AUC's Palestinian Club Commemorates Land Day

Palestinian Student, Yacoub Al-Atrash, playing on the oud.

Students presenting an olive tree to the university.

Students performing dabke.

Saeb Erekat delivers his speech at AUC.

Photos courtesy of Eric McCune

The Palestinian club at the American University in Cairo, Al-Quds Club, organized an event in memory of those who fell on Land Day. The event featured some key-note speakers such as Saeb Erekat, one of the PLO's chief negotiators, and the Palestinian Ambassador in Egypt, Barakat Al-Farra.

Erekat went into a long speech addressing the Oslo accords, his rejection of the two-state solution, and the return of all the land within the pre-1967 Palestinian borders, including east Jerusalem, to Palestinians. In addition, Erekat reiterated his rejection of the two-state solution. The issues raised in his speech are not news to those who are following the top headlines these days, the Israeli government is not being so discreet about building Jewish settlement in east Jerusalem, which is a kind of a de facto annexation.

The Land Day event was not all politics but also celebrated Palestinian culture. Musical performances, and students performing the Palestinian traditional dance, dabke, were the highlights of the event. The event was followed by a reception, where Middle Eastern/Palestinian food was served.

The members of Al-Quds Club presented an olive tree to the university. Olive trees are a symbol of the Palestinian resistance and culture that is still alive amid all of the occupation, violence and destruction.

Interview with History Professor Sherene Seikaly

Transcript of the interview:

Sherene Seikaly is an Assistant Professor of History and Middle East Studies at the American University in Cairo. She earned a PhD in the departments of History and Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at New York University in 2007, an MA at Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, and a B.A. at the University of California, San Diego. Before joining AUC, Professor Seikaly was the Qatar Postdoctoral Fellow at Georgetown University (2007-2008) and Postdoctoral Fellow at the Middle East in Europe Program at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (2008-2009).

Tell us about yourself, how did you decide to become a historian?

I’ll tell u a little bit about my self. I was born in Beirut, Lebanon during the civil war to Palestinian parents who were expelled as children from Palestine in 1948 and I grew up in the states. My first memories were really ones of civil war in Lebanon. And after I did undergraduate studies at UC San Diego I went back to Lebanon and I did work in the Palestinian refugee camps and non-profit work for about four years in Lebanon and I think after that when I went back to do graduate work and I decided that the on-profit world wasn’t really helping me to do new things, there was like a ceiling for me in that field. I moved towards graduate work and academic work and then my journey towards history was kind of accidental in many ways but then as I got more familiar with what I could do as a historian especially as a historian of Palestine I became very committed and convinced of it.

And that brings us to our next questions, how has the fact that you are of Palestinian descent affect the way you viewed things and your approach to work?

I think that from the very beginning very sort of because my family, in part because of the civil war but also in part because of how my family experienced being Palestinian in Lebanon, even though we had citizenship, because the Palestinian Christians got citizenship in Lebanon. My family sort of raised me from the very beginning with the kind of political background and being unable to go to Palestine and be in Palestine and be in one place with the rest of the family, so that was sort of one of the first things that formed me as a person, my very first memories are of that. And then what I think happened when I went to the states was because I understood that the way that the Palestinian story being told in the media wasn’t accurate, and so I began questioning the way politics were represented more broadly. So it helped make connections with sort of the plight of the Native Americans in the United States and African Americans and I began making connections sort of from an early age. Today I think the approach is one of commitment to justice and I like to think that’s not just about Palestine but more general, but it is definitely informed by that commitment to justice in Palestine.

Did you ever face difficulties in your field or while you were studying just because of whom you are?

No not while I was studying, while I was studying I had a very supportive group of advisors and folks around me that were supporting me and helping me, but when I started sort of the job application process, because I had been doing political work for about ten years, I mean even longer, especially my time in New York began with a kind of, the second intifada, and that was the time of real political activism, and I think when started going out onto the job market, the combination of having done political work and doing something on Palestine and being Palestinian, was a challenge definitely, I think people were afraid of the possible controversies that having me on-campus would inspire.

I heard that you are working on a manuscript, its a work in progress, so can you tell us a little bit about this.

Sure, it’s called Meatless Days: Consumption and Capitalism in Palestine, its based on the dissertation, which tries to look at basically the ideas that the way we’ve looked at history, Palestinian history, before 1948 has simplified the social history of that period. So people have looked at that history as one of either there are these kind of decadent notable elites or honourable and ignorant peasants, and one of the things that my work tries to do is say that there was something else going on in the middle, that there was a middle class, that they had ideas about capitalism, that they had ideas about what it meant to have a healthy body and economy and a nation. And one of the reason I think it’s important, is because it allows us to look at liberalism and capitalism critically as a historical phenomenon.

It's not sensationalism!

When a story titled "Students report worker masturbating in library" was published on the front page of the student produced newspaper at The American University in Cairo on February 21, 2010, many people were not pleased. The Caravan was criticized for publishing this story as many thought that the language used was offensive. The reporter who wrote this story and the editor-in-chied share their views about why they published this story and why they felt it is important.

International students at AUC talk about their experiences

Three students, an American, a Jordanian and a Norwegian talk about their experiences of living in Cairo, Egypt and studying at The American University in Cairo. Here they share with us the good, the bad and the ugly about Cairo.

PSA - Al Quds Club Awareness Campaign

Local Officer: Zeina Bisharat, 0166036645 zee_727@hotmail.com, Head of Public Relations
Organization: Al Quds Club at the American University in Cairo
Contact Info: alquds.auc@gmail.com
Heading: Al Quds Club Campaign to Promote Awareness
Airdate: March 10, 2010 – May 12, 2010

30 seconds

MUSIC: MA BAIN HAIFA W JENIN: 2 SECOND

MUSIC CONTINUES TO PLAY IN BACKGROUND, BUT FADED

ANNC1: Al-Quds club, the Palestinian club at AUC, would like to open the door of opportunity to those who are interested in learning more about Palestine’s culture, tradition and history.

ANNC2: you can increase your awareness and engage yourself in weekly debates, documentary screenings and first-hand stories from the many Palestinians at AUC.

ANNC1: Al-Quds Club also offers weekly dance practices to those who want to learn the traditional Palestinian dance.

ANNC2: for more info. visit our booth or join our facebook group.

AMPLIFY MUSIC

END.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=24201360431&ref=ts

Queen Rania speaks at AUC

Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan spoke at The American University in Cairo on Sunday, about the role of civic engagement in the Arab world and the role it plays in the betterment of the our societies.
She spoke for 15 minutes and then entertained four questions that were asked by the President of AUC's Student Union. The questions were disclosed to her majesty in advance and were selectively chosen out of a pool of questions that were sent out by the AUC community. To be honest, I really expected more out of this short speech especially coming from a Queen. Being a responsible citizen and engaging in the society we live in isn't something that I didn't know and the least that could've been done when addressing such a topic is to articulate it in an interesting and genuine manner, which I felt, was not the case.
There is something that the Queen said about aid to developing countries like ours that struck me as funny. The Queen said something along the lines that she doesn't believe in aid and that aid is not necessarily something to be encouraged as it creates dependency, and that she rather believes in development and empowering people. What's so ironic about that is that Jordan is one the largest recipients of U.S. aid in the region!