UN-Truth

“Those who you love are gone, gone. You either exist or you don’t…”

… from a translation posted by As’ad AbuKhalil on his Angry Arab blog today here of what he said was “one of Mahmud Darwish’s greatest poems, In Praise of the High Shadow”

Mahmoud Darwish was buried on Wednesday. A reported 10,000 persons bid him a final farewell that day.

On Saturday, people were coming to visit the grave, on a hilltop beside and overlooking the Ramallah Cultural Palace (Qasr Thaqaafi) — which has reportedly now been re-named the Mahmoud Darwish Cultural Center, though the signs haven’t yet been changed.

A group of solidarity types speaking Spanish hung out for a while, then left. A little while later, a Palestinian family came to say a brief prayer, then the father took pictures.

From this hilltop, you can see Jerusalem in the distance.

Meanwhile, today’s issue of Haaretz has an article by the Israeli poet, Haim Gouri, who wrote: “The death of poet Mahmoud Darwish, in an American hospital, far away from his land, grieves me. This man and his multifaceted poetry has occupied me since the 1960s. Even then he was already known as a young member of the group of poets and writers from Maki - the binational Israel Communist Party - whose work appeared in the party newspaper, Al-Ittihad, and its literary supplement, Al-Jadid. There you found names such as Emile Habibi, Saliba Hamis, Dr. Emile Toma, Samih al-Qasim, Mahmoud Darwish, Salem Jubran, ‘and others.’ In those years a few encounters took place between Arab and Hebrew artists, which, if they did not offer a balm to the wounds of our land, stimulated mutual curiosity and forged personal ties that proved to be enduring. I remember one such instance in Haifa, in 1970, which still haunts me. My wife and I came from Jerusalem for a protest meeting held in a cinema in the lower part of the city. On the agenda: a military censor order demanding that Arab poets submit their manuscripts for review prior to publication! I no longer remember everyone who spoke. One of the speakers was Amos Kenan. We told a few of our Arab colleagues that despite the dispute between us, we shared their protest against a directive which we perceived as insulting, foolish and pointless. We had lunch at a nearby restaurant. There were five of us: Mahmoud Darwish, Samih al-Qasim, Dahlia Rabikovitch, my wife Alika and me. Maybe there were others whom I’ve forgotten. Our Arab colleagues complained that despite the decision by the Knesset to abolish the Military Government [in 1966], the authorities continued to hound them, prohibiting free movement in the country and making them report periodically to the police. Mahmoud Darwish then got up and, begging our pardon, said he had to report to the police station right then. Overwrought, Dahlia Rabikovitch joined him. We waited for them to return. Then, as I recall, I told them that despite the severe national-political dispute, this approach infuriated us as well, and if they found themselves being persecuted they should not hesitate to turn to us. Not long afterward, Mahmoud called me at home and informed me that he had been invited to visit Moscow, but did not know how he would get to the airport in Lod, as he was barred by official order from leaving Haifa. In the end, he left the country without an Israeli passport, which was not issued to him, but rather with a laissez-passer… Upon his return to Ramallah and his visit to Haifa last year, where a very festive event was held in his honor, sponsored by Masharaf magazine and the Hadash party, we spoke at length by phone. His Hebrew was excellent. We talked about illnesses and old age, and we evoked the memory of that meeting in Haifa, before he set out on the long odyssey that has now ended” … The full article can be read in Haaretz here .

Filed under: Gaza, Israel, Palestine & Palestinians, UN Secretary-General