Democratic Palestine : 10 (ص 30)
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- Democratic Palestine : 10 (ص 30)
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Ghassan Kanafani
Thought-Provoking Short Stories
Ghassan Kanafani was born in Acre, northern Palestine, in 1936. In
1972, he was assassinated by Zionist intelligence agents who
booby-trapped his car. In the 36 intervening years, he made an
immeasurable political and cultural contribution to his people and to
the world. At eighteen he joined the Arab Nationalist Movement and
was later amember of the PFLP’s Politbureau and founding editor of
its weekly magazine «Al Hadaf». In addition to his work as a
revolutionary journalist and militant, he painted and wrote plays,
novels and short stories.
Ghassan’s literary works cannot
ultimately be separated from his prolific
political writings and _ revolutionary
activities. All were motivated and bound
by the idea of «All facts to the masses»
which became the slogan of Al Hadaf.
All are the result of commitment to the
Palestinian cause and more broadly to
truth, justice and humanity. On the other
hand, Ghassan’s literary works are not
mere reflections of political points. His
stories are not obviously propagandistic,
but they are deeply revolutionary in that
they provoke the reader to think, ques-
tion and criticize.
The short stories of Ghassan
examine the human feelings and
behaviour of the characters involved ina
sensitive, probing style. He describes
reality in meticulous detail. He jux-
taposes the past and the present, or the
experiences of different characters, to
create powerful impressions and subtle
messages. In this way Kanafani con-
veys the basic reality of the Palestinian
experience - its tragedy, its complexity,
its potential for creating new people who
learn to think, to discover what they
want, and how to change their situation.
There are many examples: In «Um
Saad» a middle aged woman in a
refugee camp tells about her life and
thoughts, chiefly through her fears and
hopes for the son who has become a
freedom fighter. In «Men in the Sun» we
follow the journey, and learn the fate, of
three Palestinian men who set out
across the desert with their humble
means, to seek a better fortune in the
Gulf countries. In «All That is Left for
You» one reads of Hamid who leaves
the occupied Gaza Strip in shame after
having married off his sister Miriam,
already pregnant, to an already married
man who has moreover shown readi-
ness to cooperate with the occupiers.
Hamid intends to cross South Palestine
to Jordan, to find his mother from whom
the children were separated in the tur-
moil fleeing the Zionist assault on Jaffa.
In the desert. he meets instead the
enemy - an Israeli soldier who has wan-
dered away from his post. Some sym-
bolism is employed but even greater
questions are posed. Is Palestine like
Miriam, whom Hamid also cared for but
could not protect? Or is Palestine the
mother whom Hamid counts on to
resolve all their problems, but whom he
has not reached when the story ends?
Rather than giving any pat answers
in the ending of the stories, Kanafani’s
style of writing subtly raises questions
concerning how people react to their
situation. He gives a wealth of facts and
impressions and implicitly challenges
the reader to think, to seek new means
for understanding reality in order to
changeit, in order to struggle for justice.
«Return to Haifa»
One of Kanafani’s stories that best
exemplifies these qualities, but unfortu-
nately has not been translated to
English, is «Return to Haifa». It centers
on Sayed and his wife Safiya who return
to see their home in Haifa after the 1967
war when the Israelis began to allow - هو جزء من
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