Palestinian literature and culture of events

author

Hamza Al-Bashtawi

The question of Palestinian culture today is subject to multiple questions related to the creative condition and the political condition, amid the decline that has extended since the end of what was known as the Cold War, and the emergence of the culture of meaninglessness, leading to what we can call the culture of collapse, which has affected most of the countries of the world, as a small village, and the Arab countries, as an experiment laboratory for major regional and international transformations.

In Palestine, in order to escape from the state of collapse, and to preserve the values and principles of the Palestinian national culture, what was known as resistance literature, intifada literature, prison literature, and diaspora literature emerged, in poetry, novels, stories, and revealing writings, at the hands of the bearers of pens and creativity, the guardians of memory and the storehouse of words, who do not revolve around it, but rather search the pockets of words and the magic of speech, and write in the language of metaphor, ink, and lead, far from culture. The occasions, repetition, and collusion taking place today between the politician and the intellectual, which has produced what is known as the culture and literature of activities and occasions, where the routine associated with cultural poverty is present, far from creativity and beautiful dreams, in a time when beautiful dreams are destroyed under the rubble of homes, the frost of exile, and the pain of the camps.

Palestinian literature, in the course of its path full of creativity, has produced great names who have left their mark on the history of cultural work, which today faces difficult questions related to the generation of creators, and the difficult circumstances that besiege new generations and limit their ability to continue and renew. These are conditions similar, to some extent, to those experienced by a generation of creative people, such as Mahmoud Darwish, who made the poem a space that accommodates the dream of an entire people, and Ghassan Kanafani, who was able to transform the Palestinian story into profound human literature. Samih Al-Qasim, Tawfiq Ziad, Emil Habibi, Jabra Ibrahim Jabra, and other creative people also wrote about the Palestinian person, his steadfastness, and his struggle to survive on his land. Their departure left a cultural void that could not be filled simply by repeating their experiences and reclaiming their language; True creativity is not primarily based on imitating adults, but rather on surpassing them towards new horizons, and this is what has not happened yet.

New names attending events suffer from difficulties that do not stop with political, security, and war conditions. There are also crises of publishing and distribution, the weakness of cultural institutions, limited opportunities for support and incubation, and the difficulty of devoting time to writing in light of the need to secure the necessities of life. Talent requires, among other things, the presence of an integrated literary project and an environment that allows the writer to develop his tools amidst many challenges.

Supporting the Palestinian writer, beyond bringing him up as an item in a celebration, is an investment in national memory, in enhancing society’s ability to understand itself and formulate its vision for the future, and a real contribution to building bridges of communication between people, and between the interior and the diaspora. The field is open in the cultural scene for a few important experiences that grow on the margins, far from cultural institutions and the media spotlight. These experiences are capable of writing Palestine, homeland and exile, with all its steadfastness, contradiction, and hope.

If the generation of pioneers wrote so that we would not forget Palestine, Palestinian writers today write so that Palestine remains present in consciousness and difficult to forget, without repetition, reappearance complex, or recycling of ancient texts. This is an issue that requires critical courage that goes beyond compliments, honoring and signing ceremonies, eloquent statements, and claims of innovation that find no support in texts that fail to transform tragedy into literature, memory into an artistic structure, and identity into an open human question, in a way that gives the Palestinian experience an artistic form capable of transcending all borders.

Noting that repetition gives the writer a false sense of accomplishment, and gives the reader what he has already been waiting for, without any pleasure, benefit, or entertainment. This is part of what we need from a culture that reflects national realities in their political and social dimensions. A new culture in which cultural facts are the effect of practical facts, beyond the culture of stillness and events that harm beauty and purpose.

Respect for Palestine requires that we do not accept literature that trivializes pain or repeats tragedy. Not every cry at a festival or evening is called poetry, and not every departure from the norm is an innovation. Literature is not novels full of slogans, nor poems that resemble the language of statements, nor a competition in the sincerity of intentions. Rather, it is a test of the ability to transform experience into a convincing and beautiful art form that reaches areas that slogans cannot reach as a complete idea.

This is evident in many texts in which the camp appears as a fixed background, exile as an exhausted metaphor, return as an emotional conclusion, and memory as a storehouse of images, without any new creative addition, in a Palestinian literary and cultural scene suffocated by the presence of those who take writing as a ladder for their interests, and with the ego complex that makes the writer more preoccupied with creating an image of himself than with crafting his text, and what he can accomplish in terms of language, structure, and vision.

If it is necessary to benefit from previous experiences, caution is required regarding what is published and celebrated at festivals, exhibitions and political events. Because leniency in writing in the name of the cause does not serve the cause. Caution is also required against getting used to the presence of culture as an appendage on the sidelines of political events, through which the vitality of the Palestinian cultural scene cannot be measured.

In this area, we need institutions that leave a tangible impact, especially in supporting the Palestinian writer, who needs a courageous system surrounding him, not more pity.

Palestinian literature will remain present as an experience, not an item in a political festival. He has a language that reveals what has not been revealed, and says what has not been said. Events can be bridges to creativity, not a substitute for it. If it is natural for politics to have its occasions, then it is unacceptable for these occasions to become the culture itself, in what amounts to disdain for Palestinian literature, which deserves to be read, discussed, criticized, translated, disagreed about, and to remain alive outside of the occasions, in books, minds, and consciences.