Mahmoud Darwish was born in northern Palestine, in what is today referred to some by “Israel.” In 1948, with the al-Nakba [The Catastrophe] resulting from the violent establishment of Israel over Palestinian land and the ethnic cleansing of 800,000 Palestinians; Darwish’s family were made refugees in southern Lebanon.
His family sneaked back to their homes in Palestinians. Darwish was lucky since Israel killed thousands of other Palestinians who tired to go to their homes as documented in the book Righteous Victims by far-right Israeli historian Benny Morris.
His family was placed in a legal limbo for they missed a census. Not refugees, but at the same time not Israeli citizens. Darwish later went on to obtain Israeli citizen, he spoke Hebrew, had Israeli friends and even joined the pro-Zionist Israeli Communist Party at a time when most Palestinians considered any dealings with anything pro-Zionist to be treasnous.
But he was never an Israeli, always a Palestinians, and as a stranger in the racist settle-colonial state that is Israel. As a young boy, Darwish’s poetic abilities were recognized by his teacher whom then asked him to write a poem dedicated to Israel’s Independence Day. He wrote his poem as a letter from an Arab boy to a his Jewish classmate expressing how as an Arab he could not take pride in the day.
The Israeli military – the Arabs in Israel were then living under martial law – called the young Darwish to the local police station where an officer threatened that Darwish’s father would lose his job if Darwish expressed Palestinian sentiment. This is Israel: a country where a thuggish police officer threatens a little boy all because of his poetry.
But Darwish did not relent. He went on to express his people’s hopes and in time became the voice of the Palestinians and the most regarded Arab poet of his time.
His poetry lead to Israel revoking his citizenship and placing him under house arrest. This is Israel.
In his life, Darwish gave voice to his people. And his poetry changed in time from clear references to Palestine to a more subtle pose, but Palestine and the cause was always there. He also resisted public pressures to be overtly political. The Arab masses always wanted to hear his older material, but he insisted on the new and told the masses to spare him their sympathy. Such was his character.
This was a man who used to fill entire stadiums of people, and a man lost too soon on an operating table in Houston last August.
The poem that made Darwish the voice of Palestine was not written over a long session, but was sparked in a moment of genius. At a poetry festival in Nazareth [the largest Arab town in “Israel”] in 1964, Darwish presented his written material. But as the crowd kept shouted “encore, encore,” he garbed a pen and wrote down a few lines. Those lines captivated the Palestinian people for the expressed their predicament in a manner that one had not before. And these expressed the Palestinian determination to not be overcome by Zionism.
Write Down! I Am An Arab is the call of a man and a woman who does not back down from Zionism, but stares it in the face and stands as a proud Arab who will once again walk the land a free man.
Write down !
I am an Arab
And my identity card number is fifty thousand
I have eight children
And the ninth will come after a summer
Will you be angry?
.
Write down!
I am an Arab
Employed with fellow workers at a quarry
I have eight children
I get them bread
Garments and books
from the rocks..
I do not supplicate charity at your doors
Nor do I belittle myself at the footsteps of your chamber
So will you be angry?
.
Write down!
I am an Arab
I have a name without a title
Patient in a country
Where people are enraged
My roots
Were entrenched before the birth of time
And before the opening of the eras
Before the pines, and the olive trees
And before the grass grew
.
My father.. descends from the family of the plow
Not from a privileged class
And my grandfather..was a farmer
Neither well-bred, nor well-born!
Teaches me the pride of the sun
Before teaching me how to read
And my house is like a watchman’s hut
Made of branches and cane
Are you satisfied with my status?
I have a name without a title!
.
Write down!
I am an Arab
You have stolen the orchards of my ancestors
And the land which I cultivated
Along with my children
And you left nothing for us
Except for these rocks..
So will the State take them
As it has been said?!
.
Therefore!
Write down on the top of the first page:
I do not hate poeple
Nor do I encroach
But if I become hungry
The usurper’s flesh will be my food
Beware..
Beware..
Of my hunger
And my anger!