The Palestinian refugees' commemorative narratives have at various times and in specific historical contexts exhibited moods which can be categorized as tragic, heroic or sumud (steadfastness). Most schematically, heroic narratives of the past are mobilizing elements of nationalist discourse, while tragic narratives – reinforced by the victimisation discourse of aid agencies and NGOs – use past suffering as the legitimating basis of claims made on an international audience and against the Palestinian leadership. Finally, sumud narratives appear in liminal times, and see the past as moments of passive resistance. Here, I will analyze different Palestinian narratives in turn, tracing the political milieu and social relations out of which they emerge. This chapter lays the groundwork for analyzing specific commemorative themes such as martyrs, fida'iyyin, battles and massacres.

Contents of commemoration

Commemoration is almost always staged or “performed” for a public or an audience and demands reactions from this audience, whether that reaction is a compulsion to political action (Polletta 1998a, 1998b), an engagement in a critique of the present (Williams 1985), a demand for “moral accountability” (Werbner 1995: 102), spurring political choices (Werbner 2002: 81), or charting a map of the future (Tonkin 1992:1). That commemoration is dialogic and shaped by the constant interaction with its audience allows for ambiguity and polyvalence.

In the aftermath of the first bloody siege of Shatila by the Amal militia in 1985, Umm Muhammad, resident of Shatila, declared that the siege wasn't “the first massacre that has been committed against us. Since 1947 our lives have been affected by them. My four children and husband were killed at the hand of the Israelis and the Kata'ib in the Sabra and Shatila massacres – even those Lebanese who were married to Palestinians were killed there” (al-Hurriyya, 8 Feb. 1985: 14). For Umm Muhammad, the siege was unambiguously one in a long chain of massacres committed against Palestinians. It was the historic persistence of massacres that created an “us” against whom atrocities were committed. This “us” was the Palestinian refugee, whose political identity was so dangerous that even Lebanese citizens married to Palestinians were targets of violence. While Umm Muhammad considered the War of the Camps – as the successive sieges of the camp by Amal came to be known – as one massacre in a chain of massacres, the conflict has also been described as a heroic battle, and as an example of quotidian steadfastness.

Transformations in transnational discourses, outlined in the previous chapter, were accompanied with local political changes that crucially provided the indigenous terrain for appropriation of transnational discourses. Local institutions – whether nationalist political parties or humanitarian and human rights NGOs – became the conduits for these discourses, but they did not leave them unchanged. While Palestinian refugees in Lebanon have been restricted by the severely circumscribed borders of their camps and by the repressive control of the Lebanese state, nevertheless, world events and regional conflicts have profoundly influenced their lives, and their political contention in turn has been incisive in shaping the broader contours of Palestinian nationalism and political developments in the region.

To understand the politics of Palestinian nationalist commemoration, one has to look at the confluence between these transnational discourses and local political institutions, and to best understand the latter, a brief study of the historical background of Palestinian refugees' presence in Lebanon is necessary. Palestinian history in Lebanon is punctuated by the transformative events which led to the refugees reorganizing their social relations within the camps, choosing new modes of political mobilization, or articulating their demands for political participation in new ways. The exile from Palestine has been an originary cause of all subsequent conflicts in which they have found themselves.

In July 1959, in the last throes of the Algerian revolutionary war, Frantz Fanon (1963: 32), who had become one of the most eloquent spokespersons of that struggle, declared that:

The awareness of a world whose sympathy can be mobilized in defense of one's cause and the successful overcoming of national boundaries in appealing to large audiences are distinguishing features of many political movements of the post-Second World War era. Transnational networks of solidarity and sympathy have come into being in universities, religious institutions, solidarity organizations, battlefields, and conferences, and different movements have provided one another with financial resources, volunteers – both militant and pacifist – and arms. But alongside the more material manifestations of global affiliations, transnational discourses are forged in particular places which are then borrowed, nurtured, translated, and transformed across borders.

A political demonstration ends at the Shatila Martyrs' Cemetery, where orators point to the grave of Ghassan Kanafani and remind the demonstrators of the obligation the martyrs have placed on their shoulders. An elderly woman wearing an embroidered dress waves a large old-fashioned key in the air. A young girl receives via email a digital image of the remnants of the destroyed village her grandparents inhabited. A calendar published by a political faction chronicles battles and massacres on every page. The image of a young martyr stares out from a large and colorful mural on the walls of a camp alongside ubiquitous posters commemorating Abu Jihad. During a tour of Burj al-Shamali camp's monument to unsung martyrs, a young NGO activist pleads for international sympathy.

In the realm of commemorations, Palestinian political institutions and the refugees themselves have a mutual relationship. The refugees' lives, language, and experiences provide the raw materials co-opted by the institutions and transformed into the narrative content of their commemorations. On the other hand, the manner in which the refugees engage in or reject these practices indicates the extent to which these commemorations resonate with them – or not.

Arafat's funeral in Cairo and Ramallah, on 12 November 2004, exemplified the distinction between two sorts of heroic commemorative narratives: the first, an official ceremony mourning a founding father and head of state, and the other, that of a liberationist-nationalist movement burying a “martyred” icon of armed resistance. The entire spectacle was inflected through the lens of Israeli military occupation, which had made itself “invisible” for three days but which had ultimately set the parameters of the ceremony and subsequent burial (Jerusalem Post, 16 November 2004). In Cairo, attendance at the funeral organized by President Husni Mubarak was limited to dignitaries and was strictly closed to the public.

During May 2002, a “Memorial Exhibition” titled 100 Shaheeds, 100 Lives was held at the UNESCO Palace in Beirut. The exhibition was planned to coincide with the fifty-fourth anniversary of the Nakba on 15 May. Despite severe restrictions on leaving the OPT and entering Lebanon, exhibition organizers had brought the artefacts – which consisted of objects belonging to and photographs of the first 100 martyrs of the second Intifada – from Ramallah to Beirut. The Ramallah organizer of the exhibition was the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Centre; its Beiruti counterparts included the Arab Resource Centre for Popular Arts. The 100 martyrs were the first 100 casualties of the al-Aqsa Intifada killed by Israeli gunfire during protests, stone-throwing, in suspicious circumstances, or as bystanders.

The exhibition of quotidian objects belonging to the deceased was accompanied by a sophisticated modern arts exhibition, a concert, and a film festival. The attendees – particularly on the opening night when a Palestinian singer from Ramallah was set to appear – represented a wide social spectrum: Lebanese leftists of all sectarian backgrounds, Lebanese Islamists, middle- and upper-class assimilated Palestinians, Lebanese and Palestinian intellectuals and artists, international activists, and last but certainly not least in numbers, Palestinians from the camps in Beirut and further afield.