Document Type
Article
Abstract
As part of the Special Issue, this article adopts a methodological orientation that works through and with international law’s cultural legal archive. It focuses on one colonial literary artifact that shows the historical tension between colonization and revolution and examines the traces of those constitutive relations in the present. The artifact in question is an intriguing literary excursion by a British colonial-era judge in Palestine entitled Palestine Parodies. It mocks the legal life of Mandate Palestine through the use of comics, puns, and riddles. This raises a number of provocative themes relating to Mandate law, revolution, humor, and humiliation. The article reads this artifact against the history of the Arab revolt in Palestine, which lasted for three years (1936–1939) and was violently crushed by the British forces. It engages in a detailed exegesis of a number of images drawn from this document, arguing that closely parsing these “humorous” illustrations and drawings from a different era assembles and curates two competing stories. One story is about how colonial legal structures, manifested in the form of the comedic, collided with a second story that narrates the history of struggle, refusal, and revolt. Through curating competing images, jokes, and stories, this visual and literary tension in the analysis gazes upon history to recall and rekindle revolutionary possibilities.
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Citation Information
Taha, Mai.
"The Comic and the Absurd: On Colonial Law in Revolutionary Palestine."
Osgoode Hall Law Journal
59.1 (2022)
: 189-223.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.60082/2817-5069.3741
https://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/ohlj/vol59/iss1/7
References
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3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. (last visited 2 October 2021), online: The Freedom Theatre [www.thefreedomtheatre.org/alice-in-wonderland/#prettyPhoto[gallery]/4].
7. (CR Chisholm & Bros, 1869).
8. Mustard & Cress, illustrated by Blass (Azriel Press, 1938). I thank Shourideh Molavi for sharing this book with me.
9. Assaf Likhovski, Law and Identity in Mandate Palestine (University of North Carolina Press, 2006) at 47.
10. Ibid at 46.
11. See Nigel McCrery, The Coming Storm: Test and First-Class Cricketers Killed in World War Two (Pen & Sword, 2017) at 173.
12. Ibid [emphasis in original].
13. McCrery, supra note 11 at 173.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid.
17. See Likhovski, supra note 9 at 48. Likhovski discusses only two illustrations from Palestine Paradise (ibid).
18. On the relationship between material objects and the law, see Jessie Hohmann & Daniel Joyce, eds, International Law's Objects (Oxford University Press, 2018).
19. Along similar lines, Ruth Buchanan and Jeffery G Hewitt have looked at how the Manitoulin Island Treaty (1836) can be understood as both "text" and "object," the latter bearing performative elements in its (colonial) claim of authority over the land. See "Encountering Settler Colonialism through Legal Objects: A Painted Drum and Handwritten Treaty from Manitoulin Island" (2017) 68 N Ir Leg Q 291 at 300-302. https://doi.org/10.53386/nilq.v68i3.41
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22. Ibid.
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24. Ibid at 86.
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28. Ibid.
29. See Daniel Joyce "International Law's Cabinet of Curiosities" in Hohmann & Joyce, supra note 18, 15 at 16. Joyce argues that looking at objects, or in my case this literary artifact, is an invitation to curate and to tell new stories (ibid).
30. See Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project, translated by Howard Eiland & Kevin McLaughlin (Harvard University Press, 2002) at 463. I am grateful to Ali Al-Adawy, Lina Attalah, Hussam Bahloul, Mohamed Said Ezzeldin, Malak Helmy, Maha Maamoun, Ash Moniz, Yasmin El-Rifae, Salma Shamel, and Haytham El-Wardany for their intellectual companionship and camaraderie throughout our long reading project of Benjamin and other radical thinkers.
31. I show how both stories interacted and collided, as if in a battleground. Massimiliano Tomba's reflections on Karl Marx's engagement with the "revolution within the Revolution" in the Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte are instructive here: "History does not, in reality, stand before the materialist historian as an object to be represented objectively, 'as it really happened', but as a Kampfplatz in which to intervene. Marx does not limit himself to reporting events and to repeating what has been said, but names the event in order to demonstrate the opening of possibilities that were available in the past, and which the revolutionary class must gather together." See Marx's Temporalities, translated by Peter D Thomas & Sara R Farris (Brill, 2013) at 52-54.
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34. On the materiality of the archival document as an artifact, see Genevieve Renard Painter, "A Letter from the Haudenosaunee Confederacy to King George V: Writing and Reading Jurisdictions in International Legal History" (2017) 5 London Rev Intl L 7 at 13. https://doi.org/10.1093/lril/lrw022
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37. Ibid at 180.
