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Words were created with man, and literature has the honor of being among his weapons
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Since
the dawn of humanity, man has always been striving for freedom, and because
words were created with him, literature has had the honor of being among the
weapons of resistance. Literature of resistance has a double intention. The
first is to address the resisters, express their suffering, raise their
awareness and incite them to participate more. The Second is to address the
outside world to draw its compassion to the cause.
Oppressors
have always considered this weapon dangerous, for not only does it incite people
to resist more, but also it is available to all hands in each village and
workshop to be recited by peasants and workmen. Moshe Dayan, the former Israeli
Minister of Defense, realized the perilous nature of that weapon when he read a
poem by Fadwa Tuqan celebrating women resisters on the West Bank. He said,
“The poem was equal to twenty commandos” (Jacobson, p. 10). The discomfort
from this poetry pushed the Israelis to continuously fight against the
Palestinian literature, so that “The appearance of a new generation of
Palestinian resistance poets inside Israel might seem at first some sort of a
miracle” (Elmessiri, p.3).
Historical
backgrounds
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The historical background
of Irish struggle is significant and it helps in understanding their
poetry
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The
historical backgrounds of the Irish and Palestinian struggles are significant
and help in understanding their poetry, which is a direct reflection of the
different stages of these struggles. Their histories are somewhat similar,
although the Irish case is 650 years older than the Palestinian.
In
Ireland, the first British involvement was in 1169, when Anglo-Norman troops
colonized the island, pitching battles against the native Gaels who had settled
there in 700 b.c. The English gradually expanded their reach over the island.
Religious persecution of Catholic Irish grew, in particular after Elizabeth I, a
Protestant, ascended to the throne in 1558. Oliver
Cromwell’s
siege of Ireland in 1649 ended with massacres of Catholics at Drogheda and
Wexford and forced the resettlement of thousands, many of whom lost their homes
in the struggle. By 1691, with the victory of the Protestant English King
William III over the Catholic forces of James II, Protestant supremacy in
Ireland had become complete.
In
1916, Irish nationalists stormed the Post Office in Dublin during Easter Week
and proclaimed the formation of an Irish Republic. The uprising failed and most
of the leaders were eventually executed. However, the action resulted in the
formation of Sinn Fein (which advocated Irish independence) with de Valera as
its leader. Sinn Fein formed its own Irish Parliament in Dublin with de Valera
as its President, and the violence escalated as the Irish Republican Army (IRA),
led by Michael Collins, fought Britain in a bloody war for independence. As a
result, Britain partitioned the island. Sinn Fein and British officials signed
the Anglo-Irish treaty, 1921, which created an Irish Free State over the
southern counties and a northern state of six counties under British control.
But the IRA waged a violent underground campaign against the treaty in the
1920s, even killing former comrade Michael Collins, a treaty signatory. The
British forces strongly retaliated and the climax of this clash was on the two
Bloody Sundays in Dublin and then in Derry.
In
Palestine, the first British involvement was in 1917, which paved the way for
Jewish settlers to start immigrating and usurping land from the native Arabs who
were descendants of the Canaanites who settled in Palestine between the sixth
and third centuries b.c. The Zionists expanded their reach, based on their
claims of Biblical promise. They massacred the natives horribly, as in Dair
Yassin in 1948, scaring people away, forcing many of them to resettle in other
countries or refugee camps, and causing intolerable sufferings and
discrimination against those who stayed. The Zionists seized the full land after
the1967 war.
The
Palestinians escalated their uprising against the colonizers. They led the Buraq
Revolution in 1929, Al-Qassam Revolution in 1935, and many other uprisings. The
Palestine Liberation Organization was formed with Arafat as its leader and has
led a continuous struggle since the 1960s, and then the military resistance
groups were founded, which led to the first Intifada in 1987. As a result,
Israel decided to divide Palestine into two. Israel signed a treaty with the PLO
in Oslo in 1992 to make an autonomous zone in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, with
the rest kept under its control. The declaration of the Palestinian State in
this way discredited the leadership of the PLO and infuriated the resistance
groups, which continued resisting.
The
sectarian strife, which continued throughout the 1980s and the 1990s in both
countries, was punctuated by state terrorism and moments of possible political
compromise. The names of many heroes and martyrs during these two decades are
engraved in the memory of all humanity. Those martyrs sparked more outrage and
riots in both countries. Till this day, the struggle and resistance are growing,
taking the lives of thousands of Irish and Palestinian civilians.
