Hegemony, exclusion and equivocal identities: Reflections on israel’s arab minority in sayed kashua’s dancing arabs

Abstract

Social consciousness forms in allegiance with the moral and political hegemonic power structures. Gramsci's organic ideology defines this condition of hegemonic system where societal leadership is practised by the dominant class. With the emergence of cultural studies the prevailing hegemonic discourses are challenged, but defining liminality in this spectrum is still an ongoing process. In this context, the essay aims to demarcate the problematic aspects of personal and national identities against the hegemonic power structures, specifically with the case of the Arab minority in the State of Israel. Apart from the fundamental facets of hegemony, the aberrant conflict between nationalism and citizenship emerging from Israel’s legitimacy as a Jewish democratic State, places the Arab Israeli identity in question. These arguments are validated through the fictional life narrative of Israel’s prominent Arab writer Sayed Kashua. His novel Dancing Arabs (2002) recapitulates the reality of being an Arab in Israel. The impeccable representation of identities in question hinges the repercussions of hegemony and social exclusion on both subjective and national levels. Standing on the critical platforms of Gramsci’s political theory of “hegemony” and Stuart Hall’s cultural theory of “identity”, the text is closely read as an artefact of resistance with emphasis on personal, political and philosophical discourses on the identity of the Arab minority in Israel. The essay traverses through the ethnocentric status of Israel’s social structure which disorders the recognition of Arab identity and identifies the conflict as a potential hindrance to peaceful coexistence in Israel’s near future.