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Seeking Palestine: New Palestinian Writing on Exile and Home
"Palestine-in-exile," says Rana Barakat, "is an idea, a love, a goal, a movement, a massacre, a march, a parade, a poem, a thesis, a novel and yes, a commodity, as well as a people scattered, displaced, dispossessed and determined."
How do Palestinians live, imagine and reflect on home and exile in this period of a stateless and transitory Palestine, a deeply contested and crisis-ridden national project, and a sharp escalation in Israeli state violence and accompanying Palestinian oppression? How can exile and home be written?
Fifteen innovative and outstanding Palestinian writers–essayists, poets, novelists, critics, artists and memorists–respond with their reflections, experiences, memories and polemics. What is it like, in the words of Lila Abu-Lughod to be "drafted into being Palestinian?" What happenes when you take your American children, as Sharif Elmusa does, to the refugee camp where you were raised? And how can you convince, as Suad Amiry attempts to do, a weary airport official to continue searching for a code for a country that isn't recognised.
Contributors probe the past through unconventional memories, reflecting on 1948 when it all began. But they are also deeply interested in beginnings, imagining, in the words of Mischa Hiller, "a Palestine that reflects who we are now and who we hope to become." Their contributions–poignant, humorous, intimate, reflective, intensely political–make an offering that is remarkable for the candour and grace with which it explores the many individual and collective experiences of waiting, living for a seeking Palestine.
How do Palestinians live, imagine and reflect on home and exile in this period of a stateless and transitory Palestine, a deeply contested and crisis-ridden national project, and a sharp escalation in Israeli state violence and accompanying Palestinian oppression? How can exile and home be written?
Fifteen innovative and outstanding Palestinian writers–essayists, poets, novelists, critics, artists and memorists–respond with their reflections, experiences, memories and polemics. What is it like, in the words of Lila Abu-Lughod to be "drafted into being Palestinian?" What happenes when you take your American children, as Sharif Elmusa does, to the refugee camp where you were raised? And how can you convince, as Suad Amiry attempts to do, a weary airport official to continue searching for a code for a country that isn't recognised.
Contributors probe the past through unconventional memories, reflecting on 1948 when it all began. But they are also deeply interested in beginnings, imagining, in the words of Mischa Hiller, "a Palestine that reflects who we are now and who we hope to become." Their contributions–poignant, humorous, intimate, reflective, intensely political–make an offering that is remarkable for the candour and grace with which it explores the many individual and collective experiences of waiting, living for a seeking Palestine.
Unknown Binding
First published April 19, 2012
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September 26, 2015
15. Seeking Palestine : New Palestinian Writing on Exile and Home edited by Penny Johnson & Raja Shehadeh (2013, 210 pages, read Mar 21-29)
Not that I’ve had time to review lately, but I’ve stalled on this partially because I don’t want to figure out my own contradictions. Not that I can’t, although maybe it’s true I can’t, it’s that I don’t want to go there. I developed such a deep affection for Israel during my visit there last summer. I’m not ready to pick up those emotions and look at what ugly things might be underneath them, I’m not ready to challenge them with any reality.
A book such as this does not allow me to get out of all that so easily. This is a collection of personal memoirs by Palestinians about Palestine. The collection is superb, and some of these authors are simply spectacular, at least they certainly are here, in this form. Every entry is strong. Either Johnson and Shehadeh had a great wealth of material to work with or they really mined the material well. Or both could be true.
What to take form all this? Surely we are all aware on some level of the costs of Israel’s existence to the Palestinians. Israel marks for them the end of a long continuous history in large parts of one-time Palestine, tearing at cultural foundations and leaving a large Palestinian diaspora. And while we debate where to point the finger, or simply cringe at the stiff necked simplifiers with fingers in their ears who stand my their weapons and declare themselves right, we don’t have much a chance see the humanity in the consequences. That is, I think, what this book offers. An artistic exploration of the humanity within the Palestinian loss.
