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 The
plight of the Palestinian and Palestine is often told through
song, theatre, film, documentary, and literary debate. But,
rarely, in English do we have the opportunity to know it through
poetry and artistic prose. Translating Arabic poetry is no easy
feat, even for the most skilled translators. There is always an
element of losing so much. But Ahdaf Soueif, author of Map of Love
and In the Eye of the Sun, has eloquently rendered this into
English. I Saw Ramallah is the winner of the Naguib Mahfouz Medal
for Literature.
Mourid
Barghouti’s rendition of returning to his homeland is a poignant
and very private account of facing the past, present, and future
in one short visit.
The
narrator’s separation from his home begins when he is in the
midst of his final degree exams at Cairo University where he is
studying English literature. It is June 5, 1967: the “Six Day
War.” Israel has bombarded its way through Palestine, producing
what we now know as the “Occupied Territories,” and has
forbade all Palestinians abroad from returning. He marries an
Egyptian university colleague and settles in Egypt, but exile is
no stranger to him. He is deported during Sadat’s time, and
lives in Budapest for 17 years, estranged from his wife and five
month old child. He is reunited with his family in Egypt in 1990.
The
account starts not in chronological fashion, but with Barghouti in
1996 on “the bridge” between Jordan and West Bank, which he
crosses to be reunited with his homeland. This bridge, to many
Palestinians who know it, is more than the physical means of
crossing the Jordan River. It is a link to hope and home, and to
some it remains a myth. The narrator frequently mentions his dead
brother - the dutiful elder brother and son, and lifeline to the
family - who reached the bridge but did not manage to cross it.
Barghouti sets off with hopes and aspirations but arrives to find
the reality of life and the reality of his feelings quite
different. Israeli settlements encroach all over Palestinian land,
and Israeli flags and once green hills are just a few of the
obvious changes. He sees so many stark differences in people and
his country – images he doesn’t recall - he begins to wonder
whether his memory is failing him or if it is a trial in itself.
He asks himself as he discovers his lack of connection and scanty
knowledge of his country: How can he sing for Palestine?
But
it is the narrator’s memories that give the reader a strong
sense of place. One can almost see his village, Deir Ghassanah,
with its 400 year-old stone houses and arched doorways, its fig
trees and gardens, and smell the coffee pounding in the cafes, and
the olives pressed to make their locally famous olive oil.
Throughout his journey in the neighboring villages of Ramallah,
Barghouti recounts seemingly frivolous, yet sometimes funny and
sometimes sad, episodes of life pre-1967. His name Al-Barghouti,
for example, means “the flea” in Arabic. The Barghouti family
spans throughout the surrounding villages of Ramallah – in fact
almost the whole village carry the Barghouti name. Some of them
contest its meaning offering more noble possibilities, but the
narrator jovially accepts.
The
veracity of his account may induce disappointment from fellow
Palestinians. Barghouti does not paint a romantically nostalgic
picture of his homeland. He speaks of the ministers of the
Palestinian authorities in their luxurious cars and houses; the
state-run media in true dictatorial style turning defeat into
victory; the Palestinian police who were once fighting for freedom
and now imprisoning and torturing the ones they had supposedly
freed. Then there is the case of the ordinary Palestinian who
holds property of displaced Palestinians in trust. Some keep to
their word after 30 years and some get embroiled in family feuds
as they fight over a house or land – even between brothers and
sisters. He questions the losses of so many martyrs for a peace
agreement that allows minimum autonomy: enough to merely prop the
Palestinian flag on civil servants’ desks.
But
Barghouti does portray Palestinians as a resilient and hopeful
people. His mother is an example of a “hero” who struggled
year after year to reunite her family while she remained in
Palestine, and her sons and husband were scattered throughout the
world. He recounts the view that their existence has been purely
temporary since 1967. Everything from their jobs, their struggle,
to their tin houses is temporary. They build their lives on the
idea of “until things become clearer.”
There
are no praises for Palestinian political groups. It is people who
occupy the narrator’s heart, and in particular Palestinians who
died in exile. He refers to his friends, writer Ghassan Kanafani,
who was assassinated by an Israeli car bomb, and cartoonist and
creator of the caricature “Hanzala” Naji al-`Ali, who was
assassinated in London. He shows admiration for the Intifada, but
he never mentions its Islamic roots, nor does he refer to Islamic
principles that have strengthened the lives of so many
Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories today, especially
after the repeated failures of the PLO.
Barghouti
highlights the tragedy of the Palestinian problem in the breakdown
of so many supposed solutions. The Palestine he mentions has a
bleak future. Laying reference to the Socialist activists of the
past, he reflects on the failure of their ideologies and dreams,
more so after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of
communism. More Palestinian disillusionment lies in Camp David and
the Oslo Agreement that have been unjust and abused by the
Israelis. The sense of dejection can also be attributed to the
void in any spiritual dimension in the book – Islamic or
Christian. One feels that despite the Palestinian resolution to
live on and have hope, it is the Israelis who are “the
mighty,” and not The Divine who has the upper hand. Without any
reference to religion Barghouti’s Palestine is a land of many
martyrs and dead heroes; a land that is always adapting to
circumstances, even to the tune of the Israelis; and a land that
disintegrates as Israeli settlements occupy almost every piece of
Palestinian territory.
But
the narrator does declare a sense of optimism in the youth and
future generations. He speaks of the children of the Intifada who
are so different from the child he was and the children he grew up
with: his generation was reared to be shy and deferent. He remarks
on their debating skills, their confidence, their knowledge of
politics, and their love of local traditions. He frequently
mentions his son, a child of Diaspora, whom he longs to introduce
to his fellow Palestinians and land. Barghouti tries throughout
his stay to get permission for his son to enter. Sadly, his son is
similarly “stateless” even though his mother is Egyptian –
the father must be Egyptian to attain Egyptian nationality.
What
is so brave about this account is the writer’s ability to face
the self. He exposes his true feelings as a Palestinian returning
to the homeland and finding it not the dreamy place he imagined,
and its people not the heroic figures depicted throughout their
struggles. He realizes that the disconnection that he feels with
his country is interminable. This is poignantly put when he says,
“It is enough for a person to go through the first experience of
uprooting, to become uprooted forever.”
I
Saw Ramallah is a personal and sentient account, but neither
nostalgic nor sentimental. Through the eyes of one man we are told
in lyrical style of abandonment, exile, displacement, reunion, and
separation again. This is a poet’s diary
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