Tributes to Palestinian poet: Mahmood Darwish

I walk from one epoch to another without a memory to guide me. The prophets over there are sharing the history of the holy-Darwish. The civil society and literati of Islamabad last week, paid poignant tributes to Palestinian poet Mahmood Darwish (1941-2008), the national poet of the state of Palestine, who died on August 13, in Houston, USA.
The obituary reference organised by the South Asia Free Media Association also passed a condolence resolution expressing grief on the death of this celebrated Palestinian poet. Palestine Charge d' affairs, Yasser Ahmad Mahmoud Mohammad chief guest at this memorial meeting, reviewed the career of the poet, who had had a love affair with his beloved motherland, Palestine, where Arab citizens lived in agony, their land stolen by Israel.
He was joined by Imtiaz Alam, SAFMA Secretary General, who spoke in admiration for the Palestinian poet he said, Darwish's resistance poetry comforted him in his dark prison days, when he was incarcerated several times, and also strengthened his resolve to do more to up lift his countrymen from injustice,
Resistance poetry has a way of opening new windows to glance upon grotesque life, akin to the wretched of the earth. In the words of Franz Fanon, where common people were mistreated by those in authority. Activist Tahira Abdullah was the first to commence reading from the poem Jidria, which described the Arab people's walled life, full of hereditary illness.
The poem was chosen by Kishwar Naheed, famed poet and staunch women activist. She was followed by the equally famous, short story writer Dr Anwar Zahidi, who read out his Urdu translations of half a dozen Darwish's poems. Echoing the Palestine Charge d' affairs, Kishwar Naheed, too, summed up Darwish's career but her focus remained on the poet, who had written the Declaration of Palestine Independence.
In embodied the aspirations for a Palestinian state and home. The statement opposed the 1993 Oslo declaration, which Yasser Arafat had concluded with Israel, in which only the West Bank was denoted as a Palestinian home.
According to the eminent columnist Munno Bhai, Yasser Arafat tried to wean Darwish on to his side and asked Darwish to join the Palestinian Cabinet, giving the example of Andre Malreaux who had become a Minister in the government of the French President, Charles de Gaulle.
Darwish replied to Yasser that he was neither Andre Malreaux, nor was Yasser, Charles De Gaulle, and he would much rather model himself on the French writer, Jean Paul Sartre. Munno Bhai said Darwish had great affinity with the Pakistani resistance poet Habib Jalib and should also be weighed on the same scale as Faiz Ahmad Faiz.
Harris Khalique read a particularly touching translation of a Darwish poem, Mujh me voh shayyor jo mare jane se pahle bedaar hota hai, which portrayed the poet as 'living within the ancient walls from one epoch to another.' Shaheen Mufti also recited an Urdu translation of the Palestine arch poet.
Incidentally, a strong messages emerged that focused weighed on the value of inter-translations from one language to another, as well as the need for setting up a translation board for eminent literary works from the Middle East and as well as from western languages, which should emerge on the heels of the works. Jash as translated versions of recent books land within the same week in many countries.
We also need translation of local classical literature in the 18 national languages of the country. At present, Urdu translations are done at the Pakistan Academy of Letters, as well as by the Punjabi and Sindhi Aadabi Boards. But these are confined to Urdu, while translations of good works of Baloch Punjabi, Pushto and Sindhi prose and poetry is unavailable in regional languages, for example into Punjabi, Sindhi, Balochi or for Brushuski readers.
Inter-translation of classical and contemporary works in Pakistani languages would endow maturity of thought and enhance the open literary tastes of the average readers. Thus a need has been felt for the setting up of translation boards, which could meet domestic needs and also provide translations of modern literature into a number of foreign languages to introduce the people of Pakistan to a stream of modern literary movements.