Published in 1987, his landmark Memory for Forgetfulness expresses the plight of the refugee under siege.  This book is an eyewitness account of the peak of shelling in Lebanon during the civil war, called Hiroshima Day. Comparable to Slaughterhouse 5 or Murakami’s The White Sky of Hiroshima, Memories for Forgetfulness is a coherent exploration of a life that is already forfeit, a life of isolation, injustice and alienation.

When he died in 2008, discussions were held with Israel to bury him in his home town.  He was buried in exile from that home village so that he could be where all Palestinians can visit.  His remains rest in Ramallah at the heart of the disputed West Bank.

What follows is a short excerpt where Darwish recalls going out into the city streets under bombardment.

I was touched somehow with enthusiasm.  The occupation extended over space, the sea, Snobar mountain, the first storms of anxiety, the way of Adam exiled from paradise.  Many are the ways of unending exile.  My country never came back to me.  My body never came back.  The air raids rain down hymns spreading out and conferences of the living dead in blood like light burning the cold question:  what am I looking for?  I fill myself with gunpowder because of repressed and compressed anger.

Missiles enter my body through my pores, leaving in all safety.  What strength!  I don’t feel the hell spreading through the air wile I’m breathing hell and sweating hells.  Yes, I sing the burning day.  I want to sing.  I want to find a language that will change language into steel for the soul, an anti-air defence language… shiny silver insects… I want to sing.

I want a language to support me while I support it.  I want a language to bear witness to me bearing witness to this language that we have the power to overcome this cosmic isolation.  I walk on.

I walk to see myself walking, taking firm steps, free even of myself.   In the middle of the road, the exact middle, with the barking of a phantom airplane overhead.  She spits her fire, and I don’t notice.  What am I looking for?  Nothing.  Maybe the determined hard headedness that hides the fear of being alone.  Or maybe the fear of being alone.  Or maybe the fear of being crushed under rubble is what drives my footfall, striking the sleeping streets.  

I never saw Beirut sleep so late.  For the first time I could see the sidewalks cleared of people.  For the first time I could see the trees.  Clear trees with roots and branches and leaves that never brown.  Is Beirut beautiful in and of herself?  There had been movement and speach and congestion and ll the mercantile traffic hiding away something from view, changing Beirut from a city to a given fact, a signification, a phrase, a sign.  She used to publish books, disseminate media and host conferences and colloquiums on cures for the world’s maladies, and she didn’t pay any attention to herself.  She was busy flexing a sarcastic tongue over the dust and oppression all around.  She was a free workshop, and her walls encompassed the entire modern canon.  

There was a poster factory.  Beirut was the first city to modify poster production into daily newspapers.  Her ability to express patched together variety, death, chaos, freedom, exile, exodus and peoples.  She was filled with and commissioned for (fawada) every known form of expression and found in posters a way to comprehend the burden (fawada) to express the quotidian.  ”Poster” even became a common phrase in tales and epics designating a specialty.

Faces on walls.  Fresh martyrs released from life and published.  The dead repeating the results of death.  One martyr covering the face of another martyr on the wall.  He takes his place until another martyr buries him and then rain.   Slogans inflame slogans which are exchanged and ranked according to sentimental priorities and global daily needs.  

Whatever happens in the world happens here, buy involuted and ideal currents.  An argument between two intellectuals in a Parisian cafe becomes armed conflict her.  

This is because Lebanon has to belong to and keep up with everything new, and every revived old thing, and every new movement and every new theory.  Film revolutions in quick succession.  Video for immediate implementation.  The new leader and new star are candidates of new leader and new star in their respective fields..  They jump over walls with pictures and words  They salivate over bitterness behind a consciousness trading itself in.  To stars their ages, riegns are shortlived.

No, the public here is sensitive.  In fact, there is no public here, for the race is run in the American style even if their goals are hostile to America.  There are always representatives here from every new realization and every new melody and every new enthusiasm: from the coquetish yearnings in the chest of a young woman in tight jeans indicating leftist excesses, to the one in a viel covering face and hands indicating fundamentalism, to the grasping of every fading sign of Karl Marx in his Orientalist catalogue indicating gusts of eastern wind.

Here is a central ontological transformer for everyone who is out of the race.  It was popularized as an employment service for a people busy securing foodstuffs and water, busy burying their dead.

