Nora Lester Murad - The View From My Window in Palestine

It’s 2020. Does the United Nations care about Gaza?

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UN’s warning that Gaza will not be a “liveable place” by 2020 has been realised. Stephen McCloskey. (15 January 2020). Open Democracy.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/north-africa-west-asia/uns-warning-that-gaza-will-not-be-a-liveable-place-by-2020-has-been-realised/

The crisis in the Gaza Strip shames the world as ‘unliveable’ 2020 arrives. Yvonne Ridley. (December 31, 2019). Middle East Monitor. https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20191231-the-crisis-in-the-gaza-strip-shames-the-world-as-unliveable-2020-arrives/

By 2020, the UN said Gaza would be unliveable. Did it turn out that way? Donald Macintyre. (December 28, 2019). https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/28/gaza-strip-202-unliveable-un-report-did-it-turn-out-that-way

Gaza 2020: Has the Palestinian territory reached the point of no return? Megan O’Toole (December 9, 2019). Middle East Eye. https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/what-is-gaza-2020-un-report-uninhabitable-unliveable-blockade

How Gaza was made into an unlivable place. Michael Lynk. (July 24, 2017). Aljazeera. https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2017/07/gaza-unlivable-place-170723091946355.html

Gaza in 2020: A Livable Place? A report by the United Nations Country Team in the occupied Palestinian territory. (August 28, 2012).
https://www.unrwa.org/newsroom/press-releases/gaza-2020-liveable-place

I woke up this morning feeling so very white

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I woke up this morning feeling so very white.

I am outraged that my elected officials in Newton, MA took a major decision without listening to me and without considering the impact on me.

This is what I hear Black people say they feel every day.

I am overwhelmed by the need to fix the whole damn system while trying to figure out what’s best for my kid within the bad choices I’ve got.

This is what I hear Black people say they feel every day.

I feel traumatized by watching the student representatives to the School Committee (who happen to make up a significant percentage of the diversity on the committee) be told that they were allowed to ask questions for the adults to answer, but were not allowed to express their opinions about solutions — despite the fact that they are the MOST affected by the vote.

I feel shocked that Anping had to repeat his very simple but profound question (what scenarios will trigger a return to full remote learning?) over and over and OVER again only to have white person after white person explain to him (wrongly) that his question had been answered.

I feel furious that several white school committee members explicitly based their decisions for the district on their own personal experience but brushed off others’ experiences by saying that “we have to rely on the experts” (who, by the way, they chose).

I feel resentful that the two “minorities” on the committee who spoke for me — Matthew and Tamika — had to express themselves using white supremacist cultural rules (calm, composed, eloquent, detached) despite the fact that they were fighting for our lives and the wellbeing of our children.

This is what I hear Black people say they feel every day.

I feel frightened that working people — especially teachers and nurses — are unprotected and vulnerable for the sake of the “preferences” of rich, white people.

I feel UNSAFE in Newton, MA because the system is not designed to protect all people, listen to all people, respond to a diversity of perspectives or even to consider them. 

This is what I hear Black people say they feel every day.

Black Lives Matter: The Best Thing That’s Happened to Palestinians in a Very Long Time

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This article originally appeared in LA Progressive.

At her last class on her last day of 11th grade in Newton, Massachusetts, my Palestinian-American daughter received a shock. Just before the zoom call ended, one student mentioned he’d be taking a gap year in Israel after graduation. Another student smirked, ‘I hear there’s a lot of land opening up over there.” The screen quickly went blank, and my daughter burst into angry tears.

I realize that many people reading this article won’t understand why. The fact that Israel may annex an additional 30% of the Palestinian West Bank is not widely known or understood. In the US and elsewhere, the discourse about Palestinian rights has been distorted and silenced, by fear of being called anti-semitic, by US foreign policy interests, by Christian zionism, and by Islamophobia. Perhaps worst is the common misbelief that Israelis and Palestinians constitute  “two equal sides” and that being “neutral” does no harm.

In the US and elsewhere, the discourse about Palestinian rights has been distorted and silenced, by fear of being called anti-semitic, by US foreign policy interests, by Christian zionism, and by Islamophobia.

