Public Lecture on: Colonial Settlement in North America and Palestine

The Ibrahim Abu-Lughod Institute of International Studies at Birzeit University hosted Professor Fuad Al-Mughrabi, on Monday 28/10/2013, in a lecture that attracted a wide audience of students, professors and researchers. Professor Al-Mughrabi is the former Head of the International Relations and Political Psychology Department at the University of Tennessee in Chattanooga. The lecture presented a summary of a research by Professor Al-Mughrabi which is a comparative analysis between the settlement process in North America and Palestine and the way that the native population reacted to the colonial settlement process. The core case of the lecture is what happens when things collapse and the native population loses its land and resources; how do these people survive and continue their struggle for basic rights.

Dr. Al-Mughrabi emphazied at the beginning of the lecture the importance of the comparative approach in studying and analyzing different phenomena for the purpose of creating a wholesome image. After which he discussed the topics of racism and segregation in Palestine and the apartheid system in South Africa; pointing out that segregation in Palestine aims at the elimination of the Palestinian people which is worse than what happened in South Africa where the main objective was not the disposal of the native population.

As a follow up, Professor Al-Mughrabi addressed what happened in North America of the exclusion of the native people by the European settlers by isolating them space-wise in unrelated tribes; later on, there were constant attempts aiming at the fusion of the identity of the native inhabitants through integrating them into modern societies by utilizing education (sometimes compulsory) for those purposes. He also indicated that the settlers in North America signed around 122 peace treaties with the local population and did not abide by any of them, on the contrary the objective of these treaties was to empower colonialism and control the local population; similar to what is happening in Palestine, as the aim of the Palestinian-Israeli treaties was to continue the policies of expansion and judaization of the place.

The lecture was followed up by an in-depth debate by the students, guests and Professor Al-Mughrabi on the comparative approach and its political and cognitive relevance. The potential of such studies are opening ports to the liberation project.