The Center for Global Peace and Conflict Studies
Working Paper Series
A Key and Beyond:
Palestinian Memorabilia in the Economy of
Resistance
Khaldun BSHARA
Department of Anthropology - University of California Irvine
kbshara@uci.edu
Center for Global Peace and Conflict Studies
721 Social Science Tower
University of California
Irvine, CA 92697-5200
www.cgpacs.uci.edu
Artwork: Prismes Électriques, by Sonia Terk Delaunay. © Kathleen Cohen
A Key and Beyond: Palestinian Memorabilia in the Economy of Resistance
Khaldun BSHARA
“He caressed his key the way he caresses his limbs”
–Mahmud Darwish 1995. Why did you leave the Horse Alone?
Abstract
This essay evolves around space and memory. I look into the role of built environment/space in the
formation of Palestinian collective memory, focusing on the power of representations and the
practices of commemoration that emerged mainly after the Oslo agreement (1993). I examine some
of the ways in which Palestine refugees, while displaced, keep their memory alive and communicate
these memories to the fourth and fifth generation born in exile. I look at how memory materializes
and is manifested, exhibited, displayed, and performed in the new space of the camp. In this essay, I
explore the meanings, politics, and poetics of erecting the 2008 giant key memorial at Aida refugee
camp near Bethlehem, on the 60th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba (catastrophe 1948). I use the
key memorial as an entry point to discussing the role of material culture in the refugees’ process of
identity formation, and explore the ways the key acquired its symbolism, and how it circulates and
functions in the symbolic capital of resistance.
Background
Palestinians have been actively engaged in making their loss of home and space visible. In difficult
circumstances, they have been trying to preserve solid reminders of the past in a rapidly
modernizing, alienating landscape. Palestine refugees, in particular, engage in acts of
commemorating and remembering their lost homes, located nowadays in Israel. These
commemorations (ceremonials and demonstrations) take place in the different Palestinian refugee
camps and coincide with May 8th of every year, the day Israel celebrates its independence and the
same day the Palestinians refer to as Nakba, the catastrophe 1948.
It is after Oslo agreement (1993),1 that it became the Palestine refugees’ tradition to take to
streets and commemorate the Nakba. In these ‘ceremonial’ demonstrations, elders hand over the
artifacts left from their original homes to the younger generations. The original old keys, in
1
There are several reasons that Palestinian refugees in particular, and Palestinians in general have been increasingly
engaged in commemoration their ‘loss.’ The first is the establishment of the Palestinian National Authority (an
autonomous-like space) on parts of West Bank and Gaza Strip, which is, according to Sa’di and Abu-Lughod,
symbolized some sort of recognition of Palestinian rights, and allowed for moments for reflection, an opening that
was not possible in harsh military occupation that did not allow for such luxury. Second is the new wave of Israeli
historians who unmasked some of the Zionism project in Palestine—including the deliberate military plans and
intentions to displace the Palestinian population—which contributed to the erosion of the alleged orthodoxy that
denied Israeli responsibility for the Nakba even when refugee tales were so consistent and demanding that they
should have been heard. A third reason is the frustration of the Palestinian refugees of the silencing and
continuous postponing of the negotiation over refugees’ status to the ‘final status’ negotiations. The living
conditions of the Palestinians in general and the refugees in particular show that the Nakba is not over yet in the
sense that the Palestinians and the Israelis have not yet achieved a state of normality, and moreover, Palestinians
still experience the continuous violence and uprooting in different ways. Another reason is the need for time for
reflection on a posttraumatic event like Nakba, therefore, individuals in posttraumatic events produce ‘belated
memories,’ such that it can take victims long time to convey their experiences and give them meaning and form
(Sa’di and Abu-Lughod 2007:10-13).
particular, gained a special status. They have become one of the most potent elements in the
Palestinian collective memory in general and the Palestine refugees’ identity in particular.
