The Writing on the Walls: The Graffiti of the Intifada
Author(s): Julie Peteet
Reviewed work(s):
Source:
Cultural Anthropology,
Vol. 11, No. 2 (May, 1996), pp. 139-159
Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Anthropological Association
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The
Writing
on
the
Walls:
The
Graffiti
of the
Intifada
Julie
Peteet
Department
ofAnthropology
University
of
Louisville
One of the
most
striking
features
of the cultural
landscape
of the
occupied
West
Bank at the
height
of the
intifada,
in the late
1980s
and
early
in
1990,
was the
writing
on the
walls.'
The
eye
was
immediately
drawn to the
hastily
inscribed,
but on occasion
rather
painstakingly
painted, graffiti
splashed
on
nearly every
stone wall
in the area.
Usually,
each
graffito
carried the
signature
of
a Palestin-
ian
political
faction,
either its full name
or
its
acronym.
Large
blotches of black
or white
paint,
either
brush or
spray
painted,
overlaid some
graffiti
and were
intended to
prevent
their
being
read. One could read the battle of
the walls much
the
way
an
archaeologist
reads
stratigraphy-layer
by layer-each layer
of
paint
indicating
a
partial
and
temporary
victory
in
an
ongoing
battle.
(See
Figures
1
and
2.)
Popularly
dubbed a
"war of
stones,"
stone-throwing images
dominated the
intifada's
public
presentation.2
Indeed it
was
a
war
of
stones,
but stones were
more than
weapons
of defense:
they
were
print weapons
as well. With its
pre-
ponderance
of
stones
and
stone
walls,
the
landscape provided ready
made,
eas-
ily
accessible
weapons
of
communication, assault,
and defense.
As an
anthropologist
intent on
exploring
cultural
production during
a mo-
ment
of
intense
political
contest,
I
had
given
little,
if
any,
thought
to
graffiti.
But
upon
arrival
in
the
occupied
West Bank in
1990,
I could
not
avoid it. In streets
utterly
devoid of movement or
noise due
to
a
general
strike,
the
blotchy,
hur-
riedly splashed
red or
black words on an otherwise
fairly
monotone
landscape
drew the
eye.
Once
I
got
a
sense of the
process
of
graffiti's production
and
their
content-which was
humorous,
demanding,
threatening,
chastising,
and resis-
tant-I started
writing
them down
on
index cards.
A
young
woman who
worked
as a
research assistant with me was
assigned
the task of
writing
down
as
many
graffiti
as she
could.
I
had the
good
fortune
to reside
in
Beit
Hanina,
a small sub-
urb of Jerusalem
particularly
rich in
graffiti.
This article
explores graffiti
as
a form of cultural
production
during
a sus-
tained
political
contest.
I
take one
particular
cultural
artifact,
graffiti
(shi'arat),
to
suggest
that forms of
cultural
production deployed
as a means of
resistance
Cultural
Anthropology
11(2):139-159.
Copyright
?
1996,
American
Anthropological
Association.
139
140
CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
are
themselves
developed
within
the
specific
space
of
repression,
within
the
constraints
and
possibilities
it
entails. How and
under what
conditions
graffiti
are
produced
and what their
production
means
for
their
writers
and
audiences
are
central
questions.
What
I
want
to
suggest
is that
graffiti
did not
merely
send
messages
or
sig-
nify
defiance;
their mere
appearance gave
rise to arenas
of contest
in
which
they
were a vehicle or
agent
of
power.
This article
departs
from
other
works on cul-
tural
production
and
resistance
by
focusing
on the
effects of
graffiti
on
differen-
tially empowered
and
positioned
readers
(compare
Rolston
1987;
Sluka
1992;
Slyomovics
1991).
Graffiti,
and
the
ways
in
which
they
were
read,
went far
be-
yond
a
binary
of
occupied
and
occupier.
As a cultural
device
in
a
communicative
process, graffiti
fashioned and
spoke
to
multiple
audiences.
The violence that
surrounded
their
production
and
reading
highlighted
the notion
that texts
themselves are sites
of conflicted
read-
ings.
This means as
well that both
reading
and
writing
are
culturally
and
histori-
cally
situated social
practices.
The
way
graffiti
were
produced
and
read
by
Pal-
estinians,
and read
and effaced
by
Israelis,
indicated
differences that
were
hierarchized.
Although
I
briefly
discuss the
meaning
of
graffiti
for
Israelis,
my
focus here is on the
Palestinians.
For
Palestinians,
graffiti
were an
intervention
in
a
relationship
of
power.
As cultural
artifacts,
graffiti
were a critical
compo-
nent of a
complex
and
diffuse
attempt
to
overthrow
hierarchy; they
were
Pales-
tinian
voices,
archival and
interventionist.
They
were not
monolithic
voices for
sure,
but
polysemic
ones that acted
to record
history
and to form and
transform
relationships.
While
they
represented
they
also
intervened. For
Palestinians as
a
readership, graffiti simultaneously
affirmed
community
and
resistance,
de-
Figure
1
"The intifada
continues...
-Hamas." On
the
left,
a
splash
of
paint
blackens
out
previous graffiti.
GRAFFITI
OF THE
INTIFADA
141
Figure
2
The letters
fth,
for
Fatah,
traverse
a
map
of Palestine.
The
northern
part
of
the
map
turns
into a human
figure carrying
the
Palestinian
flag.
Painted
in
the
colors
of the
flag-white,
red,
green,
and black-it was
signed
by qd
(quwwat
al-darb,
the
Strike
Forces,
a
wing
of
Fatah).
These two
walls contain
multiple layers
of
paint,
indicating
their
frequent usage
as
a
site for
writing graffiti.
The
wall in the distant
background
also carries
splotches
of black
paint.
The
stones on
the
ground
were
used
to
set
up
barricades to
slow
down or
stop
Israeli
jeeps.
bated
tradition,
envisioned
competing
futures,
indexed historical
events and
processes,
and
inscribed
memory. They provided political
commentary
as well
as
issuing
directives
both
for
confronting occupation
and
transforming
oneself
in the
process.
They
recorded
events and commemorated
martyrdom.
In
short,
as a
form
of
cultural
production,
they
were
self-reflective and self-critical-
qualities
that
distinguished
them from
other
forms
of
cultural
production
in
the
intifada,
such
as
embroidery
or the use
of
colors of the
Palestinian
flag
in
deco-
rative items. The Palestinian
community thought
"out loud" in
graffiti.
Issues of
gender,
religion,
and
politics
were charted and debated.
In the
context
of the
intifada,
stones were
a
revolutionary
device;
they
were
both
weapon
and
medium in a
battleground
where
technological disparity
in
142
CULTURAL
ANTHROPOLOGY
weaponry
was
striking
and an
apparatus
of
censorship
was
in
place. Taking
to
the walls was
a sort of last-ditch effort to
speak
and
be heard.
The
appearance
of
the
writing
on the
walls,
the actions
underlying
them and their
content,
could
be
read
in
a
multiplicity
of
ways.
The
graffito
"No taxes without
representation"3
could be read
by
Palestinian audiences as a directive of
struggle,
as
a refusal to
acquiesce
in the
occupation project,
and,
in
an archival
sense,
as a
diagnostic
of
the
kinds
of tactics
deployed by
the
occupying
authorities.4 Written under a
highly
elaborated
apparatus
of
censorship,
graffiti
were
a
form of
expression
that recorded
domination and
simultaneously
intervened in it.5 Graffiti is
ap-
proached
here as
a
form of
expression grounded
in the
complex
of Palestinian-
Israeli
power
relations
in
which neither
group
was
homogeneous
or
monolithic.
While
censorship
distorted Palestinian
potential
for the construction of
narrative,
graffiti
linked Palestinians under
occupation,
overcoming
discontinu-
ity
in
communication. Yet the
images
lasted
only
as
long
as the tolerance of the
occupier.
That could
be a
few
hours or a few
days.
Graffiti-which Fischer and
Abedi refer to as a
"minor
media"
(1990:337)-present
hastily
written,
fleeting,
fragmentary images,
much like the intifada itself.
