By Mira Sucharov, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science
One thing I’ve struggled with over the years while teaching Israeli-Palestinian relations, particularly as the hope of Oslo leading to an actual peace agreement came and went, is the practice of teaching a “narratives” approach. Stories that groups tell about themselves that capture their ideas about the past and their hopes for the future, narratives are a useful heuristic for understanding political action. Like any good tool of social science, trying to get inside the collective mind of the actors we’re studying helps us unlock the mysteries of political behaviour.
In my course, we try to understand the strategic calculus facing the actors at different points in time. We examine public texts — leaders’ speeches, UN resolutions, and policy documents, as well as more popular expressions of political culture like film and poetry. This enables us to examine moments of collective longings and instances of internal critique. We study Mahmoud Darwish’s assertion of Palestinian identity and Natan Alterman’s elegy for the fallen Israeli soldiers of 1948.
But there are tensions lurking behind a narratives approach. In the case of protracted conflict, does presenting the narratives of each side mean that the instructor is saying both sides are equally right, and that the goals of each are equally just? And does it mean that the question of power is occluded?
In wanting to keep the natural polarization that can occur while studying a controversial topic like this at bay, I admit that I have sometimes tended to bracket this question altogether. But this year I have sought to bring questions of rights and justice more front and center, even if tentatively. As a start, this year I have nodded to this issue on the first page of my syllabus, where I remind students that whatever interests and preferences each side tries to advance, we must not forget questions of power.
Just as in the study of any complex set of human behaviours, considering the pairings of narratives and power, explanation and prescription, and “is” and “ought” need not be an either-or affair. I hope that just as we toggle between the past and the present, seeking to understand pressing policy issues in light of the history that gave rise to them, students can seamlessly enter and exit the frames of understanding and evaluation — something on which global citizenship, arguably, is predicated.