We shall climb this mountain, Mourid Barghouti

A screenshot of a video released recently of Mourid Al Barghouti reciting his poem we shall climb this mountain on AJ+ Arabic

The sudden death of Palestinian poet Mourid Al Barghouti has left many of us who were touched by his life and his family's incredible talents baffled and saddened. I've been a big fan of his son's work since my college years and had the pleasure of seeing the two recite poetry in Cairo.

I found myself translating this poem of his in my head after his son Tamim introduced it in a video a few days ago, I figured it would be a nice tribute to just type this translation down and share it with the rest of the world since Mourid isn't as familiar as I wish he'd have been in non-Arabic speaking circles. 

Tamim mentioned at the beginning of the video that his father wrote down the first verse of this poem after he'd been diagnosed with cancer back in November 2020. It was originally published in Arabic in 2002 under the title ولدان يصعدان جبلا "Two boys climb a mountain". 

The line he wrote on a piece of paper was: We shall climb this mountain.

Here's a short tribute in English on Mourid Barghouti by Middle East Monitor:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrTTs_k87qE

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قصيدة مريد البرغوثي الذي رحل عنا كتبها في ٢٠٠٢، وترجمتي السريعة لها تكريمًا له..

توجع قليلاً.. توجع كثيرا

سنصعد هذا الجبل

متعبين تماما

و حولي و حولك يأسان

يأسي و يأسك

رعبي و رعبك

Be in pain for a bit, be in a lot of pain

You and I shall climb this mountain,

Completely exhausted,

surrounded by two despairs,

your's and mine

your horror and my horror

يا صاحبي

نحن لسنا جبانين

أو بطلين

ولكننا ولدان بسيطان

مثل مكاتيب فلاحة غربوها

بسيطان

مثل نعاس الرعاة ومثل العطش

بسيطان

كالعائدين من الحقل للبيت

كالعائدين من الويل للبيت

نحن بسيطان

يا ليت قصتنا مثلنا

My friend, you and I are neither cowards,

Nor heroes,

we're merely two simple boys,

as simple as the letters,

a forcibly exiled woman from the village would write,

we're as simple,

as shepards' slumber, and thirst

we're as simple as folks,

coming home from the fields,

coming home from woe,

we're simple, and how I wish our story was simple, too.

الطريق إلى السهل هذا الجبل

الطريق إلى الأهل هذا الجبل

كل ما تشتهي كل ما أشتهي

يبدأ الآن أو ينتهي.

والأمل ذروة اليأس يا صاحبي!

الأمل..

توجع قليلا .. توجع كثيرا

توجع.. فإن الأمل ذاته موجع حين لا يتبقى سواه.

سنصعد هذا الجبل.

The road to the valley is this mountain,

The road to our family is this mountain,

All that you desire, all that I desire,

Starts or ends right now,

And hope, my friend, is the peak of despair!

Be in pain for a bit, be in a lot of pain

Be in pain, for hope itself is painful,

when it's the only thing left.

we shall climb this mountain!

Political Arabic Poetry in English: Selected poems by Ahmed Matar

Some of my recent translations from Arabic to English, for Egypt, Iraq, and Syria and Palestine and Burma.

***********

We’re neither dead, nor alive!

لسنا من الأحياءِ في أوطاننا

و لا من الأموات

نهربُ من هروبنا

مخافةَ اعتقالنا

بتهمةِ الحياة !

We are not considered alive, 

among those who are alive in our home

nor among the dead,

We escape from our escapism,

fearing getting arrested,

with the accusation of being alive!

*************

إن كان البترول رخيصًا

فلماذا نقعد في الظلمة؟

و إذا كان ثمينًا جدًا

فلماذا لا نجد اللقمة؟

If oil is so cheap,

then why are we sitting in the darkness?

and if it is so expensive,

then how come we can’t afford a bite to eat?

*************

إلحاح

Insisting 

- ما تهمتي؟

-تهمتك العروبة

-قلت لكم ما تهمتي؟

-قلنا لك العروبة

-ياناس قولوا غيرها.

أسألكم عن تهمتي..

ليس عن العقوبة!

-What's my accusation?

- Your accusation is Arabism.

- I'm telling you again, what's my accusation?

-We told you it's Arabism.

-Oh, come on people! 

Tell me something else!

I'm asking you about my accusation,

not my penalty!

**********

Poems by famous Iraqi poet: Ahmed Matar

For more translation, visit our project's website:

http://polarabicpoetry.tumblr.com/

Norman Finkelstein: Arab dignity will bring peace to the Middle East

This  important and highly recommended statement by Dr. Norman Finkelstein was supposed to be published earlier but I totally forgot about it due to the unusual circumstances we are going through right now in Egypt.
Last May I attended his lecture in the American university of Cairo and that was one of the most informative and important lectures about Israeli/Arab conflict I've ever attended. 