Hope
and Faith: Shared Themes
Through
the recognition of the Irish and Palestinian poetry in the 1980s, 1990s and
2000s, it becomes evident that they share major characteristics in themes and
mechanisms of writing despite their geographical remoteness, but at the same
time they disagree in some points of their poetical address. Within the thematic
limitation, there is a rich material for literature in the present dilemma of
the two countries. In the Irish and Palestinian catastrophes are still many
situations conducting to the tragic and to the heroic vision of resistance.
Among the shared themes are: hope and faith in the ultimate triumph of justice,
death of innocent victims and premature but willed death of heroes, the endless
uprooting, the degradation of the natives at home and in Diaspora. A large
portion of the two nations’ poetry focuses on the documentation of important
events. Another part describes the people’s struggle to cope with and live
under the country’s tragic political and social circumstances. They both
stress their deep-rooted nationalism to keep their cultural identity. But along
with these shared recurrent themes, the two nations’ poetry differs in the
human element represented in the images of women and children. Here, we shed
light on some of these points of similarity and difference.
Poetry:
Live Document
Poetry
of Resistance is like a history book in keeping the cause in the memory of the
nation except that it excels history books in the way it combines facts and
creativity. Among the thematic features that the poetry of both nations
demonstrates is the historical documentation of major events. From the very
beginning, the poets steeped themselves in their nation’s history, guided by
their strong national consciousness.
In
Ireland, hardly any tragic situation was left without being recorded in a poetic
work in the strong Irish tradition of commemorating. The two Bloody Sundays
maybe considered the most savage massacres that were committed against the
Catholic civilians. The first was in Dublin in 1920 and the second was in Derry
in 1972, in which government officials shot into groups of civilians in a sports
stadium and in the street.
Many
of the Northern Ireland poets wrote in commemoration of the Derry massacre.
Seamus Heaney evoked the operation in his poem “Casualty”:
After
they shot dead
The
thirteen men in Derry.
PARAS
THIRTEEN, the walls said,
BOGSIDE
NIL. That Wednesday
Everyone
held
His
breath and trembled.
It
was a day of cold
Raw
silence, wind-blown
Surplice
and soutane:
Rained-on,
flower-laden
Coffin
after coffin
Seemed
to float from the door
Of
the packed cathedral
Like
blossoms on slow water.
The
common funeral
Unrolled
its swaddling band,
Lapping,
tightening
Till
we were braced and bound
Like
brothers in a ring.
http://www.ibiblio.org/ipa/heaney/casualty.html
The
reaction of the Irish Catholics, as appears in the poem, was not of fright or
abstinence from fighting in light of the cost they had to pay for resistance,
but it was rather of more determination and more solidarity to face the threat.
In
Palestine, the poetry of Hanan Mikha’il `Ashrawy, a Palestinian poetess and
politician, is a live document of the daily massacres committed against the
civilians during the first Intifada of 1987. She reported the Israeli savagery
in a series of unique poems written in English in the first person. In February
1988, Israeli soldiers buried alive four men from the village of Salem near
Nablus. `Ashrawy documented this tragedy in a poem “Death by Burial” (1988),
reminding us of T.S. Eliot’s “Death by Water”.
This
plot is not one
fit
for planting
Here
the earth is
hard,
dry, grating-
Needles
of dead leaves
scratch.
I
close my eyes, dust
chokes
my throat,
I
never knew earth could be so heavy,
perhaps
were I to
raise
one arm
someone
would come across
my
grave one day, and,
as
in late-night horror movies,
see
a lifeless hand, and open palm,
fingers
half curled…
and
scream.
(Jayyusi,
p.339)
`Ashrawy
reported another horrendous incident in her poem “From the Diary of an
Almost-Four-Year-Old” (1988) in which Rasha, four years, and two other baby
girls each lost an eye to rubber bullets shot at them in cold blood by Israeli
soldiers. She said by Rasha’s mouth:
Tomorrow,
the bandages
will
come off. I wonder
will
I see half an orange,
half
an apple, half my
mother’s
face
with
one remaining eye?
I
did not see the bullet
but
felt its pain
exploding
in my head.
His
image did not
vanish,
the soldier
with
a big gun, unsteady
hands,
and a look in
his
eyes
I
could not understand.
