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Poetics of Disaster: Nationalism, Gender, and Social Change Among Palestinian Poets in Israel After Nakba

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Abstract

Following the 1948 Nakba (disaster) and collapse of Palestinian society, its national project and cultural sites, a residue of 170,000 Palestinians became citizens of the emerging state of Israel, which existed under a strict military rule until 1966. This residue was mainly illiterate villagers who were left without national and intellectual leadership. After a few years of frightened silence, a new intellectual stratum of young poets from this group began to publish reflections on their national situation. Intentionally simple, direct, and mainly easily memorized, their poetry became the ultimate cultural channel to create and disseminate a Palestinian version of the 1948 war, its subsequent state, and the vision of a desired future. These young poets gradually became the leading producers of Palestinian culture in Israel and abroad. Their poetry became the ultimate reference point for Palestine’s national ethos and myths. Palestinians abroad named them the “poets of resistance” and their poems were composed into inflaming national songs. But while this new intellectual strata became active cultural producers, intervening in “the nation building process,” their social role remained ambivalent and problematic. Despite their national enthusiasm and appeal for social change, they were unable to transgress the patriarchic rule that was hegemonic in Palestinian society. This hegemonic narrative was interwoven in three themes: (1) using the lexicon of natural disaster to conceptualize the 1948 events, presenting them as an irresistible natural disaster (even by God who appeared during the events as pathetic and useless); (2) representing the Palestinian defeat in 1948 through patriarchal language of “collective shame,” “land rape,” and “honor lost;” and (3) articulating the national liberation project as masculine, promising to liberate the “captured land-woman” and to recover the collective honor of the nation.

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Notes

  1. Edward Shills (1972, 339).

  2. For more information on Palestinian poets see http://www.barghouti.com/poets/.

  3. Pappe (2006), Abu Sita (1997, 1999), Khalidi (1959, 1961, 1992). Salman Abu Sita, Abu-Sitta, S., 199.

  4. For more on the Nakba social effects see Ghanim (2007).

  5. Samih al-Qasim, is among the most famous Palestinians poets. He was born in 1939 in Zarqa Jordan to Palestinian Druze parents who come from the Galilee, while his father served in the Arab Legion of King Abdullah. He attended primary school there and graduated from secondary school in Nazareth. al-Qasim was a leading figure of the “resistance poets” of the 1950s. He has written over 30 books of poetry, several novels, collections of plays and essays. Because of his activism, he was imprisoned by Israeli authorities and frequently detained to house arrest. al-Qasim worked as an editor for the Ghad and Ittihad communist newspapers, and now, he is editor-in-chief of the Palestinian Israeli newspaper Koull El Arab (cited from http://www.sakakini.org/literature/selqasim.htm).

  6. al-Qasim, Ibid, p.25.

  7. Salem Jubran was born in 1943 in Buqeaa Village in Galilee, Palestine. He published his first poems while he was in high school, particularly in the communist newspapers, al-rad and al-Itehad. After graduating from the high school, he worked as chief editor of the communist journal al-Ghad and later became the chief editor of the communist daily newspaper al-Ithad. In 1993, he left the communist party. Jubran published three poetry collections: Kalemat men al-qalb, Refaq al-shamss, and Qsaed laysat muhadadat aliqama. (his bio is online at the website of alhewar almutamden http://www.ahewar.org/m.asp?i=1444).

  8. Published in Abd el-Wahab al-Kayali (1975), p 373.

  9. Rashid Husayn was born in 1936 in Musmus. In 1944, he moved with his family to Haifa, which he left in 1948. After graduating from the high school, Husayn worked for 3 years as a schoolteacher until he was fired as a result of his political activism. During the 1950s and 1960s of the last century, Husayn was the editor of “al-mursad,” “al-fajer,” and “al-musawer,” three Arabic magazines that were published by Mapam (the Israeli labor movement). In 1967, Husayn left Israel for the United States. But by 1971, he went to Syria where he contributed to the establishment of the Palestinian Research Center and worked in the Hebrew department of the Syrian Radio. Husayn fled to New York again in 1973 and worked there as correspondence in WAFA, the Palestinian News Agency. On February 1, 1977, Husayn died in a tragic accident. His body was buried in his village (for more information see http://www.khayma.com/salehzayadneh/poets/rashid-hussein/rashid%20nobza.htmayma.com/salehzayadneh/poets/rashid-hussein/rashid%20nobza.htm).

