COMMEMORATION UNDER BRITISH RULE

ON 1 MAY 1921, a series of violent clashes broke out in the Jaffa and Tulkarm regions of Palestine and resulted in the death of hundreds of Jews and Arabs—the largest and most violent confrontation in the Palestinian-Zionist conflict to date. These clashes were the latest incidents amid the growing unrest after the Balfour Declaration of 1917 that promised Britain's support for the Zionist project and the subsequent British occupation of Palestine. In 1923 on the second anniversary of the Jaffa/Tulkarm riots, Palestine's leading newspaper at the time Filastin ran a front-page editorial with the headline "Martyrs' Day" (yawm al-shuhada), which read in part:

It has been two years since the day pure blood flowed out of us, since the day pure souls passed. We were inattentive to what was going on until that day when we were awakened in the morning by the roar of bullets.

Our revival was poor in all that other revivals are rich. Since that day, however, it became rich in martyrs, abundant with memorial days. One hundred brave sons of Palestine became martyrs (istashhadu) and they were not aggressors—and now Palestine considers them as having died for the sake of salvation. Martyrs are an inevitable component of the revival of nations. They breathe life into them. Memories, sweet and bitter, are another inevitable component, for they provoke reviving nations to action and renew their determination.

And if days start to look alike and become forgettable, we have one guiding day that we will not forget, one day that is stained with blood, crowned with blackness. The memory of that day awakens in us all that went dormant; it restores what went lukewarm in our enthusiasm and pushes us forward. That day is 1 May, Martyrs' Day.

In his attempt to establish 1 May 1921 as a historic turning point in the Palestinian collective consciousness, Filastin's editorialist was clearly aware of the political role of martyrdom and collective calendars in the creation of a national identity and was actively nurturing a Palestinian/Arab national identity under British rule.

The political boundaries imposed on the Palestinians following the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire in the aftermath of World War I eventually were adopted as boundaries of political identity. These postwar boundaries came with a demographic threat, phrased in the Balfour Declaration, and resulted in the politicization of a Palestinian particularism. This emerging emphasis on Palestinian identity coexisted with other collective identities, such as religious and local identities, Ottomanism, as well as Arab nationalism. Depending on circumstances and context, these identities can either complement each other or compete for importance and priority. Overlapping identifications were very common, and the boundaries between Arab and Palestinian nationalism were especially fluid. That said—various forces in Palestinian society gave differential weight to each element. Palestinian particularism refers here to the tendency to prioritize Palestinian solidarity over other identities, not an aspiration to substitute one for the other.

The invention of modern nations frequently relies on pre-existing markers of identity such as religion, language, shared myths about the origins and history of the group, daily customs, or cuisine. The Arab inhabitants of Palestine did not share the same religion (most of them were Muslim, but there was a sizable and influential Christian population), and their language and daily culture did not differ much from the Greater Syria region in general. Pre-modern elements of Palestinian collective memory, such as the shadow of the crusades and the glory of Saladin's victory, constituted only useful raw material for the production of a national identity. To transform Palestine from a regional category into a political category, requiring commitment and mutual solidarity, there was need for a more elaborated imaginative process. This is why calendars and martyrs had special appeal to Palestinian nationalists. These elements aimed to unify Muslims and Christians, villagers and urban dwellers, and diverse geographical regions, while at the same time nurturing a distinct Palestinian collective identity. Although martyrs and political calendars also serve to cultivate Arab nationalism or Islamic pride in Palestine, martyrs and the invention of new calendars were less crucial for nurturing these identities.

AN EMERGING CALENDAR

Following the British takeover of Palestine in 1918, about fifteen political clubs were founded by upper-class Muslims and Christians in the major Palestinian towns. These clubs were named the Muslim Christian Association (MCA), and they formed a national body, the Palestine Arab Congress, which opposed the Balfour Declaration and Zionist immigration. Although other organizations, such as the Literary Forum and the Arab Club took part in this opposition, the latter two were Palestinian branches that were part of a broader regional network whereas the MCAs were a local Palestinian phenomenon. In addition, the institutions established by the MCAs played a leading role in the political mobilization of Arab Palestinians. Therefore, some scholars consider these associations as the first manifestations of a national movement among the Arabs in Palestine.

All three organizations, though, provided the stage for the first documented attempts by Palestinian elites to establish a national political calendar. Following the Arab revolt against Ottoman rule toward the end of World War I, Faysal al-Hashimi established a short-lived Arab government in Syria with British approval; and for a short time, leading Palestinian intellectuals saw the future of Palestine as part of this new political entity. In spring 1919, the author Khalil Sakakini suggested to the members of the Jerusalem chapter of the MCA that the date the anti-Ottoman Arab revolt was launched (9 Sha'aban in the hijri calendar) be celebrated annually as an independence day of the Arabs. Sakakini, a Christian Palestinian, reported that he had to convince his fellow Christian members of the MCA that this was an event with national significance, which should concern not only Muslims. That year the MCA, the Literary Forum, and the Arab Club in Jerusalem celebrated Independence Day (which happened to be 9 May that same year). Sakakini, who attended the ceremony at the Arab Club in Jerusalem, reported that it included speeches, musical performances, and the singing of the Arab national anthem, which Sakakini himself had written (Ayuha al-mawla al-'athim). The British...