I am walking through streets that no one walks through.  I remember before walking through streets that no one walks through.  And I remember someone who was not with me saying:

Him:  Stop this oratory and come with me.

I:  Where to?

Him:  To see this man.

I:  What does this man do?

Him:  He is going to his house.

I:  But he keeps retracing his steps.

Him:  That’s just how he walks.

I:  He’s not walking.  It’s much better that that:  he’s dancing!

Him:  Watch him carefully.  Count his steps.  1,2,4,7,9 steps forward.  1,2,3,7,8 steps back.

I:  What’s that prove?

Him:  That he is walking, and this is the only way he knows how to get home.  10 steps forward, 9 steps back.  He still advances one step.

I:  What if his mind wanders and he miscounts?

Him:  Then he will never get home.

I:  Are you trying to tell me something?

Him:  Not at all.

Translation:  Lelyn R. Masters

??? : Do we have to use my real name?

Lelyn : We don’t have to use your real name. What name do you want to use?

??? : Spartacus, that’s my stage name.

L : Tell people a little bit about your background.

Spartacus : I’m from Chicago. I’ve been in Egypt four years. I own a language management company. I’m here with my three girls, ages 21, 11 and 6. It’s been a trip. The two youngest are home schooled, and the oldest is fluent in Japanese. She lived in Japan; she’s going back this year to open a branch of our office. Pimpin’ international. I’ve quit more jobs than most people have interviewed for. I’ve been teaching for about 20 years. I’ve lived in six countries. I speak five or six languages: life is a trip. I don’t know what else to say.

L : You’re from Chicago, um, you’re an African American woman.

S : Sometimes.

L : When you want to be.

S : (laughs)

L : Sometimes when you don’t want to be.

S : I am who I am. I’m always me. People try to pigeon hole me. “Oh, she’s got an afro. She’s pretty. She’s got a big booty.” My name is still Spartacus.

L : What was your life like in America?

S : Damn, I don’t know how to answer that. What was my life like? It sucked.

L : Well, how old were you when you got married.

S : Eighteen. I was in love!

L : What did he do?

S : To me? Or…

L : For a living.

S : He was in the Airforce, and now he’s a cop in Chicago. But he’s a professional asshole.

L : When did you get to Egypt?

S : The first time I came was in 2001. I came with the French boyfriend. I was here for eight months, as a tourist. I was just getting the lay of the land. I needed a break. I had just come from the Dominican Republic and Chicago again. I taught at a university in Chicago for three months, and figured out that I was not cut out for living in the States and reinsert myself into this shit we call living. So I took my youngest at the time and I moved to France. From France I moved to Egypt in 2001. I was here during September 11.

L : Where did you live?

S : I lived in Dahab, on the Red Sea, in the desert. Hanging out with Bedouins and fighting cats for chicken. You ever been to Dahab?

L : No.

S : They have more cats than people in Dahab. I bullshit you not. So if you’re sitting in an outdoor cafe, you’re sitting on the ground. The cats will just come and snatch your food off your plate. They were that bold. So, anyway, as I said I was fightin’ cats in Dahab.

L : So what was it like on September 11?

S : I was terrified. I was at the beach. You know, I watch TV, and I think all Muslims are fundamentalist freaks, all tryin’ to kill us. I’m here on vacation. I hear a bunch of cheering, and I thought it was a soccer game at 8 o’clock in the morning. That’s how smart I was. I was like: “what the hell are they doing this early, whatever!” One of the owners of this shop told me to come into this secret place. He said “Madam you have to come with me.” I’m like: “get your hands off me, shut up and get me a drink.” I’m at the beach chillin’. He’s like: “no you have to come with me now.” I had no idea. So I get upstairs in this freakin’ tower where we used to watch movies, and the room is full of white people. I never saw so many white people in one place: it’s Egypt! I make a point of not talking to them, because I’m in Egypt and I don’t want to be bothered with Americans. So, I’m like what, and they’re all crying. I still didn’t get it. Then I saw the TV, and one of the towers fell. I said “it’s not time for the movie! Why you showin’ the movie so early?” I’m the dumb person in the room. But the news was in English, and then I got this feeling like “oh shit” something is going down. The guy was talking about the towers and blah blah blah. Man! That was one of the scariest points of my life. I really thought it was a Jihad. And people were cheering and they thought it was funny. They were saying “America’s dead!” I was thinking: “you have got to be kidding! Of course this happens when I’m here.”