I took notes as read this, then passed the book on, leaving me with only my notes to review from. Hopefully there will be some value in the rest of this review. My favorites get an asterisk.
*[[Susan Abulhawa]] : Memories of an un-Palestinian story, in a can of tuna - I wish I could capture this. Susan lived for brief periods of time with each of her parents and various other relatives, and various orphanages, moving back and forth between the US and the Middle East. She touches on most of her childhood and its many horrors and varieties of abuse, while recounting a brief stay at an orphanage for Palestinians in Palestine, called Dar al-Tifl...a tough place she can only capture with an affectionate wistfulness.
Beshara Doumani : A Song from Haifa - Writes about his father in Palestine between WWII and Israel (1945-8) through a Palestinian bar song from the era about beautiful Jewish woman.
*Sharif S. Elmusa : Portable Absence: My Camp Re-membered - Bitter as Elmusa is, his writing, a mixture of poetry and prose, is beautiful. He discusses taking his children to the now-destroyed refugee camp that he grew up in. But this essay goes many places, and includes thoughts on his decision to write in English, references to the Odyssey and Ibn Battuta, comparisons between Palestinians and Native Americans, an interesting look at Cairo, and a frustration with America’s one-sided support of Israel over Palestine. He writes, “It is a politicized oxymoron, even if a privilege, to be from a tiny, colonized country struggling to rid itself of Israeli domination and, at the same time, to be a citizen of an empire that is the principal keeper of Israel.”
Lili Abu-Lughod : Pushing at the Door: My father’s Political Education, and Mine - A memoir about Lili’s father, a leading Palestinian intellectual, Ibrahim Abu-Lughod. The memoir includes, prominently, his story about his mother, Lili’s grandmother, and her lost world of pre-Israel Jaffa.
*Adania Shibli : Of Place, Time and Language - Shibli is a master of sorts at subtly. In these three pieces she says everything through what she doesn’t say. It’s very clever and striking. In the second piece, Out of Time, she begins by discussing a Palestinian short story she read in school, permitted by the Israeli authorities who were generally very thorough censors. What caught her attention with the story (The Time of Man by Samira Azzam) was not the writers intent, but the regular day-to-day life he describes. She asks, “Was there ever once a normal life in Palestine?” Later in the story, as she carries on about a watch that stopped while traveling, leading to an Airport interrogation in Israel, where she causally mentions, “Everything proceeded as normal in such situations”
Suad Amiry : An Obsession begins with a poem whose attributions I was confused on, but was either hers with quotes from Mahmoud Darwish, or entirely from Mahmoud Darwish. But then she goes to discuss three questions she hates: Are you married? Do you have children? and Where do you come from? In the later she tells us that when she doesn't want to talk, she answers that she is from Amman, Jordan. ”Sorry, Jordan, much as I am indebted to you and love you, somehow you do not inspire interesting conversations.” - I find that line such a wonderful commentary on the crazy story that is Israel and Palestine.
Raja Shehadeh : Diary of an Internal Exile: Three Entries - Shehadeh probably can be more highly regarded for his frustrated observations than his limited prose. Still he marks an interesting history of Palestine through the history of a building that was originally built the British military, but later had many lives, including serving as the bombed out headquarters of Yassar Afafat. Reflecting on Arafat he writes “I could see how failed armed struggle had completely dominated our leadership’s vision, taking precedence over the nonviolent resistance waged in the streets as well as in the courts by challenging Israeli legal maneuvers.”
*Mourid Barghouti : The Driver Mahmoud - This was a wonderful fictional story about taxi van full of passengers who together form a cross-section of Palestinian society, driven my a young man trying to avoid suddenly-appearing Israeli checkpoints through heroic maneuvers and the use of what I can only call a divine crane.
Rema Hammami : Home and exile in East Jerusalem Hammami, an anthropologist studying Gaza, chronicles the sad history of her Palestinian neighborhood, Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem, from roughly 1989 when she confronts an Israeli soldier arresting a nine-year-old girl by asking him if he has children, and he responds, “Yes, I have a little girl but she doesn’t throw stones,” through to 2002 where she finds herself surrounded by checkpoints.
