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A review by jdscott50
Recognizing the Stranger: On Palestine and Narrative by Isabella Hammad
informative
medium-paced
5.0
An analysis of the Palestinian crisis through literary criticism. Certain points reflect on the lack of humanity, to fellow human beings. A literary epiphany in fiction is a revelation but in real life, creates a fissure in one's beliefs, which is much harder to change. What would it take to change one's perspective, recognizing the stranger as a mirror to one's self. There remains a refusal to look. The end of this lecture is chilling as it is published just as the retribution of the October 7 attacks begin. She sees the initial horror, but has not idea of how bad it would become. This book along with a A Day In the Life of Abed Salam demonstrate the lack of humanity for the Palestinian people. One has to wonder what comes next.
Favorite Passages:
Of course, the word recognition has another, very formal connotation in political discourse as a diplomatic or governmental action; states will recognize the sovereignty of another state or political entity, a political or legal claim, or a right to life, a right to have rights. Cultural recognition of difference can form the basis of just societies, but recognition that remains solely that--a form of acknowledgment without economic and political redistribution-is an act of language that leaves out the plot of history, where a word tries to stand in for material reparations through the smoke and mirrors of discourse and ceremony.
Rather than recognizing the stranger as familiar, and bringing a story to its close, Said asks us to recognize the familiar as stranger. He gestures at a way to dismantle the consoling fictions of fixed identity, which make it easier to herd into groups. This might be easier said than done, but it's provocative--it points out how many narratives of self, when applied to a nation-state, might one day harden into self-centered intolerance. Narrative shape can comfort and guide our efforts, but we must eventually be ready to shape-shift to be decentered, when the light of an other appears on the horizon in the project of human freedom, which remains undone.
What in fiction is enjoyable and beautiful is often terrifying in real life. In real life, shifts in collective understanding are necessary for major changes to occur, but on the human, individual scale, they are humbling and existentially disturbing. Such shifts also do not usually come without a fight: not everyone can be unpersuaded of their worldview through argument and appeal, or through narrative... emotion and understanding are not the same as action, but you might say that understanding is necessary for someone to act.
Favorite Passages:
Of course, the word recognition has another, very formal connotation in political discourse as a diplomatic or governmental action; states will recognize the sovereignty of another state or political entity, a political or legal claim, or a right to life, a right to have rights. Cultural recognition of difference can form the basis of just societies, but recognition that remains solely that--a form of acknowledgment without economic and political redistribution-is an act of language that leaves out the plot of history, where a word tries to stand in for material reparations through the smoke and mirrors of discourse and ceremony.
Rather than recognizing the stranger as familiar, and bringing a story to its close, Said asks us to recognize the familiar as stranger. He gestures at a way to dismantle the consoling fictions of fixed identity, which make it easier to herd into groups. This might be easier said than done, but it's provocative--it points out how many narratives of self, when applied to a nation-state, might one day harden into self-centered intolerance. Narrative shape can comfort and guide our efforts, but we must eventually be ready to shape-shift to be decentered, when the light of an other appears on the horizon in the project of human freedom, which remains undone.
What in fiction is enjoyable and beautiful is often terrifying in real life. In real life, shifts in collective understanding are necessary for major changes to occur, but on the human, individual scale, they are humbling and existentially disturbing. Such shifts also do not usually come without a fight: not everyone can be unpersuaded of their worldview through argument and appeal, or through narrative... emotion and understanding are not the same as action, but you might say that understanding is necessary for someone to act.