ABSTRACT
Aside from ignoring the material relations of colonial and post-colonial rule and rendering these terms limited to the discursive realm, this diachronic presentation of the history of colonialism has ignored the potential if not actual synchronicity of these “two” eras in different contexts. Settler-colonialism, being a variant of colonialism, presents us with different spatialities and temporalities as regards a diachronic schema of “colonialism-then-post-colonialism.” The Rhodesian “Unilateral Declaration of Independence” in 1965, the formation of the Union of South Africa in 1910, the American Revolution in 1776, or the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 are some examples where settlercolonists declared themselves “independent” while maintaining colonial privileges for themselves over the conquered populations. The United States, Rhodesia, South Africa, and Israel, for example, instituted themselves as post-colonial states, territories and spaces, and instituted their political status as “independent” in order to render their present a post-colonial era. Yet, the conquered peoples of these territories continue (including the people of Zimbabwe following “independence”2
and South Africa following the “end” of apartheid) to inhabit these spaces as colonial spaces, and to live in eras that are thoroughly colonial. Given such a situation, how can one determine the coloniality and/or post-coloniality of these spaces or times? The perspectival answers to such questions ignore the commonality of these particular spaces and histories. Whereas an Ashkenazi Jew after May 1948 would view her/himself as living in a post-colonial space and era, Palestinians would view themselves as still living in a colonized space and in a colonial era. Mizrahi Jews
would have a more difficult task characterizing the nature of the space and time they inhabit due to their dual status of being (internally) colonized vis-à-vis the Ashkenazim with colonizer privileges vis-à-vis the Palestinians. The commonality of this space and time, then, at least in its abstract appellation, Palestine or Israel, renders its status a combinational one. The very naming of this space is, in fact, a process of historicizing it. To call it Palestine is to refer to it as a colonized space in both the pre-1948 and the post-1948 periods and to signal its continued appellation as such for a postcolonial period still to come. To call it Israel is to refer to it in the post-1948 period after the coming to fruition of the Zionist project forestalling any notion of a post-Israel Palestine. Naming, therefore, functions as locating in history, as temporalizing, and ultimately as asserting power as colonial domination or as anti-colonial resistance.
