I started to write that it's a pity that Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish's obituary in the Times yesterday was written by a Jew, but that sort of cheap prejudice defies Darwish's spirit.
The poet would expect that anyone with the door open on his soul could understand his work; and the poetry was very accessible. Still, the Times obit was flat.
As'ad AbuKhalil a professor of political science at the University of California/Stanislaus, has translated many of Darwish's poems at angry Arab– and AbuKhalil's comment on the Times is savage/brilliant:
The best obit I've seen of Darwish is here, by Saifedean Ammous. Some excerpts:
For me, the most striking and admirable thing about Darwish’s poetry is how it remained so resolutely humanist and universalist in its message. Never did Darwish succumb to cheap nationalism and chauvinism; never did he resort to vilification of his oppressors or the usual jingoism so common in political art and literature. Never did he forget that his oppressor too is human, just like him. The magnanimity, forgiveness and humanism he exhibited in his work remain the ultimate credit to this great author….
He was born in 1942 in Al-Birweh, Galilee, before the Zionist ethnic cleansing of Palestine that made him a refugee in Lebanon in 1948. His father decided to return his family to Palestine in 1949, risking murder by Zionist militias that had murdered countless Palestinians who attempted to “escape home”. Somehow, Darwish succeeded in returning, and thus lived the years of his youth as a second-class Israeli citizen. He would then leave to study in the Soviet Union in the early 1970’s, joining the growing Palestinian Diaspora in Europe. His political activism lead to Israel stripping him of his second-class citizenship, and thus returned him to the ranks of Palestinian refugees and the Diaspora. He would then live in Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon, getting to savor the experience of the homeless Palestinians wandering across the Arab World. Darwish witnessed the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon—one of the pivotal points of his life, his poetry and of Palestinian history—and left with the Palestinian resistance on the boats headed to Tunisia. From then on, he lived the quintessential Palestinian nomadic life; the whole world was home for this stateless nomad.
…Throughout ethnic cleansing, living as a second-class citizen, being placed under house arrest, having his second-class citizenship revoked, being chased and hounded from one exile to another, being bombed in almost each of these exiles and living under countless sieges, Darwish’s humanism never succumbed. One of his most popular poems, Rita, spoke of his love for a Jewish Israeli woman by that name; and about the absurdity of wars coming between lovers.
…Darwish’s last poem, published a few weeks before his death, tells the fascinating tale of falling into one hole with one’s enemy. Darwish explores the dynamic of enemies facing a common plight; how the past is remembered and yet forgotten when they cooperate to murder a snake; how instinct triumphs over ideology and how a common plight makes the concept of enmity absurd. In a pretty accurate description of the current plight of Palestinians and Israelis, and in a very ominous phrase indicating that Darwish felt his impending death, he concludes:
He said: Would you negotiate with me now?
I said: For what would you negotiate me now,
in this grave-hole?
He said: On my share and your share of this common grave
I said: What use is it?
Time has passed us,
Our fate is an exception to the rule
Here lie a murderer and the murdered, sleeping in one hole
And it remains for another poet to take this scenario to its end!
Related posts:
- Mahmoud Darwish Could Have Been an Israeli Poet
- Mahmoud Darwish: ‘The invader fears his memories…’
- Celebration of Darwish at Harvard
- Avnery: Darwish Didn’t Want to be a National Poet, But His People Needed That of Him
- Two ‘Times’ Employees ‘Loved and Cared Deeply About’ Darwish’s Work. Neither Was Assigned His Obit
{ 13 comments }
j,000,000's, we must constantly keep on our forebrain, face an existential threat from sunrise to sunset and the grey to black in between. to be fair they, j,000,000's, must be given every opportunity to express their subtle to explicit loathing of palestinians, all other arabs, muslims, christians, all, and non-servile God.
Perhaps, at least one lesson is that two foes unite to slay a common foe, represented by the snake along with them in the hole (they dug for themselves)? So, who, what is the snake that would threaten both Israel and Palestine? I mean there respective long term survival as a people?