The key memorial
In 2008, and on the occasion of the Palestinian Nakba, Aida refugee camp in the city of Bethlehem
inaugurated what is believed to be the world’s biggest key monument. At a cost of USD12000,
several artisans had been working for weeks to shape and assemble two tons of thick iron sheets
into a ten-meter-long key. The key was stamped with the phrase “Not for Sale,” in both Arabic and
English, in red. According to Munther Amira, who came up with the idea and supervised the
production of the key memorial, “The key indicates that refugees do not intend to give up their right
to return.” Amira describes the inauguration day of the key memorial with swallowed sad voice full
of determination and courage,
…On Thursday, May 8, 2008 the same day Israel celebrated its
independence, the giant key ‘toured’ Bethlehem. The key went on ‘zaffeh;’
like the bridegroom accompanied by his relatives and neighbors in his way
towards his fiancé’s home. The key ‘visited’ Bethlehem’s three refugee
camps in a march we called ‘Ajiall al Awdeh,’ the return generations.
Everybody was there, representatives from the refugee camps, and
representatives from the nearby villages and towns. Abu Ibrahim, the eldest
refugee who was present at the event, came to inaugurate the key memorial
while displaying his old key before handing it over to his grandson. Abu
Ibrahim Obeid followed the construction of the key day by day. At the
inauguration he declared, ‘as the key memorial is complete, I can die/rest
with peace in mind.’ He died two weeks after the event. Everybody was
there, including the Israeli fighter jets celebrating their independence by
releasing their terrifying noise while flying at low altitudes above the
memorial area adjacent to ‘The Separation Wall,’ which surrounds Aida
refugee camp from three directions. Where the giant key was placed, kids
participated in inscribing the names of the villages from which they were
displaced.2
2
Munther O. Amira, the chairman of Aida Youth Activity Center, in an interview in Aida refugee camp, July 2009.
The keys, the meaning of which I am exploring, are old-heavy-long-rusty-iron, usually used
to unlock large metal locks, attached to either wooden or metal doors. After Oslo agreement (1993),
these keys became part of what I tentatively call “the Palestinian pop culture of resistance,” if there is
anything that could be described as such. Keys have become the par-excellence symbol of the lost
homes, and the signifier of ongoing exile. Displayed in public, the keys symbolizes at the same time
ownership and displacement. Ismail, a founding member of Ras Abu ’Ammar Association, 3 in Aida
refugee camp, tells me a story that sheds some light on how the old keys have become an invincible
icon in the Palestinian struggle:
Once upon a time, after 1967, an old refugee visited Ain Karim hospital,
located nowadays in west Jerusalem, for medication. He asked the driver to
pull aside as they approached a particular house. He told his sons, who
accompanied him in his trip, that the house was theirs. He knocked the
door and told the Jewish family the story. A debate broke and the refugee
argued, “If this is your home, and this door is yours, show me the key.” The
man was sure that the new family will not be able to show the key, because
he kept the key with him since he left more than twenty years ago.4
It is important to note that thousands of Palestine refugees keep their old keys today even
though they do not know whether the doors or the houses survived the Israeli destruction. Some
informants told me that immediately after the 1948 war the Israelis looted the doors, the windows,
and the furniture. Here is what Abu Jamal, born 1936 in Beit Nabala village near Yafa (Tel Aviv),
tells me about his home:
…In early 1950s, I and my cousin sneak back to our village. We walked all
daylong, arriving to the ‘truce line’ at the dusk. We waited until it was
reasonably dark; we crossed and stayed there until early morning. The
village was not destroyed by then. Yet, the Israelis looted everything; the
doors, the windows, the iron works, the stones so that Palestinians would
stop sneaking back to salvage things… I visited the village many times after
3
Ras Abu Ammar is one of the villages located west of Jerusalem and was evacuated after 1948 as part of the truce
negotiations.
4
Ismail in an interview at Ras Abu Ammar Association, in Aida refugee camp, September 2009.
