Nadine Naber, “The Radical Potential of Mothering during the Egyptian Revolution” (New Texts Out Now)

Nadine Naber, “The Radical Potential of Mothering during the Egyptian Revolution” (New Texts Out Now)

Nadine Naber, “The Radical Potential of Mothering during the Egyptian Revolution” (New Texts Out Now)

By : Nadine Naber

Nadine Naber, “The Radical Potential of Mothering during the Egyptian Revolution,” Feminist Studies, Vol. 47, No. 1, Black Feminist Thought (2021), pp. 62-93.

Jadaliyya (J): What made you write this article?

Nadine Naber (NN): I chose to write about leftist women’s activism in Egypt out of my own life history as a leftist activist-scholar, originally from Al-Salt, Jordan, but having lived primarily in the United States. Since the early 1990s, I have been involved in transnational and women of color feminist and gender-nonconforming movements that link anti-imperialist/anti-racist feminist movements in the Arab region and in the United States. These connections were strengthened when I moved to Egypt in 2001 to work as an assistant professor at the American University in Cairo, where I was actively involved in anti-imperialist social movements and scholarship. Since then, I have remained sporadically involved in Egyptian politics by joining protests, meetings, and social gatherings as well as attending and leading workshops over the years. Virtually, I remained connected through social media, phone calls, and email and by writing for Egyptian magazines and newspapers such as Mada Masr and Al Ahram English.

My research on mothering emerged through a partnership with the Women and Memory Forum in 2013 and the project they were co-leading to document women’s activism in Egypt at the time. As I was conducting interviews with women activists and contributing them to their archives, I noticed that practices of mothering gave texture to the participation of my interviewees in the revolution of 2011. My observations also emerged out of my own experiences as a mother-activist who has witnessed the exclusion of people who mother from social movements in the United States given factors like the lack of childcare, adult-only meetings and events, sexism within social movements, and more. However, while mothers and caretakers disproportionately experience the ripple effects of state violence (i.e. society expects them to support children or communities when the regime detains a family member), they tend to envision some of the most expansive, collective possibilities of freedom and liberation that I have ever witnessed. After considering these ideas, I returned to some of my interlocutors to discuss mothering during the eighteen days of the revolution more explicitly.

Masculinist revolutionary discourse utilized the ultimate heteropatriarchal icon of human suffering, the grieving mother ...

J: What particular topics, issues, and literatures does the article address?

NN: The article challenges sensationalist depictions of mothering related to the Arab Spring, including those of the repressive Egyptian state, and the revolutionary movements that sought to challenge them. The Mubarak regime attempted to repress resistance through the shaming of activist women, including mothers, by distinguishing between the good woman at home and the bad woman in the streets. Masculinist revolutionary discourse utilized the ultimate heteropatriarchal icon of human suffering, the grieving mother—in this case, the mothers of martyrs brutally killed by the Mubarak regime—and sensationalized the regime’s violence against the people of Egypt. By “unsentimentalizing” mothering and exploring its radical potential within the context of the Egyptian revolution of 2011, this article critiques patriarchal representations, whether pro-regime and traditionally nationalist (mothers as extensions of biological children) or revolutionary nationalist (idealization of the mother of the martyr).

I do this by pursuing two methodological tracks: “Finding the Mothering in the Revolution” (Parts I and II) and “Finding the Revolution in Mothering” (Parts III and IV).  Overall, the essay covers these themes: “Protesting While Mothering”; “Mothering in the Square”; “Activism from the Homefront”; and “Mothering Revolutionary Futures.” Overall, I show how mothering and revolution are not only compatible but also expand the possibilities for liberating our people and societies.

J: How does this article connect to and/or depart from your previous work?

NN: This article continues two key strands of my life work. First, it helped me to continue developing something I have cared deeply about for several decades, “social movement-led research methodologies,” whereby research grows out of the needs and visions of activist communities. Second, it grew out of my commitment to co-creating language for conceptualizing the kinds of feminist activism that, while often obscured, emerge within (and beyond) revolutionary, anti-imperialist, decolonial, and anti-racist social movements in the SWANA region and its diasporas.  

J: Who do you hope will read this article, and what sort of impact would you like it to have?

