IT was never Farah Saleh’s intent to spread misinformation.
As a dancer and artist, her work – however political – is usually seen within context.
Yet there is an understandable breathlessness to coverage of issues relating to Palestine at present.
It was that eagerness for a fresh news line that resulted in Saleh’s fictional letter of apology from the University of Edinburgh to the people of Palestine gaining traction online (even going on to become the subject of a Reuters fact check).
Earlier this month, the 38-year-old dancer, choreographer and scholar decided to interrogate how Edinburgh University has interacted historically with her own Palestinian identity.
Central to that story is former prime minister Arthur James Balfour, who was the university’s longest-serving chancellor.
It was a position he occupied in 1917, when he simultaneously served as foreign secretary and issued the Balfour Declaration – a public statement which said Britain favoured the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine.
The declaration resulted in the British facilitating the immigration of European Jews into Palestine and thus legitimised Zionist calls for the creation of a homeland.
Saleh used it as a jumping off point for a futuristic performance lecture, which took place earlier this month at the university itself.
Set in 2043, the audience were invited to share their reflections on a fictitious public apology from the University of Edinburgh to the Palestinian people supposedly penned in 2023.
The letter – a somewhat convincing-looking document complete with university letterhead – shows university bosses confronting the institution’s colonial legacy in Palestine, apologising for Balfour’s role and endorsing a democratic one-state solution.
However, just a week after the performance in Edinburgh, Saleh’s letter began circulating online as an apparently bona fide document. The university was forced to confirm that it was not an official statement.
“The letter was about the future of Palestine and what it could look like,” she told The Sunday National.
“Being set 20 years in the future, I wanted it to confront the legacy of the university now and allow us to evaluate this fictional apology.
“It’s very hopeful in a dark moment of our history because we need to articulate hopeful futures for Palestine. It’s essential.”
Saleh first came to Edinburgh in 2015 after being invited by David Greig, artistic director of The Lyceum, to perform at the Fringe.
After deciding to move to Scotland permanently, she’s carved out a career and a life thousands of miles from her homeland of Palestine.
Yet the current inflammation of the conflict between Israel and Hamas, and the sight of millions of innocent civilians being caught up in the fighting in Gaza, has left Saleh considering how the conflict inevitably impacts all Palestinians no matter where they live.
“It makes you reflect on your very existence,” said Saleh.
“Because it’s really a war on the existence of the Palestinian individual.
“It makes you question your purpose in life. You start asking yourself how you can contribute, how you can reaffirm your existence and mark your resistance to what’s happening.
“But doing that takes time because it’s such a huge shock. It’s traumatic.”
Saleh was born in a refugee camp in Syria. She spent her childhood between Syria, Jordan and the West Bank of Palestine before moving to Italy to go to university.
As such, the current conflict inevitably adds to the weight of previous traumas endured by her and her family.
“Like all Palestinians, my life had already been changed by conflicts I wasn’t even able to remember,” she said. “My uncle was murdered. My mother’s family had their home destroyed. My mother even spent her 16th birthday in prison for flyering.
“Then I lived through the second Intifada in Palestine, with all the bombs, curfews and arrests it brought with it. I lost friends at school.
“So, even now living in Scotland where I feel safe, it’s like being forced to relive your own trauma.”
The Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign was started in 2000 in response to the second Intifada.
In the years since, it has unceasingly drawn attention to the plight of Palestinians, even at times when it has been far from the global news agenda.
As a result, said Saleh, structures were already in place to assist in the mobilisation of protesters demanding a ceasefire.
“Even before this recent conflict, I was regularly seeing representatives from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign on the streets of Glasgow and Edinburgh,” she said.
“They already had a network, a way of functioning, and Scottish people already had some awareness.
“Having that already in place really helped when I started to feel as if I needed to mobilise.
“It’s really empowering to be with other people on the streets, if only for my mental health. Whether it does anything other than put a little bit of pressure on politicians, I don’t know.
“But it helped me get to the point where I wanted to create again, to mobilise through art and dance.”
Saleh’s mobilisation had the unintended consequence of leading people to believe that the university had apologised.
But the fact people could actually imagine that reality is a testament to the power of art by Palestinians such as Saleh.
Palestine shouldn’t be a country whose people, culture and history are only discussed with a tragic tone, she said.
Indeed, in times of hardship, perhaps those positive visions of the future become more necessary than ever.