1967 war. Everything was destroyed including the mosque and the
cemetery.5
Abu Jamal’s story and many others tell us that the keys in concern are not functional. Yet,
they have acquired value ‘beyond’ the use value. Here is how Abu Jihad, a refugee originally from
Qaqoun village north east Yafa (Tel Aviv), eloquently put it:
...The agony passed on from one generation to the next. Parents give the
ownership documents to their sons. Others hand over to them their old
keys. You know, the key is a piece of metal, but it is a symbol of the house
and the continuous ‘rape.’ These symbols are systems of inheritance.6
Ismail from Ras Abu ’Ammar Association, comments on the key memorial:
The key is a key, in spite of its size, it is a symbol of our lost homes,
and one day, one will return and turn the key into the door and
unlock it. 7
Anyhow, those thousands of Palestine refugee proudly display the key to the front door of their
homes. “They raise their children to believe that they will someday be able to return home, to put
that very key in the door, and to open it.”8 Abu Jamal, Abu Jihad, and Ismail already knew that the
dream of turning the key into a matching lock of a specific door is beyond reach. “The symbolism,
however, remains.”9 I am concerned mainly about two issues; how the keys circulate and how they
have become an important element of social capital and the national collective.
5
Abu Jamal in an interview in al Jalazon refugee camp, March 2007.
6
Abu Jihad in an interview in the town of Tulkarem, August 2008.
7
Ismail in an interview at Ras Abu Ammar Association, in Aida refugee camp, September 2009.
8
Jaroslaw Jasinski. “Demand.” In Antonym/Synonym: The Poster Art of the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict. FinnishArab Friendship Society (1980). http://www.liberationgraphics.com/ppp/demand.html. An internet source
accessed in February 2009.
9
Ibid.
The key memorial at the Aida refugee camp, 2009
A Key in the Social Space
When examining an art or literary production, Pierre Bourdieu urges us to look into “not only the
material production but also the symbolic production of the work, i.e. the production of the value of
the work or, which amounts to the same thing, of belief in the value of the work” (Bourdieu
1993:37). Roland Barthes similarly tells us “every object in the world can pass from a closed, silent
existence to an oral state, open to appropriation by society” (1956:94). This is also appropriate to the
production of space. In The Production of Space, Henri Lefebvre argues that space is a social product,
or a complex social construction, which affects spatial practices and perceptions and thoughts
(Lefebvre 1991). In May 2008, Aida refugee camp introduced a key memorial in the space. Not only
did the key memorial alter the physical scene, but also this work in/on space shapes the public
perception of the space itself, i.e., the space of the refugee camp and the imagined space beyond the
camp. Amira and Ismail share the same concern of the younger generation who came to age under
Palestinian Authority and peace negotiations that do not make refugee case their priority. Ahmad
Sa’di and Laila Abu Lughod argue that, “the special character of Palestinian memory lies in…the
political nature of the deliberate erasure of their story, all this giving birth to the stubborn dissidence of their
memory-work [emphasis added]” (Sa’di and Abu-Lughod 2007). This actually explains why it is only
after Oslo Agreement (1993) that Palestine refugees commemorate the Nakba (catastrophe 1948).
The process of the production of the memorial, according to Amira, “triggered debates,
negotiations and wrestling between different parties and stakeholders including the Palestinian
Authority, UNRWA10, Beit Jala Municipality and different political parties.” 11 The memorial, which
has no authority per se, acquired power and authority over space and by extension over society:
“Don’t ever forget your original home.” The production and the introduction of the ‘world’s biggest
key’ memorial into the space of the refugee camp is a social production of space, which is
fundamental to the reproduction of society. Lefebvre tells us that, “(Social) space is a (social)
product [...] the space thus produced also serves as a tool of thought and of action [...] in addition to
being a means of production it is also a means of control, and hence of domination, of power”
(Lefebvre 1991:26).
The refugees, through the construction of the giant key ‘memorial,’ take the private
property/memory/trauma to the public space, or in psychoanalysts terms they “grieve” (Cheng
2001:174), and in so doing they ‘take the matter into their hands,’ and engage in the injection of
meaning into their life/space and production of their own ‘spatiality.’ This is, to use Fanon words
(1967), empowering in the process of ‘dis-alienation.’ Further, it is a “move from ‘agencylessness’ to
agency [which] is not a mere matter of reversal [; rather,] the move from grief to grievance, […], to
provide previously denied agency” (Cheng 2001:174).
During the construction of the world’s biggest key, Palestine refugees living in Bethlehem
governorate visited the site to check on the progress of the work. Reaching out and touching the
10
UNRWA is The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.