Rana Barakat : The right to wait: exile, home and return - My notes begin to fail about here. For this essay about Mahmoud Darwish, Edward Said, the nature of exile, and a curious comparison of an intellectual with an exile, my notes include the comment, “intelligent but big-words…flawed writing, IMO”...but don’t over-inflate my flippant notes while reading, this was interesting.
Fady Joudah : Palestine that never was: five poems and an introduction Lois/avaland quoted one or two of these elsewhere, nothing to add here
Jean Said Makdisi : Becoming Palestinian - An interesting essay by the sister of Edward Said, unfortunately I don’t have any notes.
Mischa Hiller : Onions and diamonds - no notes...and I forgot what this was about...
Karma Nabulsi : Exiled from revolution - ditto, sigh...
Not that I’ve had time to review lately, but I’ve stalled on this partially because I don’t want to figure out my own contradictions. Not that I can’t, although maybe it’s true I can’t, it’s that I don’t want to go there. I developed such a deep affection for Israel during my visit there last summer. I’m not ready to pick up those emotions and look at what ugly things might be underneath them, I’m not ready to challenge them with any reality.
A book such as this does not allow me to get out of all that so easily. This is a collection of personal memoirs by Palestinians about Palestine. The collection is superb, and some of these authors are simply spectacular, at least they certainly are here, in this form. Every entry is strong. Either Johnson and Shehadeh had a great wealth of material to work with or they really mined the material well. Or both could be true.
What to take form all this? Surely we are all aware on some level of the costs of Israel’s existence to the Palestinians. Israel marks for them the end of a long continuous history in large parts of one-time Palestine, tearing at cultural foundations and leaving a large Palestinian diaspora. And while we debate where to point the finger, or simply cringe at the stiff necked simplifiers with fingers in their ears who stand my their weapons and declare themselves right, we don’t have much a chance see the humanity in the consequences. That is, I think, what this book offers. An artistic exploration of the humanity within the Palestinian loss.
I took notes as read this, then passed the book on, leaving me with only my notes to review from. Hopefully there will be some value in the rest of this review. My favorites get an asterisk.
*[[Susan Abulhawa]] : Memories of an un-Palestinian story, in a can of tuna - I wish I could capture this. Susan lived for brief periods of time with each of her parents and various other relatives, and various orphanages, moving back and forth between the US and the Middle East. She touches on most of her childhood and its many horrors and varieties of abuse, while recounting a brief stay at an orphanage for Palestinians in Palestine, called Dar al-Tifl...a tough place she can only capture with an affectionate wistfulness.
Beshara Doumani : A Song from Haifa - Writes about his father in Palestine between WWII and Israel (1945-8) through a Palestinian bar song from the era about beautiful Jewish woman.
*Sharif S. Elmusa : Portable Absence: My Camp Re-membered - Bitter as Elmusa is, his writing, a mixture of poetry and prose, is beautiful. He discusses taking his children to the now-destroyed refugee camp that he grew up in. But this essay goes many places, and includes thoughts on his decision to write in English, references to the Odyssey and Ibn Battuta, comparisons between Palestinians and Native Americans, an interesting look at Cairo, and a frustration with America’s one-sided support of Israel over Palestine. He writes, “It is a politicized oxymoron, even if a privilege, to be from a tiny, colonized country struggling to rid itself of Israeli domination and, at the same time, to be a citizen of an empire that is the principal keeper of Israel.”
Lili Abu-Lughod : Pushing at the Door: My father’s Political Education, and Mine - A memoir about Lili’s father, a leading Palestinian intellectual, Ibrahim Abu-Lughod. The memoir includes, prominently, his story about his mother, Lili’s grandmother, and her lost world of pre-Israel Jaffa.