  10. Husayn (1990), “allah lajea,” p. 389.

  11. Pray caller.

  12. Husayn (1990), “ia’lanat ila sukan al-sama”), p.43.

  13. Al-Qasim, Ibid, p.197.

  14. Ibid.

  15. Dervish usually refers to members of Sufi Muslim known for their extreme poverty and austerity.

  16. Mahmud Darwish (1942–2008) was born March 13, 1942 in al-Birwah near Aker. His family fled to Lebanon in 1948 when their village was destroyed, but they clandestinely returned to Haifa after the census of Palestinians. Darwish was a former member of Rakah, edited its newspaper al-Ittihad, and was imprisoned and placed under house arrest several times between 1961 and 1969, often for traveling around the country without a permit. He left Israel in 1970 for the USSR, then to Cairo in 1971 (where he worked for al-Ahram). In 1973, he joined the PLO and moved to Beirut where he was assistant to the director of the PLO-RC, later becoming the director. He edited Shu‘un Filastiniyya and al-Karmel (literary review), and after 1982, left the PLO forces for Tunis (following disagreements), then to Paris. Becoming president of the Union of Palestinian Writers and Journalists in 1984, he was also member of PLO-EC from 1987 to 1993 and drafted the Palestinian declaration of independence in 1988. Mahmoud Darwish is considered the most important Palestinian poet and among the most influential Arabs poets. Darwish passed away August of 2008. See Mahmoud Darwish online page: http://www.mahmouddarwish.com/english/biography.htm.

  17. Darwish, Ibid, p.30.

  18. Taha Muhammad Ali, is one of the leading Palestinian poets born in 1931 in the Galilee village of Saffuriya. When his village was destroyed in 1948, its inhabitants fled to Lebanon. A year later, Taha slipped back across the border with his family and settled in Nazareth where he has lived since. He is self-taught and began his poetry career late (in 1983). Taha Muhammad Ali writes in a forceful and direct style, with disarming humor and unflinching and at times painful honesty. His poetry’s apparent simplicity and homespun truths conceal the subtle grafting of classical Arabic and colloquial forms of expression (from alsakakine webpage http://www.sakakini.org/literature/tmohammedali.htm; Muhammad Ali 1989, p. 115–122).

  19. Husayn, “min lajea’ ila umehe,” Ibid, p.166.

  20. According to Ahmad Abu Zaid, there are levels of shame in Arab culture: the level of a’eb and the level of a’ar. While the first is a mild level of shame the second is the highest level of shame, related to women’s sexual behavior (Abu-Zeid 1965, p. 246).

  21. Husayn, Ibid, laje’a w hamam, p. 324.

  22. Ibid, p. 323.

  23. Mahmoud Darwish, “Passport”, ibid, p.356.

  24. Ibid.

  25. Ibid.

  26. Tawfik Zayyad, (1929–1994) was born in Nazareth to a working class family. He was a member of the Israeli Parliament, a leading communist leader, and Mayor of Nazareth. His poem stresses the resiliency of the Palestinian in Israel and their ability to remain in their land against the consistent Israeli attempt to uproot them. Many of his poems were composed into national songs. For more information see Tawfik Zayyad page at http://www.rannet.com/zayyad/.

  27. Ibid “birth” p. 97.

  28. Published in http://www.adab.com/en/modules.php?name=Sh3er&doWhat=lsq&shid=27&start=0.

  29. Translated and published in http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Cafe/1324/ziad.htm.

  30. Guerrilla’s Palestinian fighter.

  31. For more on essentialism strategy, see Spivak (1985).

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  1. Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, P.O. Box 24058, Jerusalem, Israel

    Honaida Ghanim

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Ghanim, H. Poetics of Disaster: Nationalism, Gender, and Social Change Among Palestinian Poets in Israel After Nakba. Int J Polit Cult Soc 22, 23–39 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10767-009-9049-9

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