Friday, August 15, 2008

The Voice of Mahmoud Darwish

2008-08-15
The Voice of Mahmoud Darwish
Wherever Mahmoud Darwish was, words in his hands were a magic lamp that set free the genie of the Arabic language. He knew the heart of the Palestinians. He knew that they had only one wish for the genie, one yearning request of their language – ‘home’, says Ibtisam Barakat.


COLUMBIA, Missouri – On Saturday August 9th in the afternoon, I was getting ready to give a talk about Palestinian olive trees to a gathering of authors and thinkers at Keystone College in Pennsylvania. For the title of the presentation, I cracked the word olive in two, and turned it into O’ Live! But death mocked me.

Shortly before I left my room for the talk, the phone rang. It was my friend, musician Saed Muhssin, calling me from San Francisco. His voice was deep like a valley, barely climbing up to speak: “Have you heard?” he asked. “This is hard news,” he warned. “Mahmoud Darwish died today.”

My mind cried. My heart ached with all of the unhealed Palestinian losses that are recalled with each new loss—losses Darwish made sure to record in his poetry. I belong there. I have many memories, Darwish wrote. Memories that he recorded in at least 30 books of poetry and prose, translated into at least 20 languages.

He was born in 1941, and published his first book of poetry before he turned 20 years old. For over four decades, Palestinian and Arab poets were inspired by him, referred to him, imitated him, debated over his poetry.

Saed and I belong to Generation M, an identity we invented several years ago. I grew up on the West Bank under Israeli occupation, Saed as an Israeli citizen. Both of us Palestinian, we had completely different lives. But underneath, we discovered we shared a similar deprivation, a hunger for freedom, for a more beautiful world. We filled our hunger with the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish, and we called ourselves Generation M.

In the absence of home, Darwish turned language into a spacious tent—for us and for all who needed a home. He turned yearning into a meeting place. Palestinians meet our mothers through his mother. Darwish gave her to us when he wailed:

I yearn for the bread my mother bakes

I ache for my mother’s coffee.

And her touch.

He used the Arabic word ahennu for yearn, which means a yearning filled with affection. It’s a word that wakes up a thousand feelings at once, with the hint of a desperate impatience.

In 1982, he wrote lasta wahdaka, you are not alone, for Arafat when the Palestinians were driven out of Beirut. Darwish said it also to everyone on Earth, anyone who was forced out into exile for the nth time.

And his question where are birds to fly after the last sky? made me invent an endless number of new skies, stacked like mattresses for the refugees of Earth.

Darwish, the name in Arabic meaning a pure, spiritual wandering man, was precisely that for us. He moved between skies and across borders—between Palestine, Israel, Russia, France, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and other countries. Wherever he was, words in his hands were a magic lamp that set free the genie of the Arabic language. He knew the heart of the Palestinians. He knew that they had only one wish for the genie, one yearning request of their language – “home.”

As seen in his language and poetry, Darwish had a vision and passion for achieving justice. He helped in writing Arafat’s famous address to the United National General Assembly in 1974 in which Arafat pleaded with the world by repeating three times La tusqeto al-ghusna al-akhdar min yadee, don’t let the green branch fall from my hands.

In 1988, Darwish drafted the Palestinian declaration of independence in which he said that peace is achievable with a two-state solution—one Palestinian, one Jewish. He wrote that peace is possible “on the land of love and peace.”

Inspired by the vision of reconciliation, he emphasised that Palestine would be a society that thrives on human rights, equality, democracy, representation, social responsibility, and complete respect for all, especially women and people of different faiths.

At one of Darwish's last performances, in July 2008, the audience in Ramallah received him as though they suspected that might be the last time they would see him. They stood up like the fragrant spruce trees he often plants in his poetry. Think of Others, he told them.

As you prepare your breakfast – think of others. Don’t forget to feed the pigeons. As you conduct your wars – think of others. Don’t forget those who want peace. As you pay your water bill – think of others. Think of those who only have clouds to drink from. As you go home, your own home – think of others – don’t forget those who live in tents. As you sleep and count the planets, think of others – there are people who have no place to sleep. As you liberate yourself with metaphors think of others – those who have lost their right to speak. And as you think of distant others – think of yourself and say “I wish I were a candle in the darkness.”

Speaking openly about death, he had confessed to Al-Hayat Arabic newspaper: “I am no longer afraid of death. I used to be afraid of it. But now I only fear the death of my ability to write and my ability to taste life.”

