The Arab Intellectual is Resting, Not Dead | Ramzy Baroud

[Tace]

Ramzy Baroud -- World News Trust

March 3, 2015

Whenever a new poem by Mahmoud Darwish was published in al-Quds newspaper, I rushed over to Abu Aymen’s newsstand that was located in the refugee camp’s main square.

It was a crowded and dusty place where grimy taxis waited for passengers, surrounded by fish and vegetable venders.

Darwish’s poetry was too cryptic for us teenagers at a refugee camp in Gaza to fathom. But we labored away anyway. Every word, and all the imagery and symbolism were analyzed and decoded to mean perhaps something entirely different from what the famed Palestinian Arab poet had intended.

We were a rebellious generation hungry for freedom that was soon to carry the burden of the popular uprising, or Intifada, and we sought in Darwish’s incomparable verses, not as an escape, but a roadmap for revolution.

Ignore the political choices made by Darwish after the disastrous Oslo peace process -- that is for another discussion about intellect and politics, which, frankly, rarely works. Darwish represented a generation of revolutionary intellectuals: humanist, Arab nationalists, anti-authoritarian and anti-imperialist. In fact, they were mostly defined by the "anti" in their careers, rather than the "pro," and that was hardly coincidental.

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http://worldnewstrust.com/the-arab-intellectual-is-resting-not-dead-ramzy-baroud

[Warpy]

1. They're waiting for the violent, mad dog zealots to wear themselves out with slaughter,

most killing each other off and the few left over exhausted.

It's going to be a long wait, I'm afraid.

[pscot]

2. Sort of like the conservative intellectual

Flatlined, but still breathing.

[awoke_in_2003]

3. yeah, it's pining for the fjords. nt