On being an outsider

The advantages and drawbacks

Most sane Palestinian cultural workers in the West Bank avoid outsider support, burned by foreign ‘mentors’ telling them what to do, colonial ‘arts funds’ that steer cultural output into safe production of easily-consumed idiot-friendly materials, or well-meaning fools finding their ‘sense of purpose’ while playing with a local cultural community that’s under siege, being erased, and financially strangled.

Yet, being an outsider has enormous potential advantages in terms of the ability to support local cultural workers, equal to the enormous disadvantages and potential pitfalls. One advantage is the very nature of outsiderness - that of being outside of the local community, but also in close contact (e.g. a newbie) - which means many of the advantages of local knowledge and relationships, but less baggage in terms of cultural systems of control, which invariably arise in colonized societies, such as this one, but are also not exactly unknown in any kind of place.

To be clear, the diaspora Palestinian is not automatically an outsider with insider-ish status. Diaspora people are always in an awkward insider / outsider position, such as the British-Indian friend I traveled to India with many years ago, who realised he was marginalised in his hometown of London, but also viewed as a British foreigner by many of the locals we met together in India. Even visually, his Western lifestyle had impacted how he looked to local Indian people. They constantly asked him where he was from, and always looked surprised that he has Indian DNA. Diaspora Palestinians are probably more accepted, as a sad part of this system of despair, but are still not as included as they probably believe they are, based on Western emphasis on identity as inherent, as opposed to the more local Palestinian understanding of identity based on who and what you know, your values, and your location-specific life experiences. It’s nice if you know tatreez and how to make a maqlouba, but it’s the intangible cultural identifiers that matter most.

In fact, a Palestinian person born and raised and living in Ramallah will not be viewed very locally if they come to Nablus. Each bantustan has its own flavor and culture, and has become understandably defensive and insular in many ways. When I wrote about outsiders who are kinda insider-ish, it’s not based on any inherent traits. But I digress.

How can an outsider be useful in ways that benefit Palestinian artist, truly?

Having experienced the Hollywood studio system, with control of individual cultural workers deeply embedded within the fold of each studio, something similar has been inadvertently created in Palestine, via each of the cultural institutions here that have been built locally, by locals. The natural allegiance that all artists feel to their natural affinity group has been codified, to a large extent, into a form of control, as well as a form of support. Power is concentrated into decentralized nodes of culture, whether that’s theatre companies, art galleries, or other tribal groups / employers.

Individuals clutch at their local organizations, but in turn, the local organizations are vying for funding, and need to keep their artists close, as the carrots. It’s complicated. Palestine is very complicated, actually, when it comes to life on the ground.

But for the outsider, in some ways this maze of allegiances to different organizations is easier to navigate. Beyond their immense privileges that can be leveraged for locals (such as freedom of movement, and access to various treasures out of reach), the very nature of the outsider provides a freedom from the bonds of these ties.

This privilege must be used with exceptional consideration - not to trample on local systems, lest they break, or lest they reject the outsider, at which point, the outsider will be useless, viewed a pariah and therefore banished from their role, i.e. an outsider that’s somehow kinda inside-ish. Be annoying or suspicious, be brash or big-headed, be too free - and it’s the end of the fragile, tentative inclusion.

Don’t flash freedom. Try to blend in. Speak Arabic. Don’t take credit, and be careful to avoid any whiff of corruption, or monetary benefit from your solidarity.

Also, don’t try to blend in too much, otherwise you’ll arouse suspicion. Don’t wear a keffiyah, don’t conspicuously do patriotic, flag-waving things, or you’ll look like a spy but also, blend in. Yes to earrings with a Palestine map, but no to a T-shirt. Also, for women, cover your arms. Nobody wants to see you skin, but don’t cover your hair.

Humility, humility, humility, but also - don’t be crippled by humility so much that it’s the handcuffs worn in the studio system. Be humble, yet still take initiative.

Not easy to balance it all and remain relaxed, open, and approachable.

The potential pitfalls of creating outsider-led initiatives are huge. Doing stuff that nobody asked for, while the international well-meaner gets to sandbox. That’s the risk. Also optics are important. The optics of not gaining in any way. Not being centered.

How to avoid these risks, while also welcoming external ideation and innovation? An outsider who is embedded within-ish, who knows the local cultural needs intimately yet also is highly experienced in the bigger cultural seas outside the region. Someone who has built trust, preferably with their body (e.g. married a local, spent time in jail) or possibly simply through putting the time in, and over time, their comprehension of the cultural terrain, reverence for the superiority of the local culture, and basic non-dickheadedness has the potential to build trust so they can truly operate for the good of Palestinian cultural workers, and be a conduit for supporters outside.

Outside the checkpoints, outside the parochial context, the inner control.

While also cherishing the local norms, the rigorous disciplines of Islamic community, the container of the wider culture for the individual creatives who work within, from the inside, for audiences also inside, primarily.

