If you can't find a way express your thoughts, ask a poet

It's been a while since I've posted anything. I must admit that the attention I get from people emailing demanding "post, post!" is flattering, but the main reason I haven't written anything is sheer dumbfoundedness at how my countrymen have found increasingly inventive ways of killing each other. It's quite maddening.

So, a few days when a friend of mine, a staunch Fathawi sent me the following poem by Mahmoud Darwish, printed in the Palestine daily Al Ayyam, I thought it would be cathartic to trnalsate it. Those of you on Facebook can read the note; this slightly more polished version has taken on some of the suggestions of the meticulous Najeeb--our very own--and for this he gets much thanks.


I also noticed that a quite similar translation was posted on http://conflictblotter.com by C Levinson on the same day as my Facebook note; I want to point out that any similarities are probably due to the very direct style Darwish uses here. In short, this poem translates reasonably well but is just not a good poem.


(Apologies, of course, for the messiness of the formatting.)


أنت منذ الآن غيرك!
"يوميـات"
محمود درويش

You are, from now, Different

Mahmoud Darwish




هل كان علينا أن نسقط من عُلُوّ شاهق، ونرى دمنا على أيدينا... لنُدْرك أننا لسنا ملائكة.. كما كنا نظن؟
Did we have to fall from our great heights, to see our own blood on our own hands, to learn that we are not the angels we thought we were?

وهل كان علينا أيضاً أن نكشف عن عوراتنا أمام الملأ، كي لا تبقى حقيقتنا عذراء؟
Did we have to expose ourselves shamelessly, so that our own reality would lose its innocence?
كم كَذَبنا حين قلنا: نحن استثناء!
How deceitful it was for us to exclaim: "We are an exception!"

أن تصدِّق نفسك أسوأُ من أن تكذب على غيرك!
To believe your own lies is worse than to lie to others!

أن نكون ودودين مع مَنْ يكرهوننا، وقساةً مع مَنْ يحبّونَنا - تلك هي دُونيّة المُتعالي، وغطرسة الوضيع!
To be gentle with those who hate us, and vicious with those who love us[1]—that is the proud man's secret vice, and the gall of the weak.

أيها الماضي! لا تغيِّرنا... كلما ابتعدنا عنك!
To the Past I say, do not change us just because we move away from you.


أيها المستقبل: لا تسألنا: مَنْ أنتم؟
وماذا تريدون مني؟ فنحن أيضاً لا نعرف.

The future I beg: Do not ask us: "Who are you? What do you want of me?"
We also do not know.

أَيها الحاضر! تحمَّلنا قليلاً، فلسنا سوى عابري سبيلٍ ثقلاءِ الظل!
Of the Present, I request: Bear with us a little, we are but uncouth vagabonds!








الهوية هي: ما نُورث لا ما نَرِث. ما نخترع لا ما نتذكر. الهوية هي فَسادُ المرآة التي يجب أن نكسرها كُلَّما أعجبتنا الصورة!
Identity is: What we pass on. Not what was passed on to us. It is something we invent, not something for us to recollect. Identity is the mirror to be broken every time we like what we see.


تَقَنَّع وتَشَجَّع، وقتل أمَّه.. لأنها هي ما تيسَّر له من الطرائد.. ولأنَّ جنديَّةً أوقفته وكشفتْ له عن نهديها قائلة: هل لأمِّك، مثلهما؟

He donned a mask and borrowed courage, and killed his own mother; because that is who he could kill…and because a woman-soldier stopped him at a checkpoint, revealed her breasts to him and asked: "Does your mother too, not have these?"


لولا الحياء والظلام، لزرتُ غزة، دون أن أعرف الطريق إلى بيت أبي سفيان الجديد، ولا اسم النبي الجديد!
Were it not for the shame, I would have visited Gaza, without knowing the way to the house of the new Abu Suffyan, nor of the new Prophet.



ولولا أن محمداً هو خاتم الأنبياء، لصار لكل عصابةٍ نبيّ، ولكل صحابيّ ميليشيا!
Were it not that Mohammed was the Final Prophet, each gang would have as its leader a Prophet, and for each of his Apostles, a militia.


أعجبنا حزيران في ذكراه الأربعين: إن لم نجد مَنْ يهزمنا ثانيةً هزمنا أنفسنا بأيدينا لئلا ننسى!
This June brought with it a surprise with its fortieth remembrance: There was nobody to defeat us a second time, and so we defeated ourselves.


مهما نظرتَ في عينيّ.. فلن تجد نظرتي هناك. خَطَفَتْها فضيحة!
No matter how much you look into my eyes, my gaze will not be there. It was kidnapped by this scandal.