In
this
sense,
in
spite
of
their
technological simplicity,
Palestinian
graffiti joined
the
electronic
age
of
fleeting
imagery.6
The
hurriedly
inscribed
images,
often
read rather
quickly,
resembled
in intent and
reading
those of television
advertising
and Sesame Street.
The for-
mer aims to convince viewers to
consume,
often in as
short a time as
30
seconds,
while
the
latter uses
rapidly shifting
sets of short
segments
to
develop
concep-
tual
thinking
and
impart specific knowledge.
Intifada
graffiti
shared both
these
aims.
The mere
presence
of
graffiti-their
simple production
and
signification
of
resistance and defiance-assumed
primacy
in
the construction
and
potency
of
meaning.
Minimal aesthetic
attempts
merely
heightened
that
primacy.7
On oc-
casion
the time and risk were taken
to
impart
an aesthetic effect. Once
I
saw
a
very elegant kufic-style
graffito
in
East Jerusalem.8
Painstakingly painted
in
bright
red,
it
read
"nar wo nur"
(fire
and
light).
This
graffito
I
definitely
wanted
to
capture
on
film;
precisely
because
of
its aesthetic
qualities
I wanted to
give
it
a
permanent imprint.
By
the time
I
ran around the
corer
to
grab my
camera
and
ran back-all
of
15
minutes-it
was blackened out. Once a
graffito
has been
in-
scribed
in
the
anthropologist's
or
journalist's
notebook or
captured
on
film,
it is
accorded
a
permanence
not intended
in
the
practice
of its
production.
The
image
and
message
are
fixed and can circulate across time and
place, providing
grounds
for a
distant,
differently positioned reading.
Carrying Relationships
As cultural artifacts
of
resistance,
graffiti
are not inert.
Reading
is
an active
kind of behavior
and a text
is
a "carrier
of
relationships"
(Davis 1991).
We thus
must
ask,
What kind of
relationships
did
graffiti carry
and how
did
they
intersect
with other forms
of
resistance?
Because the
conditions
in which
graffiti
were
produced
were
so furtive and
could incur
deadly
violence,
the
perilous
act of
writing points
to
contextualization,
for it
testifies
to
an intense
desire
to fashion
GRAFFITI
OF THE INTIFADA
143
and
galvanize
an
audience.
In their
production
and
consumption,
or
reading,
graffiti
established
and reinforced
certain relations
and intervened in and
dis-
rupted
others. Addressed to two
publics/audiences,
the
occupier
and
the
Pales-
tinian
community, graffiti
were
polysemic;
they
elicited
multiple
readings
and
galvanized
readers for different actions.
In
both instances
they
relied on
fairly
predictable
relations
given
experience
and the
organization
of
power:
an
antago-
nistic one
with
soldiers and settlers and
a
generally
favorable one with
Palestini-
ans.
Graffiti took their
place
in
a constellation
of
resistance
tactics
to intervene
in
relations of domination. Both the act of
writing
and the
reading
of its content
disrupted
dominant-subordinate relations
in various
ways.
The sheer
ubiqui-
tousness of
graffiti
was a constant reminder both of
the
abnormality
of
everyday
life
under
occupation
and of the mass
uprising.
They
worked with the
daily gen-
eral strike
to
imprint
on
the
landscape abnormality
and resistance. The
writing
on the walls
challenged
Israeli claims to
surveillance,
constituting
a
glaring
in-
dex
of
the Israeli state's
inability
to observe and control
every
place.
In
circum-
venting
censorship
and
setting up
a direct
relationship
with a
public, graffiti
in-
vited an active
response
from
readers. Most
importantly,
graffiti
were
part
of
a
repertoire
of
actions
of
civil
disobedience. Prominent
among
these were non-
payment
of
taxes,
boycotts
of
Israeli
goods,
and
flying
the
Palestinian
flag
or us-
ing
its colors
in
items
of
dress or
adornment.
Graffiti were
the silent
narrative
ac-
companying
acts
of
resistance
yet
were
themselves
an
act of
resistance.
They
encouraged
resistance,
cajoled,
demanded,
critiqued,
and
provided running po-
litical
commentary
on
the
progression
of the
uprising.
At the
same
time,
they
were
an act of civil
disobedience.
They
made
dramatically
visible and
public
an
action,
writing
without
censorship,
deemed
illegal by
the
occupying
forces.
As an
accompaniment
to standard mobilization
strategies
of
visiting
and
persuasion,
and
of
confrontations,
graffiti
suggested
and beckoned
people
to
re-
sist,
to take
action. Private
property
in
the form of
walls-which
demarcated
residences
or
businesses-was mobilized.
Aside
from
declaring
the
popular
communal nature
of
the
uprising, taking
over
privately
owned walls for
inscrip-
tion was also an
act
of
internal
politicization
and
mobilization,
since
owners of
walls of
print
would be
confronted
by
soldiers
demanding
erasure and
payment
of
fines
of
roughly
700
Israeli
shekels
(about $350).
A
standard tactic of
the
up-
rising
was
"days
of
confrontations"
with
the
occupation
authorities.
Designated
by
the
leadership,
these
were
days
when
people
were
encouraged
to take
part
in
activities
designed
to
engage
soldiers
in
confrontations,
such as
stone-throwing
or
setting
up
barricades.
They
were intended to
spark
mass
mobilization,
draw-
ing people
out of their
homes and
everyday
lives
into the melee of
resistance ac-
tivities.
Sometimes wall
owners would rush
to
paint
over
graffiti
to save them-
selves the fine and
the humiliation of
erasure under the
eyes
of the
soldiers.
In
the battle for
control,
the
leadership's
stance on such
a
practice
could be read in
this
graffito:
"Don't
paint
over
graffiti
voluntarily.
First
Warning!"9
Palestini-
ans were to
desist from
taking
on the
functions of
policing
themselves
for
the
benefit of the
occupation
authorities.
144
CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
The
process
of
producing graffiti
contained the
capacity
to transform inter-
nal
relations and harness them to resistance actions.
Writing
graffiti
could be a
performative
element
in
a rite of
passage
into the resistance.'0 To be more
than
a
mere
supporter
of a
political organization,
to
join
the ranks of
members and
po-
tential
leaders,
one had to
prove
oneself.
The
act of
writing graffiti
constituted
a sort
of rite of
passage
into both adulthood and the
underground
resistance
movement.
A
young
woman
schoolteacher,
in
whose
home
I
spent
much time
and
who was
in
the
process
of
being
mobilized
by
a
political organization, kept
me informed of each
stage.
First she had received several
ostensibly
social visits
from members of a
political group.
They
engaged
her in
political
discussions
to
get
a
feel
for
where
she stood on a number of
political
issues.
After a few
weeks
she
sensed
they
were
going
to
suggest
involvement in resistance activities.
They
visited
yesterday
afternoon and
since
my parents
were out of the room
they
asked
if I
would
go
out tomorrow
night
to
paint graffiti
with
some of
the
other
people
in
our
neighborhood.
They
suggested
that
if
I
didn't
want to
confront
my
parents
I
could sneak out
quietly
after
everyone
was
asleep.
When
I
asked
what she had decided to
do she said:
I
can't
do it.
I
just
can't deceive
my parents.
I'm
not
ready yet
to take
on
this
action.
Maybe
later. But
not now.
I
feel
really
guilty
because
I
know some
of
the
others now
in
our
neighborhood
who do risk arrest.
This initial task of
a new recruit measured readiness
and tested
and
vali-
dated commitment
to the
uprising
and
the
capacity
to face
danger.
For
young
women,
it was a test
of their
willingness
to
defy
common
parental
restrictions
on
nighttime
movement
beyond
the home. In
short,
the act
of
making
the
stones
speak
was
simultaneously
an
aspect
of
acquiring
revolutionary
credentials
and
entering
the
realm of
political
membership
or affiliation.
An unintended
audience was
the outside
observer,
the
graffiti
aficionado,
such
as
myself
and
others,
who
photographed
the
graffiti especially
as
they
de-
veloped
into wall murals. The
small street that led into
the
neighborhood
where
I lived had a
large
wall that could
easily
be seen
from
the
road as
one drove
or
walked
by.
This wall was
always
covered
with either an
elaborate
wall
mural or
a fresh
application
of
black
paint.
