UNESCO should have documented Arab and Palestinian food as part of its “intangible
cultural heritage” list a long time ago. In doing so, it would have stopped Israel’s
deliberate cultural appropriation campaign targeting Arabic food identity and
heritage from snowballing into the propaganda machine it has turned into today.
اضافة اعلان
Tasked with protecting and cataloguing humanity’s cultural experience,
UNESCO stood by and watched while an army of skilled Israeli propagandists stole
and eroded Arab and Palestinian culinary identity.
To paraphrase a quote by Martin Luther King Jr., inaction that has
lasted for decades has actively bent the “arc of the moral universe” toward
blatant injustice. Not only have Palestinians been enduring the theft and
destruction of their homes under false historical claims, their food culture has
been maliciously rebranded “Jewish” or “Israeli” in an attempt to cancel them.
This silence has emboldened a racist state with a superiority complex to
dare call a quintessential Syrian-Lebanese dish like “kibbeh” (or “kubbeh”)
Israeli. In recent years, Lebanon’s “tabbouleh” has also been shamelessly marketed
as such, although 100 percent Lebanese.
As recently as May, reports circulated about an Arabic-speaking social
media page belonging to the Israeli foreign ministry calling the Jordanian
“mansaf”, known to the city of Karak since 147 BC, as being, falsely, Israeli.
To add insult to injury, British-Israeli chef Yotam Ottolenghi has
been sneakily rebranding one of Palestine’s most iconic rice-based dishes as
“Yotam Ottolenghi’s maqluba”, making sure to confuse his audience about the
real identity of the dish by attaching his name to it. Anyone with good
intentions would shy away from putting his Israeli-sounding name before a
Palestinian dish — out of respect for the Palestinian people’s culture and, in
the presence of hatred and bias, out of common decency.
“Hummus” is Arabic for chickpeas. Far from being a Hebrew or Yiddish
word, it is also the name of the iconic side dish made with puréed chickpeas and
tahini paste, yet today it is known the world over as “Israeli hummus”.
“Falafel”, “shawerma” and even Gazan salad (“salata ghazzawiyeh”
in colloquial Arabic) have all endured the assault of the predatory Israeli PR
machine, unbridled by the lack of real Arab and international action that could
put an end to the “foodwashing” of Palestinian culture, as Palestinian opinion
writer Hanin Majadli put it in an article published this past July in Haaretz.
To her words, an Israeli writer retorted a few days later with an
opinion piece that brought brazenness to a whole new level. He claimed that Palestinians
and “Muslim nomads” are the ones appropriating “Jewish culture”. He even claimed
that dishes like “Palestinian freekeh” and Levantine “kubbeh” were part of the
“ancient Jewish cuisine of the Land of Israel.”
In the face of Israel’s obvious lack of morals and its agenda to
diminish the cultural identity of those it regards as sub-human, of its
cultural bullying and systematic theft of the Arab intangible heritage, Arabs
should make their voices heard.
Actually, about two weeks ago, Jordan, the custodian of the holy sites
in Jerusalem, was reelected as a UNESCO executive board member for 2021-2025. Known
for its activism in bringing the two-state solution back to the international
table, Jordan now has the chance to expand its political role in protecting the
city of Jerusalem and keeping the Palestinian plight alive by advocating for
the documentation of Palestinian, Jordanian, Arab and Levantine culinary
culture, along with other items of intangible legacy.
Among other Arab countries, Palestine and Jordan already have a few of
their national treasures on UNESCO’s “Intangible Cultural History” lists, which
can be found at
ich.unesco.org/en/lists.
Predictably, Palestinian dishes like “musakhan” and “kidreh” are not (yet)
on those lists. The good news, though, is that Jordan has asked for “mansaf” to
be considered an expression of intangible heritage; the request is awaiting
approval, but this could pave the way for more Arabic food to make it on the
UNESCO lists.
More interestingly, it is possible to propose a single cultural activity
(or, in this case, dish) that belongs to several Arab countries, since many
dishes are more or less variations on a theme.
For example, the “knowledge, skills, traditions and practices” about date
palms have been inscribed in 2019 on the “Representative List of the Intangible
Cultural Heritage of Humanity” as a shared listing, with North African and
Middle Eastern countries protecting this aspect of their agri-food heritage
collectively. The countries are: Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Saudi
Arabia, Tunisia and the UAE.
In view of this, it is possible for Jordan to advocate for listing
Arabic dishes like “hummus” and “falafel” as belonging to a collective “owner”,
namely the Levantine countries those dishes originally hail from (while giving
a nod to Egyptian “ta'ameya”, the mother dish of “falafel”).
Food historians, of whom the Arab world needs more, can help shed more
light on the origins of food. It is high time we did something about it, especially
that the tools for protecting our heritage are within reach.
Jordan can also play a role in marketing the Arab, Palestinian and
Levantine culture in ways that engage the international audience in an educated
dialogue about this region’s true culinary history.
Some may argue that the 1990s were the height of UNESCO’s brilliance, in
terms of creating content that is both engaging and informative. Back in the
day, UNESCO and UNICEF were two pioneers of “infotainment” with their range of resourceful
and engaging cultural products.
Take the example of UNESCO’s unique and expansive audio library,
recorded from 1961 to 2003 to document the rare folkloric music iterations
of communities and tribes from different parts of the world. This library was
made available to the public in the 1990s in well-packaged CDs that came with a
small booklet containing historical information about the contents. Cultural
tunes, from valleys to mountains, were eternalized thanks to the “Collection of
Traditional Music of the World”, a project driven by a clear creative vision to
honor and document humanity’s awe-inspiring harmonious expressions.
Arab communities need similar forward-thinking initiatives to save their
identity and food heritage from years of cultural appropriation, hostile
campaigning, and an Israeli propaganda machine that ruthlessly and
systematically fabricates history to cancel “the other”.
Ruba Saqr has reported on the environment, worked in the public sector as a communications officer, and served as managing editor of a business magazine, spokesperson for a humanitarian INGO, and as head of a PR agency.
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