38. Ibid.
39. Ibid at 181.
40. Ibid [emphasis in original].
41. (Speech delivered at the Second Congress of Writers for the Defense of Culture, 1937), translated by Mitchell Abidor, online: Marxist Internet Archive [www.marxists.org/archive/brecht/works/1937/fascism-culture.htm].
42. Ibid at 170. Brecht said, "[C]ulture is something inseparable from the whole productivity of a people" (ibid).
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45. See Likhovski, supra note 9 at ch 3.
46. Ibid at 63-65.
47. Ibid at 64.
48. See Norman Bentwich, "The Legal System of Palestine under the Mandate" (1948)
2 Middle EJ 33.
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50. Ibid at 88.
51. Ibid.
52. Matthew Hughes, "From Law and Order to Pacification: Britain's Suppression of the Arab Revolt in Palestine, 1936-39" (2010) 39 J Palestine Studies 6 at 6 https://doi.org/10.1525/jps.2010.XXXIX.2.17
Arieh J Kochavi, "The Struggle against Jewish Immigration to Palestine" (1998) 34 Middle Eastern Studies 146. https://doi.org/10.1080/00263209808701236
53. Mustard & Cress, supra note 8 at 86.
54. Ibid.
55. Ibid.
56. Ibid.
57. Ibid at 2.
58. Ibid at 13.
59. Ibid at 5.
60. Ibid at 4.
61. Ibid at 5-6.
62. Ibid at 6.
63. Report of the Commission, Submitted to the Council on September 14th, 1937, LONPMC, 32nd Sess, C.330.M.222.1937.VI (1937) 18 League of Nations Official J 1089 at 1095-96 [Report of the Commission].
64. Ibid at 1095.
65. Rachel Taqqu, Arab Labour in Mandatory Palestine (PhD Dissertation, Columbia University, 1977) [unpublished] at 4, 78.
66. United Kingdom, Colonial Office, Report by His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to the Council of the League of Nations on the Administration of Palestine and Trans-Jordan for the year 1937 (His Majesty's Stationery Office, 31 December 1937) at para 10, online: UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People [unispal.un.org/DPA/DPR/unispal.nsf/0/7BDD2C11C15B54C205 2565D10057251E] [Report by His Majesty's Government].
67. See e.g. Matthew Hughes, Britain's Pacification of Palestine: The British Army, the Colonial State, and the Arab Revolt, 1936-1939 (Cambridge University Press, 2019) at 236.
68. See Charles W Anderson, From Petition to Confrontation: The Palestinian National Movement and the Rise of Mass Politics, 1929-1939 (PhD Dissertation, New York University, 2013) (ProQuest, 2013) at 593-96.
69. See Report by His Majesty's Government, supra note 66 at para 26.
70. See Laleh Khalili, "Incarceration and the State of Exception: Al-Ansar Mass Detention Camp in Lebanon" in Ronit Lentin, ed, Thinking Palestine (Zed Books, 2008) 101 at 111. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350223646.ch-005
71. Ibid.
72. Palestine Parodies being the case in point.
73. See Ronit Lentin, "Palestine/Israel and State Criminality: Exception, Settler Colonialism and Racialization" (2016) 5 State Crime J 32 at 33. See also Giorgio Agamben, "The State of Exception - Der Ausnahmezustand" (Lecture delivered at the European Graduate School, Saas-Fee, Switzerland, 2003), cited in John Reynolds, Empire, Emergency and International Law (Cambridge University Press, 2017) at 203. https://doi.org/10.13169/statecrime.5.1.0032
74. Rogers, supra note 33 at 215.
75. Ibid at 218 [emphasis in original].
76. Ibid at 219 [emphasis added].
77. Mandatory Palestine, The Courts (Temporary Constitution) Ordinance, 1936, Jerusalem, Israel State Archives (J/102/36, file 00071706.81.8D.24.15) [Courts Ordinance].
78. Ibid.
79. Letter from Attorney General HH Trusted (23 April 1936), in ibid, 10.
80. See Courts Ordinance, supra note 77.
81. "Palestine disturbances 1936. Jaffa. Old town on sea front, troops searching inhabitants or arms" (1936), Washington, DC, Library of Congress (2019708814), online: Library of Congress [www.loc.gov/item/mpc2010003533/PP].
