tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post41370091193962112..comments2024-01-28T03:56:39.351-08:00Comments on TOM CLARK: I am the bullets, the oranges and the memory: Mahmoud Darwish: Ahmad Al-Za'tar / Fadwa Tuqan: HamzaUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-66241741308851642332014-07-23T15:43:30.135-07:002014-07-23T15:43:30.135-07:00David,
The two lowest photos come from the Gaza r...David,<br /><br />The two lowest photos come from the Gaza refugee camp in Jerash, Jordan, where thousands of people displaced from Gaza by the 2008-2009 offensive fled. The identical caption appears with both shots; I've placed it with the final shot. The photos were taken by UN relief worker. They reveal the horrendous conditions in the camp; when the IDF reiterates its self-congratulatory claims of maximum restraint, and suggests that those in Gaza ought to simply go away to escape the horror, places like this -- designated foreign ghettos -- are what they mean. And at this point the designated ghettos are all full up, the roads closed, travelers blown up on sight. So even the miserable subjugation of a refugee camp is beyond the means of most vulnerable Gazans at this point. And it's very hard too imagine such a thing as an invulnerable Palestinian, at this point. <br /><br />Duncan, <br /><br />No, not even an hour now. Sometimes it's ten minutes, sometimes five. Sometimes the "knock on the roof" (warning shot), sometimes nothing at all, no warning, people overcome by exhaustion daring to doze a bit and -- a tank shell blows up the building. From hell to eternity for those within.<br /><br />So many of the mutilating wounds now requiring amputation. The fellow who says he supposes "we'll be scarred for life", perhaps an understatement.<br /><br />A war without laws conducted by beings to whom international law does not apply.<br /><br />Scarred for life, yet again. While the overwhelming mass of "spectators" turn away -- death and destruction spiraling up, media buzz trending down.<br /><br />Most of what is said and seen in the place where this is happening is never seen or heard in the outside" world -- that place in which, as the Gazans know all too well, they were forgotten long ago. <br /><br />They've had to go it alone, increasingly.<br /><br />Their ordeal has produced pain and suffering and loss on an inconceivable scale. It has also produced great poetry. Fadwa Tuqan was twenty four years senior to Mahmoud Darwish. Their specific experiences differed. Their cause was the same. To me, both are great poets who speak of the things that matter in a language and with a credibility inaccessible to journalism or editorial. <br /><br />In the exhaustion of the past two weeks and of the attempt to represent in a balanced way the images and words from the center of this historical tragedy, it would be inevitable that I've overlooked or misrepresented this or that bit of the larger picture. If so, apologies. It's a cottage form of "coverage" motivated by the desire to allow others' awareness of what I've learned. Hopefully some will be finding it of use. Certainly it can not be sustained for long.<br /><br />Nor, one would have assumed, based on the past, can the killing.<br /><br />One is constantly being brought up short now by the realization that all previous assumptions concerning the capacity of "civilized societies" to excuse, deny and wish away, largely out of social constraint, the palpable sufferings of and blatant injustices committed more or less routinely against a people whose place in history is coming to seem unique -- the forgotten, who will stubbornly not forget, and finally can never be forgotten. <br /><br />And yet, the reality, very little we can do or say from this distance that might be heard without shouting down. <br /><br />Worse still, not that much being done or said, at that.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-20650447422127947772014-07-23T14:21:17.715-07:002014-07-23T14:21:17.715-07:00Tom, Thanks for your continued attention to this e...Tom, Thanks for your continued attention to this escalating tragedy--if that is even the right word. The compositions of photographs, poetry and dispatches take me closer than any news "coverage" I know of. I am struck by the image of the little girl running in the alleyway in Gaza in 2009, carrying a container of water, I suppose in each hand. Why is was she running then? Where is she now?<br />-DavidBe the BQEhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11621320435990191224noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-51845538400452668452014-07-23T13:46:46.992-07:002014-07-23T13:46:46.992-07:00Not even an hour now.
Platforms that are empty of...Not even an hour now.<br /><br />Platforms that are empty of welcome and of jasmine<br /><br />Nothing as empty as that (excepting certain promises).Mose23https://www.blogger.com/profile/01100756913131511440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-34654703957278915682014-07-23T11:11:41.782-07:002014-07-23T11:11:41.782-07:00Darwish's poem was written in Lebanon. It doc...Darwish's poem was written in Lebanon. It documents the 1976 siege and massacre at Tal Al-Zaatar during the Lebanese Civil War. Tel al-Zaatar (The Hill of Thyme) was a UNRWA administered Palestinian Refugee camp housing approximately 50,000-60,000 refugees in northeast Beirut.<br /><br />Fadwa Tuqan's poem was written in Nablus, where she lived and died.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.com