And, where is this (former garden?) hole, and this snake?
there=their. sorry i was lost in how the image of the snake has been used throughout history by so many groups of humans
Long after the hole, an emotional story untold:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/06/judaism.secondworldwar
Well, Mr. Keating, what a good question. I started by answering it loudly and indignantly, that the place in Occupied Palestinian Territories and the snake is politics of Zionism.
But immediately it become more complicated than that – as soon as I remembered that Darwish never lost sight of humanity of both parties in the conflict.
So everywhere where there is a setting with murderer and the murdered, that is where "where" is. We can narrow it down to Middle East, I think. It can be killing fields with Arab children shot for sport by Israeli snipers, written about by Chris Hegge, or the aftermath of suicide bomb with the dead bodies of children carried by adult rescue workers like rag dolls, or it can be children succumbing to infection in Gaza City hospital right now, while van with medical supplies from Scottish Charity "Dove and Dolphin" is slowly rusting outside the Rafah border crossing steel gates. (with murdered being the faceless egiptian bureaucrat who will not sign any permits for "jail visit" in case his government were to loose the USA aid).
So the place of the hole in Darwish's vision is where murder takes place – it can be crowded street in Nilin where Palestinian boy is being taken to cementary and Border Police is firing live rounds at the crowds, or it can be an intray of a faceless apparatchik who demands permits for one day old children of Arabs whos villages find themselves sealed between the green border and apartheid wall with no water, no housing, no food and no money and no papers.
And the snake? If it is not Zionism, then what is it? And the answer is racism. If Palestinians were equals in the eyes of Israeli, the Nakba would not happen, the sewage from the Gaza ghetto would not run untreated to the sea, the obscenity of occupied territories would not be unfolding in front of our unbelieving eyes, and if Israeli were equals in the eyes of Palestinians, the suicide bombers would choose to detonate themselves in the crowds of Israeli conscripts not israeli civilians.
Racism, the denial of humanity of the opponent opens doors to the darkest fissures of our soul, as spoken with courage by "Breaking the Silence" IDF soldiers.
And the most scary thought of them all is, that by reading comments in Jerusalem Post or in Haaretz, you can hear the hiss of the nazi snake slowly uncoiling itself………
.
Letting a zionist like Bronner write Darwish's obituary is typical of the cultural insensitivity of the Times. During the Times's electrifying coverage of the Tiananmen Square rebellion in 1989, reporter Nicholas Kristof was backed up by his Chinese wife, Sheryl Wu-Dunn. But no such courtesy is extended to the beleaguered Palestinians, who are assumed by the Times to be a mere appendage of the Israelis.
Is the Old Grey Lady becoming the dying General Motors of the Lamestream Media? Today, Bloomberg nearly implies that the Sulzbuggers are virtually miking it dry before dumping the looted shell:
————
Aug. 12 (Bloomberg) — New York Times Co. faces increased financial pressure to cut its dividend as credit quality deteriorates amid record advertising declines.
Bondholders are paying for the decision last year by the Sulzberger family-controlled board to raise the quarterly dividend 31 percent to 23 cents a share. Moody's Investors Service says one way for New York Times to save its rating, a step above junk and in danger of being cut, would be to reduce the dividend costing $132 million a year.
Shareholders also are losing out with a 43 percent drop in the stock since March 2007, when the New York-based company's board raised the dividend the most in a decade to appease investors.
Credit-default swaps are trading as if the company already was rated junk, according to data from Moody's credit strategy group.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aLXAkzjK.H9w&refer=home
————
Crrrikey … if the Slimes goes bust, where will the weddings of investment bankers to society doyennes be published? The mind reels.
Given its pretensions, the dying Slimes at least deserves the francophone appellation of "junque journalism" (pronounced "HOON-kay" by your Guatemalan gardener, LOL!).
I was rather surprised in his critique of the Bronner obit, Abu Khalil didn't notice that Bronner wrote "Darwish SAID he supported a two state solution." What kind of locution is that? Don't you usually trust that if someone says they support a 2 state solution that they DO in fact support it? Then you shouldn't need to say that they SAY they support it.
