The New Nation - Internet Edition

History laughs at both victim and aggressor

Reuters

Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish said on Wednesday his new works blend sarcasm and a deep sense of hope in their treatment of the decades-old conflict with Israel.

Darwish drew thousands of Palestinians to a rare public reading in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Tuesday night.

The crowds unable to get seats in the city's Cultural Palace watched him on outdoor screens nearby. Newspapers said millions abroad watched him live on al-Jazeera.

Darwish told Reuters that his new poems reflected a sense of hope, and were also laden with a necessary sarcasm.

"Sarcasm helps me overcome the harshness of the reality we live, eases the pain of scars and makes people smile," Darwish said in an interview.

"The sarcasm is not only related to today's reality but also to history. History laughs at both the victim and the aggressor," Darwish said in an interview.

Darwish, 67, has developed a strong international following, with his poems translated into over 20 languages.

In a new poem called "The Written Script", Darwish relates a dialogue between a victim and his enemy who fall into a hole together and are waiting for someone to throw them a lifeline.

The poem depicts the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians and hints that the Israelis were heading towards suicide, taking the Palestinians with them, if Israel continued to occupy Palestinian territories.

"At the beginning we wait for lucktWe are both afraid but we do not exchange words about our fear or anything else because we are enemies," the victim says in Darwish's poem.

"The silence between us was broken. He asked: what shall we do? I said: nothing, We will exhaust the probabilities (of salvation). He said: And where does hope come from? I said from the air."

Darwish then refers to the futility of what he believes to be "unfair" negotiations between sides in conflict and adds "time flewthere a killer and his victim die together in one hole.

Israel and the Palestinians have launched U.S.-sponsored final status negotiations with the aim of reaching a framework deal on the nature of a future Palestinian state before President George W. Bush leaves office in January.

However, there have been few tangible signs of progress in the talks.

In powerful poems in rich, classical Arabic, Darwish has often been called "the poet of resistance" for reflecting the suffering of Palestinians under occupation and the harsh life of refugees in exile.

But he has defied this definition and says he has moved on, attracting a new generation and people from all walks of life.

"Some people ask how do you attract the young and so many different people when your poetry is complicated and different. I say my accomplishment is that my readers trust me and accept my suggestions for change," Darwish said.

Adila Laidi, a lecturer at BirZeit University near Ramallah, aid "Darwish's power lies in his ability to describe the Palestinian feelings in a way they themselves cannot."

He seems to be succeeding in attracting a new audience.

"His poetry is complicated and full of contradictions. It brings out the

contradictions inside us. While the Palestinians want peace, they cannot gnore how the conflict is affecting their lives," engineer Ghadeer Khoury, 23, said.

Darwish was a child when his family was driven from their Arab village el-Birweh to Lebanon when Israel was created in 1948. His family later returned to live in another Arab town. He was jailed several times and stripped of his Israeli citizenship before he left the country to join the exiled Palestine Liberation Organization.

In 1994 he resigned his seat on the PLO's ruling Executive Committee to protest the 1993 interim Israeli-Palestinian peace deals which he says failed to bring an end to the conflict. In his new poem "The Dice Thrower", Darwish tells the story of his life, says death was coming yet still clings to life.

"To Life I say: Go slow, wait for me until the drunkenness dries in my glasstI have no role in what I was or who I will betit is chance and chance has no nametI call the doctor 10 minutes before the death, 10 minutes are sufficient to live by chance," Darwish said.

Most recognised Palestinian poet dies in US hospital

Mahmud Darwish, the world's most recognised Palestinian poet has passed away in a US hospital. Reports said the poet dies in Texas three days after he underwent heart surgery.

Siham Daoud, a fellow and a friend of Darwish, said Darwish departed in the US ten days ago for the surgery and asked not to be resusciated if it did not succeed. According to AP, she said arwish has a history of heart problems and has been operated upon twice in the past. The 67 year-old man was placed on life support two days ago following complications arising from surgery, another friend told AFP

Darwish has published more than two dozen books of poetry and prose rooted in his experience of Palestinian exile and the bitter Israeli- Palestinian conflict in a career spanning five decades.

