Reshaping Indigenous Identity of Palestinian People/Place

Abstract

Palestinian narrative comes to reflect the reality of a nation under dislocation, Diaspora, and reshaping the indigenous identity. The Palestinian narratives always attempt to show part of the Palestinian suffering and struggling under the Israeli occupation. This study traces the life of a family, it is Abulheja’s during three generations as presented by Susan Abulhawa’s “While the World Sleeps” as the title of Arabic version, and it has other versions in English entitled ‘Mornings in Jenin’ or ‘Scar of David’, (2006). The study addresses the postcolonial concepts of dislocation, Diaspora, exile and reshaping the Palestinian identity of people/place in Susan Abulhawa’s “Mornings in Jenin”, it is a story of a Palestinian family living in the refugees’ camp of Jenin from 1948 to the beginning of the third millennium, 2002. It does not only represent the life of Abulheja’s family, it is a story of a nation, living in the refugees’ camp: Jenin refugees’, being strangers, even in their home. Many members of the family are killed, and many members of Palestinians’ identity are reshaped to avoid killing while a large group of Palestinians leave their country to America to fulfill the American dream of hope and happiness, and freedom and fairness as expected. However, their Journey to America and Europe may not help them to forget their traumatic past or start a new life away of nostalgic/collective memory and homeliness. The result showed the suffering and struggling of the Palestinian families, lacking the urgent needs of daily life. The study found the Jewish state worked on reshaping the cultural, religious, national, political and indigenous identity of the Palestinian people/place to fulfill their expansionist project of politico-historical domination, giving no serious considerations to the particularities of the indigenous people. The narrative showed that the indigenous identity of Palestinians had been reshaped and a lot of them left their home to places safer to live as strangers, away of their home.