Mahmoud Darwish, people’s poet

RAMALLAH, West Bank – Mahmoud Darwish, whose poetry encapsulated the Palestinian cause, will get the equivalent of a state funeral in the West Bank tomorrow – an honour only previously accorded to PLO leader Yasser Arafat.

Tributes for Darwish poured in on Sunday, a day after the 67-year-old writer died from complications following heart surgery in a US hospital in Houston, Texas. “He translated the pain of the Palestinians in a magical way.He made us cry and made us happy and shook our emotions,” said Egypt’s vernacular poet Ahmed Fouad Negm.”Apart from being the poet of the Palestinian wound, which is hurting all Arabs and all honest people in the world, he is a master poet,” Negm told Reuters in Cairo.Darwish’s funeral in Ramallah will be the first sponsored by the Palestinian Authority since Arafat died in 2004.Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declared three days of national mourning.People gathered on Saturday night in the darkened streets of Ramallah, holding candles and weeping.French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said his country shared Palestinian admiration for “this great figure whose poetry, which reflects nostalgia and liberty, speaks to us all.”Mahmoud Darwish knew how to express the attachment of an entire people to its land and the absolute desire for peace.His message, which calls for co-existence, will continue to resonate and will eventually be heard,” Kouchner said in a statement.THE VOICE OF A CIVILISATION The poet had made his home in the West Bank city since returning in the 1990s from a long exile during which he rose to prominence in Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).”The Palestinian question, in Mahmoud Darwish’s poetry, was no longer a legend, but the story of people made of flesh, blood and feelings,” saidZehi Wahbi, a friend of Darwish and a Lebanese television presenter and poet.For Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa, Darwish was “the voice of Palestinian civilisation, with its pains, sadness and ambitions”.Widely seen as the Palestinian national poet, Darwish’s writing was much translated.He won new generations of admirers with work that evoked not just the pain of Palestinians displaced, as he was as a child, by the foundation of Israel 60 years ago, but also subtle paradoxes and broader human themes.He enjoyed a following across the Arab world, where he had the kind of readership contemporary poets in English and other European languages, eclipsed by novelists, can only dream of.”He turned the Palestinian cause into songs that transcended the cause and all other Arab issues,” said Abdel-Rahman al-Abnoudi, a prominent Egyptian poet and a friend of Darwish.Darwish gave voice to Palestinians’ dreams of statehood, helping to craft their 1988 declaration of independence.He penned the words Arafat spoke at the United Nations in 1974: “Today I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom fighter’s gun.Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand.”- Nampa-Reuters * Additional reporting by Thomas Perry in Beirut, Alaa Shahine in Cairo and Tamora Vidaillet in Paris; Writing by Alistair Lyon, editing by Mary Gabriel.Some key facts * Darwish won admirers in the Arab world and beyond for award-winning poetry and prose that was translated into more than 20 languages.* He was born in al-Barweh village in the Galilee near the coastal city of Acre in 1941.Seven years later, Darwish was among that half of the Arab population of Palestine driven from their homes when Israel was created in 1948.* He published his first poetry collection, ‘Birds Without Wings’, in 1960.* Jailed several times by the Israelis for his political activities, Darwish left in 1971 for the Soviet Union.Exile in Cairo, Beirut, Tunis and Paris followed.* In 1988, Israel’s parliament debated a Darwish poem which Israelis saw as an attack on the Jewish state’s existence – though Darwish said it was a demand only for an end to their occupation of the West Bank, Arab East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip.”So leave our land.Our shore, our sea.Our wheat, our salt, our wound,” he wrote.* Darwish gave voice to Palestinian dreams of statehood, helping to forge a national identity.He crafted the 1988 Palestinian declaration of independence and wrote the late Yasser Arafat’s words at the United Nations in 1974: “Today I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom fighter’s gun.Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand.”* Darwish joined the Palestine Liberation Organisation in its early days, but resigned in 1993 in protest over the Oslo interim peace accords that Arafat signed with Israel.Nampa-Reuters”He translated the pain of the Palestinians in a magical way.He made us cry and made us happy and shook our emotions,” said Egypt’s vernacular poet Ahmed Fouad Negm.”Apart from being the poet of the Palestinian wound, which is hurting all Arabs and all honest people in the world, he is a master poet,” Negm told Reuters in Cairo.Darwish’s funeral in Ramallah will be the first sponsored by the Palestinian Authority since Arafat died in 2004.Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declared three days of national mourning.People gathered on Saturday night in the darkened streets of Ramallah, holding candles and weeping.French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said his country shared Palestinian admiration for “this great figure whose poetry, which reflects nostalgia and liberty, speaks to us all.”Mahmoud Darwish knew how to express the attachment of an entire people to its land and the absolute desire for peace.His message, which calls for co-existence, will continue to resonate and will eventually be heard,” Kouchner said in a statement. THE VOICE OF A CIVILISATION The poet had made his home in the West Bank city since returning in the 1990s from a long exile during which he rose to prominence in Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).”The Palestinian question, in Mahmoud Darwish’s poetry, was no longer a legend, but the story of people made of flesh, blood and feelings,” saidZehi Wahbi, a friend of Darwish and a Lebanese television presenter and poet.For Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa, Darwish was “the voice of Palestinian civilisation, with its pains, sadness and ambitions”.Widely seen as the Palestinian national poet, Darwish’s writing was much translated.He won new generations of admirers with work that evoked not just the pain of Palestinians displaced, as he was as a child, by the foundation of Israel 60 years ago, but also subtle paradoxes and broader human themes.He enjoyed a following across the Arab world, where he had the kind of readership contemporary poets in English and other European languages, eclipsed by novelists, can only dream of.”He turned the Palestinian cause into songs that transcended the cause and all other Arab issues,” said Abdel-Rahman al-Abnoudi, a prominent Egyptian poet and a friend of Darwish.Darwish gave voice to Palestinians’ dreams of statehood, helping to craft their 1988 declaration of independence.He penned the words Arafat spoke at the United Nations in 1974: “Today I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom fighter’s gun.Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand.”- Nampa-Reuters * Additional reporting by Thomas Perry in Beirut, Alaa Shahine in Cairo and Tamora Vidaillet in Paris; Writing by Alistair Lyon, editing by Mary Gabriel.Some key facts * Darwish won admirers in the Arab world and beyond for award-winning poetry and prose that was translated into more than 20 languages.* He was born in al-Barweh village in the Galilee near the coastal city of Acre in 1941.Seven years later, Darwish was among that half of the Arab population of Palestine driven from their homes when Israel was created in 1948.* He published his first poetry collection, ‘Birds Without Wings’, in 1960.* Jailed several times by the Israelis for his political activities, Darwish left in 1971 for the Soviet Union.Exile in Cairo, Beirut, Tunis and Paris followed.* In 1988, Israel’s parliament debated a Darwish poem which Israelis saw as an attack on the Jewish state’s existence – though Darwish said it was a demand only for an end to their occupation of the
West Bank, Arab East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip.”So leave our land.Our shore, our sea.Our wheat, our salt, our wound,” he wrote.* Darwish gave voice to Palestinian dreams of statehood, helping to forge a national identity.He crafted the 1988 Palestinian declaration of independence and wrote the late Yasser Arafat’s words at the United Nations in 1974: “Today I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom fighter’s gun.Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand.”* Darwish joined the Palestine Liberation Organisation in its early days, but resigned in 1993 in protest over the Oslo interim peace accords that Arafat signed with Israel.Nampa-Reuters

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