NN: I hope anyone interested in feminist activism, the Arab Spring, SWANA feminisms, feminist research methodologies, and radical mothering and care work will read this piece. I hope it will provide a glimmer of hope during this counter-revolutionary moment and as many of us are deeply hurting while watching family members incarcerated, tortured, or even killed as a result of their commitment to a revolutionary democratic future. I also hope it will contribute possibilities for imagining and bringing feminist and gender-nonconforming revolutionary future into being.

By emphasizing and amplifying mothering and carework as a political practice, I hope this article has shed light upon unfinished alternative futures that, while overlooked, have been embedded in the Arab Spring revolutions all along. 

J: What other projects are you working on now?

NN: I am co-authoring a book called Pedagogies of Radical Mothering with Souzan Naser and Johnaé Strong which reframes anti-imperialist, de-colonial, and abolitionist struggles from the perspective of mother-survivors of US-led imperialism and BIPOC feminist reproductive justice. The book is based upon community-engaged research with four groups of people who are mothering on the frontlines of Chicago-based social movements related to prison abolition; Palestinian liberation; decolonizing Native American land; and immigration justice. Pedagogies contributes theories and praxis for abolishing prisons, border control, and colonization, and for uplifting resistance, care work, and community survival as a way of life. Pedagogies is one component of a broader activist project called Mamas Activating Movements for Abolition and Solidarity (MAMAS), which amplifies the voices of mother-survivors of state violence in media, policy, and activism across Chicagoland.

 

An excerpt from the article (from the Conclusion, pp. 91-22)

Given that the revolution did not turn out as we hoped it would, there is now an instinct to look at how and why things fell apart. Yet to assume that the eighteen days of the revolution did not amount to anything that endured risks normalizing failure as simply a return to how things were and always will be. It is precisely because there has been a massive backlash in Egypt that there is also a need to refuse the pessimism that so often follows failure. If the possibility for revolution comes again, knowing “what went wrong” the first time will surely be important. But even more crucial, I argue, is a clearer vision for our future, including whose work we will value and the relations, not just of protest but also care, needed to sustain the spirit of revolution for longer next time….

Asserting the radical potential of mothering allows us to recognize how heteropatriarchal concepts and traditional gender norms can be disrupted and how we might imagine an ever-expansive revolution that is not limited to the boundaries of a public square or to a singular notion of the revolutionary actor. The practice of simultaneously protesting and arranging for childcare, for example, blurs heteropatriarchal concepts of what counts as the battlefront and what forms of labor are necessary in order to move a revolution forward…. When everyone—not necessarily biological parents—performed what I have called revolutionary mothering to sustain the Tahrir Square sit-in, we can see the recognition of reproductive labor as both pressing and political...by considering the narratives and experiences of activist women who were mothers during the revolution, this article disrupts many normatively gendered concepts of revolution, from “the radical male hero” to the “woman as symbol of the people.” …When women activists stay home to care for children, their social media activism moves the revolution forward and transforms how radical action takes place, enabling an alternative imagination of where activists can leverage political knowledge and connections to sustain resistance. When women mother future generations together, toward revolution, they reframe mothering from biological responsibility to collective radical pedagogy…. As my interlocutors equip youth with the mindset of revolutionary practice, the future-oriented underpinnings of mothering can be seen. As children and revolutionary mothers envision a new future together, they participate in building a new kind of society and forging new forms of being, both of which are essential to bringing about a revolutionary future. In this sense, the radical potential of mothering during the Egyptian revolution lies in both the rupture that breaks the present and in the careful cultivation of people from every generation who care for others and are themselves cared for at street protests as well as in the home. This article identifies moments of potential, far from fully realized success, but it also suggests that any future revolution needs activist mothering, in all its forms, if it is to survive.

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New Texts Out Now: Mandy Turner and Cherine Hussein, guest eds. "Israel-Palestine after Oslo: Mapping Transformations in a Time of Deepening Crisis." Special Issue of Conflict, Security & Development

Conflict, Security and Development, Volume 15, No. 5 (December 2015) Special issue: "Israel-Palestine after Oslo: Mapping Transformations in a Time of Deepening Crisis," Guest Editors: Mandy Turner and Cherine Hussein.

Jadaliyya (J): What made you compile this volume?

Mandy Turner (MT): Both the peace process and the two-state solution are dead. Despite more than twenty years of negotiations, Israel’s occupation, colonization and repression continue–and the political and geographical fragmentation of the Palestinian people is proceeding apace.