*Adania Shibli : Of Place, Time and Language - Shibli is a master of sorts at subtly. In these three pieces she says everything through what she doesn’t say. It’s very clever and striking. In the second piece, Out of Time, she begins by discussing a Palestinian short story she read in school, permitted by the Israeli authorities who were generally very thorough censors. What caught her attention with the story (The Time of Man by Samira Azzam) was not the writers intent, but the regular day-to-day life he describes. She asks, “Was there ever once a normal life in Palestine?” Later in the story, as she carries on about a watch that stopped while traveling, leading to an Airport interrogation in Israel, where she causally mentions, “Everything proceeded as normal in such situations”
Suad Amiry : An Obsession begins with a poem whose attributions I was confused on, but was either hers with quotes from Mahmoud Darwish, or entirely from Mahmoud Darwish. But then she goes to discuss three questions she hates: Are you married? Do you have children? and Where do you come from? In the later she tells us that when she doesn't want to talk, she answers that she is from Amman, Jordan. ”Sorry, Jordan, much as I am indebted to you and love you, somehow you do not inspire interesting conversations.” - I find that line such a wonderful commentary on the crazy story that is Israel and Palestine.
Raja Shehadeh : Diary of an Internal Exile: Three Entries - Shehadeh probably can be more highly regarded for his frustrated observations than his limited prose. Still he marks an interesting history of Palestine through the history of a building that was originally built the British military, but later had many lives, including serving as the bombed out headquarters of Yassar Afafat. Reflecting on Arafat he writes “I could see how failed armed struggle had completely dominated our leadership’s vision, taking precedence over the nonviolent resistance waged in the streets as well as in the courts by challenging Israeli legal maneuvers.”
*Mourid Barghouti : The Driver Mahmoud - This was a wonderful fictional story about taxi van full of passengers who together form a cross-section of Palestinian society, driven my a young man trying to avoid suddenly-appearing Israeli checkpoints through heroic maneuvers and the use of what I can only call a divine crane.
Rema Hammami : Home and exile in East Jerusalem Hammami, an anthropologist studying Gaza, chronicles the sad history of her Palestinian neighborhood, Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem, from roughly 1989 when she confronts an Israeli soldier arresting a nine-year-old girl by asking him if he has children, and he responds, “Yes, I have a little girl but she doesn’t throw stones,” through to 2002 where she finds herself surrounded by checkpoints.
Rana Barakat : The right to wait: exile, home and return - My notes begin to fail about here. For this essay about Mahmoud Darwish, Edward Said, the nature of exile, and a curious comparison of an intellectual with an exile, my notes include the comment, “intelligent but big-words…flawed writing, IMO”...but don’t over-inflate my flippant notes while reading, this was interesting.
Fady Joudah : Palestine that never was: five poems and an introduction Lois/avaland quoted one or two of these elsewhere, nothing to add here
Jean Said Makdisi : Becoming Palestinian - An interesting essay by the sister of Edward Said, unfortunately I don’t have any notes.
Mischa Hiller : Onions and diamonds - no notes...and I forgot what this was about...
Karma Nabulsi : Exiled from revolution - ditto, sigh...
July 11, 2014
Palestine-as-identity fascinates the modern activist, politically conscious intellectual and spiritually focused individual for a diversity of reasons that nevertheless intersect at various points. As many of the authors in this collection hint, Palestine is a template for all that we consider unjust - whether that be racial injustice, socioeconomic injustice, political oppression or religious profiling. Yet Palestine as a land has a primordial aspect to it - it's a Promised Land - a land of history and beginnings, and it's this element that pushes the reader to look beyond the themes discussed here to something deeper, more universal in the nature of being human.
Identity issues are so fascinating because they are so fundamental to reality. For we are all searching for something to prove we are authentic as individuals, but this process always expresses itself in relation to the environment (including people) around us. This statement takes on a much heavier tone when it is applied to an area as significant as the land of Palestine - a land which has identity elements for so many who have never lived there, and even more so for those who have.
