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Showing 1 - 5 from 5 entries
> تمتين العلاقات بين المدار...
> Interview with Rosemary Sayigh: oral historian
> Suggestions for doing family history in Bethlehem
> Interview about oral history with Adnan Mousallem
> Teacher guidelines Interviewing and oral history
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Adnan Musallem has conducted research on the history of Bethlehem, especially the development of local media. He teaches among other things oral history at Bethlehem University.
Since 1993 I ask my students to collect narratives of contemporary history. I always tell my students: When you make an interview for oral history, don't let people give you theories or a political statement; please make sure that you get some kind of personal narrative. Let people speak naturally and spontaneously. The personal narrative will give your interview the human touch. It is true that oral history does not yield the final authorized version of history. People sometimes have flawed memories. But oral history augments and enlivens the written record. You can also analyze narrative oral histories in a systematic manner, and see how stories, when they are shared, play a role in the building of the community and the nation. That hasn't yet been done in Palestine. Oral history is important for creating historical perspective. It almost inevitably leads people to compare things then and now. One area which we have dealt with extensively is World War 1. My students did a lot of interviews with people who lived through World War 1, who told about their misery, the struggle they had to face with hunger and diseases, forced military consciption, and how they tried to run away from the service. How people chased after horses, and looked for the waste of the animals; how they dried it, peeled it, dried it again and then used it for food. The message students received was: Palestinians may go through a difficult time now, but it is not comparable to what our grandfathers went through.
Another area are the stories about the Palestinian uprisings in the 1920s and 1930s, especially the six months strike in 1936. Some of the material we collected tell the personal experiences of the people at the time, how they created self-sufficiency, what they did so that they wouldn't run out of food supplies. The nature of the society was more rural than nowadays. People had all kinds of stored material from the summer, dried grapes and so on. It makes one compare how it was done at that time and how it was done more recently during the Intifada when people also tried to create some kind of self-sufficient economy by storing food.
The bottom line is that personal narratives are more telling and convincing than giving a lecture about history. Oral history makes teaching more enjoyable. The ordinary person can also easier connect with others by personal stories, and this, if it is done in the right way, can really strengthen the community. It can also be therapeutical. When my students asked older people about the uprooting in 1948, their respondents had a difficult time, people could barely keep their tears inside. They were never asked about their personal stories.
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Interview Toine van Teeffelen, Bethlehem, 1998
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