In the hands of Palestinian artists, the concept of bearing witness not only serves as a means of recording a past tragedy but also involves a complex repertoire of strategies, including interrogating the past, recreating it and, most importantly, forging resistance against the assassination of liberation itself. This article examines how artists of resistance, such as Naji Al Ali, Mahmoud Darwish and Ghassan Kanafani, use the concept of bearing witness to tragedy as a tool of resistance and to guard against the idea of liberation itself dying. It is argued that the state of Israel has used assassination as a means of extinguishing the will of the Palestinian people to resist, targeting both political leaders of resistance movements as well as cultural and literary figures.
A. Koestler, Promise and Fulfilment (London, Macmillan, 1949), p. 4.
2.
M. Darwish, ‘Mahmoud Darwish’s speech on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of al-Nakba’, Palestine, 14 May 1998, <http://www.arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/980514/1998051435.html>.
3.
R. Khalidi, Resurrecting Empire (London, I. B. Tauris, 2004), p. 120.
4.
K. Newton, ‘Second sight: is Edward Said right about Daniel Deronda?’, Times Literary Supplement (9 May 2008).
5.
V. Brittain , ‘They had to die: assassination against liberation’, Race & Class(Vol. 48, no. 1, 2006), pp. 60-74.
6.
Ibid.
7.
R. Falk, ‘Slouching toward a Palestinian Holocaust’, 29 June 2007, <http://www.transnational.org/Area_MiddleEast/2007/Falk_PalestineGenocide.html>.
8.
B. Harlow, After Lives: legacies of revolutionary writing (London , Verso, 1996), p. 15.
9.
Ibid., p. 25.
10.
Ibid., p. 26.
11.
S. Qasim, quoted in B. Harlow, Resistance Literature (New York, Methuen, 1987), pp. 1-2.
12.
Harlow, After Lives, op. cit., p. 46.
13.
A. Calder et al., Literature in the Modern World: literature and history ( Milton Keynes, Open University Press, 2005), p. 14.
14.
Ibid.
15.
M. Darwish , quoted in M. Jaggi, ‘Poet of the Arab World: Mahmoud Darwish’, Guardian (8 June 2002).
16.
N. Gordimer, ‘Witness: the inward testimony’, Al-Ahram Weekly (7-13 December 2006), <http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2006/823/cu4.htm>.
17.
Ibid.
18.
M. Akash, ‘Introduction’ to The Adam of Two Edens: selected poems by Mahmoud Darwish (Syracuse, NY, Syracuse University Press, 2000), p. 32.
19.
Naji Al Ali’s cartoons can be viewed at <http://www.handala.org>.
20.
N. Al Ali, ‘My signature, Hanthala: the symbol of the child’, <http://www.palestineaidsociety.org/www./najiali.htm>.
21.
M. Kallam, Naji Al Ali: all of Palestinian soil, for this they killed me (Beirut , Bissan Publishers, 2001), p. 140. My translation from Arabic.
22.
‘In Memoriam: Naji Al Ali’ (14 June 1999), <http://thisweekinpalestine.com/details.php?id=783&ed=71&edid=71>.
23.
O. Ishaq Tijani, ‘Gendering the Iraq-Kuwait Conflict: literary representations of Kuwaiti women’s resilience and resistance’ , Journal of Arabic Literature (No. 39, 2008), p. 253.
24.
Ibid.
25.
E. Said, The Politics of Dispossession(New York, Vintage Books, 1995), p. 139.
26.
Harlow, After Lives, op. cit., p. 20.
27.
Moshe Dayan , quoted in Akash, ‘Introduction’ , op. cit., p. 31.
28.
Marc Ferro , quoted in Harlow, After Lives, op. cit., p. 46.
29.
A. Howeidy , ‘Salman Abu Sitta: right of return’ , Al-Ahram Weekly (13-19 May 2004), <http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2004/690/profile.htm>.
30.
Akash, ‘Introduction’, op. cit., p. 31.
31.
M. Darwish, The Adam of Two Edens(Syracuse, NY, Syracuse University Press, 2000), p. 86.
32.
Akash, ‘Introduction’, op. cit., p. 32.
33.
Ibid, p. 44.
34.
Darwish, The Adam of Two Edens, op. cit., pp. 51-2.
A. Nasser, ‘Mahmoud Darwish between the political and the aesthetic’, Banipal: magazine of modern Arab literature (No. 33, 2008), p. 32.
44.
Akash, ‘Introduction’, op. cit., p. 37.
45.
Darwish, The Adam of Two Edens, op. cit., p. 76.
46.
Akash, ‘Introduction’, op. cit., p. 40.
47.
Darwish, The Adam of Two Edens, op. cit., p. 76.
48.
Ibid., p. 77.
49.
Ibid., p. 75.
50.
Ibid., p. 51.
51.
Ibid., pp. 99-102.
52.
K. Riley, ‘Ghassan Kanafani: a biographical essay’ in G. Kanafani, Palestine’s Children: Returning to Haifa and other stories( Boulder, CO, Lynne Reiner Publishers, 2000), p. 11.
53.
Ibid., p. 9.
54.
G. Kanafani , Palestine’s Children, op. cit., p. 151.
55.
Ibid., p. 155.
56.
Ibid., p. 151.
57.
Ibid., p. 152.
58.
Ibid., p. 153.
59.
Ibid., p. 155.
60.
Quoted in Kanafani, Palestine’s Children, op. cit., p. 190.
61.
Ibid.
62.
Ibid., p. 158.
63.
J. Zoghby, ‘Remembering Deir Yassin’ (17 November 2000), <http://www.palestineremembered.com/Jerusalem/Dayr-Yasin/Story192.html>.
64.
Kanafani, Palestine’s Children, op. cit., p. 187.
65.
Ibid., p. 186.
66.
Ibid., p. 181.
67.
J. Massad, ‘Beginning with Edward Said’, in M. Sokmen and B. Ertur, eds, Waiting for the Barbarians(London, Verso, 2008), p. 130.
68.
Ibid.
69.
Kanafani, Palestine’s Children, op. cit., p. 187.
70.
Ibid., p. 176.
71.
S. Abu Sittaquoted in A. Howeidy, ‘Documenting the catastrophe’, Al-Ahram Weekly (1998), <http://weekly.ahram.org.eg>.
72.
Said, The Politics of Dispossession, op. cit. , p. 118-9.
73.
Ibid., p. 119.
74.
T.S. Eliot, The Wasteland and Other Poems(London, Faber & Faber, 1972), p. 16.
