Pedagogy Weaponized: British Education Policies in Mandatory Palestine (1918–1939)
How education was used to suppress Palestinian-Arab consolidation and nationalism in the British Palestinian Mandate.
In December of 1917, after defeating Ottoman forces British soldiers marched triumphantly through Jerusalem, opening, in the eyes of many scholars, a new chapter in the centuries long conflict between the West and Near East. As was the case then during the Crusades of the 12 & 13 century, the main motive for subjugating Palestine now in the 20th century, was to secure the British Empires economic interests in the region (with Cario under its dominion, its lucrative trade route to its colonial ports in India were furthered protected with the additional military presence in the Levant). Yet these geopolitical concerns, were veiled by a pseudo religious motive: one of national sovereignty via the mandate. This modern justification for the imperialism was appetizing to world leaders concerned with appearing just and righteous while also furthering their Imperial interests.
In their steps, would come the colonial administrators sent to fill positions within the British civil administration created to govern Palestine. Amidst their arrival came Humprey Bowman, chosen in 1920 to head the newly instituted Education Department. In 1922, as per the condition of the mandate’s fifteenth article, Bowman together with his subordinate administrators, was tasked with formulating “educational requirements” for Palestinian schools to conform to. My research began with understanding the context of British colonial education systems and policies, and determining to what extent this would influence the formation of these “educational requirements.” It then encompassed the irreconcilable struggle between Palestinian Arab students and faculty against the British repressive measures to repress the formation of Palestinian nationalism. My formal research question I propose is then:
What can the historical context of British colonial education policy tell us about the intentional measures used by the Department of Education, specifically within in the interwar period (from 1918 to 1939), to placate, and even repress, Palestinian Arabs from nationalist cohesion and political activism?
This context, I argue, is critical to demonstrate that the British schooling system in Palestine, for its capacity as a hotbed of Palestinian nationalist sentiments, was a decisive point of contention between two irreconcilable entities: a disaffected class of educated nationalists and an empire keen on stifling nationalism. The implications of this collision of ideologies lies at the heart of my research. British administrative officials and Palestinian Arab faculty battled for supremacy in deciding what historical narrative would be taught to students. They battled to determine what professional role the Palestinian Arab youth would serve in the future Mandate society, and, more importantly, in whose interests they would serve. Would they become docile, subservient, and “civilized” servants of the British Empire, content with rural life as farmers, and acquiesce to Zionist state-building efforts? Or would they become agitated by British control and Zionist ascendancy and help consolidate distinct Palestinian identities and subvert these intrusive agents through political activism? Would Mandatory schooling serve as a potent vehicle to deliver nationalist sentiments to Palestinians or be used as a tool to repress this within larger society?
My research methodology has yielded answers to these questions. With patience I have filtered through a large amount of historical work, articles and books, related to the topic to find relevant context to draw on. I have drawn from numerous scholarly articles which, in addition to scholarly books, have comprised a sizable portion of my research. To find relevant and credible articles I utilized the search engine feature of the Holy Cross library system and entered phrases like “Education in the Palestine Mandate”, “British colonial education” and “Palestinian Nationalism and Education.” While in the earlier stages of my research I was more focused on Palestinian nationalism and the broader efforts the British took to suppress it, I would use the footnotes of article to discover more specific sources. Analyzing the bibliographies of sources became a great way to find new ones, especially primary sources. For books and sources that were not present in the Dinand Library I utilized the interlibrary loan system which gave me access to books from the libraries of surrounding colleges and universities.
Lastly, talking with classmates and my history professors, particularly Professor Bazzaz and Professor Azimi, about my research topic has been invaluable. Their assistance has provided me with new perspectives, crucial source material, and an opportunity to ask questions and formulate my thoughts. As I have found in my case, that research is never done in isolation; the greater my willingness to collaborate and seek help, the richer and more substantive my work would develop. This process of “going down the rabbit hole”, an apt metaphor for the research process, can feel exhausting, daunting, and unnecessary, but when
Summary
Bowman himself, and more broadly the British Empire, had extensive experience to draw from in forming such “education requirements” as conditioned by the Mandate. Having formerly worked in the Egyptian Ministry of Education for twenty years, under the supervision of Lord Cromer, the Egyptian controller-general, Bowman was aware of the capacity an education system had in consolidating nationalist identities and fomenting rebellion. Cromer had written critically that the “purely literary education [given to Indian students]” yielded the “disastrous result” of a class of disaffected, unemployed Indian intellectuals who expressed themselves with the Western rhetoric of nationalism.
British officials in Egypt, however, attempting to correct their blunder in India, created a doubly divisive education system. During their control of Egypt from 1883 through 1922, British officials restricted secondary education to wealthy Egyptians who could afford the high tuition fee and speak suitable English. This left a lower class of rural farmers uneducated who would increase agricultural productivity. The hope of manufacturing an educated upper class amenable to British rule failed with Egypt’s revolution in 1919, which was driven with significant student participation under leadership of the educated upper class. Bowman later wrote in reflection that this “half-educated, unemployed class” that coalesced in India and then in Egypt had to be avoided at all costs in Palestine.
Cromer was clearly concerned that “modern” educational institutions in Egypt and as in India (and by extension the Sudan, an Anglo-Egyptian colony) would foster subversive qualities in aspiring government employees: the very students enrolled under their control. After a joint British-Egyptian force quelled the Mahdist Rebellion in Sudan, the British colonized Sudan and founded the Gordon Memorial College in the capital city of Khartoum in 1902. With influence from their Egyptian education model, the underlying British strategy with this institution was to train a local Sudanese elite that could competently run the British administration. But as became increasingly apparent in the 1930’s, the school’s very capacity to prepare students for bureaucratic roles in colonial offices primed students to adopt Sudanese nationalism with their understanding of Sudanese geography and history and ability to voice dissent through the periodic press.
