The ‘exilic consciousness’ as captured in the works of Asian writers
“I'm interested in people who find themselves in places, either of their choosing or not, and who are forced to decide how best to live there. That feeling of both citizenship and exile, of always being an expatriate - with all the attendant problems and complications and delight.”
~ Chang-Rae Lee ~
To be in state of being banished from one’s own native country for political reasons or otherwise, one must overcome or is faced with several conflicting issues and situations. An exilic consciousness dictates a spiritual and psychological connect with one’s homeland. It is not necessarily a physical absence that spurs such a consciousness. Further, an exilic state could emerge from either enforced expulsion on the part of nation-state government agencies or because individuals are forced to leave their homeland to escape persecution or killing.
In his poem, ‘Identity card’, Mahmoud Darwish expounds on the treatment of the natives of a country (the Palestinians) who have been forced out of their homes by the occupying forces (the Israeli/Zionist government). The poem speaks of an individual who as a Palestinian citizen asserts his Independence, who is perfectly within his rights to raise a family, hold a job, and is mindful of his ethnicity as an Arab.
An Arab whose ancestry dates to many centuries. He views himself as an individual who refrains from meddling in other people’s affairs coming from a family of farmers, not knowing or caring of the riches of the affluent. He wonders if all of this angers his settlers, thereby questioning their legitimacy of being angry.
Darwish is perhaps trying to bring to the reader’s attention, his unwillingness to dabble into the politics of the colonizers. All he wants is peace in the land he and his forefathers cultivated, back where it belongs. The only reason for him to retaliate would be because he and his fellow brothers and sisters have been snatched of their identities, their right to basic necessities, recognition as primary citizens and being reduced to the status of refugees in their very own homeland.
As Darwish is no longer in Israel occupied Palestine, and is an exile but is also a witness to all that has been happening in the country since 1948, Darwish could be viewed as the writer or poet who represents the sentiments of the Palestinian people. The one who has tried to unite the Palestinians as one, despite their displacement, exiled or refugee status.
The question of Identity is perhaps one of the grating aggravations of one in exile. This is perhaps significantly expounded in Darwish’s poem, ‘Passport’, where Darwish in no uncertain terms argues that no matter what the Israeli government does, even if they take away his passport will it take away his identity as a Palestinian citizen?
He says:
“All the birds that followed my palm to the door of the distant airport,
All the wheat fields, all the prisons
All the white tombstones, all the barbed Boundaries
All the waving handkerchiefs, all the eyes were with me,
But they dropped them from my passport”
Although Darwish is in exile, banished from his homeland, it does not necessarily follow that the Palestinian soil, the trees, the fields, the animals have forgotten of his Palestinian identity. It’s his to keep and no amount of distance whether it be physical or the taking away of a passport can take his Palestinian identity away.
In both his poems, ‘Identity card’ and ‘Passport’, Darwish has been able to identify himself as a representative of the Palestinian people. Where in ‘Identity card’, he shows himself as a spurned Palestinian national, in ‘Passport’ he is clearly portrayed himself as one who wants to be a Palestinian national but is debarred from doing so. What links the two is his passion for the Palestinian cause and justice for its people.
On the other hand, one can argue that ‘Identity card’ is all about a people who live in Palestine and the struggles that they face whereas ‘Passport’ is about a people who cannot go back to their homeland. This distinction makes the struggle each one faces quite apart from the other. One is perhaps unable to flee due to various reasons and another is unable to have that connect with the land they once loved and remembered.