Twenty years ago he wrote the Palestinian declaration of independence and served on the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) until 1993, when he resigned in protest at the Oslo accords. He had been living in the West Bank town of Ramallah since 1995.

Born in a village in north Palestine, Darwish and his family were expelled during the 1948 war that followed the creation of Israel a few years later.

A fusion of Islamic and Christian influences

Nick Swift

Tirana, the capital of Albania, is an ancient city with an early history enriched by the interplay of cultural forces originating in the Islamic and European Christian worlds.

There are a number of hypotheses concerning the origin of the name.

One is that it is from the word 'Theranda' that Greek and Latin sources employ to refer to the area, after the term 'te ranat' used by the inhabitants, meaning 'fallen material', in reference to the composition of the terrain out of hard earth swept down by water from the nearby mountains.

It is from 'Tirkan', the name used by the sixth century Byzantine historian Prokop to refer to a castle, first built in the first century BC, on Mount Dajti, and the ruins of which are extant.

It is from 'tyros', the old Greek word for 'dairy', on the hypothesis that it was in the field there that the shepherds of surrounding areas gathered to trade dairy products.

Tirana Mosque of Et'hem Bey, Albania

An often-repeated explanation is that 'Tirana' was so named by Sulejman Pasha, the Turkish military leader at the time of Turkey's conquest of Persia in the 17th century, after Tehran, the capital of Persia (now Iran). Such a theory would, however, seem to be contradicted by the evidence of Tirana's name in its current form appearing in a 1418 Venetian document.

A further 'spin' on the Sulejman Pasha idea is that when he was at the location of what became the city of which he is considered to have been the founder, he came across an elderly woman who, when he asked her what she was doing, replied, 'Po tir an': 'spinning silk'.

Records of the first land registrations under the Ottomans in 1431-32 reveal that Tirana then consisted of 60 inhabited areas, with nearly 1000 houses and 7300 inhabitants.

Marin Barleti, the first to write a history of Albania (and himself of Albanian descent), tells us that in the 15th century there were 'Tirana e Madhe' and 'Tirana e Vogël' (Great and Small Tirana). Barleti, a Catholic priest and scholar, was largely responsible, through his biography of him, for creating what became the cult of Iskander Bey, the title (in Turkish) (rendered in Albanian as 'Skenderbeu', and frequently anglicized as 'Skanderbeg') given to Gjergj Kastrioti, an Albanian nobleman who, after being forcibly brought to Adrianople as a youth and given military training, distinguished himself in a number of campaigns for the Ottomans, and was promoted to the rank of general, but then returned to Albania to liberate it, and spent the next 25 years, until his death, leading a successful guerilla resistance against the forces of the Turkish empire. Skenderbeu continues to be the national hero of Albania.

The 1583 registration records inform us that at that time Tirana had 110 inhabited areas, 2900 houses and 20,000 inhabitants.

When Sulejman Pasha established the city in 1614, his first constructions were a mosque, a bakery and a hamam (Turkish sauna).

Two centuries later, control of the city was won by the Toptani family of Kruja. It was noted that the two oldest neighbourhoods were Mujos and Pazari, between the geographical centre and Elbasani Street, on either side of the Lana River.

In 1703 Tirana had 4000 inhabitants.

In 1769 Tirana and its environs exported 2600 barrels of olive oil and 14,000 packages of tobacco to Venice.

In 1820 Tirana had 12,000 inhabitants.

In 1901 its population was 15,000. It had 140,000 olive trees, 400 oil mills, and 700 shops.

In 1938 Tirana's population had grown to 38,000.

By 1945 it had 60,000 inhabitants.

The construction, by the best artisans in the country, of the mosque in the centre of Tirana, called the Mosque of Ethem Beu, was begun in in 1789 by Molla Beu of Petrela (a locale in Albania). It was finished in 1821 by his son, who was also Sulejman Pasha's grand-nephew. The Clock Tower was started by Haxhi Et'hem Beu around 1821-22, and was finished with the help of the richest families of Tirana. Its installation was the work of the Tufina family. In 1928 the Albanian state bought a modern clock in Germany, and the tower was raised to a height of 35 metres. The clock was damaged during World War II, but was restored to full function in July 1946.