The whole town was in the streets : “America’s dead!” Anyway, I took my daughters; we all went to an internet cafe. Everybody was doing everything at the same time. We had Swiss, French, German, but only a handful of Americans including me and my daughters. There were a total of 15 or 20 foreigners. I was black, so I could blend in. And I told my daughters: “Speak Spanish. We don’t know them. Stay away from the white people.” So we took stock of who was there, who had their passport, who needed to go back to their room. The Americans organized everyone else. That was the first time I felt like an American, and I was 34 years old. The first fuckin’ time! I was like: “Oh, you done come to our house trippin’? It is on! Wait til’ George Bush get on TV.” And so anyway we ran to the internet cafe. The whole town was lined up outside the internet cafe. There’s no back door, so we were like “it’s going down.” And I read too much and watch too much TV, so I’m thinking about the mass murders. We’re standing there lookin’ like if ya’ll are gonna do this, let’s do it. Fuck it, let’s get it on. And they didn’t. (laughs) But in that moment of waiting… It probably wasn’t that deep, but in my mind… You know how you get so scared all you hear is your own breathing and your heart beating in your ears? We stood there facing them, and they were facing us. Just waiting. I just knew we were going to be hacked to pieces or something.

It didn’t happen. We cussed they ass the fuck out. I was going to take the bus back to Cairo, which is a nine hour trip. A friend of mine who was a Bedouin said: “don’t take the bus. I just got back from Cairo. They’re dragging British and Americans off the buses, taking their passports and beating the shit out of them.” So I had to stay. And one of my friends had a ticket for the next day. We had to pay 200 pounds Sterling, Sterling, to get from Dahab to Sharm. Let me tell you what the hell that was like. When you think desert, you think sand dunes. That’s where the fuck we were in a black and white taxi! My life sucked. It was like 200 degrees. I was scared. I didn’t know if I could trust this fool. So one of us sat beside him, and the other sat behind him so we could put his ass in a choke hold and drive off in his car. Man it was… no one was talking. There was this bus that had broke down with three Australian chicks on it. They were the only white people on board. Everybody knew what had happened, and everyone was trying to get out. Everybody on the bus was just standing there, and there were these girls with all their stuff just going “oh shit!” We drove past and they just screamed at the taxi “please stop!” I said “don’t you dare stop.” But then I thought, if that was me, what would I do? So we went back. We picked them up. There wasn’t enough room in the car, but we had to do it. I couldn’t leave them out there. They looked scared.

We got to Sharm, and we stayed there for two weeks. One of the proudest moments of my life as an American, it was some dumb shit but whatever: when George Bush came on TV and declared war on everything that thought it might want to be a terrorist. I remember everything about him, the suit, the hair, everything. He was the most presidential that day. When I heard him speaking I yelled: “that’s right, we’re coming to get your ass!” I forgot that I was in a Cairo cafe. (laughs) That I shouldn’t have been in because I was a woman. I said “yeah!” Everyone in the cafe looked at me like… I said: “in about twelve hours I want to hear you say ‘America’s dead.’ We’re gonna get your ass.” Man! It was my first time feeling patriotic. And, lo and behold, soon after that…boom. So anyway, that was the most terrifying moment of my life, the first time I was in Cairo.

L : And then you left.

S : Yeah, I left, and I went to Italy.

L : That’s were you had your car accident.

S : Train accident!

L : Oh yeah…

S : I had a train accident, and uh, that was a damn trip.

L : So, fast forward, how long was it between then and when you got back to Cairo?

S : Six years, five years. I got back in 2004.

L : Why did you come back?

S : Because there’s a market for what I do. Language management. I teach business protocols. I mean, there’s no customer service here. These people need training to compete. The GATT (General Agreement for Tariffs and Trade) provisions needed to be implemented by 2005, and I knew that. It means everyone has to change the way they do business if they want to compete in a global economy. So Egypt had to come up. I was studying it for two years, while I was recuperating from my accident. I couldn’t walk for two years. I didn’t have shit to do but read. I built my company while I was recuperating. I targeted this region. So I did extensive research. It’s cheap to live here. I have three kids. Well, four, but only three with me. I just thought, it’s easy. I don’t have Willy Lump the drug dealer hanging out on the corner trying to sell me a bag of weed. There are no school shootings here. I don’t see Chester the Child Molester riding down the street trying to snatch kids.

