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The arrow points left: visions of the Palestinian revolution in its first two decades
Abstract
This paper examines the visions and imaginaries of liberation embedded within the rhetoric of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), as expressed through its mouthpiece Al Hadaf magazine during the 1970s and 80s. These visions are read in their relationship to the PFLP’s position on governance and democracy, particularly their evolving position on municipalities in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), and their own initiatives (such as cooperatives) during this period. The paper focuses on the spatiality of the PFLP’s visions in order to build a framework to analyze the spaces that the Front and its affiliates have produced (cooperatives) and those it participated or refrained from participating in (municipal bodies). This paper seeks to build an understanding of the influence this major political faction had in the imagination of spaces that preceded, and arguably facilitated, the Intifada in the late 1980s. The paper argues that while the rhetoric of the PFLP remained general, only painting in the broadest strokes its vision for liberated Palestinian society and space, the Front’s ideological commitments and thus the revolutionary movements it looked up to (such as Thufar and The Democratic Republic of Yemen) played a role that honed the imaginaries of the Front’s cadres.
Discipline
Architecture & Urban Planning
Geographic Area
Arab States
Sub Area
Arab-Israeli Conflict