Continuing to wrestle with his art, he wrote that “I thought poetry could change everything, could change history and could humanise… Now I think that poetry changes only the poet.”

Dear Mahmoud Darwish, your poetry changed me.

Ibtisam Barakat is the author of Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007). She has taught language ethics at Stephens College, and is the founder of Write Your Life seminars. Ibtisam can be reached at www.ibtisambarakat.com. This article was written for the Common Ground News Service and can be accessed at GCNews.

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Palestinians bury poet Darwish in West Bank

Palestinians bury poet Darwish in West Bank

Friday, 08.15.2008, 11:38am

Palestinians bade an emotional farewell on Wednesday to their national poet Mahmoud Darwish, who was laid to rest on a hilltop overlooking the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Darwish died Saturday in Houston at age 67 after complications from open-heart surgery.

He was the first Palestinian to receive a state funeral since Yasser Arafat in 2004.

Darwish's body was flown Wednesday from Jordan to Ramallah, where Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas received the flag-draped coffin.

Widely revered for giving voice to the Palestinians’ desire for independent statehood and their longing for the lands they lost to Israel, Darwish was seen off at his funeral by tens of thousands of political and cultural elite as well as ordinary Palestinians, who moved in a procession from a formal honor guard in the presidential compound to jostling crowds around his hillside gravesite.

"He was the master of the word and wisdom, the symbol who expressed our national feeling, our human constitution, our declaration of independence," said Abbas in a speech.

Darwish was born in the village of Birweh, which was razed in the wake of the 1948 Israeli-Arab war.

He spent years in exile in Cairo, Beirut, Paris and the US after being stripped of his Israeli-Arab citizenship for being active in the Israeli Communist Party and the Palestine Liberation Organization as a young man.

He returned to Palestine when Israel gave him permission in the late 1990s — even then only to the occupied West Bank and Gaza.

Darwish famously penned Arafat's speech to the United Nations in 1974 when the late Palestinian leader said, "I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom fighter's gun. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand."

He also wrote the largely symbolic 1988 Palestinian Declaration of Independence.

His work resonated across political and generational lines for his ability to express the Palestinian sense of loss, anger and defiance.

In later years, he became increasingly frustrated at the in-fighting between rival Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas. Last year he condemned the explosion of violence between the two groups in Gaza as "a public attempt at suicide in the streets."


IN MEMORIAM


I Come From There



I come from there and I have memories

Born as mortals are, I have a mother

And a house with many windows,

I have brothers, friends,

And a prison cell with a cold window.

Mine is the wave, snatched by sea-gulls,

I have my own view,

And an extra blade of grass.

Mine is the moon at the far edge of the words,

And the bounty of birds,

And the immortal olive tree.

I walked this land before the swords

Turned its living body into a laden table.



I come from there. I render the sky unto her mother

When the sky weeps for her mother.

And I weep to make myself known

To a returning cloud.

I learnt all the words worthy of the court of blood

So that I could break the rule.

I learnt all the words and broke them up

To make a single word: Homeland.....

My Mother

I long for my mother's bread

My mother's coffee

Her touch

Childhood memories grow up in me

Day after day

I must be worth my life

At the hour of my death

Worth the tears of my mother.


And if I come back one day

Take me as a veil to your eyelashes

Cover my bones with the grass

Blessed by your footsteps

Bind us together

With a lock of your hair

With a thread that trails from the back of your dress

I might become immortal

Become a God

If I touch the depths of your heart.


If I come back

Use me as wood to feed your fire

As the clothesline on the roof of your house

Without your blessing

I am too weak to stand.


I am old

Give me back the star maps of childhood

So that I

Along with the swallows

Can chart the path

Back to your waiting nest.

from: http://www.arabamericannews.com/news/index.php?mod=article&cat=Palestine&article=1363&page_order=1&act=print

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Palestinian poet and icon Darwish buried

* (en) Israel LocationImage via Wikipedia

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-fg-darwish14-2008aug14,0,5814485.story
From the Los Angeles Times

Palestinian poet and icon Darwish buried

More than 5,000 mourners attend the funeral in the West Bank for the poet revered for mirroring the Palestinian national experience.
By Ashraf Khalil
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

August 14, 2008

RAMALLAH, WEST BANK — During the six years he spent in an Israeli prison, Haidar Jaradat read one poem over and over: "My Mother," by Mahmoud Darwish.