11
Munther O. Amira, the chairman of Aida Youth Activity Center, in an interview in Aida refugee camp, July 2009.
key, Ibrahim Musallam, a refugee originally from ’Illar village near Jerusalem, tells Ma’an News
Agency that,
“The key symbolizes that after sixty years of exile, we are still insistent on
our right to return. I am thirty-six years old, and I live on the hope that a
day will come that I go back to my village. I have my own individual right to
return, and our leadership must realize that they do not have the right to
abandon what this key symbolizes.”12
In this way, the site of the key’s production became not only a site of ‘production of meaning’ to use
Bourdieu words, but also a site of resistance. Bourdieu persuasively argues that “it is a question of
understanding works of art as a manifestation of the field as a whole, in which all the powers of the
field, and all the determinism inherent in its structure and functioning, are concentrated” (Bourdieu
1993:37). Of course, one can argue that the memorial is not an artwork in the contemporary art
perception of the word—i.e., produced by an artist, acknowledged as art, and circulate in the
symbolic realm of value. Yet, I suggest that the key is the kind of artwork that has a value that
transcends the value of artistic contemporary works, in that it takes art back to its original task—
have a use value that is the symbolic. Amira, the godfather of the world’s biggest key, believes that
the most important issue about the key memorial is the message that it is meant to convey; “we want
our children to look at the key memorial and think of the day they will return to their motherland.”13 Therefore,
the memorial is not a key that is meant to function—a form that inferences a function. Rather, it is a
reminder of certain keys, the ethical endeavor behind which is to attract attention to Palestine
12
“The world’s biggest key.” Ma’an – 07/05/2008. The Palestinian Return Centre (PRC). http://www.prc.org.uk. An
internet source accessed in February 2009.
13
Ola Attallah. “Palestinian ‘Return Key’ Memorial.” IOL.
accessed in February 2009.
http://www.islamonline.net. An internet source
refugees’ continuous misery. The logic of this is based on the fact that the key has become par
excellence ‘The Symbol,’ that signifies both ‘loss’ and ‘resistance.’14
The world’s biggest key circulated in space. It acquired a soul—“a bridegroom”—that could
tour and could interact with refugees’ “return generations.” The refugee children participated in the
production of the memorial by painting the names of their own villages of origin on the concrete
base.15 The Palestinian poet Mahmud Darwish conveyed similar message in his poetry; not only the
house he was expelled from had a soul, might feel lonely and might die, but also its key was part of
his father’s body. In his poem, “Why did you leave the horse alone?” Darwish’s father “caressed his key the
way he caresses his limbs.” In psychoanalytic vocabulary, the father made the loss fly into his ego
denying the loss itself. Freud would have suggested this is a case of ‘melancholia.’16 Here is what
Darwish writes in memory of this ‘flight:’
- “…Where to are you taking me father?
- To the direction of the wind son… We will return when the soldiers
return to their relatives, in the far away.
- Who will live in the house after us father?
- It will remain as we left it son. He caressed his key the way he caresses his
limbs, and relaxed.
- Why did you leave the horse alone?
- So the house won’t feel lonely, son. Houses die if their inhabitants leave.
- When will we return?
- Tomorrow. Perhaps in two days son” (Darwish 1995).
Why has the key become the most displayed/exhibited item of memory? Moreover, what is
it in the key that makes us feel good about its reproduction and displaying? Virtually none of those
14
Form, ethics, and logic are the tripod on which rests the Piercean pragmatics model (cf. Bernstein 1971).
According to Pierce, “The business of the aesthetician is to say what is the state of things which is most admirable
in itself regardless of any ulterior reason” (Charles Pierce quoted in Bernstein 1971:193).
15
“The world’s biggest key.” Ma’an – 07/05/2008. The Palestinian Return Centre (PRC). http://www.prc.org.uk.
An internet source accessed in February 2009.
16
According to Freud, the ‘turn,’ which marks the melancholic response to loss, appears to initiate the redoubling of
the ego as an object; only by turning back on itself does the ego acquire the status of a perceptual object. The turn
from the object to the ego produces the ego, which substitutes for the object’s loss. Not only does the ego
substitute for the object, but this act of substitution institutes the ego as a necessary response to or ‘defense’
against loss (Butler 1997:168-9).
who left their homes and land during the Nakba expected to be gone more than a few days or at
most several weeks.“ Tomorrow. Perhaps in two days son,” tells the father his son in Darwish’s poem.