This is not news, nor is it surprising to any keen observer of the situation. But what is surprising–and thus requires explanation – is the resilience of the Oslo framework and paradigm: both objectively and subjectively. It operates objectively as a straitjacket by trapping Palestinians in economic and security arrangements that are designed to ensure stabilization and will not to lead to sovereignty or a just and sustainable solution. And it operates subjectively as a straitjacket by shutting out discussion of alternative ways of understanding the situation and ways out of the impasse. The persistence of this framework that is focused on conflict management and stabilization, is good for Israel but bad for Palestinians.

The Oslo peace paradigm–of a track-one, elite-level, negotiated two-state solution–is therefore in crisis. And yet it is entirely possible that the current situation could continue for a while longer–particularly given the endorsement and support it enjoys from the major Western donors and the “international community,” as well as the fact that there has been no attempt to develop an alternative. The immediate short-term future is therefore bleak.

Guided by these observations, this special issue sought to undertake two tasks. The first task was to analyze the perceptions underpinning the Oslo framework and paradigm as well as some of the transformations instituted by its implementation: why is it so resilient, what has it created? The second task, which follows on from the first, was then to ask: how can we reframe our understanding of what is happening, what are some potential alternatives, and who is arguing and mobilizing for them?

These questions and themes grew out of a number of conversations with early-career scholars – some based at the Kenyon Institute in East Jerusalem, and some based in the occupied Palestinian territory and elsewhere. These conversations led to two interlinked panels at the International Studies Association annual convention in Toronto, Canada, in March 2014. To have two panels accepted on “conflict transformation and resistance in Palestine” at such a conventional international relations conference with (at the time unknown) early-career scholars is no mean feat. The large and engaged audience we received at these panels – with some very established names coming along (one of whom contributed to this special issue) – convinced us that this new stream of scholars and scholarship should have an outlet.  

J: What particular topics, issues, and literatures do the articles address?

MT: The first half of the special issue analyzes how certain problematic assumptions shaped the Oslo framework, and how the Oslo framework in turn shaped the political, economic and territorial landscape.

Virginia Tilley’s article focuses on the paradigm of conflict resolution upon which the Oslo Accords were based, and calls for a re-evaluation of what she argues are the two interlinked central principles underpinning its worldview: internationally accepted notions of Israeli sovereignty; and the internationally accepted idea that the “conflict” is essentially one between two peoples–the “Palestinian people” and the “Jewish people”. Through her critical interrogation of these two “common sense” principles, Tilley proposes that the “conflict” be reinterpreted as an example of settler colonialism, and, as a result of this, recommends an alternative conflict resolution model based on a paradigm shift away from an ethno-nationalist division of the polity towards a civic model of the nation.

Tariq Dana unpacks another central plank of the Oslo paradigm–that of promoting economic relations between Israel and the OPT. He analyses this through the prism of “economic peace” (particularly the recent revival of theories of “capitalist peace”), whose underlying assumptions are predicated on the perceived superiority of economic approaches over political approaches to resolving conflict. Dana argues that there is a symbiosis between Israeli strategies of “economic peace” and recent Palestinian “statebuilding strategies” (referred to as Fayyadism), and that both operate as a form of pacification and control because economic cooperation leaves the colonial relationship unchallenged.

The political landscape in the OPT has been transformed by the Oslo paradigm, particularly by the creation of the Palestinian Authority (PA). Alaa Tartir therefore analyses the basis, agenda and trajectory of the PA, particularly its post-2007 state building strategy. By focusing on the issue of local legitimacy and accountability, and based on fieldwork in two sites in the occupied West Bank (Balata and Jenin refugee camps), Tartir concludes that the main impact of the creation of the PA on ordinary people’s lives has been the strengthening of authoritarian control and the hijacking of any meaningful visions of Palestinian liberation.

The origin of the administrative division between the West Bank and Gaza Strip is the focus of Tareq Baconi’s article. He charts how Hamas’s initial opposition to the Oslo Accords and the PA was transformed over time, leading to its participation (and success) in the 2006 legislative elections. Baconi argues that it was the perceived demise of the peace process following the collapse of the Camp David discussions that facilitated this change. But this set Hamas on a collision course with Israel and the international community, which ultimately led to the conflict between Hamas and Fateh, and the administrative division, which continues to exist.