Next
month, on my birthday,
I’ll
have a brand new glass eye,
maybe
things will look round
and
fat in the middle
They
made the world look strange.
I
hear a nine-month-old
has
lost an eye,
I’m
old enough, almost four,
I’ve
seen enough of life,
But
she’s just a baby
who
didn’t know any better.
(Jayyussi,
p.340-41)
The
irony of this poem is that it admits the Intifada children to have lost their
innocence. The girl considers herself mature compared to the little baby. The
image of the world in her glass eye with its distorted proportions symbolizes
the real world that the Palestinians see even with their natural eyes.
The
betrayal of leaders was also another important event to be recorded. In Ireland,
on 1 September 1994, a cease-fire was announced that was documented in the
following poem by Michael Longley, “Ceasefire”, which was published two days
after the declaration. In this poem he describes the situation at an allegorical
level in terms of the Greek myth in which Achilles kills Hector, the son
of the Trojan king Priam. Priam goes to Achilles and shakes hands with him in
order to take the dead body of his son. Such an odd meeting of two historical
enemies for the sake of the dead son’s body inspired Longley to describe the
cease-fire:
Taking
Hector’s corpse into his own hands Achilles
Made
sure it was washed and, for the old king’s sake,
Laid
out in uniform, ready for Priam to carry
Wrapped
like a present home to Troy at daybreak.
‘I
get down on my knees and do what must be done
And
kiss Achilles’ hand, the killer of my son.’
http://www.wfu.edu/wfupress/longleypoetry.htm
The
last two lines said by Priam reflect the bizarreness and humiliation of the
situation. The image of the son’s body wrapped like a present to be given to
the father depicts the condescending nature of the occupier while signing a
peace treaty with the defeated and the way he tries to look “nice”
regardless of what he did.
The
situation in Palestine was not dissimilar. The Oslo Treaty between Israel and
the PLO turned the other resisting groups against the PLO both politically and
poetically. Abdul Aziz Al Rantisi, a Hamas leader and poet, wrote “A Poem of
Challenge” in May 2002:
Wake
your conscience up if you still have any!
Trading
with the homeland is a deadly sin.
See
the children of Gaza; it’s they
who
announced the birth of dawn
from
the womb of darkness.
Where
are the slogans that you say,
which
have lead thousands of us away?
…………………………………..
God
grants victory to the pious alone
And
never to those who’ve gone astray.
http://www.palestine-info.info/arabic/poems/altahdi.htm
In
a more violent criticism, another poet, Khamees, accuses the PLO leadership of
treason by cooperating with the enemy to arrest the resisters, based on the
claim of fighting terrorism. In his poem “Grant Us Safety”, he says:
We
are but flowers, take our fragrance.
We
are but a star, take our brightness.
We
are but fire, take our flame.
We
are but lightning, take our light.
Take
the souls from our souls.
http://www.palestine-info.info/arabic/palestoday/readers/
recentpoem/kames/bar.html
Elegies:
Transcending Self-pity to Proud Spirit
Related
to the commemoration of important historical events is the commemoration of the
death of the dear friends, family members and heroes who were killed in
violence. An elegy is a description of the virtues of the dead and his bravery
and then a long lamentation over his death. Elegy is a major theme in the poetry
of the two nations.
In
Ireland, elegies are major a part of the literary heritage. History provides the
poets with a list of great heroes who took up the cause of the Gaels against the
foreigners. Irish elegies are as old as the beginning of the crisis. Elegies in
Ireland differ from any other in the world in that they take an organized form,
as they must be recited in formal processions in Belfast, which normally end up
with more violence. The following poem by Ireland’s great poet Seamus Heaney
mourns his Catholic best friend who was killed in a blast. This friend
deliberately disobeyed the IRA curfew orders during the “Troubles” and went
out and met his end. Thus Heaney wrote this moving lament, “Casualty”:
He
was blown to bits
Out
drinking in a curfew
Others
obeyed, three nights
But
he would not be held
At
home by his own crowd
Whatever
threats were phoned,
Whatever
black flags waved.
I
see him as he turned
In
that bombed offending place,
Remorse
fused with terror
In
his still knowable face,
His
cornered outfaced stare
Blinding
in the flash.
……………………
I
missed his funeral,
Those
quiet walkers
And
sideways talkers
Shoaling
out of his lane
To
the respectable
Purring
of the hearse...