As a white anti-zionist Jew from the US who married a Palestinian Muslim and lived in Palestine for 13 years, I see things differently. I see a “side” that wants equality and peace for everyone, and a “side” that believes that Israel should be a state for Jews maintained by institutional racism and military control over non-Jews.

The US has long supported Israel with money and political support that gives cover to Israel’s land grabbing. As a result, Israel, despite its ideology of Jewish supremacy, has been “normalized.” It is common for people I know to take family trips to Israel to celebrate a Bat Mitzvah or just to hang out on the beach in Tel Aviv. Despite being liberals, they are willing to ignore Israel’s ongoing human rights violations against Palestinians. This explains why my daughter, and so many other Palestinians, feel invisible, dehumanized, and unsupported—even in self-proclaimed “liberal” spaces.

But there may soon be a historic development in the Palestinian struggle.

It is August 2020 and we’re in the midst of arguably the most important escalation of the movement for racial justice in US history. The movement for Black lives calls not merely for Black liberation, but for sustainable transformation of our communities. The movement is black-led, intersectional, multiracial and has mobilized people all over the world. On the local, state and national levels, actors as diverse as corporations, schools and even restaurants are making public statements against institutional racism, a topic that was taboo in mainstream media just months ago.

And the protests are making a difference. Not only is there pressure for national police reform legislation, there are surprising and visible changes happening in local communities. In the city where I live, the police chief has resigned, possibly influenced by pressure for systemic change from our local Defund Newton Police Department group. Changes like support for Black businesses, the removal of statues glorifying confederate racists, and improvements to school curricula are real. Embedded in these changes is a dislodging of normalized inequality and the mainstreaming of ideas previously considered radical—like social transformation.

More and more white people seem to “get” that inequality isn’t accidental, but rather the natural outcome of a system that has institutionalized white supremacy.

This is a new chapter for Black Americans, one that will surely see both great gains and violent pushback. It also appears to be a new chapter for white people. More and more white people seem to “get” that inequality isn’t accidental, but rather the natural outcome of a system that has institutionalized white supremacy.

As for Palestinian rights, while there have been gains in recent years in US discourse, including by progressive Jewish groups, and while Black-Palestinian solidarity remains a strong pillar of both liberation movements, white people in the US are far from understanding Israel’s institutionalized racism against Palestinians, this despite strong parallels with the US.

Palestinians

White colonists took North America by committing genocide against Indigenous peoples; Israel’s colonization project is ongoing. Palestinian demands for self-determination remain a threat—not to Jews as people, but to the position Jews hold at the top of a highly racialized hierarchy in Israel. That explains, I think, the continued portrayal of all Palestinians as terrorists and Israeli violence against Palestinians being justified by “security” concerns.

So, while the image of unarmed Black men being murdered by US police (finally!) sparks outrage, the persistent murders of Palestinians by the US-funded state of Israel are met merely with muted criticism. And Israel’s historic decision to illegally expand its territory becomes a casual aside in a conversation among US teenagers.

I argue that Black Lives Matter may be the best thing that’s happened to Palestinians in a very long time. Because BLM targets the power structure of the United States—the very heart of global capitalism, the movement for Black lives is positioned to make real changes in the colonial, neocolonial, militaristic, capitalist and racist DNA of the United States that is wreaking havoc around the world.

I am hoping that the new-found popularity of Black struggles will lead white US people to listen more, act more, and make reparations. I also hope they will consider BLM’s internationalist analysis and realize that the US original sins of genocide and slavery are being recreated against peoples of the global south right now—with US funding and political support. I am hoping that white people, including white people who identify as Jewish, will be able to expand their commitment to racial equality to include their engagement with the Palestinian struggle, for the sake of my daughter and all our daughters and sons.

Racism (like all the other isms) is a global industry in the service of profit, and therefore, struggles against racism must be simultaneously local, national and transnational. Today’s Black liberation movement will help challenge the root causes of inequality in the United States, in Palestine, and around the world—if we support it fully and work to make those connections.