قلبي ليس لي... ولا لأحد. لقد استقلَّ عني، دون أن يصبح حجراً.
My heart is no longer mine, nor does it belong to another. It has broken free of me, without turning into stone.


هل يعرفُ مَنْ يهتفُ على جثة ضحيّته - أخيه: >الله أكبر< أنه كافر إذ يرى الله على صورته هو: أصغرَ من كائنٍ بشريٍّ سويِّ التكوين؟
Does the one who chants "God is Great!" over the body of his brother-victim that he is an apostate in the eyes of God: For God sees that he has taken a perfect human life?







أخفى السجينُ، الطامحُ إلى وراثة السجن، ابتسامةَ النصر عن الكاميرا. لكنه لم يفلح في كبح السعادة السائلة من عينيه.
رُبَّما لأن النصّ المتعجِّل كان أَقوى من المُمثِّل.
The prisoner, so desperate to inherit his jail, hid the smile of victory from the cameras but he could not hide the joy in his eyes.
Maybe the script written for him was better than his acting skills.



ما حاجتنا للنرجس، ما دمنا فلسطينيين.
What need have we for Narcissus[2], since we are Palestinian?



وما دمنا لا نعرف الفرق بين الجامع والجامعة، لأنهما من جذر لغوي واحد، فما حاجتنا للدولة... ما دامت هي والأيام إلى مصير واحد؟.
Since we can not tell the difference between a Mosque and a University, what need have we of a state…so long as its fate is sealed?



لافتة كبيرة على باب نادٍ ليليٍّ: نرحب بالفلسطينيين العائدين من المعركة. الدخول مجاناً! وخمرتنا... لا تُسْكِر!.
A sign on the entrance to a nightclub: "We welcome the Palestinians returning from battle. Entrance is free. Our wine…does not inebriate![3]"


لا أستطيع الدفاع عن حقي في العمل، ماسحَ أحذيةٍ على الأرصفة.
لأن من حقّ زبائني أن يعتبروني لصَّ أحذية ـ هكذا قال لي أستاذ جامعة!.
"I can not defend my right to work," said a shiner of shoes on the pavement.
"My customers, they have the right to look at me as a thief of shoes—this is what a Professor told me!"


>أنا والغريب على ابن عمِّي. وأنا وابن عمِّي على أَخي. وأَنا وشيخي عليَّ<. هذا هو الدرس الأول في التربية الوطنية الجديدة، في أقبية الظلام.
"I take the side of the foreigner against my cousin, and the side of my cousin against my brother. I take the side of my Sheikh against myself"
Day One in Civics class, under the new Domes of Darkness.




من يدخل الجنة أولاً؟ مَنْ مات برصاص العدو، أم مَنْ مات برصاص الأخ؟
بعض الفقهاء يقول: رُبَّ عَدُوٍّ لك ولدته أمّك!.
Who shall enter Heaven: The one killed at the hands of the enemy, or the one killed by his brother?
Some of the Scholars will say: "Your worst enemy was born of your mother!"


لا يغيظني الأصوليون، فهم مؤمنون على طريقتهم الخاصة. ولكن، يغيظني أنصارهم العلمانيون، وأَنصارهم الملحدون الذين لا يؤمنون إلاّ بدين وحيد: صورهم في التلفزيون!.
سألني: هل يدافع حارس جائع عن دارٍ سافر صاحبها، لقضاء إجازته الصيفية في الريفيرا الفرنسية أو الايطالية.. لا فرق؟
قُلْتُ: لا يدافع!.
I am not enraged by the Fundamentalists, they are believers in their own way; their secular defenders, their atheist proponents, they anger me. They have but one sacred wish: To see their faces on television screens.
I was asked: Would the hungry security guard work for the absentee lord of the house, who is abroad on the Riveria, in France or Italy?
I replied: He will not defend!



وسألني: هل أنا + أنا = اثنين؟
قلت: أنت وأنت أقلُّ من واحد!.
..and he asked me: Do me and myself make two of us?
I said: You and yourself are less than one!


لا أَخجل من هويتي، فهي ما زالت قيد التأليف. ولكني أخجل من بعض ما جاء في مقدمة ابن خلدون.
I am not ashamed of my identity; its story is still being written[4], but I am ashamed of some things recorded in Ibn Khaldun's Muqaddama.

أنت، منذ الآن، غيرك!.

You are, from now, different.
[1] You will notice the allusion to a famous saying by Omar Ibn Al Khattab, although it is not verbatim in the Arabic
[2] Also the name of a flower in Arabic, نرجس If people know of something similar in English, please point it out.
[3] As in, the Muslim description of Heaven, hint hint. There is a tradition of this going back to Abu Ala Maari in case you're wondering…
[4] You will notice that the Arabic word هوية can mean both "identity" and "identity documents"