The Orthodox Church of Saint Prokop was built in 1780.

The Catholic Church of Saint Maria was constructed in 1865 at the expense of the Austrian-Hungarian Emperor, Franc Josef. The Tabakëve and Terzive bridges (respectively in front of the Parliament building and on Elbasani Street) date from the beginning of the 20th century. The mosque that is also the tomb of Kapllan Hysa (near the monument to Ushtari I Panjohur ('the unknown soldier')) was built in 1816.

The Library was established in 1922, with 5000 volumes.

The Fortress of Petrela, 12 kilometres from Tirana, dates from the fourth century BC. It took its current form in the 13th century, under the rule of Topiaj, and later became the property of the Kastriotis.

On 8 February, 1920 Tirana was made the temporary capital by the Congress of Lushnja, and acquired that status permanently on 31 December, 1925.

Since 1925, when they were banned in Turkey, Tirana has been the primary centre in the world of the Bektashis, an order of dervishes who take their name from Haji Bektash, a Sufi saint of the 13th and 14th centuries. (It was the same Haji Bektash who blessed the Janissaries, the famed Ottoman fighting corps that originally comprised non-Muslim conscripts, many of them Albanians.)

The first regulatory plan of the city was compiled in 1923 by Estef Frashëri. Durrësi Street was opened in 1922, and was called Nana Mbretneshë (Mother Queen). Many houses and surrounding properties were demolished to make way for it. The existing parliamentary building was raised in 1924, and first served as a club for officers. It was there, in September 1928, that Ahmet Zogu proclaimed the monarchy.

The centre of Tirana was the project of Florestano de Fausto and Armando Brasini, well known architects of the Mussolini period in Italy. The Palace of Brigades (of the former monarch), the ministries buildings, the National Bank and the Municipality are their work.

The Dëshmoret e Kombit (National Martyrs) Boulevard was built in 1930 and given the name Zogu I Boulevard. In the communist period, the part from Skënderbej Square up to the train station was named Stalin Boulevard.

The Palace of Culture (Pallati I Kulturës), where the Theatre of Operas and Ballet and the National Library stand, was completed in 1963 on the site of the former Trade of Tirana building, with the first brick being placed by Soviet president Nikita Hrushov in 1959.

The monument to Skënderbeu, raised in 1968, is the work of Odhise Paskali in collaboration with Andrea Mana and Janaq Paço. It commemorated the 500th anniversary of the death of the national hero.

The monument to Mother Theresa, 12 metres high, was inaugurated in the Dëshmoret e Kombit cemetery in 1971.

The Academy of Sciences building was completed in April 1972.

The Gallery of Figurative Arts was created in 1976, and includes around 3200 works by Albanian and foreign artists.

The National Historical Museum was built in 1981. The ornamental mosaic on its front is called 'Albania'.

The International Cultural Centre, formerly the Enver Hoxha Museum, was inaugurated in 1988. Popularly referred to as 'the Pyramid', it was designed by a group of architects under the direction of the dictator's daughter, Pranvera, and her husband Klement Kolaneci.

In 1990 Tirana had 250,000 inhabitants, and since then the large scale influx from other parts of the country has increased the population to over 700,000.

In 2000 the centre of Tirana, from the central campus of Tirana university up to Skënderbej Square, was declared the place of Cultural Assembly, with special claims to state protection. In the same year the area began a process of restoration under the name 'Return to Identity'.

Blind leading the blind

The Archbishop of Canterbury touched an extremely raw nerve recently and paid an extremely heavy price in suffering an unprecedented barrage of vilification normally reserved for UK's Muslim communities. In a lecture on Civil and Religious Law in England, Dr Rowan Williams dared to float the idea that some role for Islamic arbitration could be recognised within the secular legal system. His core aim, he said, was to "to tease out some of the broader issues around the rights of religious groups within a secular state." But it did not prevent an ensuing wave of mass hysteria in the media and from certain politicians, deliberately misrepresenting his views. The Sun describing the primate as a "dangerous threat to the nation," who "handed al-Qaida a victory." The Express claimed that he had "surrendered to fanatics." Even the BBC news deceptively showed images of Muslims being flogged in a Muslim country as commentary on the speech was being analysed.

