As this issue of Race & Class was going to press, we received from a friend in Jerusalem an Arabic language pamphlet which is currently circulating among Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, and Israel. The author of al-A'anaf fi al-Aradhi al-Muhattalati (Non-violence in the Occupied Territories) is Dr Mubarak A wad, a US trained Palesti nian educator. We think this is a very important initiative, and the lively interest it has sparked among Palestinian activists to be a most significant development. In rough translation, we publish excerpts from this pam phlet in the hope that it will receive broad attention, and the discussion be constructively joined by others engaged in the struggle for justice and Palestinian self-determination.
This article explores the relationship between medical blood donation and concepts and enactments of violence and non‐violence in India. The focus is on those north Indian devotional orders in thesanttradition whose devotees donate their blood in large quantities for transfusion. These orders profess a commitment to the Hindu Brahmanic and reformist tenet of non‐violence (ahimsa). At the same time, their attempts to donate blood for Indian army personnel shows how blood donation can be a means to engage in military affairs 'from a distance'. This article also demonstrates the ways in which different modes of sacrifice surface in blood donation ideology and practice. Arguing that blood donation mediates between violence and non‐violence in the subcontinent, the article concludes with a related set of points concerning the ambiguous relationship between caste concepts and blood donation.RésuméLe présent article explore la relation entre le don du sang à usage médical et les concepts et réalisations de la violence et de la non‐violence en Inde. L'accent est mis sur les ordres dévots du nord de l'Inde qui suivent la tradition dusant, et dont les membres donnent beaucoup de sang pour les transfusions. Ces ordres professent leur attachement au principe de non‐violence (ahimsa) de l'hindouisme brahmanique et réformiste. Dans le même temps, leur volonté de donner du sang pour les personnels de l'armée indienne montre à quel point le don de sang peut être un moyen de s'engager « à distance » dans les affaires militaires. Cet article démontre également les manières dont plusieurs modes de sacrifice apparaissent dans l'idéologie et la pratique du don de sang. Avançant que le don de sang est une médiation entre violence et non‐violence dans le sous‐continent, l'article se conclut par un ensemble de considérations liées, concernant la relation ambiguë entre les concepts de caste et le don de sang.
This paper aims at investigating the presence of the dichotomy of violence and non-violence in contemporary Palestinian political rhetoric and practice. To do so, I will explore the varied Palestinian discourses tracing from the contemporary back to the early twentieth century, where I will interrogate anti-colonials practice both in violent and non-violent modes. Throughout, I will map-out the different agencies and the fields of argumentation of each political entity, and its justifications as a group living under colonial conditions. This article consists of three parts: part I tackles the conceptual framework of the dichotomy of violence and non-violence; part II explores the historiography of the modes of violence and non-violence; and part III traces the controversy within Palestinian society over the topic at stake from the early 1900s until the present.