The majority carried with them only their valuables and provisions for few days (Bisharat in Gupta
and Ferguson 1997:209). “Imagine leaving the house quickly and fearfully. You take your identity
card, your money, and the light precious belongings that you can carry. The last thing you do, you
snatch the key; lock the door behind and leave.” This is a typical anecdote about the fleeing;
Palestinians thought that they are leaving for several days, and will return once the war is over.
“When you return, you need the key to unlock the door you have just closed.” What happened is
that without the actual return, the refugees (re)turn to the key. The key has become the cause—the
ego ideal17—that binds Palestine refugees together.18 Therefore, the reproduction of the original keys
attains value beyond the ‘contemporary’ systems of value.
In For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign, Jean Baudrillard proposes four ways for an
object to obtain value: the functional value (use-value), the exchange value (the fetish), the symbolic value
(a value that a subject assigns to an object in relation to another subject), and the sign value—its
value within a system of objects. According to Baudrillard, we cannot understand the value without
taking into consideration that the exchange and use value has also a symbolic and sign values. He
argues that “sign value is to symbolic exchange what exchange value (economic) is to use value”
(quoted in Poster 1998:60). The original keys lost their ‘use value,’ since neither the doors nor the
homes survived the destruction. They, moreover, have no exchange value, since it is not possible to
exchange the old keys with other commodities or an abstract amount (money or labor). The keys’
value, therefore, falls into the symbolic and the sign regimes of value to use Baudrillard’s value
17
The ideals and ambitions that according to psychoanalytic theory are assimilated from the superego—the critical
and moralizing function of the psyche.
18
“It is central to Freud’s thinking,” Jacqueline Rose argues, “that what bind people together is their commitment to
an internal ideal …something that makes us feel good about ourselves” (Rose 2007:66).
system. Symbolically, the keys acquired value through their circulation among the different
generations. It is the object, the value of which is assigned by the younger generation in relation to
the older ones, a symbolic system of exchange that is complicated by a patriarchal kinship, and
inheritance systems.19 Sign-wise, the rusty old keys have come to ‘suggest’ oppression, alienation, and
estrangement from ones’ own property, in the same time it suggests resistance and the possibility of
return. It is imperative to note that the key is part of a system of objects that includes land deeds, old
cartographies, and old photographs. All signify exile and the longing to return.20
The Keys in the Economy of the Resistance
Key memorial is not new in the Palestinian public space; several years ago, the Palestinian
Telecommunication Group (Paltel) commissioned the artist Nabil Anani to sculpt ‘something’ to be
placed at a street junction that leads to the Group’s headquarters. Anani molded a bronze key (more
than one meter high) along with a molded map of historic (mandate) Palestine. In the occasion of 60
years of Nakba (1948-2008), the key was graphically abstracted and used for the Telecommunication
Company publicity. The back cover of “THIS WEEK IN PALESTINE” (May 2008) featured a
white graphic of the key on a black background. Below the key they wrote, “PALESTINE HOPE
UNLOCKED.” How does telecommunication unlock hope? In colonial regimes, scrutiny, surveillance,
mobility limitation, and limiting communications are some of the tools used to control the colonized
population and territory. Communication in particular has a particular salience in the economy of
colonialism. For example, Frantz Fanon essay “This Is the Voice of Algeria” 1965 shows the affect
communication may produce on those who struggle against colonization (Oliver 2004:74). Similarly,
the Israeli occupation authorities banned any attempts by Palestinian, prior to Oslo agreement
(1993), to have their own broadcasting. In addition, the state of Israel intersected, and I still recall
19
A system very similar to that of the Kula ring in which necklaces and arm shells circulate (Mauss 1954:20), yet,
within the family sphere.