They
move in equal pace
With
the habitual
Slow
consolation
Of
a dawdling engine,
The
line lifted, hand
Over
fist, cold sunshine
On
the water, the land
Banked
under fog: that morning
I
was taken in his boat,
The
screw purling, turning
Indolent
fathoms white,
I
tasted freedom with him.
(http://www.ibiblio.org/ipa/heaney/casualty.html
This
is only part of the long elegy. In the missing part, the poet enthusiastically
mentions the details of their strong friendship and his need of him, together
with the small details of the murder in order to show the enormity of the crime.
Irish
verse often transcends self-pity to proclaim a proud spirit of heroic action
despite the sadness of defeat. Although the language and the mood is in general
that of anger, in some parts of this poetry, it expresses a great hope in a
better future.
Elegy
also exists on a large scale in Arabic poetry and has its place in its long
tradition. A major part of Intifada poetry is dedicated to the celebration of
the dead heroes. The following lines are just one example of tens of poems
written in mourning of the thousands of martyrs. They celebrate the death of the
great Palestinian martyr Yahia `Ayyash, who started the self bombing and
invented the explosive belts. Muhammad Abdul Raziq Abu Mustafa wrote this poem,
“The Free Forehead Has Disappeared”:
We
have neither expected to mourn you
nor
have we imagined that you won't come back.
Our
girls have decorated for you
the
windows with flowers,
and
your dear are singing their song for you
so
that your eyes might bring
the
morning to their eyes.
http://www.palestine-info.info/arabic/poems/yahya%20ayash/b3.htm
But
in some parts of the elegies, the reader can easily trace some glimmers of light
and hope in the tone of the poems despite the predominant atmosphere of death
and defeat. Words like “flowers”, “singing” and “morning” create
this hope.
Diaspora:
Our Land within Us
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Our country is a flesh of
our flesh, a bone of our bone
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Diaspora
is a remarkable experience in the history of the two occupied nations.
Throughout the history of Ireland, under the successive civil wars and as a
result of the discrimination against the Catholics, there have been many
exoduses that led the people all over the world. The biggest exodus that Ireland
witnessed came as a result of the major famine
that
decimated the Irish population in the mid-nineteenth century. “The Irish
diaspora is now integrated into countless nations across the globe” (Cronin,
p. xi).
As
for the Palestinians, they experienced two mass exoduses in 1948 and 1967.
Exile
is a state of estrangement. It means not only to leave one’s home but also to
lose one’s sense of this home. One may become exiled in one’s very home
under the pressure of the occupier. This sense of home exile is expressed in
Durcan’s poem “Ireland 1977”:
‘I’ve
become so lonely, I could die’— he writes,
The
native who is an exile in his native land:
‘Do
you hear me whispering to you across the Golden Vale?
Do
you hear me bawling to you across the hearthrug?”
(Longley,
p. 220)
Durcan’s
lines reveal him to be obsessed with territorial concerns, as if he is talking
to a deaf country.
In
an emotional poem, the Irish Belfast poet Kennelly admits this feeling of home
exile, but he does not get overcome by it. He says that the struggle against the
occupier spares him the feeling of estrangement.
I
belong to that silent majority
Who
do not write letters to The Irish Times
But
I swear to Christ I felt like writing
This
morning when, on getting the 16A
And
lurching through the city
Of
Parnell, O’Connell, Emmet, Grattan,
I
saw, scrawled on a wall in red lettering,
BOOM
WENT MOUNTBATTEN
Somewhere
beyond
(Longley,
p. 220)
Lord
Mountbatten here symbolizes the colonizing force that he is struggling against.
In
the Palestinian poetry, Mahmoud Darwich reflects on the meaning of home and
exile and stresses his confusion with the meaning of home saying, “They
didn’t just occupy the land and its activities alone: they occupied the inner
mind and temperament and the bond between you and your home, so that you begin
to question the very meaning of this home.” (Darwich, p. 69)
The
poetry of both nations that was written by exiled poets is rather different from
that written by those who remained in the homeland, as it is marked by a
profound sense of alienation, nostalgia and dreaming of the homeland from which
they where expelled.