If you are a westerner and interested in getting to know about this conflict from a perspective of a Jewish American who's parents died in the Holocaust you have to know more about this man.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Finkelstein


The article as found in his official site.
http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/stop-the-presses-an-article-thats-actually-accurate/
-----------------------------------------

In a lecture that linked Egypt’s revolution to the balance of power in the region, the renowned American academic Norman Finkelstein painted the clear fear change will induce in Israel

Osman El Sharnoubi, Wednesday 18 May 2011

The American political scientist and author Professor Norman Finkelstein, an outspoken critic of Israel, gave a lecture Monday night to a packed auditorium at the American University in Cairo, a day after he demonstrated with Egyptians in front of the Israeli embassy in Giza on the 63rd anniversary of the Nakba.
Finkelstein, the author of The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering, started the lecture by speaking about Israeli aggression towards its neighbours in the last five years, starting from Hezbollah’s victory against Israel.

Finkelstein moved from this defeat to tell a narrative of Israel’s belligerency in reaction to this defeat, using the Israeli invasion of Gaza in 2008, the ensuing blockade and finally the attack on the freedom flotilla, the Mavi Marmara as illustration.
Through such accounts, Finkelstein presented to the audience why he views Israel as a rogue state.
Presenting facts and testimonies, Finkelstein refused to label what happened to Gaza in 2008 as a “war,” insisting that what took place there was a “massacre.” Presenting Israel’s excuse for this massacre as false, for Hamas did not provoke this response from Israel, he moved on to the real reason for the operation against Gaza. Israel, smarting from its humiliating defeat in Lebanon in 2006, wanted to display its military might.


In the same way, the professor undermined the reasons for the Israeli blockade on Gaza, saying that preventing weapons from entering Gaza did not necessitate banning chocolates, potato chips and baby chicks from entering.
He sees the blockade as a form of collective punishment on the Gazans for choosing the wrong leaders in the 2007 elections – Hamas.

pictures from Gaza after IDF attacks in Dec 2008

The final, and most important, part of the lecture covered the Egyptian revolution and its impact on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Posing as a starting point the question of whether or not the revolution would threaten Israeli security, Finkelstein delved into Egypt’s history with Israel since 1952, shortly after the occupation of Palestine, following the free officers’ coup and the revolution that immediately followed.

Finkelstein, again, tried to show that Nasser and other leaders were in fact hoping to avoid a confrontation with Israel, preferring to focus instead on modernising. It was Israel that wanted a war.

Through citing events from 1954 to 1967, the lecture presented the view that an unthreatened Israel carried out the 1967 attack on Egypt in its effort (with the grace of the United States) to destroy “radical Arab nationalism” and eliminate the chances of Egypt becoming a force to reckon with in the future. Instead, with Mubarak in power, it became a country that could “be pushed around.”

From here, the lecture became more inward looking, touching upon issues hotly debated in Egypt since the ousting of Mubarak. Among these is the Camp David peace treaty with Israel.

The treaty, he explained, came about as a consequence of Israel’s desire to remove Egypt from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The concern stemmed from Egypt’s military performance in the 1973 war that temporarily saw Israel pushed back in Sinai.

Sadat unilaterally agreed to peace in return for the Sinai Peninsula, which, according to Finkelstein, “freed Israeli’s military hand” to attack on other fronts. The 1982 invasion of Lebanon and the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank followed.

Finkelstein asserted that under Mubarak, Israel was guaranteed a calm southern front, and it pursued its attempts at cornering Iran with sanctions and mobilising for war against it.

This, the professor stated, is no longer the case. The first thing Israel said after Mubarak was ousted from power is that the attack on Iran is off.

Another consequence of Mubarak’s toppling, believes Finkelstein, is that the popularly rejected Camp David treaty may be renegotiated, although he doubts it will be renounced due to the reciprocal obligations a treaty entails, i.e. Israel left Sinai in exchange for Egypt making peace with it. Israel, Finkelstein said, trembles at the possibility of having to renegotiate with Egypt.

The revolution has brought Israel to face a fear it hasn’t had to contemplate since signing the treaty with Egypt. Israel is “afraid that the dignity of the Arab World, in particular Egypt, will be restored, that’s their problem,” declared Finkelstein. War, on the contrary, fills it with no fear since it has the upper hand militarily.

It was then the turn of Arab leaders to come under Finkelstein’s caustic analysis. Despite knowledge being a crucial asset for leading a country, Arabs – citing Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah – don’t generally read, especially their leaders. “The complete guide to chewing grass” he cited as the only book Mubarak had ever read.

