Dr. Khalid Al-Shafi
In a poem titled ‘Dictator Sitting Speech’, Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish talks about the dictator saying: “I will choose my own people, I will choose you one by one, You will belong to my mother’s race and my doctrine, I will choose you to be worthy of having me…and I will be worthy of having you, I will award you the right to serve me, Put my photos on your walls, and thank me because I have chosen you to be my nation”.
These verses come to my mind on every anniversary of Darwish’s death. Darwish is considered one of the most prominent Arab poets in the second half of the twentieth century. He was described as the poet of love, homeland and resistance.
In these unblessed days, we commemorate the sixth anniversary of his death, while Gaza is under fire and Israeli bombs, which have received non-doctrinal blessings from Arabs, Islamists, Sunnis, and Shias.
In Darwish’s poetry and particularly in his collection of poems under the title “The Dictator’s Speeches”, published 25 years ago, you will realisethe frustrations, failures, crises and debacles embodied in the Arab world after the eruption of the “Arab Spring” revolutions do not come exclusively from externalenemies, but with the participation of fellow citizen. The conditions have become far worse and people have begun to bemoan “the dictatorleader” of the past becoming more than a dictatorial monster of today.
Darwish’s poems exposed dictatorship as the facts expose the despotic Arab regimes, which lost their legitimacy. These regimes bet on normalisation and marketing peace slogans forcibly in the camp named “moderation”, or the ones that deceived us by trading in the Arab issues in the face of steadfastness, defiance and resistance. These regimes didn’t fire even one bullet at the enemy, but directed missiles at their own people. Moreover, these authoritarian regimes didn’t know any law except that of coercion, murder and terrorism in order to continue surviving.
Darwish says sarcastically about advocates who talk of normalisationof relations with Israel and after he shamed those trading in the Palestinian issue (long live peace…) and for the peace, soldiers have been called from the barracks to the capital/ make them police to maintain stability and defend security against the mob, the hungry and the expansion of the sinful opposition… and the prison has enough spaces for all, including elders and infants, and from the cleric to the trade unionist and the maid.
The dictator thinks that everything is fine and stable, and he will live forever, and says I am in my 80s and I will live for another eighty years, I will keep holding my sword, I will carry your coffins when you die. It is my right to live and it is your right to die, and I will bring a new generation to carry your dreams. What I want you to know is that everything over the land and below the land is run by me and on my orders, and you cannot run away from my palace.
At the time the dictator thinks everything is okay, the revolution erupts from the womb of oppression, and the graves.
In a poem titled ‘Dictator Sitting Speech’, Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish talks about the dictator saying: “I will choose my own people, I will choose you one by one, You will belong to my mother’s race and my doctrine, I will choose you to be worthy of having me…and I will be worthy of having you, I will award you the right to serve me, Put my photos on your walls, and thank me because I have chosen you to be my nation”.
These verses come to my mind on every anniversary of Darwish’s death. Darwish is considered one of the most prominent Arab poets in the second half of the twentieth century. He was described as the poet of love, homeland and resistance.
In these unblessed days, we commemorate the sixth anniversary of his death, while Gaza is under fire and Israeli bombs, which have received non-doctrinal blessings from Arabs, Islamists, Sunnis, and Shias.
In Darwish’s poetry and particularly in his collection of poems under the title “The Dictator’s Speeches”, published 25 years ago, you will realisethe frustrations, failures, crises and debacles embodied in the Arab world after the eruption of the “Arab Spring” revolutions do not come exclusively from externalenemies, but with the participation of fellow citizen. The conditions have become far worse and people have begun to bemoan “the dictatorleader” of the past becoming more than a dictatorial monster of today.
Darwish’s poems exposed dictatorship as the facts expose the despotic Arab regimes, which lost their legitimacy. These regimes bet on normalisation and marketing peace slogans forcibly in the camp named “moderation”, or the ones that deceived us by trading in the Arab issues in the face of steadfastness, defiance and resistance. These regimes didn’t fire even one bullet at the enemy, but directed missiles at their own people. Moreover, these authoritarian regimes didn’t know any law except that of coercion, murder and terrorism in order to continue surviving.
Darwish says sarcastically about advocates who talk of normalisationof relations with Israel and after he shamed those trading in the Palestinian issue (long live peace…) and for the peace, soldiers have been called from the barracks to the capital/ make them police to maintain stability and defend security against the mob, the hungry and the expansion of the sinful opposition… and the prison has enough spaces for all, including elders and infants, and from the cleric to the trade unionist and the maid.
The dictator thinks that everything is fine and stable, and he will live forever, and says I am in my 80s and I will live for another eighty years, I will keep holding my sword, I will carry your coffins when you die. It is my right to live and it is your right to die, and I will bring a new generation to carry your dreams. What I want you to know is that everything over the land and below the land is run by me and on my orders, and you cannot run away from my palace.
At the time the dictator thinks everything is okay, the revolution erupts from the womb of oppression, and the graves.