L : Generally it’s a very safe city.

S : It is.

L : Amongst the big cities in the world, this is the safest.

S : I’ve lived in many big cities around the world, and this is the safest I’ve felt. People piss me off, but I don’t feel unsafe. Egyptians have limits. There are some things you don’t do. I can get down with that. The economy is conducive to what I do. They need me. I’m here. And we can still eat and live in doors, and we can go out.

L : But what happens with Egyptian men?

S : It depends on what they want. They usually think I’m a prostitute. Because I’m African. Most of the Sudanese women here are prostitutes. They make them prostitutes. That’s the only job they can have. For someone who was a civil libertarian and an activist my whole life, I moved to misogynist hell. No, misogynist and racist hell. I mean this is the worst fucking place on earth. Seriously, I’ve gotten into more fist fights because Egyptian men think that they are destined by God to subjugate my black ass. So my nickname is either Sharmuta (whore) or Aswad (nigger) or Hamar (donkey). And they wonder why I beat their ass. In 2001 it was funny. I almost went to jail the first time. This guy punched me. Now, I’m 6′1″, 200 pounds. I’m a big woman. You’re gonna hit me? And then what? And the fool was short. So he missed, and he hit me in the chest. I beat his ass like he owed me child support. I broke his nose, and cracked three ribs. I almost threw him through a plate glass window, but I didn’t want to go to jail.

L : This was in Tallaat Harb (a large and busy intersection in Cairo)?

S : Yeah, right in front of Groppi, the most famous restaurant in Cairo. And of course, Egyptians watch everything, and so hundreds of people came around, mostly men, which scared the shit out of me because I’m from the land of bumrushing. I’m from Chicago. Once they get you down, they bumrush you. That’s what we do. So you got the police there aiming their rifles at me, not him because he’s the one that’s bleeding. Everyone saw him hit me, but because I’m just a Sudanese whore it’s alright for him to hit me. I whooped his ass. “Where are you from?” I said “I’m from the earth.” “Where’s your passport?” I said “Yo’ mother’s got my passport. If you’re man enough to get it, come and get the motherfucker.” You know? I’m a woman walking this earth, and you’re all dogs. None of you are Muslim, because you let that man hit me. You have to protect me, because your god tells you to. So what is it about me that tells you that you don’t have to do this?

L : They still thought you were Sudanese at that point?

S : They were convinced. I said: “yeah, I’m Sudanese, and you just got a Sudanese ass-whoopin’, get the fuck on!” The police were going to arrest me. I said: “the first one of you man enough to do it, put the cuffs on.” I thought my ass was kicked anyway, so whatever. And you know I had timed how long it takes to get from Tahrir to the embassy? That was the first thing I did. I wasn’t going to make it that day from Tallaat Harb. So the men here are convinced… I mean, they treat their own women bad. But at the same time, it’s weird. I don’t see women suffering the humiliation of child support court. That was the most humiliating thing I ever went through. What, you get me pregnant in the back of a Chevy? I can’t tell you what that felt like. Here is someone that you’ve built your life around, and they’re treating you like some ho that wants her change. You know what I mean? I do not see women here doin’ that.

L : But you got away from the cops in front of Groppi?

S : Oh yeah, I left. I told them to get out of the way and I just walked.

L : So they realized that you were American?

S : I think they must have, because I was actin’ a fool. I started screaming in English. They said “whoa, Hia Amerikia.” Everyone just did this uniform “back up.” Then I really snapped. Oh, it’s not that you respect me, you’re scared of that white man that’s gonna come behind me. I was more pissed then. You can’t respect me as a human being, you respect that white man who you think is on his way.

L : How many fights have you gotten into since you got here the second time?

S : Oh man, I get into three fist fights a week.

L : Is it always guys hitting on you?

