Ghassan Kanafani

Ghassan Kanafani
غسان كنفاني
Personal details
Born April 9, 1936
Akka, Palestine
Died July 8, 1972
Beirut, Lebanon
Nationality Palestinian
Political party Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine

Ghassan Kanafani(Arabic:غسان كنفاني, April 9, 1936 in Akka, Palestine – July 8, 1972 in Beirut, Lebanon) was a Palestinian writer and a leading member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.[1]on July 8, 1972 he was Assassinated by a car bomb in Beirut by the Mossad.[2]

Early years

Ghassan Fayiz Kanafani was born in 1936 in city of Acre (Akka) under the British Mandate of Palestine. His father was a lawyer, and Ghassan was sent to French missionary school in Jaffa.

During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Kanafani and his family were forced into exile,[3] a part of the Palestinian exodus. The family initially fled north to neighbouring Lebanon, less than 11 miles north, but soon moved on to Damascus, Syria, to live there as Palestinian refugees. Kanafani completed his secondary education in Damascus, receiving a United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) teaching certificate in 1952.

Political background

The same year he enrolled in the Department of Arabic Literature at the University of Damascus and began teaching in UNRWA schools in the refugee camps. Before he could complete his degree, Kanafani was expelled from the university and exiled to Kuwait for his political affiliations with the Movement of Arab Nationalists (MAN) [1] a pan-Arab organization to which he had been recruited by Dr. George Habash when the two met in 1953. In Kuwait he edited al-Ra'i (The Opinion), which was an MAN-affiliated newspaper, and also became interested in Marxist philosophy and politics.

In 1960, he relocated once again to Beirut, where he began editing the MAN mouthpiece al-Hurriya. In 1961, he met Anni Høver, a Danish educationalist and children's rights activist, with whom he had two children. In 1962, Kanafani briefly had to go underground, since he, as a stateless person, lacked proper identification papers. He reappeared in Beirut later the same year, and took up editingship of the Nasserist newspaper al-Muharrir (The Liberator). In the meantime his novel,Men in the Sun was published in 1963 to great acclaim. He went on to become an editor of another Nasserist newspaper, al-Anwar (The Illumination), in 1967, while continuing to publish a steady stream of novellas, among which All that's Left of You, (1966), UmmSa'd (1969) and Return to Haifa (1970).[3] In 1967 he also joined The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and edited its weekly, al-Hadaf.[3]

Ghassan’s most important contribution to society was his help with Palestinian movements and devotion to his political affiliations. When asked about the relation between his writings and politics he said, “My political position springs from my being a novelist. In so far as I am concerned, politics and the novel are an indivisible case and I can categorically state that I became politically committed because I am a novelist, not the opposite” (Kanafani). As his political ideas developed he moved toward Marxism.

As his way of thinking matured he eventually came to share George Habash’s belief that the only solution to the Palestine problem could not be achieved without a social revolution throughout the Arab world. George Habash was a nationalist born in Palestine (under the British mandate). He was the leader of the Arab Nationalist movement and created the National Front for the Liberation of Palestine within the MAN. In 1967 the defeat of Nasser (the Egyptian President) prompted him to dissolve the MAN and create the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, of which he became the secretary general (Rabbani 1). He was a leading Palestine activist and was a big influence in Ghassan Kanfani’s life. Habash shaped how Kanafani viewed the conflict and how he would choose to handle it. Ghassan Kanafani was an active member of the Palestine Liberation Movement, The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Arab Nationalist movement. As a member of the PFLP, Kanafani believed that national unity is the sharpest weapon in the battle for liberation.

His article on Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, published in the PLO's Research Centre Magazine, Shu'un Filistiniyya (Palestinian Affairs) was influential in diffusing the image of the former as a forerunner of the Palestinian armed struggle.[4]

Involvement in PFLP

When Palestinian membership of the ANM evolved in 1967 into the PFLP, Kanafani became one of its spokesmen. In 1969, he drafted a PFLP program in which the movement officially took up Marxism-Leninism. He also edited the movements newspaper, Al-Hadaf (The Target), which he had founded in 1969, and contributed to it until his death with political, cultural and historical essays and articles.

Assassination

Several days after the Lod airport massacre, a picture of Kanafani together with one of the Japanese terrorists was published. On July 8, 1972, Kanafani was killed by a bomb planted in his car in Beirut; his seventeen-year-old niece Lamees Najim was also killed.[5] The New York Times reported the following day, "Beirut Blast Kills Guerrilla Leader". The assassination is thought to be the work of the Israeli Mossad, and according to one source, later claimed responsibility for his death. One obituary wrote of him that he was 'the commando who never fired a gun'.[6] He was 36 years old at the time. A collection of Palestinian Resistance poems, The Palestinian Wedding, which took its title from the eponymous poem by Mahmoud Darwish was published to honour his memory.[7]

The assassination took place while Kanafani was headed for the al-Hadaf office. His Danish wife Anni, small son and daughter escaped unhurt. Kanafani’s successor, Bassam Abu Sharif, was also targeted by Israeli’s intelligence officers. He lost sight in one eye and several fingers when a letter bomb exploded in his Beirut office. Ghassan Kanafani’s memory was upheld through the creation of the Ghassan Kanafani Cultural Foundation, which has since established eight kindergartens for the children of Palestinian refugees.[8] His legacy lives on among the Palestinians, and he is considered one of the greatest modern Arabic authors.