"I long for my mother's bread," it begins. "My mother's coffee/Her touch."

"It brought me comfort and I thought about it a lot," said Jaradat, who was 16 when he was imprisoned by the Israelis over what he terms "a security issue."

Jaradat, now 24, recalled the solace Darwish's words had offered him as he waited Wednesday outside Ramallah's Palace of Culture for the coffin bearing the body of the Palestinian icon.

Amid pomp and circumstance just short of Yasser Arafat's 2004 state funeral, more than 5,000 mourners braved the midday August heat here to pay their respects to Darwish, the revered poet who died Saturday in Houston at age 67 following complications from open heart surgery.

Darwish's body was flown Wednesday from Jordan to Ramallah, where Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas received the flag-draped coffin.

"He was the master of the word and wisdom, the symbol who expressed our national feeling, our human constitution, our declaration of independence," Abbas said in a speech.

After eulogies at the Palestinian Authority's headquarters, a procession of thousands moved across town to the Palace of Culture, where thousands more waited near Darwish's burial plot.

"We loved him. He was a poet and true Palestinian patriot," said Abdel Rahman Zabin, a 50-year-old laborer.

Zabin said he and many other Palestinians identified so strongly with Darwish because the poet's life experiences, which he wrote about directly, mirrored much of the hardships of his people. His work resonated across political and generational lines for his ability to express the Palestinian sense of loss, anger and defiance.

Darwish's family fled their home village when Israel was founded in 1948, then later returned and settled as part of the Arab minority in the new Jewish state. His poem "Identity Card" recounted the frustrations of that minority status.

A communist activist in his youth, Darwish was repeatedly imprisoned by Israel before leaving the country in 1970.

His exile included time in Beirut, where he lived through the 1982 Israeli siege of the Lebanese capital -- an experience that inspired him to write "Ode to Beirut."

"He lived the whole Palestinian life from 1948 until now," Zabin said.

The crowd that flocked to attend Darwish's burial reflected the broad range of his appeal: The Palestinian political elite mingled with Communists who claim Darwish as one of their own and young hipsters wearing T-shirts bearing the poet's image.

Shirina Rantisi, a 19-year-old college sophomore, said the poet's status made him a kind of Palestinian Che Guevara: "He meant something to almost everyone."

ashraf.khalil@latimes.com
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Organizers: Beijing Olympic Village offers good religious service

Games of the XXVII OlympiasImage via Wikipedia

BEIJING, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- A Beijing Olympics official said here Friday that since the Olympic Village opened on July 27, its religious service center had received 665 athletes and officials from more than 50 countries and regions.

Deng Yaping, deputy director of Olympic Village Department and spokeswoman for the Olympic Village, said at a press conference that 69 professional religious service volunteers at the center had provided around-the-clock services to villagers in English, Arabic, Italian, French, Korean and Hebrew.

On Aug. 3, a foreigner came to the center to ask for a prayer ceremony for his mother who had died a few days ago. A priest prayed for the man.

Deng said that on the following Sunday, the priest asked all the people who had come for praying to stand and pray again for the man's mother. The visitor said he left the center with peace of mind and was greatly moved by the love and concern he received by the people from different countries.

Deng said the village provides services in five religions, including Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hindu and Judaism. Bibles are displayed in the religious service center and athletes can use them free.

She also briefed journalists on other services and environmental protection measures in the Village.

She said the main dining hall for athletes served the largest number of guests in Olympic history on Aug. 8 when the Games opened. From noon to 5:00 p.m., 18,634 people dined there, far exceeding the comparable figure of 9,876 at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games and 10,515 in Athens in 2004.

The Beijing Olympic Village received the largest number of worldwide dignitaries in Olympic history. The number far exceeded expectations. By Aug. 14, a total of 62 heads of state, government and royals and leaders of international organizations paid visits to the Olympic Village.

International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge and his predecessor Juan Antonio Samaranch also visited the Village, Deng disclosed. Rogge lived in the village for three days from Aug. 10 to 12.

The Olympic Village has done "the best job in environmental protection in the history of the Olympic Games," Deng said.

The village uses the most advanced biotechnology system to treat six tonnes of kitchen waste daily. Hot water is supplied via the 6,000 square meters of centralized solar water heating system.

from:

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-08/15/content_9343081.htm

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