Launching a book in the midst of a pandemic

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Copies of my second book, I Found Myself in Palestine, arrived from the publisher in the middle of March. The very considerate delivery guy put down the books and moved away. “I’ll sign your delivery receipt,” he said, “so you don’t need to touch my pen and clipboard.”

There is nothing normal about launching a book in the midst of a pandemic.

The cover was beautiful and I liked holding the compact little book in my hands, but it didn’t feel like an accomplishment. It didn’t feel like the culmination of literally years of work by me and the 23 writers featured in the anthology. Honestly, it seemed trivial.

Hundreds of thousands more people have died since then, and the stress of uncertainty in the United States and around the world has grown. But I’m ready to share the book with the world anyway. Some people are reading more these days, and friends tell me that the personal approach of the book may bring calm and inspiration to some people. I hope so.

There is nothing normal about launching a book in the midst of a pandemic, but I hope that I Found Myself in Palestine will remind people that Palestinians, like many others, have experienced uncertainty and death for decades and they have kept their humanity. I hope we can all do the same.

Do today’s concurrent actions by Central Americans and Palestinians show a historic convergence of protest?

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Freedom is claimed not granted

Do today’s concurrent actions by Central Americans and Palestinians show a historic convergence of protest?

This article originally appeared in Transformation: Where Love Meets Social Justice

 

NY protest in support of asylum seekers’ rights

A photograph of Maria Virginia Duarte sits on my desk, and as I watch the coverage of the migrant caravan approaching the US border I think about her again. Maria arrived in the United States without documents from El Salvador in in the early 1970s. She became part of my family, and when I had my first daughter Maria dipped her finger in a cup of coffee and put it in my baby’s mouth (apparently in El Salvador that’s considered good for babies).

In 1986, Maria was one of the almost three million “illegal aliens” granted amnesty by Ronald Reagan, and she no longer needed to live in hiding. When she and her sister decided to visit El Salvador for the first time since they had escaped, I went with them. I met their relatives on both sides of the brutal civil war that took the lives of 75,000 people between 1980 and 1992. I took rickety buses on narrow, unpaved mountain roads to visit relatives who had no water, sewage or electricity. I was in the marketplace when in the blink of an eye, all the young boys disappeared into shops and houses just minutes before government forces marched around the corner to “recruit” child soldiers.

Nearly four decades later, Central Americans continue to risk their lives to escape conditions caused in great part by US foreign policy, only to find themselves unwelcome in the oft-touted “land of immigrants.” But something feels different this time around. Individuals and families are marching together. It is not “merely” thousands of scared people risking their lives to stay alive, as we have seen in the exodus from Syria. It is also a protest of sorts, a refusal to comply, and it’s being met not only with humanitarian aid, but with political solidarity.

It might just be me, influenced by 35 years of being married into a Palestinian family including 13 years living under Israeli military occupation, but no matter how they are portrayed in the media, the Central American caravan and Gaza’s Great Return March feel to me like a convergence. Regular people taking brave steps, inspiring others to join, and building community while claiming freedom.

Today’s protests stand firmly on generations of resistance. They are parts of movements, cultivated over decades out of smaller attempts and in response to increasing repression that has made clear to people that freedom is claimed not granted. And our claims for freedom must be global.

Of course there are many differences in the situations of the Palestinians in Gaza and the Central Americans on the caravan, but there are also a surprising number of similarities. The Central Americans are running away from their homelands to find refuge in the United States. They are challenging the borders that prevent them from living in safety with respect for their human rights. The Palestinians in Gaza are running towards their homeland and challenging the blockade of a “border” that illegally prevents two million people from returning to their homeland (1.3 million of whom are documented refugees).

The Central Americans are seeking the legal status of asylum, which is part of refugee law, while in Gaza, legally-recognized refugees are denied their right of return. In both cases, the US and Israel distort the law in an attempt to claim that the relevant protections don’t apply.

For example, the US government portrays Central Americans not as asylum seekers but as migrants – people who choose to move “not because of a direct threat to life or freedom, but in order to find work, for education, family reunion, or other personal reasons,” as the UN puts it (p. 17). This enables the authorities to evoke their rights as sovereign states to deny entry into their borders and say that caravan participants should apply using existing immigration procedures or face deportation. In fact, Trump has repeatedly called them “invaders,” subject to a security rather than a humanitarian response.