20
Roland Barthes persuasively argued that “a signified can have several signifiers” (1956:105).
this from my childhood, the podcasting of “The Voice of the Revolution,” or “The Voice of
Jerusalem” during the 1970s through the early years of 1990s. What I am trying to do is to show that
the key memorial produces its own meaning by its means of communication. The Paltel key tells the
Palestinians that the hope for a community, which was challenged by exile, can now be achieved, at
least virtually, by telecommunication that your ‘national’ company offers (a very similar move that
The Voice of Algeria did in Algeria context). Nevertheless, through the key, Palestine refugees
acquire the possibility to communicate to the world their ‘hope’ to return. According to Munther
Amira, the Aida memorial was placed at the entrance of the camp, at close proximity to the
Separation Wall, to transmit/broadcast more than one message:
We hope that the key will enter the Guinness Book of Records… It will
help raise awareness of the Palestinian refugees’ rights in Western
societies…We hope the spot will be a magnet for supporters of the
Palestinian cause…It will tell it all. 21
It is believed that memorials are built for future—or at least have futuristic ambitions.
Benedict Anderson argues that monuments commemorate events or experiences in the past, but at
the same time they are intended for future22. Similarly, Kathleen M. Adams, who explored the art
and its politics in Toraja/Indonesia, found that “objects […] that link the past to the present can be
critical to the construction of futures” (Adams 2006:166). The Aida memorial is not
commemorating the past; rather, according to Amira the most important issue about the memorial is
21
Ola Attallah. “Palestinian ‘Return Key’ Memorial.” IOL. http://www.islamonline.net. An internet source accessed
in February 2009.
22
In his book Imagined Communities, Benedict Anderson quotes at length Douglas MacArthur’s address to the U.S.
military academy: “My estimate of (the American man at arms) was formed on the battle field many ,many years
ago, and has never changed. I regarded him then, as I regard him now, as one of the world’s noblest figures; not
only as the one of the finest military characters, but also as one of the most stainless (sic). … He belongs to
history as furnishing one of the greatest examples of successful patriotism (sic). He belongs to posterity as the
instructor of future generations in the principles of liberty and freedom. He belongs to the present, to us, by his
virtue and his achievements.” –Douglas MacArthur, ‘Duty, Honour, Country,’ Address to the U.S. military
academy, West Point, May 12, 1962, in his A Soldier Speaks, pp. 354 and 357. [emphasis added] (quoted in
Anderson 1983:9-10).
what the key memorial is meant to say to the Palestine children; “here is your return key, make sure you
complete the mission.”23
Miniatures: The Key from Object to Subject
Miniatures of the long-heavy-rusty keys can be bought from the market along with other pre-Nakba
miniatures such as coins, Palestine flag, and Palestine’s historical map. These are different signifiers
of the same sign. While miniatures are handy representations of the represented objects, in the key
case, this is not the objective because the object of concern is already small. Therefore, the key
miniatures are usually quite smaller than the originals as in the case of key holders for example. With
a sunken-relief that reads, “Right to Return 1948.”
The original keys, unlike their miniatures, function in the realm of the first and seconddegree semiotics to use Barthes model. On the language-parole/image level, this type of key (oldlong-rusty) opens specific type of locks (heavy iron) on specific type of doors or gates (wooden or
iron). On the mythology/interpretational/cultural level, Palestine refugees display in public this type
of key to protest the continuation of their exile and to claim their lost homes. Therefore, the
miniatures are signs that signify the original keys, that signify specific type of locks/doors, that when
displayed in public, signify the loss of home, and show discontent with the continuation of Palestine
Refugee’s exile. Hence, the key, as an object has itself become the subject of representation. In so
doing, the original objects (old heavy keys) acquired authority over the objects of signification (the
miniatures).
While the ‘key holder’ key miniatures are smaller than the original, the replicas are far bigger
than the originals when they function as wall hangings or props in a popular dance as we will see
23
“The world’s biggest key.” Ma’an – 07/05/2008. The Palestinian Return Centre (PRC). http://www.prc.org.uk.
An internet source accessed in February 2009.
later. In other words, the scale of the Palestinian replicas has to do with specific function(s) they
serve; the Palestinian coins for example—used as key holders as well—are almost faithful
“reproductions” of the originals. The coin is already always a representation of ‘exchange’ value, of
authority, of power, of sovereignty, and it is already always handy. Therefore, the representation and
the represented are the same. Yet, while money is always money, the coin miniatures do not have
this abstract quality and cannot be exchanged in the market place. It is money that cannot buy, yet, it
can be bought. Like key miniatures, coin miniatures circulate in social rather than market spheres,
and have symbolic and sign values, to use Baudrillard’s value system.
