Mahmud Darwish's Allegorical Critique of Oslo

Abstract

The Palestinian poet Mahmud Darwish occupie s a unique space in Arab culture and in the collective memory of Arabs as "the national poet of Palestine." This article provides a reading of one of Darwish's poems, "A N on-Linguistic Dispute with Imru' al-Qays," which was written after the signing of the 1993 Oslo Accord. The poem is read as an allegorical critique of Oslo and, at the same time, a retrospective contemplation of Darwish's own role in Palestinian politics, written in a style that displays Darwish's exceptio nal poetical skill and his masterly use of Arabo-Islamic history and mythology. IT IS DIFFICULT TO OVERESTIMATE the importance of poetry in Arab culture, past and present: as a well-known adage has it, poetry is the archive (diw an) of the Arabs. While other forms and media of cultural expression have made serious incursions into the Arab world in the last century, poetry continues to be its most powerful and popular literary medium. The Palestinian poet Mahmud Darwish (b. 1942) has already secured his place in that archive and in the collective memory of Arabs. His readings attract thousands and literally fill sports stadium s, his books sell millions, his poem s are widely memorized, and a number of them have been set to music and have becom e popular songs. The appearanc e of a single Darwish poem is a cultural, and at times a political, event, not just in the Arab world, but in Israel as well. One need only remember the controversy over his famous poem " 'Abiruna fi Kalamin 'Abir" (Transients in transient words). Written in April 1988, the poem was (mis)translated into Hebrew by the Israeli daily Ma'ariv. Its fierce and defiant tone and historical reference s 1 generated a heated debate in Israeli newspapers and in the Knesset, where it was condemned by Yitzhak Shamir, among others, as damning evidence of the Palestinians' unwillingness to live in peace with Israelis. More recently, in February 2000, Israeli hard-liners tried to exploit the attem pt by then-education minister Yossi Sarid to include some of Darwish's poetry in the new multicultural Israeli curriculum in order to topple the Barak governm ent, forcing the prime minister himself to intervene to declare that "Israel was not yet ready for Mr. Darwish's poetry to be taught in the schools." 2 SINAN ANTOON is a doctoral candidate in the department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2000 Middle East Studies Association of North America conference in Orlando, Florida. The author would like to thank Sherene Seikaly for her valuable suggestions.

“El jugador de dados”, un poema de Maḥmūd Darwīš

“…5-22) argumentan cómo la tierra (Palestina) y el poema permanecen unidos en la poesía de Darwīš. En esencia, Darwīš transmite en su obra un estado de exilio permanente del cual se desprende una búsqueda por establecer su nación, tanto geográfica como imaginariamente, en sus palabras: "Estaré libre de Palestina, cuando Palestina sea libre" (en Shehadeh, 2002).…”

“It's Nakba, Not a Party”: Re-Stating the (Continued) Legacy of the Oslo Accords

“…5 Similarly, Mahmoud Darwish 6 in "A Non-Linguistic Dispute with Imru' al-Qays" deemed the Accords a mere euphemism for a "triumphant" Israel and a "diminishing" scope for achieving Palestinian aspirations for a national home. 7 Finally, the most spectacular criticism of the Oslo Accords came in the form of the Al-Aqsa Intifada (2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005), through which Palestinians insisted, "... this time around, the struggle will continue until Israel both agrees to a genuine peace and actually implements it." 8 Then, with all this already said, how should we understand the relevance of the Oslo Accords to Palestinian politics today?…”