Identity theory as an idea to explain conflict becomes applicable of course when individuals or groups cling to an identity and assert it as more important than the identity of the other. Apartheid, ethnic cleansing, religious persecution and economic oppression result from this prioritization of one identity form. The identity of the oppressed becomes lost, and with it a system of meaning making in the world, of what it means to be human. This system of meaning making is necessary to find a path to ultimate truth and to realize full humanity, and must have a form of ownership within the individual. It cannot be handed to us, it must be internalized, and as it is relational, new connections must be established over time. The stronger the connections, the more historic the relations, the deeper the identity.
What we are witnessing in Palestine, and through the writers in this book, is a struggle to reclaim a deeply historic identity that has been uprooted and cast aside. Mourid Barghouti comments on p. 103 that "the oppressed strive to fulfill desires both obscure and obvious, no matter how rarely the chances come and no matter how difficult they are to realize." What is interesting about this statement is that this struggle to re-claim identity is itself based on a deeper form of permanent identity and affiliation that is more primordial than anything at present. This deeper identity is what drives the oppressed to overcome, and what motivates the resistance to domination to continue. This drive is witnessed today despite the bombs falling on Gaza and the arbitrary arrests in the West Bank, and is given literary expression through the various perspectives of the writers in this collection.
Identity issues are so fascinating because they are so fundamental to reality. For we are all searching for something to prove we are authentic as individuals, but this process always expresses itself in relation to the environment (including people) around us. This statement takes on a much heavier tone when it is applied to an area as significant as the land of Palestine - a land which has identity elements for so many who have never lived there, and even more so for those who have.
Identity theory as an idea to explain conflict becomes applicable of course when individuals or groups cling to an identity and assert it as more important than the identity of the other. Apartheid, ethnic cleansing, religious persecution and economic oppression result from this prioritization of one identity form. The identity of the oppressed becomes lost, and with it a system of meaning making in the world, of what it means to be human. This system of meaning making is necessary to find a path to ultimate truth and to realize full humanity, and must have a form of ownership within the individual. It cannot be handed to us, it must be internalized, and as it is relational, new connections must be established over time. The stronger the connections, the more historic the relations, the deeper the identity.
What we are witnessing in Palestine, and through the writers in this book, is a struggle to reclaim a deeply historic identity that has been uprooted and cast aside. Mourid Barghouti comments on p. 103 that "the oppressed strive to fulfill desires both obscure and obvious, no matter how rarely the chances come and no matter how difficult they are to realize." What is interesting about this statement is that this struggle to re-claim identity is itself based on a deeper form of permanent identity and affiliation that is more primordial than anything at present. This deeper identity is what drives the oppressed to overcome, and what motivates the resistance to domination to continue. This drive is witnessed today despite the bombs falling on Gaza and the arbitrary arrests in the West Bank, and is given literary expression through the various perspectives of the writers in this collection.
June 29, 2023
Update: I finally got around to writing about this book - the questions/thoughts/provocations that it left me with. My review:
https://poojakishinani.substack.com/p...
Everyone should read this book - it's easily the most important book I've read this year. I'm speechless - need a few days to just process everything I've read.
https://poojakishinani.substack.com/p...
Everyone should read this book - it's easily the most important book I've read this year. I'm speechless - need a few days to just process everything I've read.
June 15, 2013
The book is written from the perspective of Palestinians who have endured one of the most barbaric occupations in history. Their struggle is one of life and death; but through it all they find hope and purpose in resistance. The Palestinian people are a defiant people.
The book is made up of many stories; quite personal and evocative, exploring what it is like to live in exile and what it means to be Palestinian in the occupied territories and abroad.
The book is made up of many stories; quite personal and evocative, exploring what it is like to live in exile and what it means to be Palestinian in the occupied territories and abroad.
April 13, 2013
Excellent collection of essays--favorites included contributions by Susan Abulhawa, Lila Abu Lughod, Suad Amiry and Jean Said Makdisi.