Each
day
as I walked to the
main road
I
ap-
proached
the
wall with
anticipation.
What would have
transpired
during
the
night?
The murals
were
painted
at
night
and blocked
out
during
the
day.
So be-
tween
the
time
I
left
in
the
morning
and
the time
I
returned
in
the late
afternoon,
the face
of the wall
was often transformed.
Eventually
word
got
around
to
jour-
nalists and
researchers
that Beit
Hanina was full of
fabulous,
colorful
graffiti
and
wall murals.
When I
came
home or
passed by
the street
during
the
day,
I
saw
journalists
snapping
photos
of the wall.
In
photographing
the wall
they
were
do-
ing
much as
I am
doing
in
writing
this article.
We have both
fixed
in a
permanent
imprint
these
fleeting
images
and narratives of
resistance.
We have
given
them
longevity
and
taken them
on
journeys
for others
to read.
The
intifada
may
end
GRAFFITI OF THE INTIFADA 145
up
being
one
of the most
well researched
and well documented
uprisings
in
this
century.
On
occasion
graffiti
were
deployed
to
speak
to the West.
While
usually
written
in
Arabic,
English
graffiti appeared
now
and
then,
particularly
when
a
foreign delegation
was known to be
coming
to
an
area.
A student in a
village
told
me
an
interesting story
about
writing graffiti
in
English:
The
night
before
a
visiting group
of
American observers and
supporters
were to
come to
our
village,
the shebab
[young
boys
or
men]
came
and
asked
me
to
help
them write
graffiti
in
English.
I
had lived
for a few
years
in
the United States so
they figured my
English
would be better than theirs.
I
agreed
and
they
gave
me
a
list of
things they
wanted to write
on
the walls and on banners.
We
stayed up
all
night
translating
these
slogans
and
messages.
We
painted
them on banners
to
hang
in
the
village
and then
we went out
and
painted
some on the walls.
In
press
accounts of
the
intifada,
the
accompanying
photo
often contained
a
graffiti-covered
wall.
Sometimes the
writing
was
translated,
other times not.
In
any
case,
the narrative
had been
fixed
and circulated
in
the
global
information
network and media.
In
this
sense,
graffiti
took their
place among
other forms of
resistance.
Graffiti constituted a voice for those who felt voiceless in
the inter-
national arena.
Writing
in
the Censored Zone
The
walls of
shops,
homes,
and offices
were littered with a
jumbled profu-
sion
of
graffiti;
the
quantity
was
a
barometer of discontent
and
resistance."
Aside
from
the
afternoon
shutdown
in
observance of the
general
strike,
the most
ubiquitous sign
of
the
intifada was
writing.12
As a form
of cultural
production, graffiti
were a
way
of
communicating
in
spite
of official
censorship.13
But
they
were also much
more. What was
to be
written
on
the
walls was
usually
assigned
to
young
writers
by
local or
neighbor-
hood
leaders,
although
it was
not
uncommon for
young
writers to
take to the
walls without
directions. The
content
of
graffiti
was
both uniform and
cacopho-
nous,
much as the
uprising
itself. Their
ubiquitousness
and their
highly
charged
rhetoric
marked the
crossing
of a
forbidden threshold.
An
uncensored and em-
boldened
Palestinian
public space
and
voiced
presence
emerged
in
the
graffiti-
"Death to the settlers
wherever
they
are -PFLP
[Popular
Front
for
the
Libera-
tion of
Palestine]";'4
"Our
people
are
stronger
than all modes
of
repression
-PFLP";
"Let us seek
complete
freedom
-UNL
[Unified
National Leader-
ship]";
"No
to
occupation."
These voices
signaled
an
end
to a
semipublic
tran-
script
where
resistance
had been
fragmented
and
proceeded
in
fits and
starts.
"Nonpayment
of
taxes and
tickets is a
national
obligation
and
an
act
of
struggle
-UNL." "A
generation
that
awakens
in
the
interrogation
room
under the
police
baton
makes a
party
of the
people
and
of all
comrades -PCP
[Palestine
Com-
munist
Party]."
These
signaled
civil
disobedience and a
self-reflective
moment.
In
announcing
that
policies
of
violence were
constitutive of
political
conscious-
ness,
of
"awakening,"
of
affiliation
and
unity, they deny,
if
not
indeed
subvert,
146 CULTURAL
ANTHROPOLOGY
the
intent behind
applications
of
bodily
violence.
As items in
an
archive,
the
graffiti
also
inscribed,
however
fleetingly,
a
chapter
in
Palestinian
social his-
tory.
Cockiness
was encoded
in
graffiti
such
as
"Prison
is for
relaxation,
depor-
tation
policy
is for
tourism,
throwing
stones
is
exercise -UNL."
A
riposte
in
stones
was both a
diagnostic
and
a
refusal to
acquiesce.
It
diagnosed
occupation
tactics such
as detention and
deportation
while
denying
their effectiveness
to
wear down resistance.
Palestinians were
registering
their
willingness
to
take
punishment-indeed
were
displaying
their
capacity
to
defy
punishment
crea-
tively
and
even to take
pleasure
in defiance.
Humorous
bravado
could
also
be
read
internally
as a means
of
preparing
young boys
for
the
likelihood
of
a
prison
experience.
The
anonymity
of
graffiti,
their
signature
by
political groups
rather than
in-
dividual
writers,
suggested
the sense
of
community
and
assertiveness
of a
read-
ership
bound
by
common
political
experience
and
language.
Perhaps
that
was
why
the Israelis
were so
responsive
to
graffiti.
To the
occupying
forces,
the hur-
ried
images
were more crucial than
their actual
contents.
Soldiers
responded
to
the
social
practice
of
writing-and
to the
possibilities
it
suggested
for the emer-
gence
of a
readership
exploring
and
affirming
its
collective
identity.
Erasure and
its
accompanying
violence indexed
fear both
of a
community
producing
and
cir-
culating knowledge
and
of an
experience
and
sentiment
being
inscribed and
shared
among
people
not
in
actual face-to-face
contact.
Circulations
of senti-
ment and
experience
could
lead
to incitement.
Under
Israeli
military
rule,
everyday
life
was
highly regulated
by
the
need
for a
permit
for
just
about
any
activity-from
building
onto
one's
home to
bring-
ing
in
books
to
planting
a tree. Over
1,500
military
orders
regulated
Palestinian
daily
life.
Writing
on the
walls-not
seeking permission
to
write-was defined
as
illegal
behavior
and was
responded
to as
such.'5
Thus
Israeli soldiers
scram-
bled to ensure
that
graffiti
were
blackened
out.
The
majority
of
the
soldiers
could
not
comprehend
the
actual
content of
the
writing;
they responded
to
im-
ages,
in a
public space,
whose
mere
appearance
signaled
the social
practice
of
defiance
and
reminded them
of
their
inability
to
impose
control
without resis-
tance.'6
The
signatures
were
often
well-known
icons,
such as the
red hammer
and
sickle
of the Palestine
Communist
Party
or
the
fist
of the Strike
Forces-
markings
that do not
require literacy
in Arabic.
The conditions
under which
graffiti
were written
are
central
to
locating
their
meaning
and
efficacy.
Censorship
effectively
underwrote
the
production
of
graffiti.
Graffiti
were a means
of
circumventing
denial
of
voice.
They
were
what Foster
refers
to
as
"a
response
of
people
denied
response"
(1985:48).17
They
were
a
way
of
breaking
rules
that limited
speech
and
thus can
be
cast
as the
crossing
of
boundaries
erected to
fragment
and isolate.
Along
with
rumor
and
al-bayanat
(the
leaflets
produced
by
the
underground
leadership
and
banned
by
the
Israeli
state),
graffiti
assumed
primacy
as
a means
of communication.
De-
nied access
to an
uncensored
print
media,
people
took
to
the
walls,
creating
a
print
in stone
and
readers
of stones.
Graffiti
were evidence
of
an
attempt
to
re-
GRAFFITI
OF
THE INTIFADA 147
cover
voice
and to
fashion a
"public sphere,"
that
is,
to
quote
Habermas,
an
arena
in which "such a
thing
as
public opinion
can be formed"
(1991:398).'8
In
the
intifada's
initial
phase
(1987-90),
graffiti
writers assumed a Palestinian
public
as a
fairly
homogeneous
community
defined in relation to a
foreign
oc-
cupier.