This is nearly identical to Israel’s portrayal of the Gaza protesters. They are deemed a security risk to Israel, criminal, and not subject to any rights and protections – certainly not the right to return to their homeland, the right to protest for their human rights, or the right to international protection from a belligerent occupying power.

In fact, according to UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency,

“State responsibility starts with addressing root causes of forced displacement. Strengthening the rule of law and providing citizens with security, justice, and equal opportunities are crucial to breaking the cycles of violence, abuse and discrimination that can lead to displacement (p. 34).”

Yet in both cases, the US and its allies have not fulfilled their obligations to prevent displacement. Instead, they have invested in funding conflicts and then erecting obstacles to rights-claiming by those who are displaced as a result. Israel constructed an Apartheid Wall that has been deemed illegal; Trump is trying to construct a similar wall along the US-Mexico border, even citing the Israeli wall as a model.

One mechanism used in both cases is the outsourcing of foreign policy enforcement, often paid for with foreign aid. Israel outsources enforcement to the Palestinian Authority (paid for by international donors), while the US has outsourced enforcement to Mexico, again paid for with aid.

In both cases, governments and multilateral organizations are complicit in the violation of human rights. The most obvious example is the Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism (GRM), ostensibly created to facilitate the reconstruction of Gaza after the 2014 Israeli attack by putting the United Nations in charge of vetting materials and beneficiaries using Israeli-approved criteria.

In my own research (pp.59-66) I found that the GRM potentially legalizes the perpetuation of a wrongful act (the blockade of Gaza), and potentially enables the perpetuation of violations by Israel, while the United Nations did not follow a correct process in becoming a legal party to the GRM agreement and inaccurately portrayed its role as a mere facilitator. In addition, the UN and other parties failed to fulfill their legal obligation of due diligence to ensure that the GRM agreement did not violate human rights, and the agreement appears unbalanced in assigning rights and responsibilities in Israel’s favor, while obligations are borne by the United Nations and the Palestinian Authority. Finally, the GRM potentially compromises the humanitarian principles of neutrality, impartiality, humanity and independence (for example, by allowing Israel a veto power over aid beneficiaries).

It doesn’t take much digging to find shameful failure of international organizations to protect the rights of Central Americans too. A recent article in an official United Nations news source reported that the “Secretary-General António Guterres was urging all parties to abide by international law, including the principle of ‘full respect for countries’ rights to manage their own borders.’” The failure to prioritize the protection of displaced Central Americans, Palestinians, Syrians, Rohingya, Afghanis, South Sudanese, Somalis and so many more demonstrates that an ongoing battle between human rights and states rights is at play – an existential fight to realize (or crush) the aspirational potential of international law and global governance.

When the declaration of a “humanitarian situation” becomes justification for military build up, checkpoints, and collection of personal information that threatens security (which is found in both these cases), people increasingly recognize this as a rhetorical slight-of-hand. When Donald Trump says that Central American migrants who throw stones would be shot, a policy almost identical to Netanyahu’s stance against Palestinian rock throwers, people see what they are up against: This cadre of power-mongers intend to criminalize communities that seek to protect human beings from the unconstrained power of militarized states.

But people like Maria Duarte and my friends in Gaza have no intention of giving up, nor of succumbing to the cowardly strategy of divide-and-conquer. Like the generations of activists on whose achievements we stand today, we will respond by recognizing the parallels and similarities in our struggles and in our aspirations for a safe place to live with dignity and call home.

 

Nora Lester Murad’s new book is “Rest in My Shade, a poem about roots,” co-authored with Danna Masad and published by Interlink Books with support from the Palestine Museum US. More information at https://www.restinmyshade.com.

 

 

BIO: Nora Lester Murad is a writer and activist. She is co-founder of the Dalia Association, Palestine’s first community foundation, and Aid Watch Palestine, a community-driven aid accountability initiative. She blogs at The View From My Window in Palestine and can be reached at @NoraInPalestine.

