The world’s most recognized Palestinian poet, Mahmoud Darwish, July 15, 2007
Een opname met Mahmoud Darwish:
Waarom? Dit moet ik nog even kwijt voor het slapen gaan: The Mahmoud Darwish Poem That Enraged Lieberman and Regev. Lieberman Compares Works by Palestinian National Poet to Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’. Werkelijk, ik ben met stomheid geslagen. Uitgerekend Lieberman. Als geen ander in Israël verdient hij het predicaat fascist ten volle, deze minister van defensie.
Nogmaals Mahmoud Darwish:
Het is het enige mogelijke verweer tegen politici die cultuur willen vernietigen. Ongehoord dat dergelijke praktijken als die van Lieberman in Israël gewoon mogelijk zijn. Komt het doordat er de mentaliteit leeft dat al wat Arabisch is minderwaardig, entartet is met de intentie dat het vernietigd moet worden?
Een straatbeeld uit Erriadh, in het zuiden van Tunis. Een muurschildering met het portret van Darwish, 28 oktober 2015.
Het gedicht dat Lieberman tot razernij bracht…
ID Card – Mahmoud Darwish
Write it down! I’m an Arab
My card number is 50000
My children number eight
And after this summer, a ninth on his way.
Does this make you rage?
I am an Arab.
With my quarry comrades I labor hard
My children number eight
I tug their bread, their clothes
And their notebooks
From within the rock
I don’t beg at your door
I don’t cower on your threshold
So does this make you rage?
Write it down!
I am an Arab.
I am a name with no honorific.
Patient in a land
Where everything lives in bursting rage
My roots were planted before time was born
Before history began
Before the cypress and the olive trees
Before grass sprouted
My father is from the plough clan
Not from the noble class
My grandfather was a peasant farmer
Had no pedigree
Taught me the pride of the sun
Before teaching me to read
A shack to guard groves is my home,
Made of branches and reeds
Are you pleased with my status?
I am a name with no honorific.
Write it down!
I am an Arab.
Hair color: charcoal
Eye color: brown
Attributes:
A cord around the quffiyeh on my head
My hand as hard as rock
That scratches if you touch it
My address:
I am from a forgotten abandoned village
Its streets nameless
All its men in the fields and quarries
Does this make you rage?
Write it down!
I am an Arab.
You have stolen my ancestors’ groves
And the land we cultivated
I and all my children
Leaving nothing for us and all my grandchildren
Except these rocks
Will your government take them
Like people say?
Therefore,
Write down on the top of the first page:
I do not hate people
And I do not steal from anyone
But if I starve
I will eat my oppressor’s flesh
Beware, beware of my starving
And my rage.1964. Translated from Arabic by Salman Masalha and Vivian Eden
Nog een controversieel gedicht van Mahmoud Darwish uit 1988 ditmaal. Handelt het over Israël of over de bezette gebieden?
Passers Between the Passing Words
O those who pass between fleeting words
carry your names, and be gone
Rid our time of your hours, and be gone
Steal what you will from the blueness of the sea
And the sand of memory
Take what pictures you will, so that you understand
That which you never will:
How a stone from our land builds the ceiling of our sky
From you steel and fire, from us our flesh
From you yet another tank, from us stones
From you teargas, from us rain…
It is time for you to be gone
Live wherever you like, but do not live among us
It is time for you to be gone
Die wherever you like, but do not die among us
For we have work to do in our land
So leave our country
Our land, our sea
Our wheat, our salt, our wounds
Everything, and leave
The memories of memory
those who pass between fleeting words!
When the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish meets the music of Le Trio Joubran. لاشيء يعجبني
Update september 2019
Uitgelichte afbeelding: Mahmoud Darwish – © Gil Cohen Magen, AP
Ingevoegde foto: © Mosa’ab Elshamy, AP
