Naji El Khatib
Published on 24/01/2018
A seminar at the University of Paris VIII (24/01/2018) on the issue of nation state in the Near East and the Middle East and a critical reading of the alternative proposals for the State of Citizenship in Palestine and the Confederate State in Syria and Turkey.Facebook Event: https://www.facebook.com/transglobalstudies
A summary text of the intervention of Naji El Khatib translated to English:
“The State in the Near and Middle East: Political stakes and Epistemological Issues”
The lecture of Naji El Khatib will deal with the complex situations in the region of near and Middle East by developing a critical reflection on the notions of Identity, Nation, State-Nation, Nation-Building, Frontiers according to a multiply factors as geographic locations, economic, political and social contexts. This critical approach concerns the whole area of the Near-Middle East in general and more specifically with regard to the Palestinian and Kurdish peoples.
It will be proposed to cross the points of view concerning the use of these notions in order to draw up a corpus of reflection concerning the emergence of new political paradigms, embodied by the post-national theses, as a possible outcome for the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A resolution that put an end to the current apartheid colonial system imposed by the state of Israel. This resolution is a guarantee of equal full citizenship outside nationality in historical Palestine as whole.
The “national” state desire among Palestinians and Kurds has been and still confronted with the geostrategic realities of the past and the present colonial heritage. However, a shift is taking place towards Post-nationalism (in Palestine) and towards Confederalism (in Kurdistan). This turn is concretized by the production of new paradigms to replace the political theories from the era of the “wars of national liberation”. However, a demystification of this democratic and secular discourse and its new paradigms is more than necessary in this historic moment of upheaval in the entire region.