However,
as
I will
discuss
later,
Palestinian
social
and
political
hetero-
geneity
was
represented
in
both
reading
and
writing,
suggesting
not Habermas's
liberal and
singular public
but rather
the notion of
multiple
publics, arguably
singular
in their
opposition
to
occupation,
but often
in
obvious tension
with
one
another.
Writing
and Erasure
The Israeli
response
to
graffiti
certainly
suggested
that
they
saw
graffiti
both as
creating
and
as
galvanizing
its audience.
Slyomovics
argued
that Israeli
"censors
perceive
any
live
performance
in
front of an
audience
to be
dangerous
thanks
to
theatre's
acknowledged capacity
to incite
audiences,
while
reading
a
book is
deemed
a
private,
solitary
act"
(1991:27).
Yet
numerous books
were
banned
in
the
occupied
territories
for fear
they
would inform
and therefore incite
people.
The violence done to
the
reading process suggested
a
recognition
of
it as
a
particularly dangerous
social
practice.19
Indeed,
censorship
was
perhaps
the
clearest
recognition
of the social and collective nature of
reading
and the
poten-
tial
for
consciousness and
agency
in
a
public
sphere. Censorship effectively
de-
stabilizes notions
of
the
private
nature of
reading.
To
produce graffiti
required
no
more than a can of
spray paint,
a
wall,
and
an idea or instructions. Much as stones were the
primary weapon
of confronta-
tion and
defense
by
a
largely
unarmed
people,
the walls
lent themselves well to
print
warfare. Graffiti
were serious
business,
indicating
a successful
defiance
of
surveillance.
They appeared
in the
most
public
and visible of sites-main
thor-
oughfares
and
squares, commonly
traveled
roads,
and walls
in
densely packed
commercial areas. There was little that
was
private
or
hidden about
graffiti,
ex-
cept
their
actual transformation from idea to
image,
a
risky
endeavor. Late at
night,
from
my
windows,
I
would crouch
down
and
peep through
the curtains to
watch
groups
of
three
or four
boys,
under cover of
darkness,
scrawl on the walls.
One
boy
would
be
posted
as a
lookout,
and at
the
slightest
sound of an
approach-
ing
vehicle
or
group
of soldiers
they
would
dart over walls or
across
open
spaces
between houses and
wait
until
all was clear.
Although
graffiti
were written in
the
dark hours
of
night
or the
early
morning,
soldiers
were
often on
patrol
and did
occasionally
catch writers
in
the
act. While
reading
graffiti posed
no
particular
danger,
their
production
certainly
did;
it
was
illegal
to write for
public
dissemi-
nation without
submission of
the
text
to the censors.
Moreover,
the
writing
of
graffiti
frequently
led
to violent
encounters
as
soldiers
occasionally
shot
graffiti
writers or
beat them.20
Part of a
deadly
cat-and-mouse
game,
the
appearance
of
graffiti
under-
scored the
incompleteness
of
Israel's
surveillance.
By
1990,
colorful wall mu-
rals
appeared
side
by
side with
graffiti.
Most often
by
the
evening they
were
gone,
blackened out
by
an
application
of
paint.
A
few
mornings
later,
the
murals
148
CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
would
reappear
in
the exact same
spot.
Israeli soldiers
did
not
themselves
paint
over the walls.
In
Beit
Hanina,
I
often saw
jeep
loads of soldiers
round
up
five
or six
boys
and
march them at
gunpoint
to the walls to blacken out
graffiti
and
murals.21 These same
boys
were often the
ones
I
had seen
writing
graffiti
or
painting
murals
the
night
before.
Striking disparities
in
technology
were also
evident
in
the battle of the walls. Much as
stone
throwing
was
responded
to with
live
ammunition,
graffiti
at times elicited a
technological response.22
Automatic
paint
sprayers
mounted on
trucks,
able to reach
higher graffiti,
were
a
second
means
deployed
for erasure.
The
game
of
inscribing
and
erasing
went
on
daily,
taking
on the
appearance
and
quality
of a
deadly
contest
over who
would
have
the final word.
Inscribing
and
Claiming
Place
The riot of
signs
on
stones,
and their
erasure,
signaled
a contest over
place
and its definition. It made the
stone walls into encoded
tablets,
public,
didactic,
archival,
and
interventionist
spaces
of
riposte-"No
to
Shamir,
Mubarak
and
Baker's
plans
and a
thousand
yesses
to the
independent
Palestinian
state
UNL."
Under
military
rule,
Palestinians were denied cultural
and
political expres-
sion in
public space. Writing
on
the
walls
was
a
dramatically graphic
and visible
way
of
simultaneously responding
to
and
resisting
an
assignment
of
public
space
that
attempted
to exclude them.
Occupation
policy
and
practices
catego-
rized
Palestinians as
movable,
not
in
need
of
permanency
and
continuity
of
place.
Graffiti
proclaimed
place
as one's own and asserted
one's
power
in it-
"Fatah
passed by
here."
They registered
a desire
for
connectivity
to
and
power
in
place.
Yet
"passed
by"
stated
a
recognition
of the
contemporary
fleetingness
of
presence.
They
also
suggested
possible
futures
where an
empowered
Pales-
tinian
community
would be
in
place.
Fatah,
as the
major
political
faction
of the
PLO,
embodied
the
organizational
force for
Palestinian
autonomy.
On
occasion,
graffiti proclaimed
the
unity
in
resistance
of a
spatially
and
experientially
fragmented
community. Depending
on
geographic
location
and
its
temporal
referent,
an
always positioned
Palestinian
discourse
suggested
de-
grees
of
being
"inside"
(dakhil)
and "outside"
(either
al-ghurba,
in the
diaspora,
or
shatat,
part
of
the
dispersal
or
fragmentation
of the
Palestinians).
Being
"in-
side"
can refer to
those Palestinians
residing
in the
areas
of Palestine
that be-
came
Israel
in
1948,
if one is in the
occupied
territories.
If one is
in the
diaspora,
"inside" can
refer to those
Palestinians inside
Israel and those
under
occupa-
tion.23
"Palestine
from water
to water -Hamas" and "From
sea to sea
-Hamas"
declared
a
geography
of
continuity.
"No
to settlers"
denied
a
Zionist
claim
to
and
presence
in Palestinian
space
and
registered
a
resounding
rejection
of
frag-
mentation
and
dispersal
(shatat).
In
doing
so,
a
political
stance
was stated
as
well.
Equally, graffiti
were
an
attempt
to break out
of
spaces
of
confinement,
which
in their
discontinuity
obstructed
and
fragmented
Palestinian
communica-
tion.
GRAFFITI
OF
THE INTIFADA
149
Graffiti
transformed
contested
space
into
a
communicative
arena in
which
directives
were sent
and
visions
of a future were encoded. For
instance,
an-
nouncements
of strikes
("Monday
is
a strike
day")
were
ubiquitous.
To
cite
a
more
complex
example,
"Woe!
Israel sneaks
its
soldiers into Arab areas wear-
ing
the
uniform
of
the
popular
army
-PCP"
was
a
warning
of
possible
danger
but
also an announcement of the
ability
of a
leadership
to
know and
to dissemi-
nate
knowledge
about Israeli
military
tactics.
"Nonpayment
of taxes is a na-
tional
duty
and an act of
struggle
-UNL" was a civil
disobedience
directive.
And the
graffito
"Intifada
activities do not contradict the
pursuit
of education"
indicated a critical concern with internal
developments
in
the
community
and an
assumption
of
leadership, political
as well
as
social.
Graffiti were also "territorial
marker[s]"
akin to street
maps
with territorial
demarcations
(Ley
and
Cybriwsky
1974).
Readers
knew
which areas were under
whose control
simply by
the
sheer
density
of
graffiti
and
their
signatures.24
I
soon
caught
on to
reading
the
signatures
for
clues as to
which
factions were con-
testing
each
other
in
an area.
