Mahmoud Darwish was a Palestinian poet born in 1941 and died in 2008. The Israel – Palestine conflict is one of the most gruesome agitations, the modern world has encountered and it is still going on. Thousands have lost their homes and even more than that have died.

Darwish had seen the Israeli takeover of Palestine and has lived in exile. After having witnessed his native village being burned down and destroyed to the ground, he chose writing as a medium to voice out the sufferings of his countrymen and him. Because of his politically charged writing, as a young man Darwish faced house arrest and even went to prison. He is among those who are known as “Resistance Writers.” Darwish and his family were one of those who were not counted under the Israeli census, they were pushed along with millions of people who were part of what was called the “absent-present.” They were those people who were Palestinians but had no evidence to prove it. Because he himself was stuck in this flux, ‘identity’ forms one of the major themes of his writing.

This idea of having to prove one’s identity is a problem. How one deals with a situation if one cannot prove their identity. How does the lack of providing some documents, render one ceasing to belong to that particular place and in turn ceases one to be a part of that culture and one’s shared history? Is it just lost suddenly? It is not only loss of identity but Darwish’s poems also deal with why identity is important. In addition to loss of one’s identity Darwish’s poems explain the loss of the national culture, trauma of displacement, loss of kinsmen, horror of violence, etc. Palestine for Darwish is not only his homeland but also his identity. The four poems I have mentioned in detail here are “Another Road in the Road”, “On This Earth” from his 1986 collection “Fewer Roses”, “The Everlasting Indian Fig” from his 1995 collection “Why have You Left the Horse Alone?” and “A Soldier Dream of White Tulips”.

Language is one of the main markers of someone’s identities. People in Palestine speak Arabic and thus writing in Arabic became a way for Darwish to retain his national identity. Language becomes a home for not just people in Palestine but all people around the world who are exiled, displaced, or alienated. Through this, they find unity and collective identity. Griffith in his work titled “Empire Writes Back,” talks about how the colonized used language either by rejecting the language of authority or by adapting it to their own terms to rebel and revolt against the colonizers and through that form their collective identity. Darwish through his poems and his use of the Arabic language is trying to do the same as the language spoken by their oppressors, the Israelis, is Hebrew. Thus, by rejecting that language Darwish is able to subvert its hegemonic order.

As someone who lived in exile for 26 years, his poems are political statements of the anger of the people, resistance against oppression, and a cry for rebellion. In the poem “Another Road in the Road”, he talks about what goes on in a person’s mind when he is asked to leave his home and the history one leaves behind to which people want to return, yet they cannot as either it brings back painful memories or there is nothing left to return to as everything is destroyed except the images people carry in their minds of the place and time that once was. He says “when you talk about yesterday, friend, I see my face reflected in the song of doves”. ‘Doves’ are traditionally symbols of love, peace, and harmony. Maybe the “songs of doves” maybe remind him of the tranquillity that he once felt in life but is no longer there.

“My longing weeps for everything”, is the longing for the bygone days he is talking about. It is similar to what Fanon talks about in “The Wretched of the Earth”, that’s how people try to recreate their identities, nation, and national culture through literature and remember days of the past that can never exist in the present, to an extent that they romanticise the past as if some utopian paradise that existed before the happening of any disturbance. This is what Darwish is trying to do for Palestine in his poetry, he is trying to make it immortal in his writing as to how he remembers it or he thinks it was before. The last lines of the poem are significant:

Yet there is another road in the road, and on and on. So where are the questions taking me? I am from here, I am from there, yet am neither here nor there. I will have to throw many roses before I reach a rose in Galilee.

In these lines, he laments about the in-between stage people exist in, where they don’t have anywhere to belong to because they cannot go back to where they come from and they don’t belong to where they currently are. So, each day is a negotiation between how much to retain the past and how much to adapt and change. Whether to go on, as the road seems never-ending or whether to try to go back.

