Tribute to Saramago

A young boy was spending his summer vacation at his grandfather’s house far away from the capital. Suddenly his grandfather fell sick and had to be transferred to the hospital, but before he was taken he did something very strange:

"He went into the yard of his house, where there were a few trees, fig trees, olive trees. And he went one by one, embracing the trees and crying, saying good-bye to them because he knew he would not return. To see this, to live this, if that doesn't mark you for the rest of your life, you have no feeling."

But it did mark the young Jose Saramago for the rest of his life, made him a writer, a political activist and the finest Portuguese writer of his generation.

Jose Saramago (1922-2010) was born in Azinagha, a small village in Portugal and although he was a clever pupil his parents were not able to afford his education and he had to work as a car mechanic at the age of 12, a period that made him close to the laboring community and shaped his political inclination towards communism, he joined the Portuguese Communist Party in 1969 and gave away his religious believes to be an atheist.

Noticing his intellectual talent, he worked as a journalist and translator and started wring and publishing novels in 1947, but his recognition did not come until the year 1982 when his novel Memorial Del Convento won the PEN club award Portuguese and started to attract attention to his style. The novel is a love story set in one of the major tourist attraction in Portugal, the Convent of Mafra, where the two lovers interact with each other and with famous historical figures.

In 1991, he published a very controversial novel titled O Evangelho Segundo Jesus Cristo or The Gospel according to Jesus Christ, in which he portrays Jesus Christ as a human being with flaws, passions, and doubts, including a love affair with Mary Magdalene. The book gained public success and was immediately translated to many languages while provoking the rage of the Roman Catholic Church that accused Saramago of having anti-religion views.

Magical Realism became the most prevailing theme in Saramago’s works, in addition to his characteristic language, very long sentences (sometimes more than one page long) and surrealistic plots which continued in his novels like The Stone Raft, where the Iberian Peninsula breaks off Europe and sails on its own across the Atlantic, Death At Intervals, which tells the story of a village where no one dies, and Blindness which tells the story of a story where a mysterious blinding disease strikes its people.

In 1998 Saramgo won the Nobel prize in Literature for his body of works, he was genuinely shocked announcing that:”I was not born for all this glory”

Saramago was an avid critic of the European Union and the state of Israel. In 2002 he visited Ramallah, where he compared the Palestinians to the Holocaust victims, a statement that resulted in him being condemned by many intellectuals and he was accused of Anti-Semitism. In one of his newspaper articles he wrote:

"Intoxicated mentally by the messianic dream of a Greater Israel which will finally achieve the expansionist dreams of the most radical Zionism; contaminated by the monstrous and rooted 'certitude' that in this catastrophic and absurd world there exists a people chosen by God and that, consequently, all the actions of an obsessive, psychological and pathologically exclusivist racism are justified; educated and trained in the idea that any suffering that has been inflicted, or is being inflicted, or will be inflicted on everyone else, especially the Palestinians, will always be inferior to that which they themselves suffered in the Holocaust, the Jews endlessly scratch their own wound to keep it bleeding, to make it incurable, and they show it to the world as if it were a banner."

On another occasion he pointed out that:

"The Jews are unworthy of any more sympathy for their sufferings during the second World War. Living under the shadows of the Holocaust and expecting to be forgiven for anything they do on behalf of what they have suffered seems abusive to me. They didn’t learn anything from the suffering of their parents and grandparents”

Yesterday in Lisbon, Saramago’s funeral took place; he died last Friday and 20,000 people participated in his funeral but with the absence of the right-winged Portuguese president who was vacationing very close to the capital. Many of Saramago’s works are banned in Portugal.