Pop Culture of Resistance
For the occasion of ‘NAKBA60,’ the el-Funoun Palestinian Popular Dance Troupe performed what
they call “Haifa, Beirut and Beyond.” El-Funoun is one of the most popular folklore groups in
Palestine. They have kept the popular dance heritage alive through their performances. In
Palestinian dance, and I know this is true for other Arab countries; dancers usually perform a
swordplay in the memory of the glorious past or a specific historical event. In “Haifa Beirut and
Beyond,” giant keys, similar to Paltel’s key, replace the swords. The keys are, in this case, blown-upin-scale to perform a function, which is to-day the monopoly of the sword. In Arab literature, the
sword is the symbol of action. It is the border between the genuine and counterfeit.24 According to
Abu Tammam,25 the famous Abbasid poet, it is at the sword’s edge that seriousness and playful are
segregated. In the el-Funoun dance, the keys symbolize the truth and the seriousness, ironically on
24
Abu Tammam Habib ibn Aus (täm-mäm´ häbēb´ ĭ´bӘn ous), 805-845AD is an Arab poet and compiler of the
Hamasa. His poems of valor, often describing historical events, are important as source material.
http://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Tammam, An internet source accessed in March 2010.
25
I refer to the poem that compares the sword and the words. While Abu Tammam is an admirer of the words, being
himself a poet, he values more the sword, the deeds.
‫فـي حـده الـحد بين الجــد واللـعب‬
‫الـسيف أصـدق أنـباء من الكــتب‬
‫في مـتونهن جـالء الـشك والـريب‬
‫بيض الصفائح ال سود الصحائف‬
the stage of a play and not in the battlefield as Abu Tammam would have envisioned. The use of the
word ‘beyond,’ in this Palestinian dance has two connotations, space and time. Space-wise, the elFunoun uses the word to connote the national collective that transcends borders, the keys—that
symbolize the Nakba—are what bring Palestinians together; be it Palestinians living in Haifa (inside
nowadays Israel), or in Beirut (Palestine refugees), or ‘Beyond’ (anywhere else). If national
boundaries are drawn by the circulation of people, ideas or objects, then the Palestinian boundaries,
in its ultimate territorial contraction,26 witness its maximum expansion through the circulation of
refugees, their ideas and objects (such as miniatures and cuisine), which in return shape their
perceptions about who they are. Time-wise, in the el-Funoun dance, the key symbolizes the 1948
Nakba event. The Nakba event has been shaping the present of the Palestinians to include those
who are still living in nowadays Israel, those who are scattered as refugees around the Middle East,
and elsewhere. The replicas’ potency is that it has the capacity of scaling. This scaling is both
material/objective and meaning/subjective. Whether the key is scaled down to a key holder or
enlarged to function as a sword, in both cases it is accompanied with material change that suits the
new function. In terms of meaning, the key symbolizes the lost home(land).
Charles Pierce differentiates three levels of semiotic—firstness, secondness, and thirdness.
While firstness is related to the sign/object/image (the rusty keys), secondness involves action that
involves more than one person (taking to streets and handing over the old keys from older to the
younger generations). Thirdness is the level in which rules, conduct, conventions make the firstness
and secondness not a mere physical activity, but social (Bernstein 1971:178-182). Ronald Barthes
urges us, similarly, not to take the object/image at its face value. Rather, language signification
suggests something else on a mythology level. According to Barthes “the signifier is empty, the sign
26
I am referring to what is described, by Israeli Historians such as Illan Pappe and Israeli journalist such as Amira
Hass, as cantons and apartheid regime.
is full” (Barthes 1972:113). Therefore, a key is a sign. On the plane of experience, we cannot
dissociate the key from the message it carries. On the plane of analysis, we cannot confuse the key as
signifier and the key as sign. To complicate this issue, I would say that this particular key is not an
object that stands for itself; rather, it signifies a home/a private property. And this private property
is inaccessible and therefore the key signifies on the second level the opposite function of its
signification on the semiotic first level (accessibility/openness).
