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The Power of Exile in Shaping the Resistance

Existentialist Narratives of Mahmoud Darwish and

Ghassan Kanafani

Leena Alhudaif

Ashwaq Aadi

Abeer Aljuaithen
The Power of Exile in Shaping the Existentialist Resistance Narratives of Mahmoud Darwish and Ghassan Kanafani 2

Acknowledgments

To our mothers, sisters and friends who witnessed all our academic frustrations as

well as our achievements, and embraced them regardless. To Miss Mishael Bin Alameer

where our critical and literary maturity are purely owed, thank you. This work which

culminates three years of majoring in literature would not have been possible without you.
The Power of Exile in Shaping the Existentialist Resistance Narratives of Mahmoud Darwish and Ghassan Kanafani 3

The Power of Exile in Shaping the Existentialist Resistance Narratives of Mahmoud

Darwish and Ghassan Kanafani

Abstract

This study explores the power of exile in creating existential literary works of

resistance. This exploration is done to the works of the two Palestinian exiled writers,

Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008) and Ghassan Kanafani (1936-72). These works are Journal

of An Ordinary Grief (1973) and Men in the Sun (1962). Exile in its multiple forms raises a

sense of an existential crisis manifested in the lack of a complete being and a legitimate

existence. This lack is triggered by the loss of nationalism and is first explained by Edward

Said (​1935-2003) in his essay ​Reflections on Exile (1984). Ultimately, the philosophy of

existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-80) is used to investigate the diasporic literature of

Darwish and Kanafani as being textually and analytically existentialist.

Keywords

exile, resistance, Edward Said, existentialism, anguish, Jean-Paul Sartre, Palestine, diaspora,

Mahmoud Darwish, Ghassan Kanafani

Research Question

How does the power of exile trigger questions on concepts of existence, meaning,

purpose and identity in Mahmoud Darwish’s Journal of an Ordinary Grief, and Ghassan

Kanafani’s ​Men in the Sun, and how does it serve as literary resistance?

Literature Review

Many critics and intellectuals have examined the writings of Mahmoud Darwish and

Ghassan Kanafani immensely. They have studied the humanistic aspects of their works,

which showcase the Palestinian struggle, the search for identity and existence in exile. These

critics have examined the writings of Darwish and Kanafani on a universal level, thus an
The Power of Exile in Shaping the Existentialist Resistance Narratives of Mahmoud Darwish and Ghassan Kanafani 4

individualistic examination is scarcely found. However the criticism and analysis found on

the writings of Darwish and Kanafani and their two works, ​Journal of An Ordinary Grief and

Men in the Sun, along with Edward Said’s concept of exile and Jean-Paul Sartre’s philosophy

of existentialism, will provide deep insight for the current study to investigate the power of

exile in producing existential literary works.

In his essay ​Reflections on Exile, Edward Said has defined exile as a space forced

between a human and an original home, stating the significance of exile in shaping great

writers and intellectuals, he explains that “It is not surprising that so many exiles seem to be

novelists, chess players, political activists, and intellectuals. Each of these occupations

requires a minimal investment in objects and places a great premium on mobility and skill”

(144). Said concludes that exile gives writers a unique perspective of the world.

Jean-Paul Sartre in his book ​Being and Nothingness provides clear definitions of

anguish, commitment and human responsibility, which are according to Said part of the

exile’s experience. Sartre believes that through anguish man is able to realize his freedom and

his right to defend this freedom. He goes on to say that this realization creates a strong sense

of commitment not only to make the self better but to make humanity better as well.

Professor Yoav Di-Capua examines the philosophy of existentialism among Arab

intellectuals, in his article ​Arab Existentialism: An Invisible Chapter in the Intellectual

History of Decolonization, discusses how the concept of existentialism was redesigned to

meet the multiple challenges of decolonization. He suggests various interpretations that led to

the emergence of existentialism as a tool of Arab’s literary resistance. First, Di-Capua states

that, “Arab existentialism emerged not as a unified and accumulative phenomenon but as a

multifocal intellectual system” (1064). Second, he believes that Arab existentialism was
The Power of Exile in Shaping the Existentialist Resistance Narratives of Mahmoud Darwish and Ghassan Kanafani 5

demanded in the sense that it was seen as a way to connect with the global culture of

resistance (1064).

