UB: Are you saying that the museum as the representative locus of history, is a cultural project that could stand in for a failed political one? Are you imagining a museum-state?
BD: Not a museum-state as much as a museum-nation. By this I mean that the emphasis is on agency and peoplehood, not on state power and state-building. The museum can attempt to be an embodiment of the Palestinian body-politic, but in a transnational not territorially-fixed setting. It becomes, in a sense, an arena for the performance and reproduction of this peoplehood by Palestinians. Put differently, for Palestinians to achieve self-determination, they must take control of their narrative. If knowledge is power, then Palestinian institutions must play a leading role in shaping knowledge production about Palestinian history and society. Considering the absence of a state I can’t think of a better institution to achieving this goal than a narrative museum. Ironically, this very absence of strong national institutions, not to mention a sovereign state, means that there is no single power that can impose a fixed nationalist narrative from above. Multi-vocal and contingent narratives become possible. These, in turn, open new spaces for individual and collective imaginations of possible futures; hence, hope and change instead of despair and powerlessness.
Besides presenting narratives that construct communities and shape opinions about the past, present, and future, a narrative museum also generates new knowledge by providing facilities, resources, and expertise for scholars, artists, educational institutions, non-governmental organizations, and research centers sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. Most of the attention, therefore, has to be paid to what I call the “living organs” of the museum project. That is, the institutional and human resources. At this time, for example, Palestinians do not have a national archive or a national library, both of which are crucial to the production of knowledge. The museum would not be an alternative, but a key part of it will be a deep and user-friendly archival center that can digitize locally-produced sources and make them available for researchers. Other “living organs” of the museum would include a research center, an exhibition and design team, educational and outreach programs, and so on.
UB: If the museum is going to be located in the West Bank, access to these resources and facilities will be quite difficult though. And given their importance, they will be under constant scrutiny.
BD: Establishing a museum while still under a foreign military occupation is a difficult challenge to say the least. Obviously, the museum has to deliver content in a variety of ways. It is important to have a unique and iconic physical structure in Palestine that can symbolize Palestinian hopes and aspirations. This structure can house narrative exhibits as well as the various departments that would generate knowledge and provide interactive programs to communities. Of course, the overwhelming majority of Palestinians will not be able to physically experience a museum building in Palestine, regardless of its location. Gaza is under siege, Jerusalem is closed to all except those with permits, the West Bank is a collection of enclosed human warehouses surrounded by check points, and so on. This is not to mention Palestinians citizens of Israel and all those living as refugees. In addition, any location inside of Palestine will be under effective Israeli control for the foreseeable future and can be subject to closures, looting, and destruction.
It is crucial, therefore, to consider other modes of delivery. One that immediately comes to mind is the virtual. A virtual platform has many advantages. It democratizes the experience of participating in this cultural project. Anyone with access to the internet should be able to become an active user. That is, the virtual connection is not so much about providing 3-D tours of the museum building as about bringing users into a world of discovery in which they, especially the young, have incentives for repeated engagement. Through the virtual connection, users should be able to find resources that can help them interrogate their past, ask critical questions about their present conditions, and participate in the making of their own future. Users will also be able to upload their own archives and experiences, establish connections with other users and so on.
Even established traditional museums are plugging into a trans-national cultural landscape as they transform themselves into essentially educational institutions and resources for the production of content. This is because only a rare few of them can hope to sustain themselves or have more than just a local impact if they depend solely on walk-in visitors.
Another significant mode of delivery would be satellite museums in areas of major concentrations of Palestinians and perhaps in key cosmopolitan centers. Those that directly service Palestinian communities –such as in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, United States, Latin America, and so on, would be akin to community centers. That is, they would host local and traveling exhibits that target specific audiences; provide users with robust portals for accessing museum content and for connecting with other communities; and provide a space to show films, hold lectures series, and install a variety of artistic and educational projects. Satellite museums are one way that Palestinians become not merely an audience, but participants who can shape this project through a network of transnational centers that, in a way, mirror the Palestinian condition.
A related guideline is that the narratives should be inclusive, not exclusive. The Palestinians are heirs to a rich and varied history. The meaning of Palestinian includes many religions, ethnicities, and ways of life. Just because Palestinians are erased or demonized in conventional Israeli narratives, does not mean that Palestinian narratives have to do the same. Instead of ignoring the Jewish presence in Palestine, for example, the museum can take control of how to tell that story. The Mediterranean, Arab, and Muslim dimensions of the Palestinian experience also ought to be acknowledged as well as the complexity of long-standing local and regional identities, all of which challenge the modern state system established after the World War One.
Another guideline is that the museum project should aim to help Palestinians to rebuild and empower themselves, but in a pro-active not reactive way. The power of the Zionist project and its supporters is such that the story of the Palestinians has been colonized and selectively erased in much the same way as the land itself was taken and the native population ethnically cleansed. And it is important to add here that this process of material and discursive colonization is still ongoing and with an urgent brutality. The question becomes: how can Palestinians take control of and shape their own narratives, but not in a defensive mechanical way that simply responds to how they are represented by others? After all, a defensive posture only reinforces the conceptual frame and vocabulary of the very narrative that is being challenged.
One can think of other guidelines such as the importance of emphasizing that the current conditions of the Palestinians are not an outcome of primordial religious or civilizational conflicts, but of modern circumstances, especially the colonial encounter. The idea here is to consciously step outside conventional nationalist narratives and critically interrogate them. Discussions and debates about these and other guidelines are needed and must, of course, involve not just intellectuals or professional cultural workers, but a wide range of stakeholders such as community organizers and solidarity organizations. Freedom, justice, and dignity cannot be delivered to the Palestinians nor can the Palestinians achieve them on their own. The whole world is implicated and one of the most important ways to creatively mobilize behind these goals is through a major cultural project such as the Palestinian Museum.
