To Social Transformation in the Palestinian Rural Areas
By :
Nitham Ataya
Agricultural Development Association
(PARC)
June
2006
Over the
course of the past three decades, the Palestinian countryside
has witnessed many socio-economic, demographic and cultural
developments and changes. These transformations, which resulted
from the interaction between internal and external factors, have
set the basis for further new changes. The policies and measures
of the Israeli occupation have generated the salient element for
these transformations. The Israeli policies have strangled all
walks of life in the rural areas; they undermined the inputs of
the agricultural productive work and drained financial and know
how resources of the rural areas. Additionally, the Israeli
targeted policies altered Palestinian farmers and peasants to
hired workers in the Israeli labor market and transformed the
countryside from a food producer to a consuming purchaser. By
time, the dependency of countryside on the urban areas increased
and the economic reliance of the urban and rural areas on the
Israeli economy grew deeper. Transformations have become
particularly visible in the rural social de facto situation,
which observed the emergence of social problems and challenges
additional to new trends and opportunities.
In this
context, the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees (PARC)
was established to reinforce the emerging new trends and
opportunities on one hand and to confront the rising challenges
on the others. PARC’s work commenced in 1983 pinpointing a
pivotal approach in the life of civil society organizations
based on volunteering, social solidarity, high commitment toward
collective communal work and novel relationship with the
Palestinian countryside.
PARC has
left many patent benchmarks in the rural de facto situation
particularly in the social awareness and consciousness, which
persisted to grow despite the huge passive resistance of
prevalent traditional values and norms, and the dwarfing
attempts by the network of traditional governmental and
non-governmental organizations, who felt that their approaches
and methodologies of work were challenged. PARC succeeded to
build a good reputation due to our responding to the real needs
of the grassroots avoiding opportunist and selfish interests. In
addition, PARC entwined its work with notions of national
identity and aspiration. Thus, we gained the respect of the
Palestinian people as well meliorated our position and status in
the rural areas. Many organizations emulated PARC’s model of
working in rural areas. The latter gradually occupied the
various developmental agendas. The trust and credibility that
PARC accumulated over the years formed the defense line that
protected, developed and sustained the social impact of PARC’s
interventions.
The 2005
official statistical data highlighted a real growth of many of
the social indicators pertinent to rural areas:
A
growing participation of rural people particularly youths
(age 10-24) in volunteer work. Their participation reached
up to 23% compared to the urban participation 21.8%. This
tells us about the active role that rural people assumed to
revitalize and activate the values and principles of
collective social solidarity and voluntarism.
An
increasing interest in education by rural youths. The
education rate in rural areas reached 62.5% compared to
57.5% and 58.5% in cities and refugees camps respectively.
Additionally, there was a rise in higher education rates
among youths which were beyond the rates of their
counterparts in cities and refugee camps. Illiteracy rate
dropped from 3.5% to 1.1% among the rural youths of age
15-22 during the period 1997- 2004 compared to the decrease
from 3.4% to 1.2% occurred in cities for the same period. A
further decrease of 13% in school drop outs was observed in
rural areas in the same period of time compared to 11% and
7% in cities and refugee camps respectively.
An
increasing interest in the productive work by rural youths
particularly the age group 10-24. 10.5% of rural youths are
interested in this work compared to 9.5% and 8% of city and
refugee camp young dwellers respectively. On the other hand,
the participation percentage of age group 15-29 in labor
force reached 35.1% in rural areas compared to 33.6% and
30.4% in cities and refugee camps respectively.
Statistics indicated that 1.5% of rural youths spend their
free time in mosques compared to 1.9% and 4.1% of city and
refugee youths respectively. Furthermore, 1.6% of rural
youths spend their spare time in school and college clubs
compared to 1.4% of the urban youths. These figures indicate
that rural youths are less influenced by the religion
complex code.
Statistics also indicated that a huge retraction was
observed by rural traditional social structures namely the
extended family and clan compared to a growth in the
percentage of the nuclear family. The latter reached up to
87.3% compared to 85.7% in urban areas and 81.5% in refugee
camps.
The
average size of the rural family reached 6.1 members
compared to 6.5 and 7.3 in the city and refugee camp
respectively. Whereas, the total fertility rate in rural
areas reached 4.7% compared to 4.5% and 5.1% in cities and
refugee camps respectively. These figures reveal a growing
awareness of family planning additional to an extensive
trend toward ensuring the quality of life for the family
members.