In ​The Literature of Resistance after a catastrophe a chapter of Ghassan Kanafani’s

book ​Palestinian literature of Resistance (1966), Kanafani discusses the literature of

resistance and how it has functioned in occupied Palestine, the difference between literature

under occupation as well as the literature of exile. He recalls that the specific historical events

of occupying Palestinian lands has created a situation in which most of the educated elites

ended up in exile, creating a boom in the literary resistance of the exiled Palestinian artists'

sphere.

Introduction

The twentieth century has always been identified as the age of anxieties and horrors

that are mostly politicized. Although, the brutality of this time was ruthless, people who were

directly exposed to the atrocities of wars and their aftermaths were this era’s ultimate victims.

One of these politicized anxieties was exile which goes hand in hand with colonization. Exile

is not as clear as it seems, nor is it easily comprehended as stated, but rather complicated and

explored through infinite dimensions and connotations. It is not merely struggled on an

external level, but is experienced on an internal one as well. The consequences of exile are as

infinite as its dimensions, concluded in the loss of nationalism as a tool of a proven existence.

Further, since nationalism ensures a legitimate existence and is lost, existence is consequently

futile and meaningless. This meaninglessness provoked an inevitable existential crisis,

resisted by a recreated alternative nationalism made out of words. Ultimately, nationalism has

become a crucial matter evident in both its loss and recreation. Through their literature, the

exile writers Mahmoud Darwish and Ghassan Kanafani undertake the obligation of reflecting

the Palestinian misery and the anguish of an agitated nation is thus engaged. Further, their
The Power of Exile in Shaping the Existentialist Resistance Narratives of Mahmoud Darwish and Ghassan Kanafani 6

acts of literary resistance are to be viewed through the correlation of Edward Said’s concept

of exile, and Jean-Paul Sartre’s philosophy of existentialism.

Echos of Displacement

In his essay ​Reflections on Exile, Said attempts to further discover the fundamental

aspects of exile during this age. He suggests that on the twentieth century scale, this concept

is neither aesthetically nor humanistically comprehensible: at most the literature about exile

objectifies an anguish (138). In short, Said concludes that exile is compelling to think about,

yet terrible to experience (136). It is like death without death’s ultimate mercy, it has torn a

million people from the nourishment of tradition, family and geography (138). However, In

the case of colonization, exile is not necessarily external. For Palestinians, exile has become a

permanent condition in which they have attempted to express the wounds of a looted

homeland and of a people transformed into a nation of refugees (Gohar 231). The literature of

exile as Said states in his paper embodies anguish, which in Jean-Paul Sartre’s book ​Being

and Nothingness is clarified as the source where “man gets the consciousness of his freedom”

(29). Thus the works of Mahmoud Darwish and Ghassan Kanafani as writers in exile embody

anguish and contain a dense amount of existential thoughts, due to their realization of the loss

of their freedom to be Palestinians in their homeland. This realization of displacement turns

them into existential writers. ​Johannes F. Evelein in his book ​Literary Exiles from Nazi

Germany: Exemplarity and the Search for Meaning, explains that exiles are thrown into a

state of existential crisis. Their crisis opens up a community woven together by the timeless

narratives of exile (​72). These narratives of the exile writers manifest acts of literary

resistance in which ​Darwish and Kanafani use their anguish to regain their freedom and the

freedom of the Palestinians.

Words of Endurance From the Constraints of Diaspora

The Power of Exile in Shaping the Existentialist Resistance Narratives of Mahmoud Darwish and Ghassan Kanafani 7

Concerning the Palestinian cause, resistance through literature can be seen as taking

many different forms. Ghassan Kanafani, in the first chapter of his book ​Palestinian

Literature of Resistance Under Occupation, retraces the beginning of resistance to the

beginning of the aggression; he explains that the act of expulsion of the Palestinian people

from their land was unique in the sense that it created a demographic shift, as the majority of

those expelled were city dwellers, who were amongst the elites of the most educated and

artistically conscious. Leaving mostly a population of hardly educated villagers and farmers

(11-12). Jordanian author Fakhri Saleh adds on to this in his essay A Nation Crafted From

Words by elaborating that the beginning of this literary aggression is marked by the

destruction of previously documented rich history of Palestinian literature pre-Nakbah