Signatures
most
commonly
seen were
the
acronym
Fatah,
the PFLP's
sym-
bol
(a
map
of
Palestine traversed
by
a
horizontal arrow directed
westward),
the
symbol
of the Communist
Party
(red
hammer and
sickle),
the
acronyms
Hamas,
UNL,
and its Arabic
equivalent, qwm
(for
al-qiyadi al-wataniyya
muwahhida),
the
symbols
of the
Strike Forces
(either
the
sign
of the fist or the
initials
qd
for
quwaat
al-darb),
and Islamic
symbols
such as the
Dome of
the
Rock.
Although
graffiti
were
usually
written
in
black,
occasionally they
appeared
in
color.
Hamas
sometimes used
green,
the
holy
color of
Islam;
the
Communist
Party
and
the PFLP used
red;
and
Fatah,
the
Unified National
Leadership,
and
the Strike
Forces used black. Baudrillard refers
to
graffiti signatures
as "totemic"
(quoted
in
Foster
1985:51),
symbols
of
group
belonging
and sentiment.
Signatures
and
colors
non-euphemistically proclaimed
presence
and control in
a
neighbor-
hood.25 Indeed territorialization read
through
political signs
encoded an
ability
not
only
to be
there but to mobilize
youth
in an
area to
undertake
risky
actions,
such as
writing
on the
walls.
Aside from the
content
of
the
graffiti
and
their
signature,
the
political
affili-
ation of
the author was often
apparent
in the
message.
"Salute to
female students
wearing
Islamic dress"
was
obviously
written
by
supporters
of
Hamas
or
Is-
lamic Jihad.
Beit Hanina had a
preponderance
of
graffiti
signed by
Hamas,
an in-
itial
and
fairly
reliable indicator of the
political
orientation of a
substantial
seg-
ment of the
neighborhood.
But
interspersed
countergraffiti, signed
by
Fatah or
the Communist
Party, pointed
to the
presence
of
other
political
forces,
under-
scoring
the
political
diversity
and
complexity
of
any
one
neighborhood.
Historical moments of
transformation and
crisis were
accorded
centrality
in
stating
Palestinian national sentiment
and
identity
by
recourse
to
the
simple
but formulaic
logic
of a
mathematical model:
"1948
+
1967
=
All
Palestine."
References to
1948
signaled
a historical
consciousness of critical
moments
in
time and
place
and
an
attempt
to
recover
a
history
and a
geopolitical
and social
continuity
denied or
marginalized.
Such
a
graffito
also laid out the
association
150
CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
among
place,
time,
and
identity.
These two
defining
historical
moments-1948
and
1967-are
metonyms
for the
loss
and
subsequent
transformation of Pal-
estine and the
fragmentation
of its
people.
These dates are the
spatiotemporal
reference
points
that
in
the
present
bind
Palestinians,
wherever
they
are,
in
the
struggle
to unite
what has been
fragmented:
the
space
of
Palestine and
its
peo-
ple,
those on the
inside
(dakhil)
and
in the
diaspora (al-ghurba).
Reading
the Walls
Particularly appropriate
to a discussion of
graffiti
is
Said's remark
that the
politics
of
interpretation
are
preceded
by
questions
such as "Who writes? For
whom
is
the
writing
being
done?
In
what circumstances?"
(1983:7).
He also
notes
that
"no one writes
simply
for oneself. There is
always
an
Other,
and
this
Other
willy-nilly
turns
interpretation
into a social
activity"
(1983:9).
Reading-
or the
reception
of-graffiti
occurs
in
a
historically
and
culturally
constituted
arena. How
they
are read is inextricable from their conditions of
production
and
their content.
Because there was
no
apparent
selection
of texts
by
readers,
reading graffiti
was
not akin to
browsing
the shelves
in the
library
and bookstore
and
choosing
reading
materials. Graffiti were not
prodticed
and
packaged
as are
different
gen-
res
of
books
and
newspapers,
nor
did
they
establish an aesthetic distinction
be-
tween readers.26
The
only
cultural
capital necessary
was
literacy
in
Arabic,
and
even that was
not
always
a
requisite
since
people
read for and to others.
Signatures
were,
however,
akin
to
Radway's
"cover
iconography"
in
iden-
tifying
"category"
readers
(1991:469).
Standardized
signatures registered
fac-
tional affiliations
and thus
endowed
graffiti
with
authenticity
and
legitimacy.
Because
graffiti
were
nearly always
written
in
Arabic
(and
because few
Pales-
tinians
are literate
in
Hebrew),
I
suspect
that their semantic content was
directed
to an
internal
audience.
By
1990,
few
people
actually
stood
around
reading
graf-
fiti.
Reading,
I
would
suggest,
had
taken on
a subliminal
quality.
The
sheer
ubiq-
uitousness of
graffiti
made them difficult
to
avoid. As
a
result,
readers took
graf-
fiti
home,
to
work,
and to social occasions where
they
often
sparked political
and
social discussions.
Graffiti
assumed,
yet
simultaneously
fashioned,
audiences.
That
graffiti
could
be read
in
multiple ways suggested
a
multiplicity
of
experiences
and audi-
ences.
When
I
say
that
writing
graffiti
assumed
an
audience,
I am
referring
to a
discontented
Palestinian
readership
that
collectively
experienced
occupation-
and
that at some
level can therefore be considered
an
interpretive
community,
constitutive
of a reader
category. Radway
says
of reader
categories,
"as
readers
they
are united
by
common
purposes, preferences
and
interpretive
procedures"
(1991:470).
Such
a
characterization
has
applicability
to
graffiti's
various
read-
erships.
Reading graffiti,
like
reading
any
text,
does not occur
in a
vacuum but
is a critical matter
of historical
time,
place,
and
experience.
The
battle lines
of
occupation
were drawn
along ethnic-political,
national,
and
ideological
lines.
But within the
broad division between Israelis
and
Palestinians,
there
were
bor-
GRAFFITI
OF THE INTIFADA 151
der
areas,
sentiments and stances that did not
always neatly
fit.
Diversity
within
these
two
interpretive
communities
should not be
glossed
over.
Once
I
began
to collect
graffiti,
it
became
obvious that
I
could not
easily
un-
derstand
their
meaning
unless
I
had some
idea
of the
process
of
reading graffiti.
So
I
began
to
ask
Palestinians if
they
read them.
I
hardly
needed
to
ask additional
questions
since most
people easily
offered
their sentiments and
opinions.
A
young
woman
from
Ramallah told me
when
I
casually
asked
if
she
paid any
at-
tention
to
graffiti,
"Of
course,
when
I
wake
in the
morning
and see new
graffiti
I
know
that resistance continues. It
tells me that
people
are
risking
their lives and
that
they
live
right
here
in
this
neighborhood."
A friend who worked
in
a
grass-
roots
community
group
and
lived in a
Jerusalem
neighborhood
full of
graffiti
said that for
her,
It's
kind
of
like
reading
the
newspaper.
As
I
walk to the main
road,
I
scan
the
walls
quickly
to see what is
newly
written.
I
already
know
the
old
graffiti
and
usually
they
are blocked out after a
few
days anyway.
I
try
to
quickly
read the
new
graffiti.
I think of it as a
way
of
getting
the news. Often
I
laugh
because
some
of them are
funny.
Sometimes when
I
asked
people
about
graffiti they suggested
that we
go
for
a walk so
I
could see "some
really
great
graffiti"
in
their
neighborhood,
or
a
graf-
fito that
they
found
particularly meaningful.
Once,
my
neighborhood
shop-
keeper
insisted
we
go
for
a walk in
the afternoon so he
could
show
me the
graffiti
of the area not visible from the main
road
and
those that he found
memorable.
It was he who
pointed
out to me the
graffito
"1948
+
1967
=
All
Palestine." He
thought
it a fantastic
formulation,
simple
but to the
point,
and
said,
"The
soldiers
can
certainly
read
that!"
Although
the actual
act
of
reading
graffiti
could be
accomplished
individu-
ally
or
in
groups, interpretation
was not
a
private solitary
process
removed from
daily
events
and
experiences.
Many
people
told me
they
made a
point
to read
graffiti
when
"things
are
hot" or
when
"things
are
happening."
A writer and
scholar
explained
that he
paid
particular
attention
to
graffiti
as
he
rode
in
the
shared
taxi in the
mornings.