As for
youths’ opinion regarding the benefits they achieved from
the programs and actions that targeted them, 4.7% rural
youths highlighted the new relations they could make,
whereas 4.5% and 3.9% of city and refugee camp youths
respectively expressed the same thing. This shows a strong
trend among rural youths toward openness, flexibility and
social partnerships against obscurity, isolation and
seclusion. 5.2% of rural youths, 4.1% of city youths and
3.3% of refugee camp youths indicated the importance of the
benefit achieved from improved scientific researching. As
per the development of the cultural aspect, 10.2% of rural
youths stressed this benefit compared to 9% and 11% of city
and refugee camp youths. These figures give a clear
indication of rural youths’ increasing interest in research
and culture.
The gap
in the living levels between the rural areas on one hand and
the urban areas and refugee camps decreased. While the
living level in rural areas reached 34%, it reached 31.5%
and 34% in cities and refugee camps respectively. This
reflects a growing interest by rural people to spend on
elements of a quality societal life. Additionally, it
highlights a substantial transformation in the rural social
awareness.
Statistics indicated that the percentage of domestic
violence particularly against women in rural areas is less
than of that in the city and refugee camps. 23% of rural
wives were physically battered compared to 23.2% and 24.1%
of wives in cities and refugee camps respectively. This
again demonstrates the increasing awareness and improved
perspective among rural people toward women’s role and
status.
The
percentage of optimism and certainty about the future among
rural youths reached 93% scoring a higher per cent compared
to that of the city and refugee camp. This high rate
reflects an advanced level of self- confidence as a source
of optimism and certainty about the future.
All the
above success indicators and transformations have been made
possible by the developmental interventions of PARC which
entwined with the real needs and aspirations of the various
social strata and sectors in rural areas.
Following
are some of PARC’s prominent contributions to social
transformation in rural areas:
Undermining and dismantling of the reactionary traditional
trends among the rural people, and enhancing communication,
interaction and openness to civic culture and democracy. As
such, we succeeded to generate democratic mobility in the
societal and cultural domains. The local and legislative
elections were an evident expression of a broad and mature
participation of rural people and an impressively advanced
involvement of rural women. 43 members of rural associations
affiliated with PARC won seats in the local council
elections. The training and awareness raising interventions
particularly in democracy have contributed to this
performance. Nearly 17000 rural families benefited from
PARC’s training programs in 2004.
Revitalizing and reinforcing the social solidarity trends
among different stakeholders in rural areas. Social
solidarity committees were firstly initiated by PARC; 420
committees having more than 3000 people in their membership.
This development has increased rural people’s
self-confidence in their capabilities. It also enhanced
individual’s connectedness and belongingness to the
collective. Additionally, it restrained familial and tribal
obscurity.
Reinforcing partnerships between various rural societal and
political spectrums on a democratic and professional basis
and in a broad developmental framework, which facilitated an
extensive participation in developmental projects and social
solidarity committees. The distribution of political
affiliation among the members of the social solidarity
committees is as follows: Fatah (36%); People’s Party (20%);
Islamists (6%); Independent (26%); others (12%). The new
partnerships established on basis other than family or party
contributed to decreasing tribal and political sectarianism
and reinforcing the social cohesion and solidarity
alternative despite of the unbending rejection by the
political parties represented in the former local authority.
The
continued capacity building process targeting farmers and
peasants from different strata and backgrounds contributed
in undermining the influence of the traditional and
primitive know how to be substituted by a modern scientific
knowledge through the implementation of a joint higher
education program (Masters and Diploma) in rural development
initiated by PARC and Al-Quds University additional to the
post graduate training program for agronomists. 750 newly
graduate agronomists, 3000 farmers and 300 students have
benefited from these programs. As such, education was
enhanced as a pivotal social value and as a prerequisite for
achieving sustainable development. Numerous organizations
emphasized education and placed it among their fundamental
priorities. Consequently, there was a rise in the enrollment
of the employees of the public sector and non-governmental
organizations in continued education.
The
farmers and rural people’s acquirement of further leadership
and organizational skills additional to communication,
networking and lobby and advocacy skills through the
implementation of continued initiatives and activities has
widely contributed to the enhancement of rural target
groups’ self-awareness and collective interests.
