The two faces of education in colonial conflict

• In Event: Highlighted Session: Between repression and resistance. Learning from the Palestinian education experience.

Proposal

While the destruction of schools in Gaza since October 2023 is unparalleled, it is not without precedent. This paper combines archival research and oral histories with Palestinian teachers in Lebanon (children of the 1948 Nakba who lived and taught through the Lebanese civil war (1975-1990) and beyond).

We illustrate education as an embattled site in the Palestinian anti-colonial struggle. On the one hand, we examine the history of Israeli scholasticide against Palestinian education: from the targeting and bombardment of schools and universities to a disinformation campaign that sought to denigrate the Palestinian curriculum and gained considerable traction among its western allies. We analyze the ways that Palestinian education is targeted by both direct military violence, and seemingly benign forms of educational policies. We show how normative “best practices” and curriculum that promotes “neutrality” or human rights education promoted by Israel and its western allies undermines Palestinian goals for a liberatory education. Thus, we argue that the multifaceted destruction of education needs to be understood not as a form of collateral damage, but as a deliberate tactic within Israel’s ongoing colonial and genocidal war against the Palestinians (from 1948 to the present) that has extended well beyond the borders of historic Palestine.

However, as with any colonial endeavour, this oppression necessarily meets with resistance. We identify the different forms of resistance that teachers have developed and enacted in response to these necropolitics (Mbembe, 2003). First, we argue that Palestinian teachers’ resistance work was multifaceted. It entailed explicitly political pedagogies; e.g. unauthorized teaching of Palestinian history and geography. It also however took the form of seemingly mundane tasks of care that teachers do in their everyday work—acts of radical care (Hobart & Kneese, 2020) through which they continually weaved together a Palestinian community in exile. Second, we explore how teachers theorized and navigated the contradictory role that education plays as a resistance tool. Holding firmly to the belief that “knowledge is the most powerful weapon”, they lived with the realities that as stateless Palestinians in Lebanon, education offers little to no economic or political benefits to the community. Despite these circumstances, Palestinian teachers argue that education is the key to a future Palestinian state, and that even if educational success primarily leads to out-migration, it is a worthwhile endeavor. Finally, we examine teachers’ critique of the role that UNRWA (as the most visible representative of the international community) plays in thwarting Palestinian aspirations for self-determination. Palestinian teachers’ narratives draw on indigenous knowledge and pedagogies to offer a sharp analysis of the colonial frameworks that shape international educational policy and practice in ways that deny and degrade the realities of Palestinian children’s lives.

Reflecting on our analysis of the roles of Palestinian teachers in Lebanon have played as key actors in an anti-colonial struggle, we explore the ways in which critical pedagogies and education-centred solidarities might disrupt this ongoing scholasticide, contributing to a more hopeful, liberatory future.

Authors

• Jo A Kelcey, Lebanese American University

• Thea Abu El-Haj, Barnard College, Columbia University