 

 

“Rest in My Shade” – finally a real book

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This beautiful hardback gift book, co-authored by Danna Masad and I, has been years in the making. Now, with the invaluable support of the Palestine Museum US, the book will be released by Interlink Publishers by mid-November – in time for the holiday buying season.

Can you help spread the word?

** Share our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/RestinMyShade/
with all your friends and ask them to share it too; every day or two we’ll post new content, including biographies of the artists and other fun facts. Check out (and share!) the book’s webpage at www.restinmyshade.com. We also have an Instagram at rest_in_my_shade, that needs more activity.

** Please send names and contact info for bookstores, galleries and museums that you think might want to sell the book (if you’re not able to suggest they carry the book, the publisher will follow up). Please send names of organizations that might want to host an event about displacement at which the book can be featured. If there are publications or journalists who you think might cover a story related to the book, please send their contact information to me (the publisher will follow up).

** And here’s exciting information! For every person who pre-orders Rest in My Shade (from a bookstore, the publisher, Amazon or from us directly) prior to the official release, we will donate a copy of the book to an organization that serves or advocates for refugees and displaced people. They only need to send us an email at info [at] restinmyshade.com and say they pre-ordered.

** Any other ideas about how Rest in My Shade can be used as a tool in classrooms, interfaith groups, advocacy, media work, fundraising, etc. are very welcome!

As we watch the continued events in Gaza (where two of our artists live), and the human suffering of displaced people all over the world, it’s more important than ever to reach new audiences with the message that home is a human right.

More Important Than Becoming a Writer…

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Fire Burning Under Water, Maysanne T. Murad (2018)

These days, I delete all emails related to writing and publishing. I work fast to avoid being intrigued by subject lines. With each click I feel a millisecond of clarity (nothing is more important than family), but the swishing sound of the trash emptying makes my chest tighten with something like grief: I have lost the joy of writing, at least for now. All I write these days are emails about treatment modalities and appeal letters to insurance companies.

Not long ago, however, I forced myself to read a blog post about book promotion because, while I do not have the energy to care much, my first book will be released in a few months; and I owe it to those who supported me to try to make the book successful.

With my guard down, I lost myself in the practical minutia of soliciting book reviews when I came across a sentence that started: “I am OCD, so I research every opportunity….” The casual reference to OCD upset me terribly. I wrote immediately to the writer of the article: “OCD is not being detail-oriented or hard working. It is a debilitating mental illness caused by a brain dysfunction.” Neither the writer of the post nor the blogger who hosted it wanted to write a retraction or clarification (although the offending sentence was removed from the online version). I understand completely. Being a regular person with imperfections can interfere with the trajectory of a writer’s “success.”

But the fact remains: There is such a thing as being “paranoid” (with a lower case p), that is  not at all the same as being “Paranoid” (with a capital P). People suffering from mental illness and their families are harmed when we don’t recognize the difference. Even though every mental illness is different and every person’s experience of mental illness is unique, I know this much from my own personal experience.

My 14-year old has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and our lives revolve around it, are controlled by it, and are hurt by it in deep and inexplicable ways. There is no facet of her life or mine that is untouched by her OCD.  Still, she is not OCD. She is a person with an illness, not the illness itself.  Not making the distinction between the person and illness – explicitly and repeatedly – does harm. Therapists even suggest that kids name their OCD to remember that they are not their illness. My daughter’s OCD is named Jarrad. When my daughter has intrusive thoughts (constant, negative, terrifying thoughts that are completely involuntary), I remind her: ‘That is not you. That is Jarrad trying to trick you into doing compulsions. You must believe that you have the power to tell him to shut up.’”

I have read that most people who suffer from OCD know very well that their thoughts and behaviors are irrational (unlike sufferers of some other mental illnesses), and because they are ashamed, they often go through extreme measures to hide their symptoms. People close to them may think they are quirky or weird, but often don’t realize there is a problem until it interferes with daily living. At that point, OCD behaviors may be dismissed as a “phase.” They may be labeled as disobedient (“Why do you insist on always making us late?”) or considered weak (“Why can’t you just ignore those thoughts if you know they are irrational?”) For all these reasons, it is common for suffers of OCD not to talk about their illness and not get the help they need.

