Mahmoud Darwish

Literature and the Politics of Palestinian Identity

Muna Abu Eid

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781786720139
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politique et relations internationales
• Subtopic: Nationalisme et patriotisme

Mahmoud Darwish is the poet laureate of the Palestinian national struggle. His poems resonate across the entire Arab world and, more than any other single figure perhaps since the death of Yasser Arafat, he represents a unifying figurehead for Palestinian national aspirations. In this, the first comprehensive biography of Darwish in English, Muna Abu Eid examines the poet's intellectual status on two fronts - both national and public - and offers a critical assessment of Darwish's national and political life. Based on Darwish's own writings and interviews with people who worked with him and situating Darwish's poetry within the wider context of Palestinian struggles inside Israel, this book explores the influence of Darwish's life and work in the Palestinian territories and in the diaspora: from the destruction of his Galilee village and displacement of his family during the 1948 Nakba; to his return and 'infiltration' back into the homeland and the struggle for survival inside Israel; to his internal and external exiles in Haifa, Moscow, Cairo, Beirut, Tunisia, Paris and even Ramallah.

CHAPTER 1

ON THE ROLE OF THE INTELLECTUAL

We have no need of legends, but only to explain the relationship between the moon and the menstrual cycle, between the sun and the seasons, and give magic to speak in long winter's nights, and train beasts to obey the melody.¹

Intellectuals are generally perceived as a major factor in the development of both territorial and ethnic nationalism. Not only because they are seen as being directly responsible for the reconstruction of traditions and myths that are needed for the creation of nationalism, but also because they are perceived as central players in any cultural and ethnic development.

According to Benedict Anderson, the activity of intellectuals was a central factor in the formation of the European nations in the nineteenth century. This period in Europe was also a golden age of folklorists, lexicographers, grammarians, philologists, and litterateurs. Anderson attributes this cultural awakening to the intellectuals. Anderson writes:

The nineteenth century was, in Europe and its immediate peripheries, a golden age of vernacularizing lexicographers, grammarians, philologists, and litterateurs. The energetic activities of these professional intellectuals were central to the shaping of nineteenth-century European nationalisms.²

In the Arabic-speaking countries as well, ‘Maronites and Copts, many of them products of Beirut's American College (founded in 1866) and the Jesuit College of St Joseph (founded in 1875) were major contributors to the revival of classical Arabic and the spread of Arab nationalism.’³ Additional scholars support Anderson's approach. According to Shimon Shamir, the Arab revival movement, whose central goal was to cultivate the Arabic language through the revival of hidden treasures of the past and its renewal and adaptation to the demands of the modern age, was one of the primary causes of the gradual cultivation of Arab national consciousness. This awakening was manifested in the nineteenth century in the institutions founded by Christian missionaries – Protestant and Catholic alike – in Syria and Lebanon.⁴

Dahan and Wasserman write, in the introduction to the anthology To Invent a Nation, that in order to establish an official national culture Zionism strove to create a new national culture that was disconnected from the old, diasporic, Jewish culture. Moreover, Zionism tried to create a sense of national continuity of the Jewish people in Palestine – in other words, to invent a ‘New Jew’ who is also a native of the ancient land. Dahan and Wasserman write:

Zionism is a fascinating example of the thesis of the invention of nationalism. Without the invention of tradition it would have been impossible to take such disparate groups of human beings, from different countries and cultures, with so little in common, and to create a political and cultural collective that functions governmentally and militarily and grants its members such strong feelings of belonging and identity. How – without resorting to an abundance of ex nihilo inventions – could one create a single nation from a public that has no common language, no common territory for generations, and no common history?⁵

Poets in national movements fill various functions: writing anthems, documenting historical events, reconstructing or inventing traditions. At times they extol their leaders, and at other times they observe from the side, and even express criticism of the government and initiate protest movements.