He
found it useful in
getting
a
"reading
of
the
street."27
Indeed Palestinians often read and
discussed
graffiti
in
small,
intimate
groups
of
family
and
friends. For one
elderly lady
I
used
to
visit
in
Jerusalem,
graffiti
were often a
point
of
departure
for
political
discussions with her chil-
dren. She found
graffiti
informative
of
the
stances of
the various
resistance
fac-
tions.
Having
read a
particular graffito
she would
ask her children
their
opinions
of the stance taken
in
it,
and then a
discussion would ensue. As
we
will
see,
graf-
fiti
were a crucial medium in
debates over
political
and
social issues such as the
veiling
of
women.
As a social
practice,
reading graffiti
is
grounded
in
position
and
experience
-in the
situatedness of a
readership
in a
power
structure and
the
graffiti
writer's
place
in
it,
and the
implication
of
his
product
for
that
structure.
In
short,
multiple
optics
are involved. For the
most
part,
Israelis
in
the
occupied
territories
read
graffiti
as defiance
and lawless
anarchy.
But the
Israeli
readership
was
not
ho-
152 CULTURAL
ANTHROPOLOGY
mogeneous.
Some
soldiers read them
as defiance
to be met with a violent re-
sponse.
For others
their
presence
and
content reaffirmed the sense that
it was
time to
withdraw from the
territories-to
heed the
writing
on
the
walls. For sol-
diers,
graffiti
might
have reinforced their
daily experience
of
the
occupied
ter-
ritories as
spaces
of either
lawlessness
or
unstoppable
resistance-or both.
Graffiti
assumed
and affirmed
difference on more than one
level,
while si-
multaneously
assuming
and
affirming unity
of sentiment and
identity.
Palestini-
ans,
as a
nationally
defined
readership,
read
in
the
writing
defiance
and
resis-
tance,
as
well as a call
for
unity
and action.
Graffiti
suggested
a
continuous
reaffirmation of relations
between
leadership
and the
populace
through print
dialogue:
"The UNL
calls
upon you
to unite
because there
is
strength
in
unity."
And
it
warned those who
deviated from a
position
of
unity:
"Woe to the disobe-
dient and
those
who
dissent from the
homeland -Fatah." Yet
graffiti
also
reg-
istered
divergent
stances
and locations
in
the contest
between
various
Palestin-
ian factions.
After
1990,
the content of
graffiti increasingly
indexed
such
competition.
Making
Demands,
Promising Memory
More than
simply
a
response
to
prolonged occupation, graffiti
indicated a
society
in
the throes of
reconstituting
itself,
trying
to establish a set
of condi-
tions that
would
endow
it with
the
capacity
to
guide
an
internal
dynamic
of
change
and in
doing
so resist
occupation:
The revolution owns ten bullets: nine for the
collaborators and
one for the
enemy
-Fatah
Putting
one's own house
in order was basic
to,
if not indeed a
necessary
precondition
for,
confronting occupation.
Graffiti were
a
pivotal
and
strikingly
public part
of this
process.
The content of
graffiti
directed, warned, informed,
commemorated,
pro-
vided
critical
commentary,
and
could be a
diagnostic
of
occupation
tactics.
Graffiti
spoke
in the context of various
political
affiliations
and the actions
ex-
pected
of different sectors
of the
community.
They
made
demands
on the com-
munity
for
political
engagement,
commitment,
and sacrifice. Graffiti
estab-
lished a
relationship
with Palestinian readers
through
their
resemblance to a
community
bulletin
board
advising
readers
of
strike
days
and adherence
to
them. Graffiti
identified
and warned
against
collaboration,
diagnosing
a
wide-
spread
tactic
of the
occupying
authorities and
identifying
collaborators
in the
community:
"We've
got
an
appointment
soon with the collaborator and
spy
Abu
Hani
and
drug
addicts
-UNL" and "Woe to those who see
and talk
-UNL."
Such
directives and
threats asserted the
authority
of
the
leadership
of the
upris-
ing
and
warned of their
ability
to act
coercively.
Graffiti
announced
political
positions
of
various
groups:
"Through
the in-
tifada,
miracles
will
happen,
no
to concessions"
and
"A
brother with
a
comrade,
we
will
continue
-PCP."
Political
commentary
of
an inter-Arab
sort
was
en-
GRAFFITI
OF THE INTIFADA
153
coded
in this
mathematically
modeled,
zoomorphic graffito:
"Fahd + Asad
=
a
mouse."
In
Arabic,
Fahd means
"panther"
and
is the first name of the
king
of
Saudi Arabia. Asad means "lion" and is the
family
name of the
president
of
Syria.
This
equation
cautioned
Palestinians not to look to the Arab world
for
help,
pointing
to its
weaknesses,
its
inability
to be more than a
"mouse,"
in
spite
of
leaders
supposedly
endowed
with
powerful
(lion
and
panther) qualities
and
strong
domestic
regimes.
In
short,
they
directed the transformation of
dominant-
subordinate relations and
provided
commentary suggesting
communal
self-
sufficiency
and
autonomy
of action.
Graffiti
reported
and inscribed sacrifice and
martyrdom,
evoking
senti-
ments of
community
and loss.
"Mourning pronounced
for the soul of
al-Ram
martyr,
Ashraf
Abu-Suneineh -UNL."
In
this
graffito,
the
leadership
called
for
a
day
of
mourning,
to be observed
through
a
general
strike
in
the area.
Reg-
istering
the
name
of
the dead on the wall elevated his status to that of
martyr28
and indicated that the
national
movement
had the
power
and
legitimacy
to de-
cide who was a
martyr
and how his death should
be remembered. The
textual
in-
tersected with other Palestinian cultural
features
rescripted
for
resistance. The
40-day period
of
mourning
for the
dead,
customary among
Muslim
Palestinians,
was extended
into
a kind
of indefinite
period
of
mourning
for
the
martyrs
of the
intifada.
From
the
beginning
of
the
intifada,
a tone or
behavioral code
was
en-
shrined-and
largely
adhered to-that
permitted
no
celebrations,
no
parties,
and no
dancing.
Young
women were
discouraged
from
wearing fancy,
colorful
clothing
and too
much
makeup.
Even
weddings,
usually
festive
occasions,
were
supposed
to be
somber,
simple
affairs. In
short,
people
were
not to
indulge
in
pleasurable
forms
of
activity
out of
respect
for
the dead. The
Palestinian
popu-
lation was to
comport
itself
much as
it
would if
everyone
were in
mourning.29
Salutations were
sent
in
the name of the
leadership
to
those who had sacri-
ficed for Palestine:
"Thousand
salutes to
all
persons
detained,
martyrs
who
gave
their
lives so that others
may
live
-UNL";
"Glory
to
all
our
martyrs,
deepest
appreciation
to our
injured
and
prisoners."
These
graffiti
suggested
a sense of
connectedness between
the
larger
Palestinian
community
and
those
individuals
who had
suffered "so that
others
may
live."
Inscriptions
of
sacrifice and
martyr-
dom elicited
empathy
and
identification with
those
who had
lost their lives.
They
could
also induce
guilt
and
self-reflection. As
one
young
man
told
me,
"When
I
see
the
names of
the dead on the
walls,
I
feel like I'm
not
contributing
enough-that
I
should
do more."
One's own
future
prosperity
was
referenced to
those who were
making
it
possible.
The
promise
of
memory
was
central
in
graffiti;
they
were
imbued with an
assertive desire to be
remembered and
recorded in
the collective
archives of
memory.
Graffiti
encoded a wish
to be
recognized
where
existence
had been de-
nied.
In
graffiti,
not
only
was
the
martyr
promised
memory,
his or her
actions
stood as an
exemplar
to
others. The
martyr's
name and
story
circulated in the
catalogue
of
Palestinian
cultural links
to the
past, present,
and
future. The mar-
tyr
entered into
a
collective
memory;
possible
futures
were
referenced to
his
or
her
actions and
sacrifices. "The
martyr's
will is
that
we
march forward
and
resist
154 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
-PCP."
In
making
demands,
graffiti
offered
memory
and
glory. They
ad-
dressed
young
men and
women,
as
mothers,
and
called
upon
both to sacrifice
and
thus
achieve
connectivity.