An
interesting fact of the Diaspora poetry is that it expresses very little
attachment to the countries in which the poets have settled and that they never
get “reterritorialized”. In the Palestinian exile poetry, for example, there
is no mention of Cairo, Damascus, Beirut or any other city to which they have
moved but only a yearning for home.
The
following lines by Maryam Al Qasim Al Sa`d, who lives in America, reflects this
idea in her poem “Vision”, published in 1991:
Years
pass and
the
waiting continues
Unwavering
faith remains
a
halo illuminating generations
The
vision stays alive.
(Jayyusi,
p.46)
Expressions
like “unwavering faith” and “stays alive” validate this established
yearning for home that never dies in their souls.
Maryam
Al Qasim’s poem echoes one of Mahmoud Darwich’s earlier poems:
Needs
no reminding: Mount Carmel is within us
On
our eyelashes Galilee’s dust is blown
Do
not say “I would run to her like a river!”
Our
country is a flesh of our flesh, a bone of our bone.
(Jayyusi,
p. 49)
Women
and Children: Different Poetic Address
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The poetry of the two
nations differ in their handling of the theme of women in the
struggle
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The
poetry of the two nations differ in their handling of the theme of the position
of women in the struggle. The image of the Irish woman is vague if not negative
in Irish poetry. Margaret Curtain expresses this difficulty as “The
historiography of women’s history in Ireland is largely a story of neglect
with only a small number of pioneers quietly insisting on establishing the
significance of the subject” (Curtain, p. 1).
The
Irish woman is always depicted as an impediment to the resisting spirit with her
irresponsible behavior. Paul Muldoon, in his
long
poem “The More a Man Has the More a Man Wants” (1983), describes an awful
incident in which some Catholic girls were tarred and feathered in 1970 for
hanging around with English soldiers:
Someone
on their way to early Mass
Will
find her hog-tied
to
the chapel gates-
………………….
Her
lovely head has been chopped
and
changed.
For
Beatrice, whose fathers
knew
Louis Quinz,
to
have come to this, her perruqe
of
tar and feathers.
(Longley,
p. 196)
Muldoon
wrote another poem, “Bran”, describing the miserable social condition of the
Irish people. Bran is a dog that is disturbed on seeing the miserable view of
the Irish. The poet depicts the image of women in an indecent manner:
While
he looks into the eyes of women
Who
have let themselves go,
While
they sigh and they moan
For
pure joy.
(Muldoon,
p. 12)
This
distorted image of women prevailing in Irish poetry contradicts the real role
that was presented in the historical background, as they were reported to have
been among the martyrs of the two Bloody Sundays while demonstrating. The
problem, therefore, is not in the absence of their role as much as in the
absence of their voices. This marginalization of women in the context of the
Irish struggle was admitted by Clair Wills: “On the one hand there is, in
overt opposition to the perceived exclusion of women’s concerns, and women’s
narratives in much contemporary poetry, a strategy of representation—of giving
voice.” (Wills, p. 47)
In
contrast, the image of the Palestinian woman and her heroic role is engraved in
Palestinian poetry. Since the beginning of the Palestinian struggle, women have
been in the foreground as resisters, by demonstrating, providing relief services
to families of detainees, transporting food to fighting men, establishing
charitable organizations, writing literature and—most important of all, as
happened in the second Intifada—participating in armed operations. Wafa’
Idris and Dareen abu `Eisha are but a few examples. Another role, which is not
less important, is the reproductive role for the survival of the threatened
Palestinian race and a sort of demographic triumph. These roles were precisely
depicted by Hanan `Ashrawy in her poem “Women and Things”:
Women
make things grow:
Sometimes
like crocus
surprised
by rain, emerging fully
grown
from the belly of the earth:
Others
like the palm tree with
its
promise postponed
rising
in a slow
deliberate
spiral
to the sky
(Jayyusi,
336)
Ibrahim
Nasralla also celebrated the great role of women in his poem “A Woman”:
Tired
man what can you say
to
a woman who perfects her presence,
and
is adept at arranging the world
in
the space of your perpetual ruin.
What’s
to be said
to
this woman, this child,
as
she spontaneously fashions new flights of joy
new
birth-rites
and
secret paths for the winds,
a
variable green for the trees
and
what’s to be said to two intimate braids
which
have delivered her to the succulence of fruit,
the
scent of Jasmine?