I thought that was cheapshot journalism.
I don't know Arabic, but I do know enough about it to know that poetry can be written in a classical Arabic style or a more vernacular, idiomatic style. I don't think AbuKhalil's criticism of that aspect of Bronner's obit was valid regarding Darwish's style.
classical Arabic style or a more vernacular
Richard, I vividly remember that the use of vernacular expressions–spoken language–was regarded a no-no in your own writing exercises at school. Ironically at the same time that people like Walt whitman were studied.
Can you give me a couple of US poets from the same time frame as Darwish that use a "classical style" and what exactly would that be?
Would you call Walt Whitman a writer of the "classical style" vs the "vernacular" based on the time he lived in? What is classical, classicist? What about Allan Ginsberg, another of my special friends? "Classical" or more "vernacular".
I can understand Abu Khalil's critique.
Hmm?? sorry, no time to hang around here actually.
But your above should be our school times.
Is the implication of "classic" the eternally surviving elated voice versus the "minor" not so important voice of "the people" that will soon be forgotten? Is this a canon story? "Classical" part of the canon, not classical/"vernacular" of minor quality outside of it?
Just asking …
Hmmm? I reread it.
I think this made me angry: his family: sneaked back across the border into Israel
ETYMOLOGY:
Probably akin to Middle English sniken, to creep, from Old English sncan.
Maybe I feel the old devil/evil symbolism of the snake lurking behind the surface.
Eva Smagacz, thank you–I think you know the snake quite well.
It definitely is very frustrating to see and hear the trivial aspects of scripture and religious imprinting overshadowing the ethical and expansive.
In Judaism there is a debate about whether the model of Joshua subduing the Canaanites supercedes the instructions to obey the commandments, "IF you keep my commandments, I will give you the rain in its time.."
Or, to what extent "love thy neighbor as thyself" applies. To one's sect, to all of Jewry, to all of one's physical neighbors, to all of the planet?
Among the left, I also wonder about the extent of universalism applied. It often seems to be extend to all, except Jews (you know, elite, wealthy – of course false as are all generalizations).
I wonder about the morality of those that criticize Jews', Israeli's sympathies with victims of persecution in Darfur, Bosnia, etc. Those sympathies cut accross ethnic bonds. Towards Bosnians the sympathies included sympathy for Muslims, civilians (even after acknowledgement that there were Islamic expansionists among the Albanian cadre). In Darfur, the sympathies include multiple ethnicities.
God forbid the "trivial" aspects of scripture and religious imprinting should overshadow the ethical and expansive.
Richard, give us some examples of what you mean by trivial. Thanks, buddy.
RE: "In Judaism there is a debate about whether the model of Joshua subduing the Canaanites supercedes the instructions to obey the commandments, "IF you keep my commandments, I will give you the rain in its time.."
Richard, what exactly did the Canaanites do to deserve Joshua and his army?
RE: "Or, to what extent "love thy neighbor as thyself" applies. To one's sect, to all of Jewry, to all of one's physical neighbors, to all of the planet?"
Yes indeedy. Christ the Jew had one answer. Those Jews against him, another. Saul (Paul) brought the issue to non-Jews, making it a universal question. Probably still some Canaanites around back then too?
RE: "Among the left, I also wonder about the extent of universalism applied. It often seems to be extend to all, except Jews (you know, elite, wealthy – of course false as are all generalizations)."
Are Palestinians part of the universe?
RE: "I wonder about the morality of those that criticize Jews', Israeli's sympathies with victims of persecution in Darfur, Bosnia, etc. Those sympathies cut accross ethnic bonds. Towards Bosnians the sympathies included sympathy for Muslims, civilians (even after acknowledgement that there were Islamic expansionists among the Albanian cadre). In Darfur, the sympathies include multiple ethnicities."
Ever wonder about the morality of those who never voice any sympathy for the Palestinians? How black, how white the different hats in Bosnia, Darfur, etc? Sorry, seems a bit shady.
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