S : No, they’re just rude! The electrician threw the bill in my face. I kicked his ass and threw him down the stairs. I can understand that people are pissed, but just because I’m a black woman I’m beneath him! The rule is my house is Chicago. Welcome to America. Telephone man, kicked his ass stuffed him in the elevator, told him that if I saw his ass on the street I was gonna beat the shit out of him. The neighbors were like: oh my god, she’s a savage. I had to beat the hell out of the Bowab, both of them. No, I beat their ass. One taxi driver, I almost broke his legs trying to pull him out of the window. The fucker yelled at me. When I first got here it was hard. I hit them in their mouth. They want to yell at me? I understand they’re men, they’re stronger, but to me it’s worth the asswhoopin. I did not come 7000 miles to be fucked with. I came here to build a life. I respect people. I say “Salam Alaykum.” I do what they do. You are going to respect me. But for some reason, they have some preordained psychosis to where they’re not going to respect me because of the color of my skin and my gender. I am obligated to kick their ass.

L : They’re also pretty sex starved.

S : They think they are, but they’ve never had it so they don’t know. This country is inundated with two-pump chumps. So how would they know? 80 percent of men here have sex with other men.

L : It’s a way of advancing in society.

S : It is. But you see the concept of sexuality or sexual orientation is a political construct of the west. There is no such animal in Africa. There is no “homosexual” or “lesbian.” People do what they do; they don’t have to define it like that. The whole homosexual/gay thing came with westerners, and I think it’s a mistake to classify people like that.

L : There’s a lot of things that go on in secret.

S : Of course, Cairo is a fascinating city in that everything here has another side to it. If you listen to the nuances of the conversation, there is always something else going on. And once I learned that, life got a lot easier. This is a country of compulsive liars. They lie just because. The shit doesn’t even profit them. We were talking about America the other day, and how awful it is. I said “you’re right, but it works for us. We are whoopin your ass because it works. Our psychosis works for us; yours doesn’t work for you.” Here’s a woman with dirty feet selling Kleenex for 25 piastres (ten cents) and she’s got two babies on top of her head [a common sight in Egypt]. And she’s wearing all that shit (Niqab, Higab, etc.) in 200 degree weather! So, where are the men she’s wearing that shit for? They’re not respecting her. They don’t respect her enough to have a clean street for her to sell her Kleenex on. There are too many religious people here for the streets to be this dirty. The women work too hard, for the men who treat them like dogs. I always ask them: “what are you wearing that for? Where is the man you’re respecting? Because, see, you are in a Microbus with ten bags and two babies. Where are these men that you’re wearing this for? Everyone has their own thing, and I can dig it. But it has to be reciprocal. Women are chattel in Africa. Like I said the first time I met you, the best thing that happened to me was slavery. I don’t want to be from here! This is some sick shit. Every African woman my age I see looks like she’s got somebody’s foot where she don’t want it. They look ten or twenty years older than me. They are downtrodden.

L : Except for the rich families.

S : But even in the rich families, people have to take shit just to be rich. They live by the leave of their men. She just ain’t scrubbin’ floors and ho’n for a living, but she’s serving her father and her brothers. And she will marry whoever the hell they tell her to. So it doesn’t matter if they have money. They still don’t belong to themselves. You can’t even live by yourself. I got a friend she just moved out; she’s 35. What’s up?! But I tell women, “you are the problem because you keep doin’ it.” And they say “well, you know…” And I say “no I don’t know, because I’ve had to fight for everything I have.”

L : What is the size of the feminist movement here?

S : What is feminism? No, there is no resistance here. No, because they want to be kept. There’s another side to it. They don’t want to go to work. They want to be pampered. They want to have the maids and the nannies. If you want that, you have to put up with this asshole on you for two minutes. Because they’re lazy. I tell em’ all the time. The first thing they say to me is “you’re beautiful, why don’t you get married?” I tell them: “Why should I get married? I don’t have to get married to have sex.” They say: “but your life is so hard!” I say: “my life is a lot better than yours. I work for a living. My children are healthy and happy. What makes my life hard? I have to work, so what?”

L : But this family structure isn’t really Egyptian culture.

S : Then what is it?

L : It’s a conservative construct that gains force from time to time, but you know like I know that people don’t really live their lives that way. They’re just keeping up an image.