(Jayyusi,
240)
It
is notable that in these poems, a series of symbols and images are used to refer
to women and their roles. These images and symbols are so deep-rooted in Arabic
and Palestinian culture that it is sometimes difficult for non-Arabs to
understand. In these poems there is a recurrent mention of elements of the land.
“Predominant in the poetry is the use of the images which are connected with
the land. By incorporating earthly symbols the poet demonstrates the Palestinian
rootedness in the land. Reference to flowers, (jasmine, lilac and lily) and
trees (the olive, orange and almond) abound. When these images are used,
concrete and graphic images of the land of Palestine surface in the readers’
minds” (Jacobson, p. 105).
The
Palestinian woman is identified with the land itself. Notice also the repeated
reference to her important reproductive role by mentioning the plants coming out
of the land in a wonderful image of birth. The wind in Nasrallah’s poem refers
to women’s role in resistance and struggle, “Visions of storms, thunder and
lightening, have dual meaning and may stand for forces of evil or defiance and
revolution depending on the context” (Jacobson, p. 106). I think that the
second meaning is more suitable to this context of the Palestinian woman. The
rain in `Ashrawy’s poem is another symbol of fertility and life-giving power.
The
Child: A Contrasting Image in the Two Experiences
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Irish resistance poetry
deals with childhood as an embodiment of weakness
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Another
point of departure in the poetry of the two nations is the image of the child.
Irish resistance poetry deals with childhood as an embodiment of weakness and
helplessness, which is normal enough. It is the child of the Intifada who is
leading an extraordinary and unprecedented experience!
In
the Irish poetry, the child is portrayed as a helpless victim of war
circumstances and is used to draw the sympathy for the case, as in the following
lines by John Hewitt:
What
word of yours can…
Give
life and purpose to a workless lad?
the
hearthless house? Restore the strength they had
to
the smashed fingers?
(Matthews,
pp. 62-63)
In
the previously quoted poem “Bran”, by Muldoon, the dog is disturbed to see
the state of the young boys:
He
weeps for the boy on that small farm
Who
takes an oatmeal labrador
In
his farm
Who
knows all there is of rapture.
(Muldoon,
p. 12)
The
Palestinian poetry gives an extremely different image of the child. The hope is
always in the children, as it is the first time that a revolt of such a
magnitude is led by children. In the following poem, “A Vision” by Mureed
Barghouthy, this hope strongly prevails:
O
lifetime of ours, go on! Parents!
Give
our children plenty of milk
Prepare
what light for them you can,
save
for them every match stick
Keep
the lanterns, and the oil
For
the night means to inhabit for a long time
(Jayyusi,
p. 131)
The
optimistic mood is reflected in the vocabulary. The white milk is a symbol of
life and growth. Light, match stick and lantern are symbols of hope,
enlightenment and clear vision of the future. Children have a unique connotation
that is only found in the Intifada poetry, one of the power of resistance and
the continuity of struggle, not innocence and weakness as the established
universal connotation of the word.
|

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Children have a unique
connotation that is only found in the Intifada poetry
|
The
optimistic mood and the hope in children is stronger in the following poem by
‘Abdur-Rahman ‘Awawdah, “Determination in our young children”:
Determination
in our young children.
Love,
in our hearts, is commitment
The
bird above our heads is singing
The
people lay open their committed chests
The
land opens its arms and paths
In
the sun’s glance there is integrity
………………………………..
Embrace
your little ones for they
are
the symbol of immortality and they
are
the lions.
(Jacobson,
p. 50)
Again,
the selection of vocabulary that is highly suggestive adds to the image of a
hopeful future despite the repressive present. The singing of the birds, the new
avenues, the sun and love all suggest optimism.
Conclusion
The
above is but an abridgement of a more detailed study of the resistance poetry of
Ireland and Palestine. Though distant, the two nations have had similar
histories, and their resistance poetry reflects many similar themes as well as
some differences.
Works
Cited
-
Cronin,
M. (2001). The History of Ireland. St. Martin’s Press.
-
Curtain,
M. (1991). Women in Early Modern Ireland. Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press.
-
Darwich,
M. (1978). Yawmiyyat al-Huzn al’Adi (2nd ed.). Beirut: Dar al
Awdah.
-
Elmessiri,
A.M. (1982). The Palestinian Wedding: A Bilingual Anthology of
Contemporary Palestinian Resistance Poetry. Three Continents.
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Lecturer of English Literature, Cairo University.