(Palestinian exodus). This literary aggression continues post-Nakbah, as the occupying state

takes over the literary means of production, it bans and censors any Palestinian literature with

overtly nationalistic rhetoric or anti-occupying state sentiments, leaving the arabs living

under Israel no real means of expressing their plights in literary arts (Kanafani, 23-24). This

then creates a situation where the expelled literary elites with greater access to means of

literary production are the main producers of celebrated Palestinian literature, and the

literature of the exile becomes the greatest frontier of literary resistance. For one thing, the

diaspora’s attempt to document their own or their fathers’ horrific experience with expulsion

and exile, as well as their painful experience with being refugees provide a defiant and

unavoidable portray of the suffering of the Palestinian people. Another very important aspect

of the literature of exile is the attempt to remember, reconstruct and document Palestine from

memory or second hand memory, and to keep it alive in literature. Saleh notes that “it is a

fact that without literature, which revived Palestine from its remoteness, the Palestinian cause

was doomed to be annihilated.” (2). Besides, although their works of literary resistance
The Power of Exile in Shaping the Existentialist Resistance Narratives of Mahmoud Darwish and Ghassan Kanafani 8

express their individual experiences of exile, they are the voice of a land and told on its

behalf. In regards to this matter, their works being categorized as works of literary resistance,

Darwish in his book ​The Hesitant Homelander states that such categorization is originated

from the collective and shared catastrophe. “When I started writing, I was haunted by the

obsession of expressing my loss, my senses, the ​borders of my determined existence, myself

and its determined setting and geography, without considering the intersection of this self

with the collective self” (165). This intersection shapes his literary resistance as his personal

story of the great uprootedness, Darwish states, was the story of an entire nation (165).

Nationalism: A Touchstone of A Fragile Existence

The loss of nationalism and the right to simply be, raises questions of existence that

can clearly be traced in the works of Darwish and Kanafani. Existentialism has been an

accruing theme in many of their works, due to the power of exile in creating a sense of

nothingness, which in the case of Darwish and Kanafani can only be resisted through

literature. Said points out an important aspect of the exile’s life stating that it is taken up with

compensating for disorienting loss by creating a new world to rule (144). This new world to

Darwish and Kanafani is crafted from existential philosophy as a means of resistance. In his

book ​Existentialism is a Humanism, the existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre explains

that “the fundamental aim of existentialism is to reveal the link between the absolute

character of the free commitment, by which every man realizes himself in realizing a type of

humanity a commitment that is always understandable, by anyone in any era and the

relativity of the cultural ensemble that may result from such a choice” (43). Darwish and

Kanafani have realized themselves as individuals seeking their freedom through their

realization of the humanism of the Palestinians and their struggle to gain their freedom as a

nation. Both of them were committed to the Palestinian cause and thus committed to the
The Power of Exile in Shaping the Existentialist Resistance Narratives of Mahmoud Darwish and Ghassan Kanafani 9

Palestinian identity and human dignity. They have shown this realization and this

commitment in most of their literary works, using existentialism as a tool of resistance. In his

paper ​Arab Existentialism: An Invisible Chapter in the Intellectual History of Decolonization,

Yoav Di-Capua affirms that “Arab thinkers creatively reinvented, reformulated, and

domesticated European existentialism in a way that enabled them to confront the formidable

challenge of decolonization from a collective, transnational perspective rather than from a

solitary, autochthonous standpoint” (1090).

Journal of An Ordinary Grief: A Documentation of the Nature of the Daily Palestinian

Existence in Exile and the Literary Recreation of a Homeland

​In his book of prose documented as diaries in exile ​Journal of an Ordinary Grief,

Mahmoud Darwish unmasks the Palestinian diaspora, and his and every Palestinian’s

experience with internal exile. Darwish wrote of these experiences of loss and displacement

while internally exiled in his homeland before becoming a refugee for the second time in

1970 as Ahmed states in ​Resistance from a Distance: Mahmoud Darwish’s Selected Poems of

Exile in English that “Darwish experienced being in a state of limbo from 1948 onwards until

he was forced to leave again in 1970” (qtd. in Hashim and Ahmed 159). ​Journal of an

Ordinary Grief begins with a strong sense of existential awareness derived from the anguish

felt by Darwish as an exile fighting for his Palestinian nationalism. The journal is established

with a fictional dialogue between a man and his son, where the son asks his father about what

he is searching for. The father who is likely Darwish’s persona, after responding that he is

searching for his heart which can be a metaphor of his essence, goes on saying that “The

mere act of searching is proof that I refuse to get lost in my loss” (9). This refusal struggled

through anguish finds a place in Sartre’s philosophy of Origin and Negation, a chapter of his

book ​Being and Nothingness as an interpretation where he holds that anguish is indeed a sign
The Power of Exile in Shaping the Existentialist Resistance Narratives of Mahmoud Darwish and Ghassan Kanafani 10

of a conscious self. He further believes that “the nihilation of horrors as a motive, which has

the effect of reinforcing horror as a state, has its positive counterpart appearance of other

forms of conduct” (68). The presence of the freedom that manifests itself through anguish,

