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Do you know what it means to inherit a key? To sum up one’s inheritance, past, and memories with just a key!
The fate of many oppressed peoples is doomed to displacement and displacement, and anyone who has witnessed this realizes that this has consequences that do not stop at the moment in which a person lives searching for a real, safe and warm shelter, but rather extends beyond it to the search for a lost identity and a lost soul stumbling through the edges of life, looking forward and looking towards a peaceful belonging. A person finds peace in his heart, for the soul is always yearning for tranquility and stability.
Displacement, displacement, and expulsion from one’s homeland are the objective equivalent of death and the departure of the soul from the body, as God Almighty explained in Surat An-Nisa: “And if We had prescribed for them, ‘Kill yourselves, or go out from your homes,’ they would not have done it, except a few of them.” “.
Literature has always been a warm embrace for the wounded pen and the genius’s pain. The knights of the firefly resort to it to alleviate the burdens of life by talking about it and photographing it. Transparent souls rise to the top of the pen, baring the page of time, dropping from it the mask of life decorated with hopes and pains alike.
What do you know about asylum literature?
In the context of asylum literature, the lines of diaspora diverge, as Palestinian exile has unrivaled the strings of literary creativity! It was followed, after many years, by Iraqi, Syrian, and other expatriation… In the literature of asylum, the weaknesses are revealed, false morals float on the surface of experience and tragedy, and freedom of thought and expression crystallizes as a rebellion against tyranny, occupation, oppression, and displacement, so the word becomes a sword!
Among the distinguished novels that talked about Palestinian asylum, to mention but not limited to, is a novel by the Palestinian novelist Ali Al-Kurdi entitled “Palace of Shemaya,” whose events take place in the alleys and alleys of Damascus, and even in the Jewish Quarter specifically. As for the literature of asylum or displacement – so to speak – on the Syrian side, its flames kindled after the year 1967, that is, after the exodus from the Syrian Golan. The novel “The Old Man of the Lake” by the novelist Tayseer Khalaf spoke about the story of the Syrian and Palestinian exodus from the Golan. About 100,130,000 people were forced to From the people of the Golan to leave their pastures and carry the banner of immigration and displacement for subsequent generations.
When talking about refugee stories in literature, the first thing that comes to our mind is the writings of Ghassan Kanafani, who accurately portrayed Palestinian suffering in his literary works, and made his letters and words a tool that uproots despair from the souls of his readers, and urges the Palestinians to rebel and rise again, and this is what we find in his novel. The wonderful “Men in the Sun,” which he concluded by saying, “Why didn’t they knock on the walls of the tank?” The same applies to his novel, “Returning to Haifa.”
What does the image of camps look like in our Arabic literature?
No matter how much a person hears about asylum, he remains unable to understand its essence until he swallows the bitterness of his gall. As it is said, “He who sees is not the same as he who hears!” Perhaps we have all heard some of our grandmothers’ stories and our grandfathers’ stories about our ancient past, rich in compelling events, killing, displacement, and alienation. However, a person only sees the meaning in himself, and if he is a gentle writer, the groans and cries emanating from the past will become letters and words of fire, telling the stories of a person burdened with the meaning of refuge. !.
“The tent, Um Saad, is the tent, even if it is a palace in exile. What is my business if the branch of the vine does not blossom and we both never return to Haifa?” This is how Ghassan Kanafani explains his vision of tents. Even if they become palaces, they will remain an indication of displacement and a symbol of displacement and alienation.
As for the word “camp,” it alone is sufficient today to summon thousands of images to our Arab imaginations. Our peoples have a long history in the field of displacement and displacement, and images of misery, poverty, destitution, and need come to our heads, and images of tents that may turn over time into houses or small rooms lined up next to each other as if they were She leans on her miserable counterpart to support him and her in living conditions that lack the basics of human life.
We imagine that the residents of the camps are excluded and marginalized, unable to live on the margins of life and the footnotes are unable to comprehend their many pains and sorrows, but the camp has become a part of the lives of many of us, and is no longer limited to the people of wounded Palestine, to whom Ghassan Kanafani addressed, saying, “You have something in this world, so rise up.” “. From Nakba to Nakba, to Iraq, Yemen and Syria, the story of Arab refugees continues.
But the camp, since Ghassan Kanafani wrote the novel “Umm Saad,” anticipating the future of the camps’ children in particular and their transformation into real fuel for the revolution, thus changing the world’s view of the camps as hotbeds of corruption, and turning it 180 degrees so that the camps become a launching pad for revolutionaries and a habitat for the free.
What about the negative image that literature has conveyed to us about camps and refugees?
I do not think that the stories and novels that depicted the conditions of the camps and refugees left a negative impact when they depicted bad types of people. Despite the perpetuation of many unjust and unjust ideas about refugees, fairness calls for a free pen and moderate thought in evaluating the literary images that conveyed to us the shortcomings of some refugees. Some of the images that literature has exported in stories and novels, such as the story of “The Stolen Shirt” by Ghassan Kanafani, which is a story that describes people’s conditions and sheds light on greedy souls and opportunistic, exploitative and traitorous personalities to their country and their people, do not mean generalization at all, but rather mean fairness and seeking honesty and transparency in conveying reality. pension at that time.
