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Crossing the Bank: How Palestinian and Jordanian Students Waded Together in Times of Political Turmoil
Abstract
This paper investigates Palestinian student activism in Jordan in the 1960s and 1970s focusing more specifically on its relation with the Jordanian student movement. The paper’s rationale is predicated upon a central premise: in the aftermath of the Nakba, Palestinian student political engagement was fundamental for the emergence and articulation of revolutionary and counter hegemonic discourses in the whole Arab region. Scholars have emphasized Palestinian student activism in Egypt and Lebanon, where they contributed to the radicalization of student politics and the elaboration of anti-imperialist analyses that challenged the status-quo. Yet, little is known about Palestinian student contribution to the emergence of the student movement in Jordan and its role in the Jordanian opposition movement. How did Palestinian and Jordanian students frame their shared claims? How did they understand their cooperation and role in Jordan? How can the analysis of the collective political effort of Palestinian and Jordanian students contribute to the understanding of the political history of the Palestinian movement, the Jordanian Kingdom and the Arab region as a whole? This paper investigates Palestinian and Jordanian student politics in the regional context examining the relation between the General Union of Palestinian Students (GUPS) and the General Union of Jordanian Students (GUJS) in the 1960s and 1970s, two decades that saw student activism at its peak globally. Palestinian and Jordanian students understood their political ambitions and goals as interconnected and inseparable, contradicting the dominant narrative and rhetoric that saw Palestinians and Jordanians as guided by different and even opposing political interests. Based on oral history , through interviews with former Palestinian and Jordanian students as well as archival analysis of primary sources, this paper suggest that student cooperation in Jordan was fundamental for the articulation of a revolutionary discourse at the regional level and the engagement with international student spaces and solidarity movements on the global stage.
Discipline
History
International Relations/Affairs
Political Science
Geographic Area
Jordan
Palestine
Sub Area
None