Democratic Palestine : 45 (ص 32)
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- Democratic Palestine : 45 (ص 32)
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What use is it to weep
When you have lost everything
And thus can lose no more?
So, wipe your tears,
and let us, together, walk along
Towards a horizon smiling with hope.
Let us scatter shining stars
Over our people’s procession to red freedom:
Our homeland, brother, is never lost
So long as we keep it in our hearts.
So, wipe your tears
And let us, together, walk along.
Al Karmi’s greater poems, however, are to appear after the
nakbah, and are therefore beyond the time scope of this series.
Extolling the beauty of Palestine, and asserting the
meaninglessness of life without a homeland to live in, love and
belong to, these are masterpieces of patriotic poetry, charged
with sweet lyricism and enchanting imagery.
Of the other Palestinian poets of this period, mention must
be made of: Abdul Rahim Mahmud, whom we considered in
the previous article, and who was perhaps the most powerful
and militant voice in both periods; Sa’id Al Issa, the ardent
advocate of Christian — Muslim cohesiveness who, though a
devoted Christian, extolled, as perhaps very few Muslim poets
have ever done, the greatness of the prophet Mohamed and
Islam; Mahmud Salim Al Hoot, author of Arab Epics, which
consists of five epics on five landmarks in Arab history,
including the nakbah; Ali Hashem Rasheed, author of Songs of
Return, the Gaza poet whose sweet lyrics on the nakbah and the
theme of return are studied in many schools throughout the
Arab world; Kamal Nasser (1925 — 74), the militant poet and
PLO leader who was assassinated in Beirut by Israeli agents;
and, finally, Mahmud Nadim AI Afghani, who is often called
the Poet of Palestine’s Youth.
1939 — 48: The Prose
Just as Fadwa Tukan’s loss of her brother stamped both
her life and poetry with sadness, so did the death of Sultana,
Khalil Al Sakakini’s beloved wife, plunge the once happy and
optimistic writer into a fathomless pool of bitterness and
despair. In both cases, moreover, intolerable personal loss
coincided with a historic national disaster, the nakbah.
Likewise, just as Fadwa sang the saddest songs in pre — nakbah
poetry, so were Al Sakakini’s writings the clearest and strongest
prose expression of the despair that engulfed the nation on the
eve of the nakbah. In short, while the former told the story in
poetry, the latter told it in prose.
Of his grief for his wife’s sudden and untimely death, Al
Sakakini writes:
Your death, O Sultana, has caused me a heartache that neither tears, nor
endurance, nor patience, nor work, nor reading, nor talking, nor sleep, nor
the passage of days, can relieve. My eyes have lost interest in all sights; my
ears,in all sounds.
Were it not for my bashfulness, I would shun all company, shutting myself
up in my room, where I can freely whisper to you and weep for you. Wherever
I go or turn, your memory arrests me: Your image fills my eyes; your name,
my mouth; your sweet voice, my ears. Who says you are absent from me?
I used to believe that I loved life, but now I realize that it was you, rather
than life, that I truely loved; for with your departure, life has become quite
worthless to me.
Thus, his sorrow was so great that he couldn’t help
projecting it onto his very conception of life:
What is this life, carrying us over from childhood to old age, from health
to illness, from hope to despair, from joy to sorrow, and from life to death?
The first day in your life is the first step to your death.
If death is a fearful thing, then we had better fear its bringer — life. Would
it not be better if there was no life at all, as this would be the only way to
escape death? My fellow human beings, come, let us all die out!
32
Jenin, pre — 1948 Palestine
In his post—nakbah writings, however, this extremely
pessimistic and nihilistic speculation gives way to a more
carefully contemplated kind of pessimism. But to the last day
of his life, his motto remained, «Life is vain; let’s die out!»
The most outstanding prose writer of this period is perhaps
Dr. Isaac Al Husseini, whose rational optimism seems to
counterbalance, and even outweigh, Al Sakakini’s speculative
pessimism. He wrote twelve books, four of which fall within
the scope of this article, namely, Orientalists in England, A
Hen’s Memoir, Return of the Ship and Are Poets Mortals?
In his preface to Return of the Ship, he remarks, «We
believe that no nation is more competent than another; that
each nation can, under favorable conditions, contribute its full
share to civilization and progress.» Referring to the hardships
suffered by the Palestinian people in their seemingly desperate
battle against Zionism, he expounds his doctrine of optimism
thus:
Hardships are to nations what storms are to ships, in that they awaken
the conciousness, and stimulate the strength, cooperation and solidarity of
the people. If their consciousness is fully raised, and their strength,
cooperation and solidarity fully exercised, they will either overcome their
hardships or, at least, be on the right path to overcome them. If this is
optimism, then optimism is our choice.
The least that can be said of this doctrine is that it is useful and never
harmful, whereas pessimism is harmful and never useful. No doubt, it is far
more useful for the people boarding a ship in danger to do all they can to drive
death away, than to sit sad and idle waiting for it or, worse, trying to convince
themselves that death is not very bad after all!
On the individual’s relationship with the community, he
addresses an audience of high school graduates as follows:
The first thing to know is that the interests of the community are prior to
those of the individual; that the individual ought to respect the values and
contribute to the welfare of the community.
There are those who view themselves as giants and all others as dwarfs or
ghosts, who would fight as lions when their personal rights or interests are
threatened, but would shrink into extremely mild cats when the interests of
their community are in danger.
For centuries we have been living with this moral being — the community
— absent or unheeded. Our social system has been seriously defective,
stressing personal rights and ignoring social duties.
Of women’s right to freedom and dignity, he writes in
Return of the Ship:
Our nation can never hope to meet success, nor can our ship reach the
shore safely, unless the woman is enabled to exercise her full rights, unless her
problems are addressed with due understanding and respect for her. Those
who are reluctant to give her the understanding and respect that she truly
deserves, need only know what our language «knew» long ago, when it
stressed the correlation between woman and nation.
Democratic Palestine, August 1991 - هو جزء من
- Democratic Palestine : 45
- تاريخ
- أغسطس ١٩٩١
- المنشئ
- الجبهة الشعبية لتحرير فلسطين
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