Sartre elaborates, is characterized by a constantly renewed obligation to remake the self

which designates the free being. Hence, the possibilities are filled with anguish because they

depended on the individual alone to sustain them in their existence (72). Consequently,

anguish imposes itself as a permanent state of one’s affectivity (Sartre 73).

Darwish is aware of this obligation to effectively recreate and rediscover the

Palestinian identity, nationalism and homeland. Through these acts of recreation and

rediscovery in the form of existential narratives Darwish gets to distantly resist. His position

as a distant resistant bound by the condition of his exile shapes the theme of his journal.

"Homeland, I know the road to you but do not know you. For a quarter century I have been

moving towards you through the formal Arabic sentence. I am a stranger to it, I am a stranger

to you” (142). This “quarter century” of ​bereavement ​was sufficient to recreate a homeland

out of words, through the ​bridge of the “Arabic sentence”, to eventually constitute his literary

resistance. The incapability of defining the homeland to draw a necessary nationalism is

significantly mingled with an existential crisis, apparent in causing Darwish a calamity of its

definition and a burden to craft an alternative one to recover a forced deprivation.

The question of one’s own existence in the universe has a lot of layers to it for

Palestinians in exile. Darwish sheds a light on this question in the confinement of the

homeland, he presents the Palestinian question of existence not only in the universe but most

importantly in Palestine. In his journal he tells of an incident that happened to him when he

asked for a passport to travel to Greece. He was denied the passport because according to
The Power of Exile in Shaping the Existentialist Resistance Narratives of Mahmoud Darwish and Ghassan Kanafani 11

Israel he has lost the right to have a citizenship and is no longer a resident. He goes to his

lawyer friend and discusses his existence:

‘Here, I’m not a citizen, and I’m not a resident. Then where and who am I?’

You’re surprised to find that the law is on their side, and you must prove you exist.

You ask the Ministry of the Interior, ‘Am I here, or am I absent? Give me an expert in

philosophy, so that I can prove to him I exist.’

Then you realize that philosophically you exist, but legally you do not (71).

These philosophical questions of existence that Darwish presents in his journal are the

questions of exiles. They are not triggered by their need to find a meaning for their existence

but are triggered by their anguish and need to rediscover their nationalism. Nationalism as

Said enunciates “affirms the home created by a community of language, culture and customs;

and, by so doing, it fends off exile, fights to prevent its ravages” (139). As an exile Darwish

resists exile through language to recover the Palestinian nationalism, and because according

to Said exile is a “discontinuous state of being” (140), the language Darwish uses, produces

literary works filled with existential philosophy.

Rebelling Against an Excruciating Present: Existentialist Resistance in Ghassan

Kanafani’s Men in The Sun

Ghassan Kanafani’s manifestation of the philosophy of existentialism in his novella

Men in the Sun takes on the identity of the colonized, and becomes a tool of fighting back. Di

Capua describes this phenomenon saying: "Arab intellectuals saw existentialism as a way to

connect with the global culture of resistance.” (1064). Sartre’s particular brand of

existentialism is an instrument most fitting for movements of resistance, in his book

Existentialism is a Humanism, Sartre declares that “man is, before all else, something which

propels itself towards a future and is aware it is doing so” (30). Thus, man exists now, and
The Power of Exile in Shaping the Existentialist Resistance Narratives of Mahmoud Darwish and Ghassan Kanafani 12

pushes himself forward. This commitment at the core of Sartre’s existentialism draws an

image of man’s free-will as a spear with which he shapes his future and resist against his

present. Sartre also emphasizes the grand scale importance of choice, to him choices are

never personal, what you chose for yourself you have chosen for the rest of humanity (31).

This responsibility attached to choice accompanies the idea that man is born free and

therefore responsible for all his choices and especially the choice to maintain and fight for his

freedom, this gives way to a sort of resistance that is inseparable from one’s very being.

​Men in the Sun follows the story of three Palestinian refugees living in a refugee

camp in Iraq and their attempt to pass the border to Kuwait, fleeing economic hardships.