Additionally, it has activated rural people’s impetus toward
establishing frameworks to defend their rights and
interests. For example, 13 work committees to manage crisis
at emergencies were established in different districts. Very
recently, PARC successfully established a network of 13
developmental institutions and more than 600 community-
based organizations concerned with agriculture. Thus, a new
pattern of solidarity framework with a professional and
societal content has emerged beyond traditional inborn
solidarity approach.
PARC’s
programs targeting rural women have contributed to the
enhancement of women’s independency and self-confidence.
Additionally, they empowered and built the capacity of these
rural women as well as improved their status and
participatory role at family and society levels. PARC‘s
program led to the establishment of the largest rural
women’s network of more than 150 women’s clubs (centers)
which have more than 12000 women members. PARC also
succeeded to introduce new concepts to women’s role beyond
the prevalent accepted division of labor. The wide
participation of rural women in the local council elections
and the success of 23 members of the women’s clubs
candidates in these elections introduced a very outstanding
indicator of women’s status and role development. It is
worth noting that women employees formed 39% of PARC’s staff
in 2004.
The
revitalization of voluntary and communal work among tens of
thousands of rural people who were recruited and mobilized
by PARC to get involved in different actions and activities.
The contribution of the voluntary work in PARC’s work in
2004 reached 146% of the paid work. Also, PARC employees’
voluntary contribution constituted 20% of their paid work.
Consequently, voluntary work reinforced the tools and
mechanisms of survival and crisis assimilation by rural
people. Additionally, PARC’s programs consolidated feelings
of public responsibility and bias to impoverished social
strata additional to reinforcement of collective solidarity
united feeling.
The
activation of agriculture- related activities promoted by
various programs such as credit and saving (56% of credits
disbursed were to fund agricultural pertinent projects) has
developed the following results: expanding the strategic
productive space; maximizing and adding value to
agricultural work; undermining the social and cultural
passive perception of agrarian work; reframing the social
structures on basis other than family, clan and rural
locality’s basis.
The
promotion of civil society principles particularly
transparency, accountability, equal opportunities and
institutionalization. Additionally, enhancing positive and
enlightened values and behavior, which resulted in
undermining family and clan constrains. PARC’s programs have
also contributed to the emergence of new internal relations
in rural areas. PARC played a significant role in developing
and signing the codes of ethics between the member
organizations of the Palestinian Network of NGOs and the
Sham’a Network for Palestinian Agricultural Work
Organizations. These codes emphasized and adhered to the
civil society values and principles additional to
professionalism and bias toward the agricultural sector and
target population. They also emphasized the complementary
developmental role of the various Palestinian ministries and
NGOs additional to the exchange of information and
experience among them and the NGOs’ right to participate in
public and development related policies and decisions.
The
activation and consolidation of inputs and prerequisites for
the expansion of rural people’s cultural and know how
horizons through training courses and workshops. In 2003,
PARC conducted 144 training courses and 171 workshops for
the benefit of 6200 participants. This has had a positive
impact on restraining religious fanaticism and political
sectarianism. Additionally, PARC encouraged and revitalized
the values which glorify work particularly productive work,
and sustain individual and national dignity and pride which
regenerate free and dignified life.
Supporting and institutional building of community-based
organizations in rural areas on the basis of transparency
and democratic values. PARC supported 522 CBOs in 233 rural
locations in 2004. As such, PARC assisted in fortifying
these organizations against the hazards of obscurity,
religion extremism, corruption and sectarianism. This has
led to weak and or lack of activities in the agricultural
sector by religion related organizations.
PARC has
led a very prominent role in expanding and enhancing the
peaceful grassroots struggle. For example, PARC played a
central role in planning and implementing the various
national and democratic activities of the Palestinian
Campaign for Freedom and Peace particularly the historic
visit to the area by Ghandi grandson during which a number
of massive rallies in which more than 40000 people
participated were successfully organized. PARC’s special
contribution in the national struggle is its actions against
Israeli settlements particularly the production of the Iron
Wall film. The film has reflected PARC’s vision regarding
the fact that Israeli settlements and the wall are the most
salient factor for the increased hatred and violence in the
area. PARC succeeded to mobilize broader grassroots’ masses
to peacefully struggle for peace and freedom against Israeli
aggressive and antagonist policies.