Nasser Flaifel from Gaza sculpts and puts into sale wooden keys decorated with the names
of the destroyed villages. For him “the key is a symbol of Palestinians’ right of return to their
homeland… making keys is a way to remind oneself and the world that we will never forget our
right to return to our houses.” Flaifel spent four years and a half in Israeli prisons, on the charge of
fighting Israeli occupation. Through making keys, he “feels as if he is still fighting for his rights.”27 It
is becoming a tradition, during Palestinian wedding parties that the bridegroom gives a symbolic gift
to the congratulators. Flaifel gave away wooden key to his guests.28 In The Gift, Mauss tells us, “The
objects are never completely separated from the men who exchange them” (1990:31). Similarly,
Baudrillard drawing from Barthes believes that “objects always say something about their users.”
And this was, for Baudrillard, why consumption was and remains more important than production:
because the “ideological genesis of needs”29 precedes the production of goods to meet those needs.
The keys in el-Funoun dance replace the swords. In so doing, the keys function to segregate
truth from counterfeit. This is analogous to the function of the keys. In reality the keys separate
private property from other properties (keep out—private property—keep out). However, in
commemoration ceremonies, keys function in and for public to signify the longing for the private
27
Sami Abu Salem: “‘Key of Return,’ a Marriage Gift in Gaza.” WAFA: Live from Palestine, 15 May 2005.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article3847.shtml. An electronic source accessed February 2009.
28
Ibid.
29
For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign 1983 p.63
property. Private property is a key element in the struggle against colonization, since the confiscation
of property causes the original owners to experience the possibility of alienation or “meaning
making” to use psychoanalyst Kelly Oliver words. Following Frantz Fanon, Oliver argues (2004:13)
that “oppression operates through a debilitating alienation based on estrangement from the
production of value.” In exile, this basic human right of meaning making is suspended. I, therefore,
see Palestine refugees’ attempts to take to public space, to commemorate loss, erect key memorials,
and create gift key miniatures as conscious and unconscious acts of resistance. Fanon, as early as the
Palestinian Nakba, argued that in order to be able to restore dignity of the ‘oppressed,’ it is
important to put him on his way to decolonization by reversing the process. That is to say to restore
the possibility of making meaning of his life, “dis-alienation” through the “experience of the
prohibited” (Fanon 1967[1952]), i.e., private property.
Conclusion
There is a building. Inside this building there is a level, where no elevator
can go, or stairs can reach. This level is filled with doors. These doors lead
to many places, hidden places. But one door is special. One door leads to
the source.
The key-maker in “Matrix Reloaded” (2003)
The story of Matrix Reloaded revolves around the eternal human struggle against evil forces. One
important scene is the handling of the key by the old key-maker to a younger ‘chosen one,’ so the
latter would be able to connect with the source and rescue humanity. The story ends with a dialogue
between good and evil around the importance of the persisting search for the truth and the meaning
of human existence. One may see what it means for Palestine refugees to display their houses of
origin keys, to hand them over to the chosen ones (younger family male members), to be able to
connect with the source (the original homes), without which the truth would be in danger.
Ronald Barthes tells us that “myth is constructed from semiological chain which existed
before it: it is a second-order semiological system, a sign in the first system becomes a mere signifier
in the second” (Barthes 1956:99). If we take the Palestinian key on its face value, we lose the
meanings and symbolism of the key in Palestine refugees’ context. The key is a language. Moreover,
it is a “meta language” (Barthes 1956:100) that transcends borders of space and time and talks to
different audience—to the Palestinians, to the Israelis and to the world. The power of the key can
only be understood in its context. In Baudrillard’s view, the (human) subject may try to understand
the (non-human) object. The object can only be understood according to what it signifies. Because
the process of signification immediately involves a web of other signs from which it is distinguished,
we need to attend the context in which the sign emerge. One needs to understand the memorial in
the broader landscape of practices of memory. What I suggest is that the inability to forget
(melancholia/remembering) led to the proliferation of acts of commemoration and literary and art
works that help the refugees ‘articulate’ (Oliver 2002) meanings that are necessary for them to
‘survive’ (Butler 1997). This paper has sought to show why and how the key acquired agency, how it
circulated, and to what ends. I believe that the production of the Aida key memorial, which might be
understood in psychoanalytic terms as the impossibility of return, shows how complex are space and
home in the Palestinian imagery.
*****
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