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Last update - 00:16 03/07/2008
Palestinian poet: History laughs at both victim and aggressor
By Reuters
Tags: Mahmoud Darwish 

Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish said on Wednesday his new works blend sarcasm and a deep sense of hope in their treatment of the decades-old conflict with Israel.

Darwish drew thousands of Palestinians to a rare public reading in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Tuesday night.

The crowds unable to get seats in the city's Cultural Palace watched him on outdoor screens nearby. Newspapers said millions abroad watched him live on al-Jazeera.
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Darwish told Reuters that his new poems reflected a sense of hope, and were also laden with a necessary sarcasm.

"Sarcasm helps me overcome the harshness of the reality we live, eases the pain of scars and makes people smile," Darwish said in an interview.

"The sarcasm is not only related to today's reality but also to history. History laughs at both the victim and the aggressor," Darwish said in an interview.

Darwish, 67, has developed a strong international following, with his poems translated into over 20 languages.

In a new poem called "The Written Script", Darwish relates a dialogue between a victim and his enemy who fall into a hole together and are waiting for someone to throw them a lifeline.

The poem depicts the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians and hints that the Israelis were heading towards suicide, taking the Palestinians with them, if Israel continued to occupy Palestinian territories.

"At the beginning we wait for luck...We are both afraid but we do not exchange words about our fear or anything else because we are enemies," the victim says in Darwish's poem.

"The silence between us was broken. He asked: what shall we do? I said: nothing, We will exhaust the probabilities (of salvation). He said: And where does hope come from? I said from the air."

Darwish then refers to the futility of what he believes to be "unfair" negotiations between sides in conflict and adds "time flew...here a killer and his victim die together in one hole.

Israel and the Palestinians have launched U.S.-sponsored final status negotiations with the aim of reaching a framework deal on the nature of a future Palestinian state before President George W. Bush leaves office in January.

However, there have been few tangible signs of progress in the talks.

In powerful poems in rich, classical Arabic, Darwish has often been called "the poet of resistance" for reflecting the suffering of Palestinians under occupation and the harsh life of refugees in exile.

But he has defied this definition and says he has moved on, attracting a new generation and people from all walks of life.

"Some people ask how do you attract the young and so many different people when your poetry is complicated and different. I say my accomplishment is that my readers trust me and accept my suggestions for change," Darwish said.

Adila Laidi, a lecturer at BirZeit University near Ramallah, aid "Darwish's power lies in his ability to describe the Palestinian feelings in a way they themselves cannot."

He seems to be succeeding in attracting a new audience.

"His poetry is complicated and full of contradictions. It brings out the
contradictions inside us. While the Palestinians want peace, they cannot gnore how the conflict is affecting their lives," engineer Ghadeer Khoury, 23, said.

Darwish was a child when his family was driven from their Arab village el-Birweh to Lebanon when Israel was created in 1948. His family later returned to live in another Arab town. He was jailed several times and stripped of his Israeli citizenship before he left the country to join the exiled Palestine Liberation Organization.

In 1994 he resigned his seat on the PLO's ruling Executive Committee to protest the 1993 interim Israeli-Palestinian peace deals which he says failed to bring an end to the conflict. In his new poem "The Dice Thrower", Darwish tells the story of his life, says death was coming yet still clings to life.

"To Life I say: Go slow, wait for me until the drunkenness dries in my glass...I have no role in what I was or who I will be...it is chance and chance has no name...I call the doctor 10 minutes before the death, 10 minutes are sufficient to live by chance," Darwish said.
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  1.   Beyond sarcasm 20:14  |  Jeremy 02/07/08
  2.   To # 1 the thousands of Pal children YOU & YOURS murdered are not 20:48  |  Yahya 02/07/08
  3.   #2 . Your arab leadership prompted hitlers execution of 6,000,000 21:30  |  JJ 02/07/08
  4.   Yelling at each other 21:48  |  Oscar Huaptman 02/07/08
  5.   arab fraud 21:51  |  joe Smith 02/07/08
  6.   to Yahya the misinformed or the brainwashed 21:53  |  Jeremy 02/07/08
  7.   I really want to hear from him after a day like today, spare us!! 22:42  |  Jewish State 02/07/08
  8.   #2 Al Dura "death" was a lie, the "cause" a fraud 23:51  |  Jack 02/07/08
  9.   Darwish is right 00:50  |  Slibovitz 03/07/08
  10.   Darwish`s History 00:52  |  Slibovitz 03/07/08
  11.   Yahya, racist-terrorist Israelis see murder as Gods will 01:17  |  anti-racist 03/07/08
  12.   Jeremy 02:27  |  A.M. 03/07/08
  13.   #11anti-semite; You`re getting the Jews confused with the Arabs. 03:50  |  Palestiniansareamyth 03/07/08
  14.   God bless you Mahmoud Darwish!!!! 06:21  |  Kat 03/07/08
  15.   history doesn`t laugh, people do 06:35  |  z 03/07/08
  16.   To the Joe Smiths of the World 08:03  |  Markus 03/07/08
  17.   To # 1 and #8 08:57  |  Farooq 03/07/08
  18.   The rabid Zionists on this board 09:18  |  Joe 03/07/08
  19.   Hey Joe (#18) 10:36  |  David 03/07/08
  20.   Darwish is simply Great 12:57  |  Danish 03/07/08
  21.   Does he write about the Pals who`re moving out? 13:32  |  petra 03/07/08
  22.   #19, #20, & Others: 13:37  |  Mo 03/07/08
  23.   Godd God what hateful comments 16:20  |  Suad 03/07/08
  24.   To Mo # 22 If ignorant ... better to shut up 16:52  |  Danish 03/07/08
  25.   TO # 22 MO Read the whole poetry 17:05  |  Danish 03/07/08
  26.   Darwish`s poems should be included in Israeli school cur 17:15  |  Danish 03/07/08
  27.   Palestinian tolerance 22:12  |  Sam C 03/07/08
  28.   If this "palestinian" is a Poet, then I am Jessica Rabbitt! 08:32  |  Heidi Helmick 07/07/08
  29.   heidi 17:32  |  aya 10/08/08
  30.   Hard to accept 19:06  |  Moostic 11/08/08
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