After much humiliation and failed attempts, the three men, Abu Qays, As’ad, and Marwan

finally contact a man willing to smuggle them across the border ‘Abu Khaizaran’, the plan is

to smuggle them inside a water tank in his truck. Under the scorching heat, Abu Khaizaran

takes too long trying to get passed one of the checkpoints, and once he crosses the borders

and opens the truck to check up on them, he finds that they have died of asphyxiation. The

novella presents an allegorical portrayal of the current condition of the Palestinian people,

reflecting the failure of the Palestinian leadership and the betrayal of the Arab allies. One

could argue then that Kanafani’s critical portrayal of his surroundings constitutes a resistance

against his present, which is a core principle of Sartre’s concepts of freedom and choice.

One could argue that Kanafani’s existentialist choice to resist against his present is

directly tied to his being an author-in-exile, Said notes in his ​Reflections on Exile that the idea

of nationalism and the strive for a home -and by extensions, writing about one’s home-

“fends off exile, fights to prevent its ravages” (139). In other words, the pain and devastating

loss of the state of exile triggers a desire to recreate one’s nation and be actively involved in

its present state. At the end of the novella, a shocked Abu Khaizaran is seen frantically
The Power of Exile in Shaping the Existentialist Resistance Narratives of Mahmoud Darwish and Ghassan Kanafani 13

wondering “Why did you not knock on the sides of the tank? why didn’t you bang the side of

the tank? Why? Why? Why?” (109). This silence is symbolic of the entirety of the Palestinian

people, not in the sense that they are silent but in the sense that they are not heard. It is

possible that the men were not passive at all, that they continued to struggle, that they tried to

make a sound, but it was simply not heard.

In Kanafani’s obituary, published by the Lebanese Daily Star he is called “commando

who never fired a gun” whose “weapon was a ballpoint pen and his arena newspaper pages.

And he hurt the enemy more than a column of commandos.” ​Men in the Sun provides a harsh

critique to everyone responsible for the current plight of the Palestinian people, his work

constitutes a deeply confrontational portrayal of an uninhabitable present, and so one would

surely classify his work as an unmistakable example of existential literary resistance.

Conclusion

In conclusion, if one were to closely study the literature of exiled Palestinians, one

would clearly see the enormous and extensive effect exile had in shaping these documented

narratives. One could also often trace recurring elements of philosophies of existentialism

within these exiled artists, whose realities as stateless individuals, individuals whose very

existence is often denied and erased, individuals whose ties with their homeland and

repository of identity have been severed. Exile is seen as a trigger or catalyst of existentialist

questions and phi​losophies, which are in turn used as tools of resistance within literature.

This process is especially visible in the works of ​Palestine’s two most celebrated artists:

Mahmoud Darwish and Ghassan Kanafani; both provide excellent examples of existentialist

literature of resistance from the diaspora. It is not hard to see why being without a home can

stir deep feelings of anguish and unrest which then find their way to paper.
The Power of Exile in Shaping the Existentialist Resistance Narratives of Mahmoud Darwish and Ghassan Kanafani 14

Work Cited

Darwish, Mahmoud. ​Journal of An Ordinary Grief. Trans. Ibrahim Muhawi. Beirut: Dar

Alawdah, 1973. Print.

Darwish, Mahmoud. ​The Hesitant Homelander. Beirut: Riad El-Rayyes, 2007. Print.

Di-Capua, Y. "Arab Existentialism: An Invisible Chapter in the Intellectual History of

Decolonization." ​The American Historical Review 117.4 (2012): 1061-091. Web. 23

December 2016

Evelein, Johannes F. ​Literary Exiles from Nazi Germany: Exemplarity and the Search for

Meaning. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2014. Print.

Ghassan Kanafani. ​Men in The Sun. Cyprus: Dar Alrimal, 1962. Print.

Gohar, Saddik. "Narratives of Diaspora and Exile in Arabic and Palestinian Poetry." (n.d.):

231. 3 Feb. 2011. Web. 23 Dec. 2016.

Said, Edward. ​Relfection on Exile. London: Granta, 2012. Print.

Saleh, Fakhri. "A Nation Crafted From Words." ​Qantara (2013): n. pag. Web. 24 Dec. 2016.

Sartre, Jean-Paul. ​Being and Nothingness. New York: Philosophical Library, 1956. Print.

Sartre, Jean-Paul. ​Existentialism Is a Humanism. London: Yale UP, 1946. Print.