No one tells a person with a chronic, incurable, painful heart condition that they should “get over it,” but they often say just that to a person with a chronic, incurable, painful brain condition like OCD. No one would write, “I’m Congestive Heart Failure” when explaining that they can’t catch their breath at the top of a flight of stairs, but they don’t think twice about saying, “I’m OCD” when casually describing their tendency to aspire to perfection.

In fact, the whole family suffers when a loved one has mental illness. Since Jarrad pushed his way into our lives, more and more of my daughter’s time – and mine – is stolen by her anxiety and my need to either prevent it or respond to it. When she is compelled to remake her bed ten times so that someone at school won’t die or when she walks in a certain pattern up and down every aisle of a department store to prevent a bomb from falling, I get angry, overwhelmed and feel hopeless. I need and deserve the help of a community (and a mental health system!) that understands that my daughter didn’t choose to be sick. She’s not sick because I’m a bad mother. And she isn’t OCD! She is a complex, worthwhile, lovable, smart, funny, creative and fantastic person.

Sadly, it is common for people to belittle her suffering by saying, “Oh yeah, I have OCD too,” or “Take advantage of your OCD to do well in school,” or when they tell me that I’m lucky that my daughter has OCD because their kids don’t keep their bedrooms clean the way my daughter does. Or they say, “She looks just fine to me!” as if they know what’s inside her brain. She often thinks that no one will ever understand her. She isolates herself looking for safety. Her healing gets harder.

I don’t know what it feels like to have OCD (as my daughter reminds me several times a day), but I do know what it’s like to love someone who does. I know what it’s like to spend every waking moment trying to get us through each day without a crisis, organizing our lives around what I think she can or can’t handle, and then changing plans at the last minute if she’s had a particularly bad nightmare or if a particular smell has triggered a breakdown. I know what its like to reorganize my priorities so that health is more important than just about everything else I ever cared about.

Somewhere inside of me, there is still a passion for writing. But right now, I can’t concentrate enough to read the stack of novels next to my bed, much less to write my own. Instead, I read about OCD, about trauma, about therapeutic doses and co-morbidity. When I talk about what we’re going through I learn that nearly every single one of us is somehow touched by mental illness. So why did so many people ask, “Are you sure you want to write about your experience and share it with the whole world?” Why wouldn’t I? We have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of (and yes, my daughter did encourage me to publish this piece).

Nora Lester Murad is not a mental health expert. She is the mother of three amazing daughters, one of whom has OCD and related brain dysfunctions. She participates in a family support group run by the National Alliance on Mental Illness – New York (NAMI-NYC) and believes fervently in their efforts to end stigma. Her first book will be released in a few months but the sense of accomplishment she expected totally eludes her. Simply put: Some things are more important than writing and publishing right now.

Philanthropy to Israel and Palestine – it’s time to change the framing

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*UPDATE* This article is now free to the public!  https://www.alliancemagazine.org/analysis/philanthropy-to-israel-and-palestine-its-time-to-change-the-framing/

What an honor it was to be asked by Alliance Magazine, a preeminent publication in the field of global philanthropy, to become a “Philanthropy Thinker.” I will contribute an analytical piece annually.

My first piece (just published) was on a topic near and dear to my heart: how philanthropy to Israel and Palestine are framed. In it, I try to argue that the framing of Israeli diaspora philanthropy and Palestinian diaspora philanthropy as two parallel, unrelated, and benign trends is false and harmful.

If you’re a subscriber, you can find the full article here (and if you live in Palestine or a country in the Global South, you can subscribe for free). For the rest, please consider subscribing to Alliance. If you can’t, my article will no longer have a paywall around mid-October and you’ll be able to access it freely.

The comments are already lively, and I hope you’ll join in.

Deeper issues for Arab philanthropy need to be discussed

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This article is the result of a request by Philanthropy for Social Justice and Peace. It first appeared on their website and simultaneously in Alliance Magazine.

