BY Ayush Mazumdar 18 December 2023
The centrality of habitat to our existence and fulfilment is of imperative value. A habitat should not be restricted to a narrow sense of meaning representing a materialistic or utilitarian significance but it has a broader connotation conjoined with our identity as human beings. Therefore, when we widen the term habitat to be inclusive we equate it with home. The concept of home is not just locational but emotional. It means familiarity with place and people, deduction of either would be substandard. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly on 10th December 1948 provides a blueprint for all nations and their constituent people to follow. In a nutshell, it sets the standard that sets us apart as human beings with certain parameters. Article 25 of the aforementioned document states that everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing, and medical care, etc. if we read this article in light of clause 3 of Article 16 which states that the family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the state, we realise that an individual’s existence is replete.
In contemporary times, displacement has been the norm for the majority of the people with over an estimated 120 million forcibly displaced or stateless people according to UNHCR.
The concern of this article is to articulate the voices of the Palestinian people who have been suffering at the hands of the Israeli authorities. The title of this article is inspired by the famous song composed by Ernest Gold and served as the theme song to Otto Preminger’s epic film Exodus which depicts the story behind the formation of the modern state of Israel (Uris, 1997). However, decades have passed since that event and what has transpired is that from being a victim the state of Israel has become the perpetrator. If Israel has a claim to provide a meaningful life to its people so too does the state of Palestine. However, the tentacles of the Israeli authorities have suffocated the freedom of the Palestinian people at large. The obvious reason for the ongoing tussle is due to the injustice that has been meted out to the Palestinian people at large by the global community. The global community cried foul when Ukraine was attacked by Russia but the same global community which holds the flag of liberal values turned a blind eye to the Palestinian people at large.
The solution to the ongoing crisis is to be found in the application of the principled two-state solution that the UN envisaged. The sustenance of a long-lasting peace in the Middle east would require an effective sovereign Palestinian state representing and upholding the values and aspirations of the Palestinian people at large. The state provides an institutional political recognition to the society that it controls and steers and therefore, without a state to provide a framework for the state to operate politically the purpose of nation-building would fall flat. If peace is the ultimate goal of the Israeli state then it must respect the freedom to exist and prosper of the Palestinian people too. The solution lies in the application of the Kantian Categorical Imperative in true sense and spirit.
The non-state actors would continue to forestall the delicate peace in the Middle east if an elected representative democratic machinery is not effectively allowed to articulate the voices of the Palestinian people. In that case, a society having a defunct political organ would give birth to various non-state actors acting as informal outlets for people’s unripe and unformed opinions creating a system running on opinion rather than well-informed policy decisions. The actions by non-state actors are not legitimate and to reprimand them for their actions is a daunting task. Hence, what happens is the periodic cyclic violence which has been the norm in the case of Israel-Palestinian relations since time immemorial. This cyclic occurrence of struggle-truce-struggle would continue until and unless the two-state solution is materialized properly. It would require giving space to the Palestinian people to prosper and a fulfilled life not determined by the standards of the global capitalistic consumeristic homogenous way of living but one denoted by communitarian principles. One of the major pitfalls of the liberal world order has been its intolerance and ignorance towards values and symbols that are outside its structure of ordering things. In the terminology of Critical Theory, the liberal world order has been suffering from “one-dimensionality”.
The Theme of Exodus is about celebrating courage and freedom – it inspires one to move forward towards fulfilment. However, freedom is a relative concept, and as Zygmunt Bauman says “For one to be free, there must be at least two (Bauman , 1988).” So, in contemporary times, the Theme of Exodus alludes us to a theoretical definition of freedom where it is all about might and right. There is an ongoing exodus of millions of people away from their homes to unknown lands separated from their people. The situational and emotional tie that binds one to the cherished family is getting trampled in the name of power politics.
The displacement shock that is felt by people due to involuntary movement caused due to wars and ethnic tensions is reverberated in the collective memories for generations which partition did to our grandparents but for Palestinians it is an ongoing event disturbing the collective consciousness. When that collective consciousness is full of violence, blood, displacement, and torture, how do we end on a positive note? The policy action relating to displacement must focus on peace, people, and place, where the three Ps are integral to one another
References
Bauman , Z. (1988). Freedom: Concepts in Social Thought. Minnesota : University of Minnesota Press.
Uris, L. (1997). Exodus. New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell.