
| Publisher | Open Book Publishers |
| Published on | 2023-06-26 |
| Long abstract | In this chapter I will illustrate and explain how my own identity is not based on a combination of the national particularisms that gave rise to the Palestinian people, but rather, upon the glue which keeps us together. My identity is based exclusively on the general will. In order to set out how and why it has happened that I rely upon the general will rather than traditional nationalist claims for identity, it is necessary to first present the particularism and history of the Palestinian people who are largely a refugee population. Next it will explain how the general will functions within Palestinian society, which crosses borders and host countries to express itself. It will conclude with examples of why Palestinian identity is so caught up in an essential struggle to create just institutions, especially for the protection of the rights of refugees, and why this latter issue is cast within the dual quest for liberty and democracy which – in our case as in most people’s – are intertwined. |
| Page range | pp. 83–102 |
| Print length | 20 pages |
| Language | English (Original) |
| Media | 1 illustration |
Karma Nabulsi, who gave the sixth Hurndall Memorial Lecture in 2010, is a Tutor and Fellow in Politics at St Edmund Hall at the University of Oxford, and the Library Fellow. Her research is on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century political thought, the laws of war, and the contemporary history and politics of Palestinian refugees and representation. This chapter was also published in 2003 in Government and Opposition, 38 (4), pp. 479-496, https://doi.org/10.1111/1477-7053.t01-1-100025.