S : The sick part is that they think they have to keep up an image. They’re keeping up the image of chasteness, when they’re not. They’re getting jiggy with it at four in the morning. Why are they hiding it? That’s what’s sick. If they were really serious about it, why wouldn’t they be out in the open about it? Why would you get married at 25 so you can have sex, when it’s understood between you and your wife that you’re going to have a mistress? I have so many friends who do that. They got married because their parents told them to. So now Fatima stays in the house, covered. She never goes outside. You got two misbehaved kids because they eat sugar all day. They won’t sit down; they can’t shut up. She’s harping at his ass on the phone because he won’t let her out of the house because she represents his honor. But then after work he hooks up with his girlfriend. What kind of shit is that? And they want to act like they’re normal? That shit’s not normal. They try to say “we like the American lifestyle.” But you don’t have to like it. It’s not about judgement. They try to act like they do it too, but they don’t – because they have to hide it.

Five years ago almost no women in Egypt wore the headscarf (hijab). Now they nearly all wear it. A man cannot address a woman in public. Marriages are arranged, and the couple usually meet under parental supervision. Women are subordinate to men, and a woman whose honor is in question, through infidelity, rape or pre-marital promiscuity, may be killed by her family so that they save face. Without honor, a man cannot find work, and his entire family will bear the shame.

In 1979 a law passed to protect women’s rights made it more difficult to marry several women, and more difficult to divorce. In 1985 another law reversed the earlier 1979 law. But I ask you, is a law that protects a woman’s right to an inherently one-sided relationship really a protection of her rights? It still remained nearly impossible for a woman to ask for a divorce.

Although many women these days go to University, many others are taken out of education early to protect their honor by limiting their exposure to males. Others get their degrees only to find their employment options limited by segregation in the work place, or by the demands of their husbands and fathers.

Here there are women who are killed when on their honeymoon the groom finds out she is not a virgin. Many doctors perform surgeries to restore apparent virginity.

So here’s my question, and I don’t think it’s too ethnocentric: is anyone happy? Someone will say that there is a different conception of happiness that is fulfilled with arranged marriages. The couple may never know the burning pang of love that we in the west seem to covet, but they are often comfortable with each other. And they have avoided the hell that westerners put themselves through while seeking a mate.

So maybe it’s not about happiness. Maybe what I really wanted to say was: didn’t you ever do something just because you wanted to? And I can ask that question of Americans. Society gives you a bunch of ideas about what you should have in your life: a car, a house, a degree, a wife and kids. Did you ever in all your life, even once, do something just because you wanted to?

And if someone did step out of line a little, should that person die, or be excluded from the cares of society? I would say no, and I don’t think there’s any way to convince me otherwise.

I came to Egypt to learn about humanity, and to see a different way of life. I wanted to see an alternative way of dealing with modernity. However, the more I learn about this country, the less I want to know. I don’t want this country to disappoint me anymore than it allready has. Which leads me to another issue: corruption. But that will have to wait for my next installment.

Further reading:
Human Rights Watch: Women’s Rights in Middle East and North Africa

I am not convinced. However, I left her with her enthusiasm. People need drama. They really will die without it. Have you ever met someone without any sense of passion or imagination? Zombies are real.Cairo is so bright and hot. The hungry masses stalk the streets. They know the system is corrupt. They know that Islam is the answer. I am not convinced.

But what alternative? Young men in fancy Dolce And Gabbana shirts harass the girls, pick pockets in the subway run around on drugs, swaggering down the street like some kind of mix of Omar Sharif and Tupac. No wonder they hate American culture. Look how we are represented to the world. Soulless wonders. Zombies.

But I have discovered Abdul Rahman Bedoui, who is a great commentator of Nietzsche in the Arabic language. Perhaps he places too much emphasis on the idea of the Superman, but at least he knows that human values must be central, must be primary to economic values. He writes in the context of revitalizing Arab culture. This one book, this one writer it took me years to find, and for which I had to come here to the other side of the world.

I see a lot of religious nuts here, same as in the US. But I also see a lot of moderates who are scared to death of what might happen in an Egyptian theocracy. Will it be the same as in the Sudan, where overnight Sharia became law and everyone selling alcohol was taken directly to jail?

I cannot foresee what direction this country will take. But explode? Let’s not exaggerate.