Poet guards Palestinian dream
by Maysa Gayyusi
Poet Mutawakel Taha is a prominent figure in Palestinian society. Born in Qalqilia in 1958, he received his master’s degree in arts and criticism from Yarmouk University in Irbid, Jordan. Absorbed by the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Taha saw it from a cultural prospective. He is currently the deputy minister of information, and carries the Palestinian cause to the universal cultural arena through his work.
Palestine Times: Why is there a gap between the Palestinian poet and the reality he lives in?
Mutawakel Taha: During this century and the last, three major events occurred in the world: the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Oslo agreement and the first Gulf war. These three shocks made a huge shift in the Palestinian cultural and political speech. In other words, Palestinians lost their direction because things lost their true meaning. They used to know their enemy as an enemy, but after the Oslo agreement this enemy suddenly became a partner. Now they were forced to shift their thinking to the extreme opposite. This huge shift induced stagnation in Palestinian poetry, there wasn’t any real cause left to fight for, and everyone lost their zeal.
Currently we can see that the cultural movement in Palestine is taking a different path in terms of production. We can easily see that Palestine is still producing good poets, writers and intellectu als. But they are very closed to talking about their surroundings. In other words, Palestinians in the past used to tell their experiences from the collective feeling of the people. But now we can see the young writers talking about what they wish to tackle from the inside out, from their interior experiences and not from the collective situation.
Palestine Times: How is culture different from politics?
Mutawakel Taha: Cultural production should never reflect reality on the ground. On the contrary, culture, poets and novelists should create an idealized world: a clean, kind, peaceful world. It should tackle what we want, not what we already have – a world that we are looking forward to living in. Moreover, poems – or people who write them -- see things from a different angle. For instance, if [poets] see a murder they won’t simply describe it as a death. No; they will describe the color of the blood, the sorrow of the mothers – they will put the whole event into an unforgettable picture.
Palestine Times: How is Palestinian culture different from other cultures?
Mutawakel Taha: Palestinian culture has a different taste in terms of being colored with the culture of resistance. Cultural products looks for a better world but can never split itself from realities. In other words, you cannot be a Palestinian writer and not talk about the Palestinian pain.
Culture and politics in Palestinian society, or in any society, are never separated. But the freedom which the poet has is way bigger than that of the politician. For instance, if we are talking about Palestinian politics, no Palestinian leader can demand the whole of Palestine be returned to the Palestinian, but Mahmoud Darwish can proudly sing for Jaffa, Haifa, and no one will question him.
Palestine Times: What about the Palestinian poet who returns to Palestine after being abroad his whole life?
Mutawakel Taha: Poets who come back to Palestine suffer two major shocks. First, they face a broken image of the home which they used to imagine while they were abroad. Palestine for them was more like a heaven before they actually came back to it and faced the real situation. They found it a dirty, poor, unconnected society. Their second shock was that now they have to deal with the enemy as a partner. They need to switch their whole thinking to deal with the reality on the ground. Black is no longer black for them; colors are seen differently here at home.
The following is a Mutawakel Taha poem extract from “In the wake of the new terror”:
The mint stretches in her little hand
She abhors aircrafts and marching soldiers.
She has a braid
On her lips lies her milky finger
She sleeps and wakes up
The milk is still the milk.
She knows the coming whistle
Bodies tremble
Breathless women whisper
Her father, her mother and the other lodgers swarm around
She makes sure the well is silent
She remembers her cotton teddy bear
Sleepily, she asks about it
In the refuge, silence is overwhelming
They’ve come!
Someone asks as if they heard nothing
Her mother picks her from a black blanket
She hugs her and bends like an arrow to let her into the cave of her lap
With her arms she closes all the openings towards her
They’ve approached! Someone asks as if they heard nothing
They’ve come
Emptying their hell, they left
The land is full of burned flesh
The little bear is torn apart
She does not wake up to see it, look after it, or…
She passes away
She returns.