Graffiti were
gendered
voices;
their
production
was
largely
by
males
even
when
the content was
about women. When
they
ad-
dressed women
specifically, they
did so in a
way
that affirmed control or author-
ity.
Women
were
exhorted
to dress
properly
or
were
saluted for activism.
A
genre
of
graffiti
addressed to
mothers carried
a
message
of sacrifice: "If
my
comrades return
without
me,
mother,
weep,
for each tear is a
drop
of fuel that
flames the
light
of freedom."
Graffiti
publicly
registered
competing
Palestinian voices and
visions
on a
range
of
issues. For
example,
an
East Jerusalem
wall with the
graffito
"Morals
or
else.
..
-Hamas"
was
soon followed
by
"We
salute
the
women of the
inti-
fada
-PFLP."
These
were
graffiti
as internal
dialogue.
Graffiti
displayed
the
extent to
which
the
process
of
self-transformation was multidirectional.
"Mor-
als
or else.. ." and "Women should wear Islamic dress" revealed that some of
the visions
of the social order within the intifada were
not
egalitarian.30
Competing
visions were
part
of a
larger
debate
on
political
issues
in
which
women became the
topic
around
which
the debate was carried on.
The contest
between
Hamas and the secular nationalists was
often
played
out over the
ques-
tion
of
veiling. Polysemy
in this
instance was
an index
of exclusion.
The Is-
lamist discourse excluded
and
warned those
who deviated from its normative or-
der.
It was met
by
an
opposed interpretation
conveyed
in
warnings
to
desist
coercive
tactics and not circumscribe women into
Islamically
scripted
roles
and
dress.
Hammami
(1990)
noted that the intense and often violent debate over
the
hijab
(the
veil)
in the Gaza
Strip
was communicated
in
graffiti.
In
the
spring
of
1988,
she
writes,
Hamas
graffiti
"sprang up
all
over the
Strip
with statements
such as
'Daughters
of
Islam,
abide
by
shari'a
[Islamic]
dress!'
"
(1990:25).
When the UNL
finally responded
to an
increasingly
violent
campaign
of intimi-
dation
by
Hamas to coerce
women into
veiling, graffiti appeared
on
walls in
Gaza
proclaiming
that
"those
caught throwing
stones
at
women
will
be
treated
as
collaborators"
and that
"women have a
great
role
in the intifada
and
we must
respect
them"
(1990:25, 27).
Graffiti
envisioned
possible
futures. One
common theme of
the
imagined
future was
religious
equality.
In
Beit
Hanina,
one
graffito
was
styled
as
a
two-
masted boat. One
mast was
configured
as a
cross,
the other as a crescent.
The
text,
which
formed
the
boat, read,
"Abu
Ammar
is our
leader,
Palestine is our
home,
and Jerusalem
is our
capital
-Fatah."
In
Ramallah,
a
graffito
signed
by
the Palestine
Communist
Party
read,
"Let the churches
and
mosques
embrace
each other
in national
unity."
It
thus
asserted the
primacy
of national sentiment
and
displayed
a
tolerance
of
religious
diversity.
A
competing
voice
concerning
the future
could
be
read
in a Hamas
graffito,
which
envisioned a
different
kind
of future:
"Yes to an
Islamic State."
Graffiti carried
another
kind of
relationship
as
well,
one more
self-reflec-
tive and critical. Fischer
and Abedi
comment that
GRAFFITI
OF
THE
INTIFADA
155
reading
is
not
merely
an
empowering
device;
it
is
(and
was
understood
to
be)
a
means
of
promoting
self-reflection
by
externalizing,
objectifying,
and
textualiz-
ing thought,
and
thus
providing
a
distanced
mirror,
a
space
for
analysis
and
self
critique.
[1990:400]
The distance
that
they
refer to
is
constitutive of a
space
of
self-criticism.
Critique
was
in
the
form
of
commentary
and
debates-about
collaborators,
Palestinian-Arab
relations,
morals,
the
place
of
religion
in
society,
and
author-
ity. Reading
as
self-critical
commentary
affirmed
Palestinian
experience
and
engaged
the
reader
in the
possibility
of
overthrowing
the
power
configuration
in which
such
experience
took
place.
The
Palestinian
readership
was an active
one-like
Natalie
Zemon
Davis's
urban
menu
peuple
in
France,
who
were
"active users
and
interpreters
of
printed
books"
(1991:86).
Conclusion
I
have
argued
that forms
of
cultural
production,
in
this instance
during
an
intense and
sustained
political
conflict,
can be
a
means of
resisting
in
and of
themselves.
Graffiti
did
more than
signify
or
reflect,
they
also
intervened in
dominant-subordinate
relations.
Writing
and
reading
were
structured
by
positionality,
and
thus
audiences
endowed
graffiti
with
affirmative,
opposed,
and
alternative
meanings.
Graffiti
stood for and
encoded a
series of
diverse
relationships
as
they
attempted
to in-
tervene
in
some and
affirm
others.
For
Palestinians,
they
signaled
a
fundamental
breach in
Palestinian-Israeli
relations
in
the
territories and
were a
communica-
tive device
in
ongoing
resistance
to
occupation.
They
signaled
a
refusal to ac-
quiesce,
a
refusal to
normalize the
abnormal.
They
were
an
open
challenge
to
Is-
rael's
monopoly
on
the
circulation of
information and
knowledge.
Israelis
read
graffiti
as
signs
of
defiance
and
lawlessness or of
the
futility
and
unsustainabil-
ity
of
occupation.
Like
any
aspect
of
the
culture
of
the
intifada,
the
meaning
of
the
social
prac-
tices of
reading
and
writing
is
to
be
located
as
much
in
internal
Palestinian re-
fashioning
via a
dialogue
of
cultural
critique
as
in
rejection
and
overthrow
of
ex-
ternal
forms
of
domination.
Graffiti
should
be
contextualized
in
sets of
power
relations
and
structures
and the
forms
of
resistance
these
entail.
The
meaning
and
potency
of
graffiti
for
its
various
readerships
were
located in a
nexus
that
simultaneously
enabled,
sus-
tained,
and
legitimized
their
production
and
yet
constrained
and
delegitimized
them.
It
was
in the
spaces
where
these
competing, yet
highly
unbalanced,
sys-
tems
of
power
interfaced
that
meaning
was
constructed.
These
relationships
and
structures,
and their
creative
and
constricting
possibilities,
were
encoded in
graffiti
as
practice
and in
each
graffito.
Notes
Acknowledgments.
I
would like
to
acknowledge
with
gratitude
the
support
provided
by
a
Fulbright
Faculty
Research
Grant in
Islamic
Civilization
which
made
possible
156
CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
research
in
the
occupied
West
Bank in 1990. The Palestinian Academic
Society
for the
Study
of International
Affairs
(PASSIA)
graciously
offered institutional
support
and
hospitality.
Shorter versions
of
this
paper
were
presented
at
the conference "Culture and
Modernity
in
the Arab
World" at
George
Washington
University,
February
1993,
and
at the
Center
for
Near
Eastern
Languages
and Civilization at the
University
of
Chicago,
April
1993.
Participants
at
both
provided
valuable
suggestions
for
revisions.
I
would
like
to
thank Peter
Gran,
Barbara
Harlow,
Yvonne
Jones,
Susan
Koshi,
Susan
Slyo-
movics,
and Salim
Tamari for
their
very
helpful
comments and
suggestions,
as well as
the
anonymous
reviewers
for Cultural
Anthropology.
1. The
phase
"writing
on the walls"
comes from Sluka
1992:191,
which
reports
on
the
uprising
in Northern Ireland.
2. The
intifada,
the Palestinian
uprising
against
Israeli
occupation
in
the
West Bank
and Gaza
Strip, began
in December 1987.
The term
intifada
implies
a
"shaking
off,"
in
this instance of
foreign
domination
and,
for
some
Palestinians,
of
internal
hierarchies
of
gender,
class,
and
age.
Graffiti
were
also
written before
the intifada
but
certainly
not
with the
same
density
or
regularity.
3.
All translations
of
graffiti
from the
original
Arabic are
mine.
4.
See
Abu-Lughod
1990
for
a
discussion
of resistance
as
a
diagnostic
of
power.