Such images are considered a healthy phenomenon in literature in general, as they are social criticism aimed at correcting the course and clarifying ways to expose ugly souls, guide them, and work to correct them.
When the refugee is a writer and philosopher
When we talk about asylum literature, we cannot go beyond the works of the creative Palestinian writer Walid Saif, the author of “Palestinian Exile.” He was able, through the literary works and representative scenarios he presented, to present the issue of asylum and the tragedies and deep scars it contains in a lively and immediate context, and he was able to connect it to its cultural data. And its political circumstances that surrounded it and prevented it from the means of life, especially since he was an actual witness since his childhood days, as he says, “My early childhood witnessed aspects of the Palestinian tragedy represented by the suffering of the refugees, and the development of the conditions of the camps in the West Bank, and I remember that when we were walking in the well-known Tulkarm Plain We were clashing with what is called (the borders of the armistice), and we were looking at the usurped Palestine from beyond those borders.”
Musawar continues the meaning of belonging that grew in the consciousness of the Palestinians very early, and the meaning of jihad for the sake of the homeland, truth and justice, as he says: “When we started learning to read and write, the word that we wrote with chalk on the classroom blackboards was (Palestine), and when we were asked to write a free topic. In expressions, we always and spontaneously chose a topic related to Palestine, the Nakba, liberation, and the return that we dream of.”
When asylum unites artists and writers
Did it occur to Naji Al-Ali, the creative cartoonist and owner of the famous symbol “Handala,” when he painted the painting of the tent, the pyramid, that it would attract the admiration of a writer like Ghassan Kanafani, with whom he met at the conclusion of the assassination and martyrdom, and that it would stop him to ask about it, and about the relationship between the pyramid and the tent?
Naji Al-Ali’s answer was unique and striking, as he said – with a twist – in his Palestinian dialect: “First: We Palestinians are distinguished by the tent just as the Egyptians are distinguished by the pyramid. I mean, when you say a tent, you will say Palestine, and when you say a pyramid, you will say Egypt…, Second: The pyramid and the tent are a place to live for them and for us.” But they inhabit it in the death of life, meaning a sign of immortality, and we inhabit it in the life of death, meaning a sign of insistence on returning, and of eternity as well, so that our cause will remain as red as an ember, and the day we carry the tent and wrap it around, we will carry Palestine and wrap it around as well.”
Ghassan was impressed by Naji’s philosophy, and asked him where he got these ideas from. His answer was in his beloved Palestinian dialect, praising the impact of the difficult circumstances he lived in the camp, because they were the reason behind refining his life experiences and developing his talents. He said: “We did not tell you, man, this world has taught us everything. Knowledgeable.” God, this camp alone has more knowledge than the American University they talk about in Beirut!”
One of the wonderful things that was mentioned at the end of their dialogue is that Naji Al-Ali linked the stone of the pyramid to the fabric of the tent, explaining the relationship between them by saying: “Nothing will return to Palestine except this stone! And this stone will only come out from this tent… neither from palaces nor from high places, and your safety!”
Exchange of experiences between refugees
It is both funny and sad at the same time for refugees to exchange their experiences in asylum, tents, and dealing with the new reality of displacement, so that literature is the mail conveying these messages, as the Palestinian writer Ibrahim Jaber Ibrahim did when he wrote “A Letter from a Palestinian Refugee to a Syrian Refugee” with the beginnings of the Syrian refugee wave in 2013. 2011, in which he conveys the commandments and experiences of the Palestinian refugee, who has decades of experience in the suffering of asylum, and says: “You have to get used to your new things: you are now a number in refugee records and in news bulletins, and in committee meetings and delegation endeavors. The tent will be annoying on the first night. Then in the first year, after that, you will become friendly like one of the family, but be careful not to fall in love with her, like we did!”
“Do not be happy if you see them establishing a health center or a primary school for you. This is not good news at all!”
“And beware of getting involved with stupid demands, such as building simple houses instead of tents, or with water and electricity lines, because that means that you have begun to coexist… and here the refugee was killed, and if you rested for a day, this means that you are no longer panting toward (return)! And do not train your children to be patient, be patient.” The trick of the helpless, and the pretext of the one who abandoned.”
With all pain and anguish, he depicts to his new refugee brother at the University of Displacement how people will trade in his aches and pains, and he says: “People will sell you to each other, that is the hobby of politicians, and solidarity activists will come from all countries. You will become their electoral slogan, and they will draw closer to God through you, and people’s determination to visit you will increase.” “Ramadan” and on religious holidays and occasions! Some will film your children exhausted and hungry just to get a reward from the editor-in-chief or the station director.
Ibrahim Jabra meets Ghassan Kanafani in that all tents are similar to each other, and that the refugee must not succumb to the anesthesia of humane dealing with the refugee. He says: “This is your new life: love will break out in the tents, a talented painter will be born, and a client and a prostitute will also be born. The heat of the weather will not be doubted.” Or pebbles in the bread, and be careful not to ask for a better tent, there is no better tent than a tent, and tell them that your problem is not emotional and a visit from Angelina Jolie will not solve it.”
How truthful was Naji Al-Ali when he concluded by saying to Ghassan Kanafani: “May your peace be upon you.”
