Sumud and Liberation Theology
A Sabeel Study Circle meeting on September
22, 2009
at the Sabeel office in Shu'afat in
Jerusalem was devoted to the paper “Sumud in
Daily Life” of AEI’s Toine van Teeffelen and
Fuad Giacaman (see:
www.aeicenter.org/aei/archives/resistanceDL/index.htm).
In front of an audience of locals and
internationals, Toine further elaborated
upon the sumud or steadfastness
concept. He emphasized that sumud has
been a response of “inner conviction” to
age-old Zionist policies of treating the
Palestinians in colonial fashion, mostly
with “the stick” and at times with “the
carrot,” but always as a “controllable and
removable people.” He distinguished four
areas in which the sumud concept has
been applied in recent history: political,
economic, cultural, and social. Sumud
always contains an element of
community-based love for the land on the one
hand and family- or community-resistance on
the other, but its applications may stress
one side more than the other. Among
Palestinians, there here have been over time
discussions about the degree of activeness
or passivity that sumud may imply as
a non-violent strategy of resistance.
Toine compared sumud with the concept
of “relentless persistence” which has
inspired grassroots non-violent struggles in
South-America, especially Brazil. He made a
connection between sumud and
liberation theology. According to
South-American and other theologians, the
Bible supports an active understanding of
sumud concepts such as “patient
enduring” and “patience” (makrothymia
and hypomone) in the books of James
and Revelation. For some theologians, these
can be best translated by militant
patience, relentless persistence
or consistent resistance, terms
which, according to theology professor Elsa
Tamez of Costa Rica, will make the rich and
powerful feel less comfortable than the
rather passive concept of patience.
The discussion afterwards was shared by a
diverse audience of locals as well as
internationals from different parts of the
world:
§
Is sumud a symbol or a reality which
has been transformed into a symbol? Is a
national symbol, or a national master story,
needed; does it help to keep the Palestinian
nation together, does it provide an
identity? It was said that in the present
circumstances it is meaningful to organize
sumud rituals such as visiting and
celebrating the beauty of the countryside.
However, rituals need to be kept alive to be
effective - “dead” rituals are not needed.
Staying sumud should not be just
inward-oriented and passive, as when one
goes like a zombie through the movements of
daily life, including very humiliating ones,
such as at checkpoints. The sumud
becomes a dead ritual. Sumud is both
an inward- and outward-oriented concept, and
both sides need to be nourished and
energized.
§
How is it possible to be attached to the
land/culture/identity while staying in a
prison? One Palestinian participant told
about her daughter who for graduate studies
had left to the US but longed for the
struggle she always felt present at home in
Palestine. She wrote that she even missed
“the checkpoints and the smell of the
garbage”… This sounds like when Palestinians
coming back home from abroad say ironically,
“Hallo Kalandia, so happy to be back home”…
In Palestine you all the time face
existential issues; and this may create a
feeling of emptiness when abroad. Notice
that what can be called sumud
literature, like the diary of Suad Amiry
“Sharon and My Mother-in-law,” cultivates a
powerful bittersweet irony about oppressed
Palestinian life.
§
A related question: Can you have joy, in the
face of disaster? Author Alice Walker found
in Gaza she could. One participant mentioned
how Africa, including South Africa, knows
many traditions of dancing in the face of
disaster.
§
As for the theological side of the
discussion, it was mentioned that the
expression “steadfast love” is omnipresent
in the Bible and refers to God’s attitude in
keeping the covenant with His people. A
parallel can be made between James and the
theology of the Sermon of the Mount. Other
extremely relevant concepts when studying
sumud in a Biblical context are faith,
dignity and the Hebrew chesed.
§
One meaning of relentless
persistence/patience in James is “not
grumbling” against each other, within the
community. Can that be applied to Hamas and
Fatah?
§
Visiting foreigners often like to see more
resistance radiated by Palestinians. They
are sometimes disappointed seeing
Palestinians not resisting the humiliations
at checkpoints, for instance. Waiting may be
an example of sumud, but only when
it is in a spirit of alertness and
resistance, not an unlimited and passive
waiting.
§
How does sumud relate to “Inshallah”,
as it was put by one of the participants.
“Inshallah” may mean an attitude of denying
one’s own human responsibility, but, as
another participant commented, there is an
Arabic-Islamic phrase which exhorts people
to do all what one can or should do before
resigning to God’s will. There is also the
question whether Inshallah does not refer to
an inner state of commitment towards God
rather than that it implies passivity.
Incidentally, the Holy Quran contains many
reference to steadfastness and patience.
§
Is sumud a universal concept or a
specifically Palestinian one? Is sumud
especially applicable to the Palestinian
situation because the future of the
Palestinian people on its land is at risk?
Since American Indians have faced a fate by
which Palestinians are threatened now, can
Indian theology teach Palestinians a few
things? Other relevant comparisons are the
African ubuntu concept, which
stresses community on the land, and
solidad or solidarity.
§
It cannot be stressed enough how important
women’s roles are for maintaining
Palestinian sumud.
