25 April - 1 May 2002
Issue No.583
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 25 April - 1 May 2002 Issue No.583 |
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Plain talk
I first met Hanan Awwad, a young Palestinian poet, during a PEN Congress in Vienna in November 1991. PEN, probably the oldest association of writers, was started in 1921 as an expression of anti-war feeling, with H G Wells as its first president.
Hanan, having been the secretary of the only Arab PEN Centre, had come to the Vienna PEN Congress with an application to found a Palestinian Centre branch of this international organisation. The young Palestinian approached me, and told me about the reason behind her presence. We both started lobbying for the establishment of a Palestinian Centre inside Israel. With the existence of an Israeli and Yiddish Centres the lobbying was tough, but thanks to the support of the European Centres, especially the British and the French, the application was accepted, and we celebrated the birth of a Palestinian Centre.
Hanan presented me with a neat, slim collection of her poems with the title I Chose Danger. When the Intifada started, I thought to myself this was the time to reread the poems and to know how the fire of resistance never flagged. Going through them now, I was amazed to see how poems Hanan wrote in the 1980s applied to the current situation. They reflect the same courage, sacrifice and suffering which we are witnessing every day. They also reflect the hope that one day, soon, liberation will come and Palestine will join the comity of nations.
In the introduction to I Chose Danger Hanan writes about how her trek on the long road of resistance was supported by fellow fighters who assuaged whatever fear she might have. She starts her journey with a strong will and the roots of olive trees, with children's innocent eyes, and the throbbing of lovers' hearts. She describes how the tears of mothers and the golden tresses of the sun enfold her and lighten the heavy falling darkness.
The earth is proud, challenging, while endless lines of martyrs march towards liberation, a nation, identity. Mothers hug their children in an eternal embrace of love. Hanan addresses children who are the lion cubs that embrace the olive trees, and who will fight for Palestine. Children, workers, students and farmers, all move towards the final victory. Words cannot keep up with their heroism or match their sacrifice.
But Hanan never loses hope. In the middle of fire, there will always be love. A critic writes about Hanan: "The story of love in a world of war, how will it taste? Has the Palestinian a chance to love in this time of suffering and revolution, the time of pain and hope? Is the Palestinian gun the opposite of Palestinian love? Or are they the same language?" Similar to what the renowned Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish once wrote -- "Who does not love cannot fight" -- Hanan Awwad writes: "Who does not love cannot carry the flame".
Examples of her heart- rending poems which are a beautiful mixture of struggle and hope, of sacrifice and martyrdom on the one hand and the love of life on the other, abound. In a short poem titled "The Song of Life", she writes:
My companion. I am a flower
In the arena of blood
I write poetry for my brothers
In whose eyes the dawn rises
And heaven rains
For my brothers
In whose hearts lie
The trillings of joy and love.
And of faithfulness
For our giving land
I walk our long road
We die, but do not die.
It is the impossible which is dead?I wonder where Hanan Awwad is now. Wherever she might be, she should know that she is always remembered whenever a martyr falls and whenever the brave struggle. Maybe one day we shall meet under the shadow of an olive tree in a liberated Palestine.
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