The Israeli literary scholar Aharon Komem wrote about the connection between two poets and two political leaders in the Zionist movement: poet Ḥayim Naḥman Bialik with the early Zionist thinker and proponent of cultural Zionism, Aḥad Ha‘am; and Hebrew/Israeli poet Natan Alterman with the first prime minister of Israel, David Ben-Gurion. According to Komem, the flag of Zionist nationalism was carried by these two poets – Bialik at the beginning of the Zionist national awakening, and Alterman, after the movement came to fruition.⁶ Aside from a personal connection with national leaders, the two poets stood out in relation to their contemporary Hebrew poets in that they devoted their poetry to historical and national events. Komem writes:

Neither of them could stand by and watch the difficult burdens of the people in the twentieth century. Bialik did some encouraging but mostly admonished; Alterman primarily sympathized and supported. Both found themselves connected to the stormy events, as well as to the leaders, Aḥad Ha‘am and Ben-Gurion.⁷

In an article entitled ‘History according to Alterman’, Ziva Shamir writes:

Bialik, in his ‘canonical’ and ‘popular’ poems, in his stories and adapted legends, faithfully expressed the spirit of the nation; he collected national-spiritual assets, arranged and compiled them, and put his time and energy into public events. Contrary to Bialik, Alterman was not so sociable, and did not give interviews in the press. Yet the public, which considered him to be a ‘national poet,’ understood that he was unparalleled in the monumental enterprise that he took on his shoulders, as he followed the fateful events of the people and the State with persistence, insight, and talent, and illuminated them from surprising angles. At the time of their publication, his columns played an immense didactic role, and in hindsight they have been acknowledged as having great documentary value […] Today one can state in no uncertain terms that no oeuvre documents the days of the struggle for independence of Israel and the first years of the state, in all its colors and facets, like the work of Alterman.⁸

Poets are often torn between their personal world and their national obligations. About this, Bialik wrote: ‘In searching for your penny I lost my pound.’⁹ The people are generally critical towards their ‘prophet’-critics, but to Bialik they granted a love that he could not endure, and therefore he had to declare a complete separation between himself and his public. Paradoxically, in Bialik's time, writes Komem, the literary mainstream was not in line with the national movement. In literature and poetry, personal forces prevailed: love, nature, childhood, and death had pride of place. In other words, there was no mobilization of the individual on behalf of the community. Throughout his lifetime, Bialik thus sought out the personal, intimate core that was ‘his own’. ‘Bialik discovered that the wishful title “national poet” was not a compliment, but a burden too hard to bear’, wrote Komem, adding:

Bialik betrayed his destiny, was swept away with the convoys, abandoned his oasis and forest […] Bialik is aware of the price he paid for public engagement, and he portrays this, in all its tragedy, in some of his most important poems.¹⁰

Poets not only immortalize and support national leaders, document historical and national processes, or engage in personal and national self-criticism; sometimes they lead protest movements against the occupier; and sometimes they betray their role or destiny and become a divisive factor in national politics.

The Bengali-Indian national poet Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) was the greatest poet of the Indian national movement. He ‘captured the depth of the nation's feelings,’ writes Pradeep Kumar Gan, scholar of Indian culture.¹¹ His invaluable literary corpus and national spirit breathed into both the leadership and the masses the spirit of struggle against British colonialism and for liberty, freedom, and independence. Tagore contributed to the consolidation of national identity and national unity. He rejected the idea of the ethnic partition of India. Tagore not only wrote articles, but also organized meetings and protest marches, uniting the people against British colonialism and on behalf of independence and freedom. In 1912 he wrote a poem whose text would become India's national anthem after India attained independence in 1945.¹²

Thus we see that there is a wide array of relationships that can exist between poets and national movements. Not only do poets document national and historical events in their poems (as did Bialik, Alterman, and Mahmoud Darwish), but more than that: sometimes they take an active part in politics – signing petitions or organizing meetings and protest marches (as did Tagore and Alterman). On the one hand, poets can contribute to unity among the people and to the formation of a cultural and national identity (as we will see in what follows in Darwish's case), and on the other hand they can take a stance that supports one side in an intra-national struggle and turns into a divisive factor (as we see below in the case of Alterman).¹³

Edward Said (1935–2003) conceives of the ideal intellectual as exiled and marginal, and as the author of a language that tries to speak the truth to power. For this reason the ideal Intellectual does not flatter the authorities, nor does he look for easy or ready-made solutions. His raison d'être is ‘to represent all those people and issues that are routinely forgotten or swept under the rug’.¹⁴

In an article entitled ‘Natan Alterman in the days of the Lavon Affair’, literature scholar Dan La'or writes:

At first he made many attempts to strengthen Ben-Gurion's position in the party and among the public, and finally he sided in practice with the opinion of the minority in Mapai, participated in the founding of the Israeli Workers’ List [Rafi], and even played an active role in this party […] In this period, Alterman's moral sympathy with Ben-Gurion reached its height: time and time again, Alterman praised Ben-Gurion's personality, supported his line, and also sided with the ‘youth’ [of the party: Moshe Dayan, Shimon Peres, and Aba Eben], who in this period were [Ben-Gurion's] primary political supporters. At the same time there developed an open rivalry between him and the Land of Israel Workers’ Party [Mapai], and also between him and the newspaper Davar, to which he belonged for more than a generation. It is not surprising that at the end of the affair, Alterman found himself in a new party, Rafi, and eventually also at a new newspaper: Maariv. The affair also marked a turning point in Alterman's political lifestyle – from an author who observed and consistently reacted to public life in Israel, Alterman transformed into a ‘businessman’ who was actively involved in party life, and who tried to advance his own political agenda through actual political activity – a step that would gather momentum after the Six Day War. The Lavon Affair also marked the end of Alterman's role as a writer who expressed the national consensus.¹⁵

In contrast to Alterman, Darwish was not involved in any specific political struggles – whether in Maki (the Israeli Communist Party), in Rakaḥ (the New Communist List, which split off from Maki in 1965), or in the PLO. Arafat often cited Darwish's name in order to keep opposition members out of key positions, as in the case of the 1984 elections for the Union of Palestinian Writers and Journalists. In these elections, Darwish ran against the caricaturist Nājī al-‘Alī and won. In those days of rupture within the PLO, only a few people had the trust of a majority of the members of the Writers’ Union. First and foremost of these was Darwish. His agreement to his candidacy for the presidency of the Palestinian Writers' Union (in April 1984) thus stemmed not from the desire to take part in the deep internal political polarization that had overtaken the PLO, but from fear for the unity and political independence of the organization – so that it would not become a tool in the hands of the rejectionist front, led by Syria and Libya.¹⁶

Throughout more than 30 years of activity in the PLO, Darwish wrote more words of criticism than of praise of its leader – both in prose and in poetry – despite the amity and admiration that Arafat felt for Darwish throughout.¹⁷

Aharon Kmem mentions no less than six poems written by Natan Alterman specifically in praise of Ben-Gurion, in addition to five prose writings that he dedicated to him.¹⁸ ‘The love and thanks preserved for you in the heart of the people from now and until eternity will not be disrupted or destroyed, not by friends and not by enemies, and not by you yourself’, wrote Alterman to Ben-Gurion on the latter's 75th birthday.¹⁹ Komem does not ask whether or not Alterman also wrote criticism of Ben-Gurion. Whatever the case may be, this was a much greater affinity than that between Darwish and Arafat, and may be why some scholars consider Alterman to be Ben-Gurion's court poet. It could also be that this was more than a case of the poet ‘going blindly after the statesman’. Alterman's entrance into party politics – from Rafi (the Israel Workers' List, 1965–1968), whose platform he helped write, to the movement for Greater Israel (established in 1967), of which he was one of the founders – could have been the kind of lust for power Michel Foucault (1926–1984) experienced after the 1968 student demonstrations in France.²⁰ We do not find such a lust for power in Darwish's case.

In comparison with Alterman, Darwish wrote very little in praise of his leader. Moreover, Darwish never wrote clear-cut panegyrics. Even in the moments of crisis and trauma surrounding Arafat's death, Darwish did not abandon his judgement and his critical sense as an intellectual. In 1983, Darwish wrote in praise of Arafat, an article entitled ‘Yasir Arafat and the sea’ (Yasir Arafat wa-l-baḥr) and the long poem ‘In Praise of the High Shadow’ (Madīḥ al-Ẓil al-‘Ālī, 1983). After Arafat's death on November 11, 2004, Darwish wrote two additional pieces, ‘He took us by surprise by not surprising us’ (Fāja'anā bi-annahu lam yufaji'nā), followed by ‘My sorrow for him was late in coming’ (Ta'akhkhara ḥuznī ‘alayhi kathīrā). Although these are elegiac texts, Darwish did not spare his criticism of Arafat.

Darwish dedicated almost his entire life's work, and all of his writing – poetry and prose – to the Palestinian cause. Like Ghassān Kanafānī, born on April 9, 1936 in Acre, Darwish experienced the Nakba in his childhood. He not only experienced this, but witnessed and observed the traumatic process his people had gone through since the Nakba. Darwish was an intellectual with a national vision, who dedicated all of his energy to his people's nation-building (as argued below in Chapter 3).

As discussed in the following chapters, Darwish strove to speak truth to power, not first and formost to Israeli authorities and Zionist colonialism. His goal was to prevent those who had colonized the land from ‘colonizing memory’ (muḥāwalat istīṭān al-dhākira) as well, i.e., to expose the enemy lies, and to prevent him fr...