The symbol of ‘rose’ stands for the colour “red” or “blood” which may be interpreted as sacrifice and dedication. He seems to be saying that many lives would be sacrificed before they are able to return to their homes and till then they are required to go forward without forgetting what they’re leaving behind. In the poem “On this Earth,” he talks about why he and his countrymen must go on fighting for their homeland. Similar to Yeats’s poetry, he turns Palestine into a mythical creature that must be saved and preserved from the destruction and violation happening to her. Here he talks about the mundane things in life which make life worth living, of which he is deprived of. “The aroma of bread,” “the works of Aeschylus,” “the hour of sunlight in prison,” all these things which he gives examples of are something not available in a war-torn, conflict-ridden nation where violence lingers in every corner.

There, people don’t smell freshly baked bread or have time to appreciate the great figures of literature. There one doesn’t see sunlight from prison, it is only the experience of torture. These images also depict the social realities of the people, as to how there is a lack of food, and hunger and starvation persist. The education system is dismantled which is eminent in building the future of the younger generation. The prison is the only home left, and if one raises their voice that is where one is sent to and no one knows when one will come out or whether one will come out at all.

From an Eco-postcolonial perspective, this poem shows the relationship between humans and land as he talks about Palestine here as his lady, his lover. He had personified Palestine as a woman, to portray the intimate and complex relations an individual shares with their country and countrymen as described in the lines:

She was called Palestine. Her name later became Palestine. My lady, because you are my Lady. I deserve life.

There is movement of time in the poem from April to September, maybe symbolising that generations came and went, but no solution was reached and people still survived in those terrible conditions.

The poem “The Everlasting Indian Fig”, is a conversation happening between a father and a son who are forced to leave their home. The father is preparing his son by saying “do not be afraid”, against the onslaught of violence as there are bullets flowing everywhere and chaos ensuing. He uses the image of Christ and the Crusades, to give hope to his son that one day they will be able to return when all is well again. The poem creates an image of an abandoned war-torn country which is contrasted with the child’s innocence as he is unable to understand why they need to run. Through this juxtaposition, the poet is able to bring out the absurdity of human rationale and the madness we are capable of in our quest for power and heighten the feeling of insecurity and transience of life. The poem also gives importance to remembering the sacrifices of the people who fought for their country as the father tells the son to remember the “legacy of the blood”.

The poem “A Soldier Dreams of White Tulips,” again talks about how homeland or nation is not the land one belongs to, but the traditions and culture one carries with themselves. One might be native to a country, might be fighting for another country, and yet not feel any connection or loyalty towards it as the soldier in the poem say to the poet that “They taught me to love it, but I never felt it in my heart” and for the soldier, the idea of home is nothing but “his mother’s coffee”. It is similar to how Yeats talk about Ireland in his poems for example in “An Irish Airman foresees his Death,” he says “Those that I fight, I do not hate. Those that I guard, I don’t love.” Though Yeats is not chronologically a post-colonial writer how he tries to retain the Irish identity through his writing and that too amidst rebellion is similar to Darwish, though Darwish was outside the geographical borders of the country at the time.

The poem also reminds us of Wilfred Owen’s “A Strange Meeting” where he says “I’m the enemy you killed, my friend” here the soldier while describing one of his killings says that he found photos of family in the pocket of the enemy soldier realising that he was not as different from himself; he also had family and loved ones. These lines highlight how people in power and authority do not have to pay the price for the conflicts they’d begun while soldiers and civilians pay the price with their blood and lives.

The soldier’s wish to see white tulips and an olive branch depicts the human desire for peace and security. Soldiers on the front know best the value of life as they live every day in uncertainty.

I came to live for rising suns, not to witness them setting.

That may be a reference to the young generation who have only seen disturbance, chaos, and unrest since birth. Who don’t know what peace means and have not seen a day of happiness, more than himself it’s like the soldier wishes that they witness the rise of a new day.

Though his poems are written with a specific intention and place in mind, the things which he talks about are universal and can be relatable to most people across the world. As in this neo-colonised and capitalised world, loss of identity, and loss of home because of political upheaval are insecurities that everyone grapples with on a daily basis.

Through Darwish’s writing, we are able to understand the plight of the Palestinian people a little better and also delve into more universal issues of modern creation of the “nation-state”, war, violence, conflict, and displacement which can happen anywhere in the world, and affect any of our lives.