82. Letter from Chief Justice Michael McDonnell to High Commissioner Arthur Wauchope (27 April 1936), in Palestine Disturbances, April 1936. Establishment of Special Courts, Jerusalem, Israel State Archives (J/114/36, file 00071706.81.8D.24.18) 10 [Letter from Chief Justice].
83. See Ilan Pappé, "Haj Amin and the Buraq Revolt" (2003) 18 Jerusalem Q 6.
84. Letter from Chief Justice, supra note 82.
85. See Report by His Majesty's Government, supra note 66 at para 29.
86. See Mandatory Palestine, Commissioner of Prisons, Review of Arab Prisoners Convicted of Offences Connected with the 1936/39 Disturbances, Jerusalem, Israel State Archives (OP/381/46) at 84-88 [Review of Arab Prisoners].
87. Ibid.
88. Cornelia Vismann, Files: Law and Media Technology, translated by Geoffrey Winthrop-Young (Stanford University Press, 2008) at 1. See also Mayur Suresh, "The File as Hypertext: Documents, Files and the Many Worlds of the Paper State" in Stewart Motha & Honni van Rijswijk, eds, Law, Memory, Violence: Uncovering the Counter-Archive (Routledge, 2016) 97 at 100. Suresh argues that "the logic of the file is intimately attached to the rise of bureaucratic state, and hence closely tied up with modes or production of juridical truth, discourses of state accountability, and the rule of law" (ibid).
89. Review of Arab Prisoners, supra note 86 at 21.
90. Report by His Majesty's Government, supra note 66 at paras 29, 30.
91. Ibid at para 30.
92. Ibid.
93. Henri Lefebvre, Introduction to Modernity, translated by John Moore (Verso, 1995) at 23.
94. Mustard & Cress, supra note 8 at back cover.
95. See Peter Goodrich, "Proboscations: Excavations in Comedy and Law" (2017) 43 Critical Inquiry 361 at 372-73. https://doi.org/10.1086/689671
96. "A User's Guide to Détournement" in Ken Knabb, ed, The Situationist International Anthology, revised ed, translated by Ken Knabb (Bureau of Public Secrets, 2006) 14 at 19. One example of a détournment, said Debord and Wolman, could be the following: "Thus it wouldn't be a bad idea to make a final correction to the title of the 'Eroica Symphony' by changing it, for example, to 'Lenin Symphony'" (ibid at 20).
97. Mustard & Cress, supra note 8 at 13.
98. See Mahmoud Muhareb, "The Zionist Disinformation Campaign in Syria and Lebanon during the Palestinian Revolt, 1936-1939" (2013) 42 J Palestine Studies 6 at 10. https://doi.org/10.1525/jps.2013.42.2.6
99. Ibid.
100. Muhammad Malas, Al-Layl [The Night], 1990 (trigon-film, 1992) at 00:13:20-00:15:45.
101. "Destruction of Quneitra Condemned; Assembly Says Syria Entitled to Full Compensation" UN Chronicle 14 (January 1977) 20 at 20.
102. Malas, supra note 100.
103. Report by His Majesty's Government, supra note 66 at para 32.
104. Malas, supra note 100 at 00:15:05.
105. Samirah Alkassim & Nezar Andary, The Cinema of Muhammad Malas: Visions of a Syrian Auteur (Palgrave MacMillan, 2018) at 5. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76813-7
106. See Ghassan Kanafani, "The 1936-39 Revolt in Palestine" (Committee for a Democratic Palestine, 1972) at 37, online (pdf): Historical Documents of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine [pflp-documents.org/documents/PFLP-Kanafani3639.pdf].
107. Ibid.
108. Ibid.
109. Ibid at 35.
110. Ibid at 36.
111. Ibid.
112. Ibid.
113. See Subhi Yasin, al-Thawra al-'Arabiyya al-kubra (Dar al-huna li-l-taba'a, 1959) at 30.
114. Ibid.
115. Ibid.
116. See the Rabbit's discussion with Alice in Part I, above (see Figure 5), about the Arabs who "demonstrate about anything." Mustard & Cress, supra note 8 at 6.
117. "Palestine disturbances 1936. Deserted scene in Jewelers market, as it has appeared during the months of the strike, otherwise a crowded bazaar" (1936), Washington, DC, Library of Congress (2019708940), online: [www.loc.gov/item/mpc2010003659/PP].