In his speech the Archbishop spoke of the way in which the term Shari'ah is not only misunderstood, but is the focus of much fear and anxiety. He also warned that "sensational reporting of opinion polls" clouded the issue. The Editor of The Muslim News, who was present at the lecture, immediately predicted to those sitting with him that there would be a negative reaction the next day, and that it would be Muslims who would bear the brunt of the attack, as one of the most demonised words in the British media had been uttered. But what was interesting was that most of the attacks were launched without the attackers having even read the speech. When the Satanic Verses was published in 1988, Muslims condemned the book as it denigrated the Prophet and his wives, and the media and politicians criticised the Muslim community for reacting without having read the book. It is ironic that the adverse Muslim reaction to the book was condemned as it could be superceded by the loftier notion of free speech, and yet the Archbishop's brave use of this very same right was condemned as it could be superceded by sheer hysterical ignorance.

The unsurprising response attacking Muslims and Islam was articulated as if it was Muslims who wanted their own law, a parallel system. Not only did Dr Williams not advocate a parallel system of 'sharia' law, but Muslims were vilified for something that someone else did not say.

From The Daily Telegraph front page headline 'Adopt sharia law in Britain'; The Times' 'Archbishop argues for Islamic law in Britain'; The Independent's two page headline 'Archbishop of Canterbury warns sharia law in Britain is inevitable' with a photograph of Muslim women in the niqab to The Sun's front page carrying the headline 'What a burkha' and a woman in niqab giving the two-fingered salute and The Daily Express' front page headline 'Muslim laws must come to Britain', the media not only responded to something that wasn't, they made sure they portrayed Muslims in a derogatory manner while they were at it. When the media discuss Jewish rabbinical courts, the Beth Din, which are already established, there is simply no parallel to this kind of reaction. However, among the choristers of vilification some should have known better. The Prime Minister's Spokesperson said, "Our general position is that sharia law cannot be used as a justification for committing breaches of English law, nor should the principles of sharia law be included in a civil court for resolving contractual disputes." Tory Party's Minister for Community Cohesion and Social Action, Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, said, "All British citizens must be subject to British laws developed through Parliament and the courts." Labour MP for Birmingham Perry Barr, Khalid Mahmood, said, "What part of Sharia law does he want? The sort that is practised in Saudi Arabia…Muslims do not need special treatment…" Leader of the Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg, said, "Equality before the law is part of the glue that binds our society together. We cannot have a situation where there is one law for one person and different laws for another." Head of the Catholic community in England and Wales, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, said, "When people come into this country they have to obey the laws of the land. The laws of this country don't allow forced marriages or polygamy." And Shaista Gohir, a member of the Government created National Muslim Women's Advisory Group was quoted on BBC News On Line saying she did not believe there was a need for Shari'ah courts because "the majority of Muslims do not want it."

If there are any lessons to be learnt, they are that the demonisation of Muslims in the current climate is so widespread, it is impossible to have a serious debate about virtually any issue concerning them, let alone about equal rights or integration.

It is no wonder Muslims felt beleaguered when this speech came in the same week of suspicions about the reported police bugging of Muslim MP, Sadiq Khan, and the Government's ceding to ban 81-year old Islamic scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi from entering the UK after previously having encouraged him to come to counter al-Qai'da propaganda. An Associate Editor of The Guardian, Seumas Milne, suggests, "When politicians and newspapers denounce 'preachers of hate', it increasingly sounds as though they're talking about themselves." Last month, The Muslim News warned that the Bishop of Rochester's latest Islamophobic outburst was a danger to tolerance, respect and humility, especially in relation to other faiths. Everyone knows that the media often acts in a highly irresponsible way, but what excuse do politicians have, other than wanting to jump on the bandwagon for a good sound bite? Are these the shared values that the Government is calling on all to respect? Or more of a case of the blind leading the blind to obscurity?

(Source: MUslim News, UK)