A comprehensive and well-written report, Caroline Hartnell’s just-released Philanthropy in the Arab Region: A working paper gave me a feeling of déjà vu. The report featured the same deservedly respected experts that are featured in every report on Arab philanthropy, and they were saying things I’d heard for years at conferences, in articles, and, I felt sure, in other ‘state of the field’ reports.

I scoured my files and found document after document, all covering similar themes: acknowledging traditional forms of giving, bemoaning the lack of a legal/regulatory framework, complaining about insufficient professionalization in the field, lamenting the weakness of the civil society sector, and explaining the difficulty of getting Arabs to give to secular institutions with objectives that are broader than poverty alleviation. Then, in conclusion, there is a sense of optimism that with more effort and time and more international support, things will get better.

I traced the origin of many of these themes back to the then-groundbreaking 2008 tome From Charity to Social Change: Trends in Arab Philanthropy by Barbara Ibrahim and Dina Sherif, the original mavericks behind the John T Gerhart Center for Civic Engagement in the Arab World at the American University of Cairo.

Is it possible that so little has changed in ten years?

Sadly, it is possible. After all these years, the report reveals the persistence of a predominant and unexamined assumption in the Arab philanthropic sector that progress can be measured by the extent to which it looks more and more like western philanthropy. The concept of philanthropy is frequently conflated with money, which impoverishes local communities by accounting for their lack of money rather than valuing the abundance of their non-monetary resources. It conflates philanthropy with the organizational structure that the west calls a foundation, as in the statement: ‘In Tunisia, where there are no local foundations, almost all philanthropic money currently comes from foreign sources.’ The local sharing, giving and multiplicity of forms of social solidarity that have held old cultures together for generations are not given the attention they deserve.

Much is said about the need to build philanthropic infrastructure like in the west (eg tax deductibility), but these conclusions are drawn from comparisons that lack historic and economic context. The US philanthropic sector in the US, and especially the structure of the foundation, was built with the spoils of US colonialism, militarism, and unsustainable consumerism. The generation that was born poor and died rich because of stock market growth and exploitation of workers created legal/financial structures that let them expand their influence under the guise of charity. Which part of this history can – and should – the Arab world try to emulate?

In this rush to westernize, there is also insufficient attention to how Arab (and other) civil society actors become more vulnerable when they link their aspirations to the west. They become vulnerable to pressure to work in English and to explain their goals in ways that will make western donors feel comfortable, and to political pressures embedded in anti-terrorism and other US foreign policy agendas. Perhaps most importantly, a non-critical approach may see the west as a source of funds, but fail to recognize the west (or global north) as a source of many of the economic, political and military interventions that cause the problems that Arab philanthropy seeks to alleviate.

From this point of view, the requirement that civil society organize itself into NGOs is a kind of cultural imperialism. Arab philanthropy, one would hope, would be more open to and supportive of communities’ own forms of organization and methods for pursuing their own agendas. But this would be a mistake. This would assume that Arab philanthropy is automatically supportive of Arab communities, that it is more progressive because it serves its own people.

But with the exception of comments by community philanthropist and activist Marwa El-Daly, there is virtually no discussion in the field (or in this report) about the need for fundamental changes in power structures and democratization of access to resources. The term ‘accountability’ appears only four times in the 58-page report, and the concept is treated superficially rather than as a fundamental requirement of good philanthropy.

As a result, Philanthropy in the Arab World: A working paper, gives the impression that increasing giving of money is an objective in and of itself. That’s why there is such interest in corporate giving without a corresponding concern about the importance of civil society’s independence from the private and public sectors. The challenge of government’s relationship with civil society isn’t a technical one, it’s a fundamental struggle about democratic vs oligarchic control.

My position should be clear by now: “real” philanthropy is social justice philanthropy. Unfortunately, I couldn’t tell in Hartnell’s report which agenda Arab philanthropy wants to support. Shouldn’t we worry less about how much money we have or don’t have and more about what we’re trying to accomplish in the world? Fortunately, the report is a ‘working paper’, so there’s still time to address these deeper issues.

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