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Time and Waiting: The Fulcrum of Palestinian Identity
Abstract
The theoretical concepts of time and waiting have evolved mostly around the units of clocks and calendars. The Palestinians have been forced to let waiting be part of their national and cultural life. The forced displacement has scattered many Palestinians in exile around the globe. These Palestinians in diasporas have been waiting to return home one day and this perpetual state of waiting is one of the greatest tragedies of our time. The Palestinians' experience of time and waiting are quite different from most parts of the world. The linearity of time seems to break its rhythm when it enters Palestinian lives. The temporality appears to have multiple dimensions when it comes to Palestine. There are times when the clock is not the reference point of Palestinians' time, and hours and minutes can no longer gauge their waiting. They have given a new meaning to time, waiting and exile through not only the physical existence of their being, but also through their literature and art. Although we live in a culture that denigrates waiting, we have a whole Palestine hanging on for what can put an end to its wait. The concept of time, waiting and exile suddenly jumps out of the theoretical notions and embodies itself in Palestine. Palestinians' literature, movies and other art forms have encompassed these ideas to strengthen their collective memory and identity. The life of a dispossessed Palestinian has many internal contradictions that are at times not obvious but beyond the contradiction typically experienced by individuals in life. The Palestinian struggle for land is also a struggle against the established unitary idea of time and waiting of colonizers. This article will try to delve into such meanings of time and waiting for Palestinians in their cultural lives and their everyday existence.
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Mahmoud Darwish, Hala Khamis Nassar and Najat Rahman, eds., Exile's Poet: Critical Essays (Northampton, MA: Olive Branch Press, 2008).
This play was originally published in French in 1952 and produced in 1953. Beckett is considered to be one of the pioneers of the “Theater of Absurd.” He was influenced by the existential philosophy of Sartre and Camus. In music the term “absurd” means “out of harmony.” In the theatrical context the term is used to signify plays that are out of harmony with reason or convention. The Theater of Absurd consists of plays that do not satisfy the expectation of the audience, plays that do not conform to the conventions of theater that had governed plays until then.
Vladimir and Estragon are the two central characters in the play who are in conversation with each other in their pursuit for their wait for Godot, who is strange and regularly conveys to them that he will arrive, but never does. Although perceived as worthless individuals, they find a new meaning of human life and their existence in this world while they wait for Godot.
Peter J. Burke and Jan E. Stets, Identity Theory (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009).
Homer is the name given to the legendary Greek author who wrote The Iliad and The Odyssey. Penelope is the central character in The Odyssey whose husband remains long absent after the Trojan War. In the hope and wait for the return of her love, her husband, and to resist the innumerable proposals coming for her, she weaves a shroud for her husband every day over three years. Every night she displays the work she has put into the shroud during the day so that she does not have to give up hope of her husband's return and can put off the idea of remarrying for another passing day.
Saint Augustine (also known as Saint Augustine of Hippo) was born in what is now Algeria. He was one of the most significant Christian thinkers after Saint Paul and he is formally recognized as Doctor of the Church in Roman Catholism. He has written extensively and the two most important of his works are Confessions and The City of God. His works have shaped the foundation of modern and medieval Christian thoughts.
The autobiographical work Confessions consists of 13 books and this quote is from Book XI. This work was written by Saint Augustine in Latin between AD 397 and 400 and it is a collection of works discussing his unrighteous youth and his later conversion to Christianity.
Jamie Sayen. Einstein in America: The Scientist's Conscience in the Age of Hitler and Hiroshima (New York : Crown Publishing Group, 1985).
Harold Schweizer, On Waiting (New York: Routledge, 2008).
Henri Bergson, Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness (New York: Dover Publications, 2001).
He was an activist who led the civil rights movement in the United States of America from the mid 1950s until he was killed in 1968. He was also awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.
Martin Luther King, Jr., Why We Can't Wait (New York: Signet Classics, 2000).
This painting has been accessed through: http://www.escapeintolife.com/essays/russian-soviet-art-levitan-pimenov/.
This poem was originally published in 1904. Here this has been taken from E. W. Said's (2000) book The End of the Peace Process (New York: Pantheon Books), 337.
Edward Said, Reflections on Exile and Other Essays (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), 338.
Rainer Rilke and Robert Bly, The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke (New York: Harper and Row, 1981).
Ihab Saloul, Catastrophe and Exile in the Modern Palestinian Imagination: Telling Memories (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).
This means steadfastness or perseverance and is characteristic of Palestinian resistance in the face of oppression. This originally took form as a political tool and ideological theme in the aftermath of the 1967 Six-Day War.
Fawaz Turki, Soul in Exile: Lives of a Palestinian Revolutionary (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1988).
Raja Shehadeh, Strangers in the House: Coming of Age in Occupied Palestine (London: Profile Books Ltd, 2009).
Fady Joudah, trans., If I Were Another (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011).
This verse has been taken from Mahmoud Darwish's work “Mural” translated by Rema Hammami and John Berger, published by Verso in 2017, page 43.
Mourid Barghouti, trans. Ahdaf Soueif, I Saw Ramallah (New York: Anchor Books, 2003), 14.
Wajib is a Palestinian film directed by Annemarie Jacir. It was released in 2018.
David Wyllie, trans., Metamorphosis (New Delhi: Fingerprint! Publishing, 2014).
Gregor is the protagonist of Kafka's The Metamorphosis originally published in 1915. He is a salesman who is not happy with his work but has no other choice as he has to pay his father's debts and take care of his family. One day he wakes up to find himself transformed into a large bug (insect). His physical appearance and his voice are appalling but his human psychology remains intact. Eventually, he dies and this brings relief to his family even though their struggles continue.
This painting has been accessed through: https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/1168-2.
Chronicle of Disappearance is a drama film by Palestinian director and actor Elia Suleiman. It was released in 1996. The film beautifully captures the psychological effects of the colonization on Palestinian people, especially those who are residing in historical Palestine (after 1948 and the establishment of so-called “Israel”).
Martin Heideggar, Being and Time, translated by Joan Stambaugh and Dennis Schmidt (New York: State University of New York Press, 2010).
Barbara Adam, Time and Social Theory (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2013).
Michael Shapiro, Politics and Time: Documenting the Event (Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2016).
Henri Bergson writes in his work Time and Free Will (2002: 90), “pure duration is nothing but a succession of qualitative changes which melt into and permeate one another without precise outlines.”
“Handala was born ten years old, and he will always be ten years old. At that age, I left my homeland, and when he returns, Handala will still be ten, and then he will start growing up. The laws of nature do not apply to him. He is unique. Things will become normal again when the homeland returns,” says the Palestinian artist Naji al-Ali about his most revered cartoon character Handala. Source: www.handala.org, accessed December 24, 2018.
Source: www.poemhunter.com, accessed December 24, 2018.