Writing the Massacre: A Comparative Study of the Representations of the 1982 Sabra and Shatila Massacre

Abstract

Using the tools Said presents in his works on representation, the thesis explores the tale of the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre; how it relates to the “missing Palestinian narrative”, and what it reveals about the role of the selected intellectuals. The study examines how the story is told from the position of non-Arabs and Arabs during different time spans through a comparative reading of Jean Genet's essay “Four hours In Shatila” (1982), Robert Fisk's “Terrorists” (1982), later included in a chapter of his book Pity the Nation, Lebanon at War (2001), Noam Chomsky's "A Chapter of Palestinian History" in his Fateful Triangle (1983), Bahaa Taher's Love In Exile (1995), Elias Khoury’s Gate of the Sun (1998), and Radwa Ashour's The Woman from Tantoura (2010).

My hypothesis is that the Sabra and Shatila massacre is elusive; it is difficult to be embraced by words, and so in representing it authors incorporated testimonies and made use of documentary writing as well as photographic description. Imagination alone does not give this event its due, rather it succumbs before the reality of the massacre itself and writers find no option other than documenting it and recording it as if by a camera. The hypothesis was actually corroborated by the findings of the thesis.