Murīd Barghūthī

Barred from his homeland after 1967's Six-Day War, the poet Mourid Barghouti spent thirty years in exile, shuttling among the world's cities, yet secure in none of them; separated from his family for years at a time; never certain whether he was a visitor, a refugee, a citizen, or a guest. As he returns home for the first time since the Israeli occupation, Barghouti crosses a wooden bridge over the Jordan River into Ramallah and is unable to recognize the city of his youth. Sifting through memories of the old Palestine as they come up against what he now encounters in this mere "idea of Palestine", he discovers what it means to be deprived not only of a homeland but of "the habitual place and status of a person." A tour de force of memory and reflection, lamentation and resilience, I saw Ramallah is a deeply humane book, essential to any balanced understanding of today's Middle East.

I saw Ramallah

Katherine Kenny

Occupation has created generations of us that have to adore an unknown beloved: distant, difficult, surrounded by guards, by walls, by nuclear missiles, by sheer terror.

What love is it that does not know the beloved? And why were we not able to hold on to the song? Because the dust of fact is more powerful than the mirage of an anthem? Or because the myth had to descend from its lofty peaks to this real alleyway?

How did the flower merchants make their millions and build their fine houses from selling the bouquets carried by mothers and sisters to the graveyards that are always damp: raindrops, flowers, and tears. You question why even the silence in the graveyards is wet. Politics is the number of coffee-cups on the table, it is the sudden presence of what you have forgotten, the memories you are afraid to look at too closely, though you look anyway. Staying away from politics is also politics. Politics is nothing and it is everything.

Our dead are still in the cemeteries of others. Our living are clinging to foreign borders. On the bridge, that strange border unmatched on any of the world's five continents, you are overwhelmed by your memories of standing at the borders of others. So what is new? The others are still masters of the place. They give you a permit. They check your papers. They start files on you. They make you wait. Am I hungry for my own borders? I hate borders, boundaries, limits. The boundaries of the body, of writing, of behavior, of states. Do I really want boundaries for Palestine? Will they necessarily be better boundaries?

I asked myself, what is so special about it except that we have lost it? It is a land, like any land. We sing for it only so that we may remember the humiliation of having had it taken from us. Our song is not for some sacred thing of the past but for our current self-respect that is violated anew every day by the Occupation.

Marion

Since 1967 the last move in the Arab chess game has been a losing move. A move backward, negating everything that came before it, however positive those opening moves were. After the Battle of al-Karama, which the Palestinians and the Jordanians fought together against the enemy, we turned in Black September against ourselves. After the war of 1973 and the crossing of the Suez Canal we went to Camp David. After our opposition to Camp David we Arabised it and generalised it and accepted what was even less useful and more scandalous. After the Israeli invasion of Lebanon the PLO turned from heroic resistance to fighting within itself and moderation and adaptability in face of the conditions set by the enemy. After the popular Intifada on the land of Palestine we went to Oslo. We are always adapting to the conditions of the enemy. Since '67 we have been adapting.

And here is Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister of Israel, calming America's fears for the current agreement by saying that the Arabs will in the end adapt to his harshness because they always adapt to whatever they have to.

And now I pass from my exile to their ... homeland? My homeland? The West Bank and Gaza? The Occupied Territories? The Areas? Judea and Samaria? The Autonomous Government? Israel? Palestine? Is there any other country in the world that so perplexes you with its names? Last time I was clear and things were clear. Now I am ambiguous and vague. Everything is ambiguous and vague.

This soldier with the yarmulke is not vague. At least his gun is very shiny. His gun is my personal history. It is the history of my estrangement. His gun took from us the land of the poem and left us with the poem of the land. In his hand he holds earth, and in our hands we hold a mirage.

The writing in this memoir is spectacular, such amazing prose, would expect nothing less from a poet. As Edward Said states in the foreward " 

this compact, intensely lyrical narrative of a return from a protracted exile abroad to Ramallah is one of the finest accounts of Palestinian displacement

Having himself made a similar trip to Jerusalem (after an absence of 45 years), Said knew well the mixture of emotions - happiness, of course, regret, sorrow, surprise, anger, among others - that accompanies such a return. The great novelty and power of Barghouti's book, as Said notes, is that it painstakingly chronicles the whirlwind of sensations and thoughts that tend to overwhelm the visitor on such occasions. Palestine after all is no ordinary place. Every Palestinian today is in the unusual position, in Said's words, of "knowing that there was once a Palestine and yet seeing that place with a new name, people, and identity that deny Palestine altogether. A 'return' to Palestine is therefore an unusual, not to say urgently fraught, occurrence."