For this reason, Finkelstein explained, the Israelis weren’t afraid of Mubarak, but, in contrast, “they know ElBaradei reads,” to which the audience applauded.

His reference to the Nobel Prize winner and presidential hopeful Mohammad ElBaradei lead to him admitting his preference to see him become president because he “wants to restore the dignity and the pride of Egypt.”

It is precisely the prospect of Arab countries rising as powers and modernising, which destroys Israel’s war option, preventing it from having a free military hand in the region to use under the pretext that Arabs only understand the language of force. This, Finkelstein said, is the greatest threat to Israel.

The nullifying of the military option would create a climate in which the prospects for peace between Israel and Palestine have never been better.

Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land: Media & the Israel-Palestine Conflict

السلام و الدعاية و أرض الميعاد:

الإعلام الأمريكي و الصراع الفلسطيني الإسرائيلي

Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land:

Media & the Israel-Palestine Conflict

  

A film introduced by: Media education Foundation

Written and directed by:

Sut Jhally & Bathsheba Ratzkoff

*********

I've seen a part of this documentary dubbed into Arabic on Aljazeera documentary channel and I liked what I've heard and seen in it. 

Not to mention that I didn't really need to watch the whole film to judge it, I'm quite impatient so watching an 80 minute long documentary is more than I can take especially when it comes to the Arab-Israeli conflict for many reasons.

In addition, I'm not yet to decide about this issue since I've already had my point of view regarding it that I'll never change. Now I'm just enhancing it's validity even more.

Speaking from a standpoint of an average person living in any country allover the Middle East who has some interest in politics, the film doesn't offer something brand new.

However, it could be used as a very good argument in several occasions due to the nature and background of the interviewees and the speakers in it who are respectful scholars and journalists, former Israeli soldiers and also bright individuals such as the linguist Noam Chomsky, a worldwide reputed Jewish thinker that I appreciate myself.

*******************

Taken directly from the official website:

Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land provides a striking comparison of U.S. and international media coverage of the crisis in the Middle East, zeroing in on how structural distortions in U.S. coverage have reinforced false perceptions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 

This pivotal documentary exposes how the foreign policy interests of American political elites--oil, and a need to have a secure military base in the region, among others--work in combination with Israeli public relations strategies to exercise a powerful influence over how news from the region is reported.

Through the voices of scholars, media critics, peace activists, religious figures, and Middle East experts, Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land carefully analyzes and explains how--through the use of language, framing and context--the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza remains hidden in the news media, and Israeli colonization of the occupied terrorities appears to be a defensive move rather than an offensive one.

The documentary also explores the ways that U.S. journalists, for reasons ranging from intimidation to a lack of thorough investigation, have become complicit in carrying out Israel's PR campaign. At its core, the documentary raises questions about the ethics and role of journalism, and the relationship between media and politics.
 

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Interviewees include Seth Ackerman, Mjr. Stav Adivi, Rabbi Arik Ascherman, Hanan Ashrawi, Noam Chomsky, Robert Fisk, Neve Gordon, Toufic Haddad, Sam Husseini, Hussein Ibish, Robert Jensen, Rabbi Michael Lerner, Karen Pfeifer, Alisa Solomon, and Gila Svirsky.

Sections:

Intro | American Media: Occupied Territory | Hidden Occupation | Invisible Colonization | Violence in a Vacuum | Defining Who Is Newsworthy | Myth of U.S. Neutrality | Myth of the Generous Offer | Marginalized Voices | Is Peace Possible? 

 

 

Terms of camp david proposal and how it was covered in American media are one of the most interesting
parts of the documentary

You could watch the full version in English on google videos via this link:

Click here

Enjoy!

Did you know about gaza?

ِAnd if you do know about it, do you still remember it?

These photos are just few example for what was going on in Gaza, Palestine occupied lands by Israeli armies during their attacks of December 2008 and January...

Despite the military attacks are finished, the whole place is still under a complete siege.


Whether you know what Gaza is, where it is located,and what is happening there or not ,

just try to have a look on this and figure out (logically) without any sort of bias..

And see how you feel as a human.

All I want you to do is to look at these photographs carefully because they have the ability to explain the situation more than any words any news reporter might say.

They come from a reality, somewhere on this pathetic planet where no logic, fairness, or humanity rules are applied.


Where fully prepared army forces kill children, women and elderly people in cold blood while the world is watching.

That place under siege where food, security, home and all simple requirements of live are not available for a normal human being wanting a simple life.

Where sadness, pain and grief are the normal feelings of every day..
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My brother and sister in Islam, my people of the world caring for preserving humanity and bringing peace in this world,
silence is not a solution, rather than that is a mark of approval...

Just because you are not a victim doesn't mean you shouldn't care!