Literary production

Ghassan Kanafani began writing short stories when he was working in the refugee camps. Often told as seen through the eyes of children, the stories manifested out of his political views and belief that his students' education had to relate to their immediate surroundings. While in Kuwait, he spent much time reading Russian literature and socialist theory, refining many of the short stories he wrote, winning a Kuwaiti prize.[9]

Kanafani published his first novel, Men in the Sun in Beirut in 1962. He also wrote a number of scholarly works on literature and politics. His thesis, Race and Religion in Zionist Literature, formed the basis for his 1967 study On Zionist Literature.

Considered a major modernizing influence on Arab literature and still a major figure in Palestinian literature today, Kanafani was an early proponent of complex narrative structures, using flashback effects and a chorus of narrator voices for effect. His writings focused mainly on the themes of Palestinian liberation and struggle, and often touched upon his own experiences as a refugee. He was, as was the PFLP, a Marxist, and believed that the class struggle within Palestinian and Arab society was intrinsically linked to the struggle against Zionism and for a Palestinian state.

Also an active literary critic, Kanafani's seminal work, Palestinian Literature Under Occupation, 1948-1968, introduced Palestinian writers and poets to the Arab world. He also wrote a major critical work on Zionist and Israeli literature. In the spirit of Jean-Paul Sartre, he called for an engaged literature which would be committed to change.

Influence

Ghassan Kanfani had many achievements as a writer and political activist. He was considered to be a leading novelist of his era and regarded as one of the foremost Palestinian prose writers in the Arab World. Some would say that Kanafani’s greatest achievement lay in his portrayal of the Palestinian peasant, both before and after 1948 (Kilpatrick 13). Kanafani’s affinity to the peasants was ironic because, “the nature of Zionist colonization, with its stress on acquiring land struck at the existence of the peasants, the largest section of Palestinian society,” (Jewish Virtual Library). He felt an affinity with the people who are the reason for his displacement. Although he had strong feelings against the Zionists he was not blinded from how similar many of their situations were to his. Many were living with no food to spare. Some couldn’t afford shelter and most were struggling to survive. Kanafani understood that the Palestinians and the Jews were more similar than they believed. Both Men in the Sun and Umm Saad were successful stories from the point of view of poverty stricken Palestinians. Kanafani felt an affinity with peasants that went far beyond the dictates of a political stand. The insight from which he portrayed them comes from his personal knowledge and experiences (Kilpatrick 13). His prolific writings testify to a brilliant and sensitive mind whose writings were and still are some of the best on issues of exile and the struggle for self-determination. He took his experiences and compiled them into a collection of stories that are hard to ignore. They exemplify the harsh realities for most Palestinians of his era. His first two writings rank among the most complex in all of Arabic fiction at that time. The second novel, All That’s Left to You, is considered one of the earliest and most successful modernist experiments in Arabic fiction. He used multiple narrators two of which were inanimate objects. It is the story of a young man who was separated from his mother after they both fled to different areas. The young man, Hamid, tries desperately to find his mother but he becomes lost in the desert, crossing paths with an Israeli soldier. He is compelled to abandon his plan of finding his mother and instead look to confront his enemy. He dies before locating his mother; he is in death reunited with his lost land, and the very act of confronting his fears constitutes a symbolic victory. The thematic development reflects the change in political climate, and the initiation of the Palestinian armed struggle (Qumsiyeh: A Human Rights Web). The vivid descriptions symbolize the Palestinian attachment to land and family and the sorrow of the young man’s unremitting anger and shame. After his death, Ghassan Kanafani was awarded the Lotus Prize for Literature by the Conference of Afro-Asian writers.[10]

Works in English

Works in Arabic

Note: Some Names are roughly Translated


2013 New edition of Ghassan Kanafani's complete works (Arabic Edition), published by Rimal Publications (Cyprus):
Novels:


Short Stories


Plays:


Studies

References

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Farsoun, 2004, p. 97.
  2. ↑ Mark Ensalaco (1 January 2011). Middle Eastern Terrorism: From Black September to September 11. University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 44. ISBN 0-8122-0187-6.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Orit Bashkin, 'Nationalism as a Cause: Arab Nationalism in the writings of Ghassan Kanafani,' in Christoph Schumann,(ed) Nationalism and Liberal Thought in the Arab East: Ideology and Practice, Routledge 2010 p.96.
  4. ↑ Rashid Khalidi,Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness, Columbia University Press, 2009 p.195.
  5. ↑ "Liberation Graphics: Antonym/Synonim: Ninth Commemoration of Comrade Ghassan’s Martyrdom". Liberation Graphics. Retrieved 26 August 2012.
  6. ↑ Barbara Harlow, 'Writers and Assassinations,' in Sidney J. Lemelle, Robin D G Kelley (eds.) Imagining Home: Class, Culture, and Nationalism in the African Diaspora, Verso 1994, pp.167-184, p.181
  7. ↑ Stuart Reigeluth, 'The Poetic Prose of Mahmoud Darwish and Mourid Barghouti,' in Hala Khamis Nassar, Najat Rahman (eds.), Mahmoud Darwish, Exile's Poet: Critical Essays, Olive Branch Press, 2008 pp.293-318, p.308.
  8. ↑ Mary Bentley Abu Saba, 'Profiles of Foreign Women in Lebanon during the Civil War,' in Lamia Rustum Shehadeh, (ed.) Women and War in Lebanon, University of Florida Press, pp.229-258, p.250.
  9. ↑ O'Neil, 2004, pp. 684-692.
  10. ↑ Rabbani, Muin. "Kanafani, Ghassan." Encyclopedia of the Palestinians. Facts on File Library of World History. Ed. Philip Mattar. 2005. p.275-276

Bibliography

External links