August 1, 2021
This book is incredibly, utterly important. Palestinian stories must be told, and they must be truly heard- all of them. Here is a captivating collection by some phenomenal writers, educators, activists, some amazing human beings. Even though I already have intimate ties to Palestine already, there is so much here that I hadn’t known. Personal stories and essays like these foster empathy, understanding, tolerance, respect, all the unifying sentiments that have powerful potential to ultimately produce justice and peace. I will be recommending this book to literally everyone.
May 27, 2016
"...he [Hiller] also shares with Raja Shehadeh a wish for Palestine to be a place that can be home or not, a Palestine that is a choice"
(p. xii, Introduction)
"Edward Said (once again) makes a useful distinction between 'origins' and 'beginnings.' Rather than looking backward to a fixed point of origin, beginnings are a 'first step in the intentional production of meaning.'"
(p. xvi, Introduction)
"Britain sends expats to other lands, India immigrants, and Palestine exiles. An expat is a 'global' who has the luxury of maintaining a detached, if not humorous, distance from the affairs of the host country, exhibiting sympathy, disgust, arrogance, humility (rarely), likes and dislikes - all with an easy air. He will most likely go back (perhaps changed) to where he started from. [...] The immigrant, by contrast, wants to belong to, be accepted by, and have claims on the adopted shore. Without discounting the ambivalence and pain of the immigrant, either in coping with his novel circumstances or in longing for origins, he at least knows where he will prosper or fail, where he will retire and be buried.
A Palestinian exile lingers in a state of suspense, floats, lighter than the new social liquid, does not fuse."
(p. 25-26, Sharif S. Elmusa)
"Living elsewhere than among Palestinians both in the US and in Egypt, I would see myself through the eyes of others. Sometimes this meant bathing in support, sympathy and solidarity. This happened often in Egypt. In the US, it is different. The lies one reads lash the flesh and one is constantly stunned by what people say and believe. [...] To be a Palestinian in America is to learn to navigate this chasm in understandings of the world, to feel the hostility. For much of my life, being Palestinian could be put in the background. The luxury of the diaspora. The fruits of being second generation. The consequences of being mixed. But it was always there, to be managed."
(p. 55, Lila Abu-Lughod)
"In its most simple and basic definition, an exile is someone who is prevented from returning to her/his home. Home and return, therefore, are embedded within the meaning of exile. Whether "return" or "home" are even possible are almost beside the immediate point here. Exile means being denied both by a real material power or power-structure (...)."
(p. 142, Rana Barakat)
"By its very nature my heimat is unattainable, and exile, the state of not belonging, has become an essential aspect of my existence."
"I have lived in Lebanon now for forty years. I cherish this place, and the place I have earned in it: I am as much home here as it is possible for me to be anywhere. But the intimacy and warmth I established with the various places in which I have lived - Cairo in my childhood years, the United States in my student days and in my early married life, Beirut since then, Shweire always - is not the same as belonging. It is perhaps not less than belonging: in a strange sort of way it may even be more. One sees and understands so much more of a place if one enters it as an outsider."
(p. 161, Jean Said Makdisi)
"The experience of exile - the state of being where you do not belong - was the first political lesson we all learned (...)."
(p. 168, Jean Said Makdisi)
"The experience of revolutionary life is difficult to describe. It is as much metaphysical as imaginative, combining urgency, purposefulness, seriousness and hard work, with a nearcelebratory sense of adventure and overriding optimism: a sort of carnival atmosphere of citizens' rule. Key to its success is that this heightened state is consciously and collectively maintained by tens of thousands of people at the same time. If you get tired for a few hours or days, you know others are holding the ring. One could therefore, and on a daily basis, witness the most creative political episodes - in the way people looked or spoke or lived their lives, but especially in their ability to constantly fashion what would normally be considered (in circumstances of more regular wartime experiences), impossible acts."