The writing in this memoir is spectacular, such amazing prose, would expect nothing less from a poet. As Edward Said states in the foreward " this compact, intensely lyrical narrative of a return from a protracted exile abroad to Ramallah is one of the finest accounts of Palestinian displacement"

Having himself made a similar trip to Jerusalem (after an absence of 45 years), Said knew well the mixture of emotions - happiness, of course, regret, sorrow, surprise, anger, among others - that accompanies such a return. The great novelty and power of Barghouti's book, as Said notes, is that it painstakingly chronicles the whirlwind of sensations and thoughts that tend to overwhelm the visitor on such occasions. Palestine after all is no ordinary place. Every Palestinian today is in the unusual position, in Said's words, of "knowing that there was once a Palestine and yet seeing that place with a new name, people, and identity that deny Palestine altogether. A 'return' to Palestine is therefore an unusual, not to say urgently fraught, occurrence."

“Here I am walking toward the land of the poem. A visitor? A refugee? A citizen? A guest? I do not know.

Is this a political moment? Or an emotional one? Or social? A practical moment? A surreal one? A moment of the body? Or of the mind?”

My friend recommended this book to me to help with my understanding of what is happening in Palestine currently and this was truly touching and cause for reflection. It captures his experience returning to his homeland of Ramallah in the West Bank after being exiled and being faced with the encroaching Israeli settlements in such a heartfelt, moving and genuine way. This story has a lot of sorrow to it and weighed heavily on me, but it also opened my eyes to the firsthand experiences of Palestinian people.

I struggle to review and rate a book which is so subjective, a memoir of a life lived in and away from where he comes from, and not a fictitious world like I am used to reading about - this is a story about Barghouti's personal experiences and therefore I struggle to say anything about it because who am I to bring judgement to someone's incredibly valid perspective. I will say that the writing in this was incredibly rich and poetic and so powerful. This is testament to the very real argument that Palestinian people have regarding what is happening to them, the rights and wrongs they have faced at the hands of Israeli occupation and oppression. It truly made me feel like I was there, experiencing it alongside him.

I think this book is a very important read for anyone wanting to understand the situation, and I urge anyone interested in learning more to pick it up and gain perspective from people who have experienced this firsthand.

Genevieve 

“Here I am walking toward the land of the poem. A visitor? A refugee? A citizen? A guest? I do not know.
Is this a political moment? Or an emotional one? Or social? A practical moment? A surreal one? A moment of the body? Or of the mind?”

4.5 ⭐'s

My friend recommended this book to me to help with my understanding of what is happening in Palestine currently and this was truly touching and cause for reflection. It captures his experience returning to his homeland of Ramallah in the West Bank after being exiled and being faced with the encroaching Israeli settlements in such a heartfelt, moving and genuine way. This story has a lot of sorrow to it and weighed heavily on me, but it also opened my eyes to the firsthand experiences of Palestinian people.

I struggle to review and rate a book which is so subjective, a memoir of a life lived in and away from where he comes from, and not a fictitious world like I am used to reading about - this is a story about Barghouti's personal experiences and therefore I struggle to say anything about it because who am I to bring judgement to someone's incredibly valid perspective. I will say that the writing in this was incredibly rich and poetic and so powerful. This is testament to the very real argument that Palestinian people have regarding what is happening to them, the rights and wrongs they have faced at the hands of Israeli occupation and oppression. It truly made me feel like I was there, experiencing it alongside him.

I think this book is a very important read for anyone wanting to understand the situation, and I urge anyone interested in learning more to pick it up and gain perspective from people who have experienced this firsthand.

A Palestinian poet and intellectual offers a memoir of his return to the West Bank after thirty years of exile, noting the changes in his birthplace and family since his departure in 1967.

I saw Ramallah

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