Monday, August 18, 2008

The poetics of Palestinian resistance


As'ad AbuKhalil, The Electronic Intifada, 18 August 2008

".....His next stage in life was a reflection of the true nature and cruelty of Zionism. The state of Israel, with its military superiority against Arab states, was threatened by the poems of Darwish, just as it is still threatened by the pebbles and stones of Palestinian youngsters. At a time when the entire Arab population of Israel -- the original inhabitants of the lands, or those who were not kicked out from their homes -- was put under military rule, the state of Israel put this young Palestinian poet under house arrest. His poetry was banned and references to Palestinian attachment to the land were illegal in the settler-colonial state that is Israel. But Darwish would not be muzzled. His standing among the category of what was called "the poets of the occupied territories" (the Palestinian writer Ghassan Kanafani may have been the first one to coin that term and to study that literary phenomenon) only grew and his poetry traveled across the borders. People began circulating his poems and Arabic newspapers avidly published them and people felt that a new energy was sweeping the Arab population in Israel. Imagine a state that puts a young poet under house arrest, and orders him to show up at the police station to report on his ... poetry. This is indeed the true nature of Zionism that remains hidden from American media coverage of the Middle East......

He used language in a way that was unique to him. But his courageous literary stances and creativity were not always matched by political courage. In fact, he was a prisoner of his relationship with the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat over the years. He wrote speeches for him (including that speech by Arafat at the UN in 1974 although it did not read well in the English translation because it was drafted by Darwish poetically) and the empty Palestinian "declaration of independence" in 1988. Darwish denied that he wrote "In Praise of the High Shadow" for Arafat, although he did not hide his admiration for Arafat. He did break with Arafat after Oslo, when he resigned from the Executive Committee of the PLO. Arafat, always the vindictive man, punished him mercilessly and cut off all funding to him. This later served to soften Darwish's criticism of Oslo.

Darwish grew more radical when he relocated to Ramallah after Oslo at the invitation of Arafat. He lived under yet another Israeli siege, and wrote another brilliant poem, called "State of Siege." He became more distrustful of Israel which he accused of only wanting to deal with Arabs through fighter jets and tanks. He wondered in an an interview on a Lebanese TV station in 2002 whether it is possible to have peace with a state that failed after 60 years to make peace with its "Arab" citizens. But he urged hope among the Palestinians: he talked about "raising hope." He harbored no illusions about Arab governments -- all Arab governments. He wrote in that famous poem "In Praise of the High Shdadow" that Arab rulers only know speech-making and ... fleeing......"

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