(p. 191, Karma Nabulsi)
(p. xii, Introduction)
"Edward Said (once again) makes a useful distinction between 'origins' and 'beginnings.' Rather than looking backward to a fixed point of origin, beginnings are a 'first step in the intentional production of meaning.'"
(p. xvi, Introduction)
"Britain sends expats to other lands, India immigrants, and Palestine exiles. An expat is a 'global' who has the luxury of maintaining a detached, if not humorous, distance from the affairs of the host country, exhibiting sympathy, disgust, arrogance, humility (rarely), likes and dislikes - all with an easy air. He will most likely go back (perhaps changed) to where he started from. [...] The immigrant, by contrast, wants to belong to, be accepted by, and have claims on the adopted shore. Without discounting the ambivalence and pain of the immigrant, either in coping with his novel circumstances or in longing for origins, he at least knows where he will prosper or fail, where he will retire and be buried.
A Palestinian exile lingers in a state of suspense, floats, lighter than the new social liquid, does not fuse."
(p. 25-26, Sharif S. Elmusa)
"Living elsewhere than among Palestinians both in the US and in Egypt, I would see myself through the eyes of others. Sometimes this meant bathing in support, sympathy and solidarity. This happened often in Egypt. In the US, it is different. The lies one reads lash the flesh and one is constantly stunned by what people say and believe. [...] To be a Palestinian in America is to learn to navigate this chasm in understandings of the world, to feel the hostility. For much of my life, being Palestinian could be put in the background. The luxury of the diaspora. The fruits of being second generation. The consequences of being mixed. But it was always there, to be managed."
(p. 55, Lila Abu-Lughod)
"In its most simple and basic definition, an exile is someone who is prevented from returning to her/his home. Home and return, therefore, are embedded within the meaning of exile. Whether "return" or "home" are even possible are almost beside the immediate point here. Exile means being denied both by a real material power or power-structure (...)."
(p. 142, Rana Barakat)
"By its very nature my heimat is unattainable, and exile, the state of not belonging, has become an essential aspect of my existence."
"I have lived in Lebanon now for forty years. I cherish this place, and the place I have earned in it: I am as much home here as it is possible for me to be anywhere. But the intimacy and warmth I established with the various places in which I have lived - Cairo in my childhood years, the United States in my student days and in my early married life, Beirut since then, Shweire always - is not the same as belonging. It is perhaps not less than belonging: in a strange sort of way it may even be more. One sees and understands so much more of a place if one enters it as an outsider."
(p. 161, Jean Said Makdisi)
"The experience of exile - the state of being where you do not belong - was the first political lesson we all learned (...)."
(p. 168, Jean Said Makdisi)
"The experience of revolutionary life is difficult to describe. It is as much metaphysical as imaginative, combining urgency, purposefulness, seriousness and hard work, with a nearcelebratory sense of adventure and overriding optimism: a sort of carnival atmosphere of citizens' rule. Key to its success is that this heightened state is consciously and collectively maintained by tens of thousands of people at the same time. If you get tired for a few hours or days, you know others are holding the ring. One could therefore, and on a daily basis, witness the most creative political episodes - in the way people looked or spoke or lived their lives, but especially in their ability to constantly fashion what would normally be considered (in circumstances of more regular wartime experiences), impossible acts."
(p. 191, Karma Nabulsi)
June 8, 2013
One of the most powerful books I have read, this is another one of those non-fiction books that almost reads like a novel. I found it emotionally evocative as well as educational.
There are three sections of essays. The first section tells what it is like to be an exile living outside of your home country, while the second part talks about being an exile within your occupied home country. The last section brings things together and talks about the future. Different perspectives are presented as these authors make themselves vulnerable by exposing their truths.
Here are a couple of excerpts that I found interesting:
From Sharif F. Elmusa "Portable Absence" , talking about the Palestinian style of mixing poetry and prose which was new to me and very intriguing:
"Perhaps poetry is a form of exile or the two interact, like two medications, and amplify each other's actions. Perhaps a poem is the silence in which the stranger wraps himself to preserve memory, to resist the gravity of the new abode."