5.
The
Palestinian human
rights organization
al-Haq
notes two
types
of
censorship.
"Before-the-fact"
censorship
includes
"measures
designed
to
prevent
or
discourage
journalists
from
gaining
access to
information
and events"
such as
use
of
military
closures,
detaining
and
assaulting
journalists,
"abuse
of
the
journalist's
profession"
by
confiscating
film
or
impersonating
journalists,
and the
closure of
Palestinian
press
offices.
"After-the-fact"
censorship
includes
the
"requirement
that
publications
be
submitted
to
an official
government
censor
and the
destruction
or confiscation
of camera
and
film"
(1989:597-608).
6.
Graffiti's
simple
technology
and
dangerous
conditions
of
production
distance
them,
however,
from the electronic
media.
7. In some
areas,
large
and colorful
wall murals
begin
to
appear.
These
are
discussed
only
briefly
below.
8.
Kufic
refers
to an
angular,
geometric
style
of
calligraphy
originating
in
Iraq.
9.
In
1991,
the
United
National
Leadership
(UNL)
issued a directive
in
a
bayan
(leaflet)
that
forbade
writing
graffiti
on
private
property.
Israel
was
collecting
too
much
revenue
from
fining
owners of
walls with
graffiti
on them.
10.
For a detailed
discussion
of
violence
as a rite
of
passage
into
gendered
adulthood
see
Peteet
1994.
11. Unlike
the
Palestinian era
in
Lebanon
(1968-82),
in the West
Bank
resistance
was
underground.
Initially,
there
were
few
known leaders
or offices
and few
visible
weapons
except
stones,
a
natural
part
of the
landscape.
In
Lebanon,
the
signs
of
resistance
had been
unmistakable:
armed
young
men in
khaki,
the
profusion
of
weapons
on the
streets
and
in
homes,
the
ubiquitous
flag
in homes
and on
buildings,
and the
press
and
radio
stations
of the
PLO
and its various
constituent
groups.
12.
Sluka notes
a similar
situation
in Northern
Ireland where
"the
writing
on
the
walls"
is
an essential
sign
of
political
struggle
(1992:191).
13. See
Rolston
1987 for an
examination
of the murals
and
graffiti
of
the
Irish
nationalists vis-a-vis
state and
unionists
cultural
forms
and
censorship.
14.
PFLP,
Fatah,
UNL,
Hamas,
PCP,
and
qd
are
commonly
used
and
recognized
acronyms
all
of which
appeared
as
signatures
at the end
of
graffiti.
PFLP stands
for the
Popular
Front
for the
Liberation of
Palestine,
the
main
opposition
group
in the
PLO.
GRAFFITI
OF THE INTIFADA 157
Fatah,
the
largest
and most
powerful
faction
in
the
PLO,
is an
acronym
that inverts the
initials of
the
Arabic harakat tahrir
al-filastin
(Movement
for
the
Liberation of
Pales-
tine);
as a
word,
fatah
means
"conquest"
or
"opening."
UNL
refers to the Unified
National
Leadership,
the
underground leadership
of the intifada. Hamas
is an
acronym
of
harakat
al-muqawama al-lslamiyya;
as a
word,
hamas
means
zeal,
unflinching,
steadfast.
PCP
refers to Palestine Communist
Party,
and
qd
stands
for the
Strike Forces
(quwwat
al-darb).
15. Hilterman notes that
Military
Order
101
(1967),
Order
Regarding
Prohibition
of Acts
of
Incitement and Hostile
Propaganda,
covers offenses
such as
possession
and
distribution
of
illegal
materials,
raising
the
Palestinian
flag,
and
membership
in
organi-
zations deemed
illegal.
Under
Military
Order
101,
"No
publications
can
be
brought
in,
sold,
printed,
or
kept
in
someone's
possession
in the
West
Bank
unless
a
permit
has
been
obtained for them"
(Hilterman 1991:105-106)
16.
In
an
ethnography
of
reading
in
Indonesia,
where
Muslims recite rather than
read the
Quran,
Baker
states,
"At the level of social
practice, reading
involves
persuasive
forces
that do not
depend upon
the readers'
competence
to
comprehend
the text
though
they
influence
the
subjective
evaluations that readers make"
(1993:98).
17. Urban
graffiti
in
the
contemporary
United
States,
often the work of
inner-city
minority
youths, register rage
as well
as
associated
humorous
creativity.
Writing
graffiti
is also
illegal
in
many
U.S.
cities.
A
Chicago
city
ordinance
makes
it
illegal
for
anyone
under
the
age
of
18
to
purchase
or be
in
possession
of
spray paint.
18.
Layoun
remarked
that
Habermas's
notion
of
a
public
sphere
as "an ideal
speech
situation-in
which
discursive
communication
takes
place[-]seems
an
incredible
(if
arguably
theoretically
necessary) utopic
construct"
(1992:422).
19. E.
Long's essay
on
reading
as social
practice
includes
a
history
and
critique
of
the
notion
of the
solitary
reader
(1993).
20. A Reuters
dispatch
on
December
5,
1992,
from
the
Khan
Younis
refugee
camp
in the
Gaza
Strip
reported
that
a
clash between Israeli
troops
and Palestinians
in
which
a child was killed and 13
people
wounded
began
when soldiers
surprised
a
group
of five
masked men
spray painting graffiti.
21.
Military
Order
1260 was
promulgated
in
November 1988.
Like
many
Israeli
practices
of
occupation,
it is
a
form of
collective
punishment. Property
owners
are
held
responsible
for
graffiti
on their walls and
are
obliged
to
remove
it
(al-Haq
1989:257-
258).
22. Wall murals
in
Northern
Ireland
elicited
a similar
technological
response
from
the
British
Army
who
"paint-bombed"
a PLO/IRA mural
(Rolston
1987:23)
23. See Said 1986 for
an
engaging
discussion of
the
states of
being
"inside" and
"outside."
24. Graffiti as
territorial markers was
evident
in
assertions of turf
and its contest
among
U.S.
inner-city gangs.
25. A Bir
Zeit
University graduate explained ways
of
discussing
Palestinian
political
issues before
the
uprising.
She
said,
"We
hardly
used the names of factions
like
Fatah
or the
Popular
Front.
You could never be sure
who
might
overhear
and to whom
you
were
speaking.
We
knew
who was affiliated with what
groups,
and we
would refer
to them as 'the
ones who sit
in
that cafe or at that
table.'
"
With
the
uprising,
factional
identifications were not
openly
circulated
in
public
conversations,
but
they
were
certainly
no
longer
so taboo. The
graffiti
signatures
put
them
in
print;
some
were made
into stencils
for a
quick,
standardized
signature.
158 CULTURAL
ANTHROPOLOGY
26. In
Bourdieu's
elaboration on
taste,
he
argues
that "taste classifies" and "it
classifies
the
classifiers." "Cultural
consumption"
and art
"are
predisposed, consciously
and
deliberately
or
not,
to fulfill a
social function of
legitimating
social
differences"
(1984:6, 7).
27. The term
"the street"
(shari')
is used in
the
occupied
territories to refer to
popular
mass action that
takes
place
in the
streets.
It
also indicates the moods of the
population.
28.
"Martyr"
(shaheed)
is a
commonly
used,
religious
as
well
as secular term of
reference
applied by
Palestinians to
anyone
who dies
in
the course of
resisting
Israeli
occupation
or
exile.
29. An
extended and
generalized
atmosphere
of
mourning
and
appropriate
com-
portment
were enforced
both
by public opinion
and
local-level
leaderships.
Young
women were criticized
by
friends and
relatives
for
wearing
too
much
makeup. Neigh-
borhood committees would warn
people
not to
play
loud
music or dance
while
friends
were
visiting. People planning
birthday parties
or lavish
wedding parties
would receive
anonymous
letters or
calls
warning
them to
call it
off and
engage
in
activities
suitable
to a time
of
mourning.
30.
See Peteet 1994 for a
juxtapositioning
of the formation of
masculinity
and
femininity
in the
processes
of
transformation
and
reproduction
of
structures
and rela-
tions of domination
in the
intifada. See
also Mitchell 1989:5-6.
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