In the case of Palestine, Bowman’s education policies made sure that what happened in India and Egypt would not repeat itself: there were many repressive education policies deployed to counter any nationalist conscience from consolidating. The Department of Education forbade teachers from participating in certain clubs and associations with nationalist leanings. Moreso, teachers, without prior approval from the Department of Education, could not publish materials other than textbooks. Students were to be taught, as seen in one 1929 school syllabus, an eurocentric history of the Levant’s crusades and biblical stories instead of contemporary history. In general, educational opportunities beyond elementary and primary for Palestinian Arabs were extremely limited: 127,583 high-school aged students in 1932 had access to one four-year government highschool, according to the research of Dr. Kalil Totah.
Bowman’s educational philosophy centered itself in promoting rural agricultural education and he was fixated on equipping the Palestinian fellahin with modern agricultural practices, believing this would cause a social revolution. The Kadoorie Agricultural School at Tulkarm was established in 1931 to train teachers in modern agricultural skills. In one of Bowman’s annual reports, he articulates that his educational policies aimed to prevent the “village boy” from becoming urbanized, educated, and subsequently “unemployed or unemployable” and prone to nationalism. This aim, to restrain the student’s political and nationalist ambition, was intended to be achieved through the means of an agricultural-centered rural curriculum. With Bowman’s vision, the “village boy” was to be schooled and then become a docile village laborer, farmer, or craftsman: occupations far from crucial nationalist contests in urban centers like Jerusalem and Jaffa during the interwar period. According to historian Elizabeth Browson, British education policy was to encourage the Palestinian fellahin to remain content farming the countryside; simultaneously, she notes the British encouraged the urban development of Zionist industry and settlement.
The British Mandatory government was also involved in crackdowns on nationalist protests within their school system, which demonstrates their overt measures taken to repress Palestinian Arab nationalism. Palestinian Arab students enrolled at the Men’s Training College in Jerusalem organized nationalist protests against the arrival of Lord Balfour in 1925 who had come for the inauguration of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. These students sang nationalist songs and waved Arab flags. With the political agitation growing out of control, the Government stepped in and decided to close down the college. They sent students home under police escort, and allowed them to return after all students had signed a condition several weeks later to “conform to college” and not participate in any further strikes. In the opinion of Bowman the faculty leaders of the protest intended “to inculcate in the Arab youth a passionate nationalism which would show itself in over acts.” This perspective is confirmed by the Peel Commision Report of 1937 which concluded in chapter V of the report that: “Like Jewish nationalism, Arab nationalism is stimulated by the educational system.” The report accused, albeit in an exaggerated manner, that teachers had created “seminaries of Arab nationalism” within their classrooms.
Despite British control, crackdown, and supervision, the education system proved incapable of limiting the emergent spread of a nationalist conscience amongst Palestinian students. According to historian Rashid Khalidi, as early as 1923 students in Palestine were learning that Palestine existed geographically independent of the Arab world. Professor Sabri Sharif ‘Abd al-Hadi, who instructed geography in the Nablus secondary school, had written a geography text entitled Jughrafiyyat Suriyya wa Filastin al-Tabi’iyya (The natural geography of Syria and Palestine). Geography instruction, as seen in the Sudanese case within the Gordon College, similarly enabled students to conceive a map of the nation they associated themselves as belonging to: an essential component of a nationalist identity. Beyond geography, at the Men’s Training College in Jerusalem and other secondary schools, Palestinian national sentiments were evident in the rich dialogue occurring in cultural and educational societies. History professor and nationalist activist Darwish al-Miqdadi taught at the Men’s Training College and participated in its debating society, warning students of the Zionists threat the country faced. At the secondary school in Nablus one lecture promoting Palestinian Arab nationalism caused a demonstration which led to the closing of the school for a week. Maqdidi and al-Hadi’s fight subverted the British hegemony over the education system, one which never gave significant representation to the Palestinian Arab community.
Historiography
The historical record reveals that the British Empire was greatly concerned with the capacity their colonial education systems had in fomenting nationalist identities and activism. In response, as numerous scholars have demonstrated, the British implemented repressive schooling structures and policies that could render these potential revolutionaries politically incompetent. According to an expert on Sudanese history, scholar Heather K. Sharkey claims that Gordon College was the focal point of Sudanese nationalist developments, despite its intention by the British to manufacture bureaucrats for its colonial apparatus. As demonstrated by the scholarship historian Chai Hon Chane, the British, during their control of Malaya from 1874 to 1957, implemented a deliberate educational policy to stifle the growth of Malaysian nationalism. This “divide and rule” policy, as he calls it, involved the racial segregation of the British Malaysian school system with the intent of exacerbating pre-existing lines of societal division based on race. This same divisive strategy was also identified by scholar Dr. Hilary Falb Kalisman in her scholarship on British education policy in Iraq, Transjordan, and Palestine. Using the same phraseology as Hon Chane, Kalisman argues a “divide and rule” policy based on religion, class, and at times intellect was implemented to repress the growth of an educated, naturally rebellious class and maintain socioeconomic hierarchies.
Historians are also in disagreement over what exact kind of nationalism the Arabs in Palestine gave themselves. One case study historians have focused on is the Men’s Training College protests in 1925. Historian Marco Demichelias believes these protests illustrate the growth of Palestinian Nationalism against Zionism. Historian Betty Anderson connects this protest to a broader, Arab nationalist consciousness. Marco Demichelis argues that the Men’s Training College produced intellectual elites, but he ties that argument to the idea that the college specifically produced Palestinian nationalists, rather than emphasizing its place in the Arab world.
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