MATTIN

Summary

The Centre for Applied Production Development, Charles Shammas’s experimental “laboratory manufacturing venture” in the West Bank, set up after his arrival in 1976 (Al-Haq: A Global History of the First Palestinian Human Rights Organization, PDF p.85).

MATTIN, an Arabic acronym translating as the Centre for Applied Production Development, was set up with an experimental structure from a clothing factory Shammas inherited from the family business in Brooklyn (PDF p.85).
It produced silk lingerie for the export market to test the European Community’s declared commitment to Palestinian development and direct export from the occupied territories, and documented Israeli obstruction of export routes (PDF p.85).
Its approach to labour, management and workers’ rights sought to “work towards a collective, public interest, rather than private interest allying one group against another engaged in the same activity” (PDF p.85).
The work drew negative interest from leftist groupings, particularly those associated with the PFLP, and hostile interest from the Israeli authorities, and the factory was eventually forced to close; Shammas and colleagues continued project-based ventures involving Palestinian producers and the EU (PDF p.85-86).
MATTIN led to Shammas’s investment in information technology — computers to manage and document the whole production process — which carried into Al-Haq’s database work (PDF p.87).

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