The special issue thereafter focuses, in the second section, on alternatives and resistance to Oslo’s transformations.

Cherine Hussein’s article charts the re-emergence of the single-state idea in opposition to the processes of separation unleashed ideologically and practically that were codified in the Oslo Accords. Analysing it as both a movement of resistance and as a political alternative to Oslo, while recognizing that it is currently largely a movement of intellectuals (particularly of diaspora Palestinians and Israelis), Hussein takes seriously its claim to be a more just and liberating alternative to the two-state solution.

My article highlights the work of a small but dedicated group of anti-Zionist Jewish-Israeli activists involved in two groups: Zochrot and Boycott from Within. Both groups emerged in the post-Second Intifada period, which was marked by deep disillusionment with the Oslo paradigm. This article unpacks the alternative – albeit marginalized – analysis, solution and route to peace proposed by these groups through the application of three concepts: hegemony, counter-hegemony and praxis. The solution, argue the activists, lies in Israel-Palestine going through a process of de-Zionization and decolonization, and the process of achieving this lies in actions in solidarity with Palestinians.

This type of solidarity action is the focus of the final article by Suzanne Morrison, who analyses the “We Divest” campaign, which is the largest divestment campaign in the US and forms part of the wider Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. Through attention to their activities and language, Morrison shows how “We Divest”, with its networked, decentralized, grassroots and horizontal structure, represents a new way of challenging Israel’s occupation and the suppression of Palestinian rights.

The two parts of the special issue are symbiotic: the critique and alternative perspectives analyzed in part two are responses to the issues and problems identified in part one.

J: How does this volume connect to and/or depart from your previous work?

MT: My work focuses on the political economy of donor intervention (which falls under the rubric of “peacebuilding”) in the OPT, particularly a critique of the Oslo peace paradigm and framework. This is a product of my broader conceptual and historical interest in the sociology of intervention as a method of capitalist expansion and imperial control (as explored in “The Politics of International Intervention: the Tyranny of Peace”, co-edited with Florian Kuhn, Routledge, 2016), and how post-conflict peacebuilding and development agendas are part of this (as explored in “Whose Peace: Critical Perspectives on the Political Economy of Peacebuilding”, co-edited with Michael Pugh and Neil Cooper (PalgraveMacmillan, 2008).  

My first book on Palestine (co-edited with Omar Shweiki), Decolonizing Palestinian Political Economy: De-development and Beyond (PalgraveMacmillan, 2014), was a collection of essays by experts in their field, of the political-economic experience of different sections of the Palestinian community. The book, however, aimed to reunite these individual experiences into one historical political-economy narrative of a people experiencing a common theme of dispossession, disenfranchisement and disarticulation. It was guided by the desire to critically assess the utility of the concept of de-development to different sectors and issues–and had a foreword by Sara Roy, the scholar who coined the term, and who was involved in the workshop from which the book emerged.

This co-edited special issue (with Cherine Hussein, who, at the time of the issue construction, was the deputy director of the Kenyon Institute) was therefore the next logical step in my research on Palestine, although my article on Jewish-Israeli anti-Zionists did constitute a slight departure from my usual focus.

J: Who do you hope will read this volume, and what sort of impact would you like it to have?

MT: I would imagine the main audience will be those whose research and political interests lie in Palestine Studies. It is difficult, given the structure of academic publishing – which has become ever more corporate and money grabbing – for research outputs such as this to be accessed by the general public. Only those with access to academic libraries are sure to be able to read it – and this is a travesty, in my opinion. To counteract this commodification of knowledge, we should all provide free access to our outputs through online open source websites such as academia.edu, etc. If academic research is going to have an impact beyond merely providing more material for teaching and background reading for yet more research (which is inaccessible to the general public) then this is essential. Websites such as Jadaliyya are therefore incredibly important.

Having said all that, I am under no illusions about the potential for ANY research on Israel-Palestine to contribute to changing the dynamics of the situation. However, as a collection of excellent analyses conducted by mostly early-career scholars in the field of Palestine studies, I am hopeful that their interesting and new perspectives will be read and digested. 

J: What other projects are you working on now?