118. See Yasin, supra note 114 at 31.
119. Ibid.
120. See Anderson, supra note 68 at 625-35, 653, 855.
121. Ibid at 625.
122. Ibid.
123. Ibid at 626.
124. Ibid.
125. See Samar Yazbek, "al-Mar'a al-Filastiniyya wa Adwariha al-Mansiyya: Riwayat al-Nisaa' li Tarikh al-Muqawama" (2007) al-Hiwar al-Mutamadden.
126. See Raf'a Abu Rish, "Dawr al-Riwaya al-Shafawiyya li al-Mar'a al-Filastiniyya fi al-Hifadh 'ala al-Hawiyya al-Wataniyya" (2007) 36 Jaridat Haq al-'Awda.
127. See Anderson, supra note 68 at 629-30.
128. Ibid.
129. Ibid at 630.
130. A Discourse on Domination in Mandate Palestine: Imperialism, Property and Insurgency (Routledge, 2010) at 86 (paraphrasing Homi Bhaba).
131. See Anderson, supra note 68 at 948. Some of the sentences could be incredibly violent. One could say that these are the pitfalls of imagining any state solution. Strike-breakers were often threatened with death (ibid at 648-49). On the cycle of state violence, see Walter Benjamin's classic, "Critique of Violence" in Marcus Bullock & Michael W Jennings, eds, Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings, 1, 1913-1926 (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1996) 236.
132. Mustard & Cress, supra note 9 at 171.
133. Anderson, supra note 68 at 944.
134. Criminal Investigation Department, Intelligence Report, Arab Revolt 1938 (September 1938), Oxford, St Antony's College Middle East Centre Archive (Palestine Police Old Comrades Association Collection), cited in Ghandour, supra note 130 at 99-100.
135. See Mustafa Kabha, "The Courts of the Palestinian Arab Revolt, 1936-39" in Amy Singer, Christoph K Neumann & Selçuk Akşin Somel, eds, Untold Histories of the Middle East: Recovering Voices from the 19th and 20th Centuries (Routledge, 2011) 197 at 199-200.
136. Ghandour, supra note 130 at 102-103.
137. Report of the Commission, supra note 63 at 1090.
138. Ibid.
139. Ibid.
140. Ibid at 1092.
141. Ibid.
142. Ibid at 1093.
143. Ibid.
144. Ibid at 1090.
145. Ibid.
146. Ibid at 1090-91.
147. Ibid at 1093.
148. Ibid.
149. United Nations, Future Government of Palestine, UNISPAL, GA Res 181 (II), 2nd Sess, Supp No 11, UN Doc UNA(01)/R3 (1947) 131 at 131 online: UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People [unispal.un.org/DPA/DPR/unispal. nsf/0/7F0AF2BD897689B785256C330061D253].
150. Report of the Commission, supra note 63 at 1095.
151. Ibid.
152. Mustard & Cress, supra note 8 at 45.
153. Ibid at 47.
154. Ibid.
155. Ibid at 48.
156. Abdel Razzaq Takriti, "Before BDS: Lineages of Boycott in Palestine" (2019) 134 Radical History Rev 58 at 74, citing UK, Secretary of State for the Colonies, Palestine Royal Commission Report (Cmd 5479, July 1937) at 132, online (pdf): Palestinian Mandate https://doi.org/10.1215/01636545-7323408 [palestinianmandate.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/cm-5479.pdf].
157. Ibid.
158. Supra note 95 at 363.
159. Since the First Intifada, Palestinian Professor Sharif Kanaana at Birzeit University has been collecting Palestinian jokes, folktales, and oral history narratives. See e.g. Sharif Kanaana, "Humor of the Palestinian 'Intifada'" (1990) 27 J Folklore Research 231.
160. "Front page of Falastin newspaper on 20 June, 1936" (1936), online: Palestinian Journeys [www.paljourneys.org/en/media/media/6742/front-page-falastin-newspaper-20-june-1936#&gid=1&pid=1].
161. See Palestinian Museum, "No Laughing Matter: Caricaturing colonialism in British Mandate Palestine" (last visited 3 October 2021), online: Palestinian Journeys [www.paljourneys.org/en/story/9184/no-laughing-matter]. For more on political cartoons during the Revolt, see Sandy Sufian, "Anatomy of the 1936-1939 Revolt: Images of the Body in Political Cartoons of Mandatory Palestine" (2008) 37 J Palestine Studies 23 at 26-27. https://doi.org/10.1525/jps.2008.37.2.23
162. Ibid.
163. Terry Eagleton, Humour (Yale University Press, 2019) at ix. https://doi.org/10.12987/9780300244786
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