Mahmoud Darwish: 1942-2008.(In memoriam)

 
IDENTITY CARD 
 
   Write down! 
 
   I am an Arab 
   And my identity card number is fifty thousand 
   I have eight children 
   And the ninth will come after a summer 
   Will you be angry? 
 
   Write down! 
   I am an Arab 
   Employed with fellow workers at a quarry 
   I have eight children 
   I get them bread 
   Garments and books 
   from the rocks.. 
   I do not supplicate charity at your doors 
   Nor do I belittle myself at the footsteps of your chamber 
   So will you be angry? 
 
   Write down! 
   I am an Arab 
   I have a name without a title 
   Patient in a country 
   Where people are enraged 
   My roots 
   Were entrenched before the birth of time 
   And before the opening of the eras 
   Before the pines, and the olive trees 
   And before the grass grew 
 
   My father.. descends from the family of the plow 
   Not from a privileged class 
   And my grandfather..was a farmer 
   Neither well-bred, nor well-born! 
   Teaches me the pride of the sun 
   Before teaching me how to read 
   And my house is like a watchman's hut 
   Made of branches and cane 
   Are you satisfied with my status? 
   I have a name without a title! 
 
   Write down! 
   I am an Arab 
   You have stolen the orchards of my ancestors 
   And the land which I cultivated 
   Along with my children 
   And you left nothing for us 
   Except for these rocks.. 
   So will the State take them 
   As it has been said?! 
 
   Therefore! 
   Write down on the top of the first page: 
   I do not hate people 
   Nor do I encroach 
   But if I become hungry 
   The usurper's flesh will be my food 
 
   Beware.. 
 
   Beware.. 
   Of my hunger 
   And my anger! 

Yasser Arafat was fond of saying that the art of the novel never rose to the heights of Palestinian poetry. He said that the Palestinian experience produced several giant poets, but failed to match this with novelists. One can only confirm this by reference to the Palestinian poetical greats, beginning with Ibrahim Touqan, followed by Fadwa Touqan, Mahmoud Abd al-Raheem, Samih al-Qassem and Tawfiq Zayyad and several others. Each one of these represented a certain phase of the long and unfulfilled Palestinian saga, with the last two sharing an important aspect of Palestinian tragi-history with Darwish, namely the experience of the 1948 Arabs. Perhaps Darwish's remarkable poetic achievement stemmed from the fact that he experienced several phases of Palestinian dispossession in his own life-time: growing up in the Galilee under Israeli rule, experiencing years of restless wandering in various parts of the Arab homeland, and finally returning to Ramallah to live under a pseudo-government called the Palestinian National Authority. This is perhaps what sets him apart from Ibrahim Touqan, who penned the Palestinian historic national anthem, "Mawtini, Mawtini, al-jalalu wa al-jamalu fi rubak" (My homeland, my homeland, dignity and beauty reside within your hills) representing the quintessential Palestinian yearning for a homeland, or Tawfiq Zayyad's "Inni unadeekum, wa ashudu 'ala ayadikum" (I call for you and press the flesh of your hands) expressing the yearning of the 1948 Palestinians for their fellow Palestinians in exile. Without unduly minimizing the achievement of all those greats who preceded him, Darwish remains the voice of the total Palestinian calamity, with its dismemberment, attempted annihilation, and overwhelming humiliation. And so he reminded Fadwa Touqan of the struggle of the 1948 Palestinians when she expressed sympathy for their plight: "We carry on our eyelids the weeds of the Galilee.... We live within the flesh of my land, it lives within us. We were not before June like new-born pigeons. Therefore our love did not disintegrate between the chains. Sister, since twenty years ago, we have not only been writing poetry, we have been fighting."