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| http://umkahlil.blogspot.com/ |
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| Kamal Nasser |
umkahlil "I first heard of Kamal Nasir from my late father, Baseel, who knew Nasir
in Ramallah. My father was born in 1922. Nasir was born in Gaza in
1925, but his family lived in Bir Zeit. I was somewhat annoyed that my
father, long since living in the states, had not heard of Mahmoud
Darwish, famous contemporary Palestinian poet. "Do you know Kamal
Nasir?" he challenged. "He was killed in front of his wife by Ehud
Barak," he said angrily.
Musician Rima Nasir Tarazi, President of the Administrative Board of the General Union of Palestinian Women, recalls
"Between 1954 and 1956, Kamal Nasir was staying at his home in Birzeit and would pour his soul out in passionate verses singing praises to the beautiful lostTarazi writes that Nasir "was writing an elegy to a friend" when he was killed. "His body was found with hands outstretched, his mouth and right hand riddled with bullets."
homeland and calling on the masses to stand up for their rights. He would put
his poems before the three of us and we would decide amongst ourselves which to choose. His song, 'Ya Akhi El-Lajea,' (Oh, My Refugee Brother) adapted to the music of Fleifel immediately after the Catastrophe, had already become a
landmark song widely known all over Palestine. It was a call to rise and to act
against injustice and to stand up against attempts at humiliating our people and
bartering their rights for meagre food rations: 'They offered us poison in our
food / turning us into a docile and silent flock of sheep.'"
Sina Rahmani paraphrases Edward Said: "Another saddening story he [Said]
tells is that of the death of PLO spokesmen Kamal Nasir. Nasir was
babysitting for a relative of Said who had gone with Said to Jordan to
bury an aunt who had recently passed away. That very night that the two
of them had left for Jordan, Nasir was assassinated by an Israeli strike
team lead by Ehud Barak, who would become Prime Minister more than two
decades later. Exemplifying the vindictiveness of the Israeli attitude
towards Palestinians, the eloquent poet and writer Nasir was found
riddled with bullets in his mouth and his right hand."
"His poetic talents," Tarazi writes,
"which appeared early in childhood, were nurtured by the annual Suq
Okath (a traditional Arab poetry contest) held at the College [Bir Zeit]
and in which he always extemporized and excelled. He completed his
education at the American University of Beirut where he won the
prestigious poetry prize for his poem "The Orphan."
By
murdering Nasir, who was exiled from Jordan only to return and be
deported again by Israel along with hundreds of other Palestinian
intellectuals in 1967, Israel "was to demonstrate, once again,"
according to Tarazi,
"its commitment to destroying any embodiment of Palestinian identity
and any resistance to its attempts at establishing facts on the ground.
Thinkers and writers were viewed as a threat."
Ariel Sharon's legacy wrote Edward Said, will be that of an Arab killer,
as will that of Nasir's gleeful executor, Ehud Barak. Kamal Nasir was a
threat, but contrary to his rather stupid and short-sighted
executioners' expectations, he remains a threat to Israel's injustice;
it is in part from his painful experience of the "ugly side of
civilization," that he created a wealth of beauty that will inspire and
instruct "so long as men can breathe, or eyes can see." It is the legacy
which my late father, neither a poet, nor an intellectual, bequeathed
to me one day while we were talking in his Central California backyard.
"Nasir will always be remembered
as a man with boundless love for his people and for humanity as a
whole. His charm, compassion and tolerance won him several friends and
admirers among people from all walks of life. As a poet, he was widely
acclaimed for eloquently expressing the hopes and pains of his people,
and advocating their cause. His charismatic public appearances were a
source of inspiration to the masses that flocked to listen to him at
every possible occasion."
Kamal Nasir's Last Poem addresses exile and the longing for return as he admonishes his "beloved,"
Tell my only one, for I love him,
That I have tasted the joy of giving
And my heart relishes the wounds of sacrifice.
There is nothing left for him
Save the sighs from my song...Save the remnants of my lute
Lying piled and scattered in our house.
Tell my only one if he ever visits my grave
And yearns for my memory,
Tell him one day that I shall return --
to pick the fruits.
In Letter to Fadwa, Nasir anticipates his death, inspires hope, emits courage, and conveys beauty:
If my songs should reach you despite the narrow skies around me,
remember that I will return to life,
to the quest for liberty,
remember that my people may call on my soul
and feel it rising again from the folds of the earth.
Rahmani,
Sina. "Edward Said: The Last Interview, and: Selves and Others: A
Portrait of Edward Said, and: The Battle of Algiers (review)"
Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, Volume
25, Number 2, 2005, Duke University Press, pp. 512-514.
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