"Writing in English brought me into a more intimate relationship with American culture and, at the same time, heightened my sense of exile."
"Britain sends expats to other lands. India immigrants, and Palestine exiles."
and this heartbreaking insight from Raja Shehadeh "Diary of an Internal Exile"
"We had lost the confidence to rely on ourselves rather than waste our energy by blaming our troubles on others and expecting them to do what we could do ourselves."
This collection certainly brings up many questions about belief systems such as that of private property, government, solidarity, types of power and power dynamics, state, self-defense and on and on. Never mind the idea of how you define home. I have never lived in a place where my family lived for generations and have not felt this attachment to a place, although if someone told me to get off mine, I'm sure I'd understand quickly. I do get the attachment to the ideas and symbols and people. These issues are all explored as the authors investigate these things for themselves and wrestle with their own identity issues. Clearly the group culture of other countries compared to the more individualist U.S., a country of immigrants who kept moving west as soon as they got settled are big influences from my perspective. This book brought me a lot of clarification. And made me think a lot about comparisons with U.S. govt. versus Native Americans, Irish versus English, English versus Maori, and too many stories about ethnic cleansing. I highly recommend this book - 5 stars
There are three sections of essays. The first section tells what it is like to be an exile living outside of your home country, while the second part talks about being an exile within your occupied home country. The last section brings things together and talks about the future. Different perspectives are presented as these authors make themselves vulnerable by exposing their truths.
Here are a couple of excerpts that I found interesting:
From Sharif F. Elmusa "Portable Absence" , talking about the Palestinian style of mixing poetry and prose which was new to me and very intriguing:
"Perhaps poetry is a form of exile or the two interact, like two medications, and amplify each other's actions. Perhaps a poem is the silence in which the stranger wraps himself to preserve memory, to resist the gravity of the new abode."
"Writing in English brought me into a more intimate relationship with American culture and, at the same time, heightened my sense of exile."
"Britain sends expats to other lands. India immigrants, and Palestine exiles."
and this heartbreaking insight from Raja Shehadeh "Diary of an Internal Exile"
"We had lost the confidence to rely on ourselves rather than waste our energy by blaming our troubles on others and expecting them to do what we could do ourselves."
This collection certainly brings up many questions about belief systems such as that of private property, government, solidarity, types of power and power dynamics, state, self-defense and on and on. Never mind the idea of how you define home. I have never lived in a place where my family lived for generations and have not felt this attachment to a place, although if someone told me to get off mine, I'm sure I'd understand quickly. I do get the attachment to the ideas and symbols and people. These issues are all explored as the authors investigate these things for themselves and wrestle with their own identity issues. Clearly the group culture of other countries compared to the more individualist U.S., a country of immigrants who kept moving west as soon as they got settled are big influences from my perspective. This book brought me a lot of clarification. And made me think a lot about comparisons with U.S. govt. versus Native Americans, Irish versus English, English versus Maori, and too many stories about ethnic cleansing. I highly recommend this book - 5 stars
August 22, 2014
For the 14 writers contributing to “Seeking Palestine”, the idea of exile is more than just words; it’s "images, fragments and memories." The strength of this book is its ability to show the different experiences of exile; it weaves together an eclectic mix of images through which we can view and try to understand the meaning of exile, belonging and identity to today’s Palestinians, both Christian and Muslim, six decades after the dismemberment of historic Palestine. If nothing else, you will hopefully see how the cause of the Nakba, the resulting diaspora and continued colonial Occupation is political and not religious.
June 10, 2017
Your mother’s face once sustained you. Now you have to strain your memory to trace its outline. The place you were born in you can’t return to, even if it were so you could die there. Y130225-seeking-palestineou can only be a nomad, an exile, or a refugee–never at home. Seeking Palestine, an anthology of nonfiction narratives gathers all these voices as it tries to make sense of the largely map-less Palestinian identity.
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February 2, 2014892.74708 S4519 2013
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