MT: I am currently working on an edited volume provisionally entitled From the River to the Sea: Disintegration, Reintegration and Domination in Israel and Palestine. This book is the culmination of a two-year research project funded by the British Academy, which analyzed the impacts of the past twenty years of the Oslo peace framework and paradigm as processes of disintegration, reintegration and domination – and how they have created a new socio-economic and political landscape, which requires new agendas and frameworks. I am also working on a new research project with Tariq Dana at Birzeit University on capital and class in the occupied West Bank.

Excerpt from the Editor’s Note 

[Note: This issue was published in Dec. 2015]

Initially perceived to have inaugurated a new era of hope in the search for peace and justice in Palestine-Israel, the Oslo peace paradigm of a track one, elite-level, negotiated two-state solution is in crisis today, if not completely at an end.

While the major Western donors and the ‘international community’ continue to publicly endorse the Oslo peace paradigm, Israeli and Palestinian political elites have both stepped away from it. The Israeli government has adopted what appears to be an outright rejection of the internationally-accepted end-goal of negotiations, i.e. the emergence of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital. In March 2015, in the final days of his re-election campaign, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, visited the Jewish settlement of Har Homa in Palestinian East Jerusalem, which is regarded as illegal under international law. Reminding its inhabitants that it was him and his Likud government that had established the settlement in 1997 as part of the Israeli state’s vision of a unified indivisible Jerusalem, he promised to expand the construction of settlements in East Jerusalem if re-elected. And in an interview with Israeli news site, NRG, Netanyahu vowed that the prospects of a Palestinian state were non-existent as long as he remained in office. Holding on to the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), he argued, was necessary to ensure Israel’s security in the context of regional instability and Islamic extremism. It is widely acknowledged that Netanyahu’s emphasis on Israel’s security—against both external and internal enemies—gave him a surprise win in an election he was widely expected to lose.

Despite attempts to backtrack under recognition that the US and European states are critical of this turn in official Israeli state policy, Netanyahu’s promise to bury the two-state solution in favour of a policy of further annexation has become the Israeli government’s official intent, and has been enthusiastically endorsed by leading ministers and key advisers.

[…]

The Palestinian Authority (PA) based in the West Bank also appears to have rejected a key principle of the Oslo peace paradigm—that of bilateral negotiations under the supervision of the US. Despite a herculean effort by US Secretary of State, John Kerry, to bring the two parties to the negotiating table, in response to the lack of movement towards final status issues and continued settlement expansion (amongst other issues), the Palestinian political elite have withdrawn from negotiations and resumed attempts to ‘internationalise the struggle’ by seeking membership of international organisations such as the United Nations (UN), and signing international treaties such as the Rome Statute, the founding treaty of the International Criminal Court. This change of direction is part of a rethink in the PA and PLO’s strategy rooted in wider discussions and debates. The publication of a document by the Palestine Strategy Study Group (PSSG) in August 2008, the production of which involved many members of the Palestinian political elite (and whose recommendations were studiously discussed at the highest levels of the PA and PLO), showed widespread discontent with the bilateral negotiations framework and suggested ways in which Palestinians could ‘regain the initiative’.

[…]

And yet despite these changes in official Palestinian and Israeli political strategies that signal a deepening of the crisis, donors and the ‘international community’ are reluctant to accept the failure of the Oslo peace paradigm. This political myopia has meant the persistence of a framework that is increasingly divorced from the possibility of a just and sustainable peace. It is also acting as an ideological straitjacket by shutting out alternative interpretations. This special issue seeks a way out of this political and intellectual dead end. In pursuit of this, our various contributions undertake what we regard to be two key tasks: first, to critically analyse the perceptions underpinning the Oslo paradigm and the transformations instituted by its implementation; and second, to assess some alternative ways of understanding the situation rooted in new strategies of resistance that have emerged in the context of these transformations in the post-Oslo landscape.

[…]

Taken as a whole, the articles in this special issue aim to ignite conversations on the conflict that are not based within abstracted debates that centre upon the peace process itself—but that begin from within the realities and geographies of both the continually transforming land of Palestine-Israel and the voices, struggles, worldviews and imaginings of the future of the people who presently inhabit it. For it is by highlighting these transformations, and from within these points of beginning, that we believe more hopeful pathways for alternative ways forward can be collectively imagined, articulated, debated and built.