“But, how do a stateless people engage with anarchism, a term that implies opposition to some form of state as a condition of its existence?”
Palestinian Anarchists in Conversation: Recalibrating Anarchism in a Colonized Country
In Palestine, elements of popular struggle have historically often been self-organized. Even if not explicitly identified as “anarchism” as such, “People have already done horizontal, or non-hierarchical, organizing all their lives,” says Beesan Ramadan, another local anarchist, who describes anarchism as a “tactic” yet questions the need to attach a label. She continues, “It is already there in my culture and in the way Palestinian activism has worked. During the First Intifada, for instance, when someone’s home was demolished, people would organize to rebuild it, almost spontaneously. As a Palestinian anarchist I look forward to going back to the roots of the First Intifada. It did not come from a political decision. It came against the will of the PLO
The Palestinian case has been further complicated in recent decades. The landscape of largely horizontal self-organization in the First Intifada, was displaced in 1993 with the signing of the Oslo Accords and the top-down Palestinian Authority (PA) they created. “Now here in Palestine,” Ramadan observes, “we don’t have the meaning of authority that other people defy…We have the PA and the occupation, and our priorities are always mixed up. The PA and the Israelis [are on] the same level because the PA is a tool for the Israelis to oppress the Palestinians.” Nimer also shares this view, arguing it has now spread much more widely and that many now see the PA as a “proxy-occupation”.
“Being an anarchist doesn’t mean having the black and red flag or going black bloc,” Ramadan points out, referring to the established anarchist protest tactic of wearing all-black clothing and covering faces. “I don’t want to imitate any western group in the way that they ‘do’ anarchism…it is not going to work here, because you need to create a whole consciousness of the people. People don’t understand this concept.”
For Ramadan, nationalism also represents a significant problem. “People need nationalism in times of struggle,” she concedes, “[But] it sometimes becomes an obstacle… You know what the negative sense of nationalism means? It means you only think as Palestinians, that Palestinians are the only ones who are suffering in the world.” Nimer also adds, “You’re talking about sixty years of occupation and ethnic cleansing, and sixty years of resisting that through nationalism. That’s too long, it’s unhealthy. People can go from nationalist to fascist, quite quickly.”
This is relevant to most Indigenous resistance movements
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