It takes a lot of deep consideration, and humility, and alas, this can lead to a lack of laughter and spontaneity, diminishing the charm of the outsider who is kinda inside. Another pitfall, who wants to work with a sour-puss? Thus, the outsider must create strategies for their joy to be renewed, including local rejuvenation (hamams, cultural consumption, cultural creation, little breaks, a nice domestic environment, learning Arabic for friendships locally, the scheduling of long-distance conversations with outsiders who are outside, attempts to access nature despite the mortal dangers, and of course, seeking out food. Possibly even a romantic opportunity, but this obviously has many complicated issues.)

So that’s the basic overview of solidarity as it operates inside Palestine in the cultural sector, and worth taking into consideration if you’re an external supporter. You will be appreciated, but stepping over the local intermediary (which is another term for this ‘local outsider kinda insider’) would be a power struggle that will be shut down, as it’s dangerous to the project, often beyond your capacity to understand from outside. Any blanket rejection needs to be explained, of course, although the instinctual response is sometimes unable to be broken down into a logical discourse for a while. Time passes, and the outsider will be able to unpack what’s wrong or dangerous or potentially able to damage the cultural worker or ecosystem that the external initiator hasn’t noticed.

An example - we wanted to support a library in Palestine. A plan was formulated over months with local partners and also external partners. Then a volunteer reached out from the internet, a brilliant person with a strong resume and skills that we welcomed and the ability to work externally, which was a core need for the project. Time was invested in setting up the volunteer, and while the core project plan was not shared, as it wasn’t relevant to their role, we set them up with everything they needed to know to do their external role, which was mostly about raising awareness / creating salons in bookshops international. Mostly that.

And then the volunteer sent a very long and considered email telling us what to do. A similar project had come to their attention, a library in Chad, and they suggested we do what the Chad library did. Tried and tested! They were confident it would be better.

Alas, while the Chad library is in a tricky situation, Chad is not the same as Palestine - the many moving parts and cultural factors of the library here were totally ignored, undoubtably through ignorance. And this is one of the difficult things about working with diaspora Palestinians also, who do believe their innate identity gives them great insights over and above the outsider, who is kinda inside-ish. Identity is a dangerous territory to navigate, but identity ultimately does not trump local knowledge. Identity is important - and is honored and valued - yet, it doesn’t negate a lack of localness.

Rather than offering an expansive perspective on the subject of libraries operating in challenging places, the volunteer drew up a detailed evaluation, comparison, and list of steps to take. And this is not empowering. This is belittling, actually.

Unsolicited advice also does not support anyone, and after two unsolicited directives (the other was to copy and paste the financial model of an Arabic story-telling venue in one of the European cities to a venue in Nablus, an obvious non-starter here is an inclusive space that doesn’t want to be an elites-only, wealthy Palestinian intellectual enclave gentrifying a working class neighborhood) - after being given these two copy and paste, unsolicited, entry-level solutions to complex problems, we had to let the volunteer go. A shame, really, as the basic idea of external perspectives is welcomed, and that’s the role sometimes of non-local supporters. But the power struggle thing is damaging. The domination wrapped up in ego wrapped up in ‘helping’ is annoying.

The conformity of believing personal identity is more important than local people in a local place developing a strategy, with the support of an outsider who is in situ - there is a Western conformity to this thinking process that’s a disappointing oxymoron.

Outsiders are perhaps more able to spot this kind of unintended domination attempt. The cultural cues are easier to read.

Also, another volunteer offered three succinct ideas as bullet-points in a short email, and while #1 was not applicable to our project, #2 was awesome, and #3 was also okay. The basic concept for YOU, dear reader, is to offer an idea from the perspective you’re able to share, but not to fully ideate and dictate, which requires more life force also to respond to. It assumes you’re right, and we have to explain why we don’t want it. The guy with the bullet points simply shared after a lot of consideration, clearly, but with no expectations. No demands on our time, no need for us to explain why we liked any of his ideas.

We are hyper-vigilant not to be perceived to be dominating locals, and also, to actually be unwittingly dominant - all while leading projects on the ground, in reality at times, even if on paper it’s Palestinian-led. It relies on all the skills learned from living under patriarchy i.e. navigating and submitting to the dominance of others in a subtle dance, while you’re actually also getting things quietly done, and still respecting everyone’s rights to reject unwanted support.

Also, there’s obviously actual patriarchy to be navigated as well, along with the female behaviours associated with patriarchy, like competitiveness and mistrust. Add to this the kind of xenophobia inherent in all societies that have suffered under colonialism, and general parochial xenophobia also, and you start to understand the job at hand is not easy, but is still worth while, because of the advantages the outsider is able to give to this small community of exceptional creative individuals who have few options here for support, outside of the studio system.

They want a hand. They deserve support. They will leave Palestine if they don’t have it and that provides a dangerous trajectory in this story of ethnic cleansing, with middle class professionals leaving after the artists, and finally the working classes finding themselves alone with the occupation. No lawyers, no doctors - as it played out in the ethnic cleansing of Tehran and so many other places.

So, we stick it out. We stay humble. You stay humble. We navigate this together, your role as essential and valued as every other person’s role in this maqlouba. We work as a cohesive salon of diverse ingredients, your olive oil matching my salt, and ultimately the Palestinian cultural workers who we serve will eat their meal and be satisfied.

Thank you for digesting this information, and working for the liberation of Palestine, as well as the beauty of creativity and the joys of culture. We have work to do.