‘The war will end’: Remembering Mahmoud Darwish, Palestine’s poetic voice
Al Jazeera
Mahmoud Darwish’s poems are ever relevant to the conditions of Palestinians, particularly now in Gaza.
The beauty of Gaza is that our voices do not reach it. Nothing distracts it; nothing takes its fist from the enemy’s face.Gaza is devoted to rejection… Hunger and rejection, thirst and rejection, displacement and rejection, torture and rejection, siege and rejection, death and rejection…”
Extracts from Silence for Gaza, Mahmoud Darwish (1973)
These are the words of celebrated Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, penned 50 years ago and perhaps more poignant now than ever as Gaza is devastated by more than five months of an Israeli onslaught that has killed more than 31,000 people and destroyed vast swaths of its infrastructure.
Born on March 13, in 1941, Darwish is feted as Palestine’s national poet for his words expressing the longing of Palestinians deprived of their homeland, which was taken by Zionist militias to make way for present-day Israel.
His poetry gave voice to the pain of Palestinians living as refugees and those under Israeli occupation for nearly a century.