أم خالد

خالد...انت هنا يا حبيبي... انت ما متش... لا... انت لسة عايش... أنا أكيد بحلم... أيوة انت لسة عايش وهتدخل علي كمان شوية... وهتيجي... وهشوفك تاني... هبوسك واحضنك وأسمع صوتك وأشوف وشك... وشك؟ يابني... يا حبيبي... ازاي عملوا فيك كدة؟ ازاي جالهم قلب؟ ازاي ما صعبتش عليهم؟ عملتلهم ايه؟ ليه موتوك؟ ليه؟ طب... كانوا عملوا أي حاجة تانية وسابوك ما هما قادرين على كل حاجة. ازاي جالهم قلب؟ ما عندهمش ولاد؟ ما عندهمش اخوات؟ ما عندهمش قلب؟ ازاي جالهم قلب يمدوا ايدهم عليك؟ دمك وهو في ايديهم ما هزهمش؟ وصوتك وانت بتصرخ ما وقفهمش؟ و وشك... وشك اللي زي القمر ازاي عملوا فيه كدة؟ هيناموا بالليل ازاي؟ هياكلوا ويشربوا ازاي؟هيعيشوا ازاي؟ طب كانوا سابوك تعيش كانوا عملوا أي حاجة وسابوك تعيش يحرموني منك ليه؟ يا حبيبي يا ترى حسيت بايه؟ ندهت علي؟ ندهت على أمك؟ أكيد ندهت علي زي ما كنت بتنده علي لما الموجة تيجي عليك وانت صغير... أكيد ندهت علي وما لقتنيش... ما لقتش حد. يا ريتني كنت معاك... يا ريتني كنت بدالك... ياريتني أنا اللي اتضربت واتقتلت بس انت لا... يا ريتني كنت معاك... كنت حوشتهم عنك... كنت ما خلتهمش يلمسوا شعرة منك...كنت موتهم بايدي قبل ما يلمسوك. يا رب.. ليه أنا؟ ليه ابني أنا؟ ما الدنيا مليانة والبلد مليانة اشمعنى أنا؟ اشمعنى ابني أنا؟ وليه ولادهم يعيشوا وأنا ابني يموت؟ يا رب دة ظلم وانت مش ظالم... انت مش ظالم صح؟ طب لما انت مش ظالم سايبهم ليه؟ وسبتهم يعملوا كدة ليه؟ طب فهمني وأنا هسكت... والله هسكت ومش هتكلم ولا هعترض... بس فهمني ايه اللي بيحصل. طب رجعهولي تاني... والنبي رجعهولي تاني... مش انت قادر على كل شيء؟ طب رجعهولي وخدني بعد كدة بس أشوفه تاني.. أخده في حضني تاني... احضنه ولو خمس دقايق... طب دقيقة واحدة... دقيقة واحدة والله ...أشوفه بس... أشوف وشه قبل اللي عملوه. والله ماكنت اعرف انه هيحصله كل دة... والله لو كنت أعرف ما كنتش سيبته ثانية واحدة... ما كنتش أعرف انك هتسيبهم يعملوا فيه كدة... أنا ياما دعيتلك تحفظهولي وتباركلي فيه ماسمعتش ليه؟ سبتهم ليه؟ سبتهم يعملوا فيه كدة ليه؟ ما منعتهمش ليه؟ وسايبهم يقولوا عليه كدة ليه؟ وكله ظلم وانت عارف انه ظلم. أنا مش عارفة أعمل ايه... أكره مين؟ أكره البلد اللي سايبة ولادها تتبهدل؟ ولا أكره الناس اللي ما حدش منهم حاش عنه؟ ولا أكره الزمن اللي الناس بتتقتل فيه في الشوارع في عز الضهر؟ ولا أكره نفسي عشان ما كنتش معاه؟ أروح فين؟ أمشي ازاي في الشارع اللي اتقتل فيه؟ أخطي ازاي على دمه؟ أدوس ازاي علي التراب اللي اداس فيه؟ أنا مش عايزة أعيش... خدني زي ما خدته يا اما تجيبلي حقي من اللي قتلوه... وريني فيهم وفي ولادهم اللي عملوه في ابني. يا رب... انت فين؟ انت فين بقى؟؟؟

Oscar Wilde And The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name!

The glorious nineteenth century was about to say a smooth farewell to the world, but on the spring of the year 1895 in England, the high class society was on fire, the cultured society was biting its nails in anticipation and the secret underground societies were forced to get back into their dark hidden places. On April 26th 1895, an Irish man who belonged to the high class and the cultured society was being prosecuted for committing one of the most obnoxious crimes in England… at that age. Although the man had one of the most renowned lawyers defending his case at that time, Sir Edward George Clarke, when the judge asked a question referring to something mentioned in one of the man’s letters and was augmenting the charge against him, he asked to answer the question himself. Let’s see how this part of the trial went: Judge: In your letter you mentioned the love that dare not speak its name. What is “the love that dare not speak its name”? Man: "The love that dare not speak its name" in this century is such a great affection of an elder for a younger man as there was between David and Jonathan, such as Plato made the very basis of his philosophy, and such as you find in the work of Michelangelo and the sonnets of Shakespeare. It is that deep spiritual affection that is as pure as it is perfect. It dictates and pervades great works of art, like those of Shakespeare and Michelangelo, and those two letters of mine, such as they are. It is in this century misunderstood, so much misunderstood that it may be described as "the love that dare not speak its name," and on that account of it I am placed where I am now. It is beautiful, it is fine, it is the noblest form of affection. There is nothing unnatural about it. It is intellectual, and it repeatedly exists between an older and a younger man, when the older man has intellect, and the younger man has all the joy, hope and glamour of life before him. That it should be so, the world does not understand. The world mocks at it, and sometimes puts one in the pillory for it." The eloquent speech and the biblical, historical and artistic references he used did not help to clear his charge and a month later, Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), one of the great authors in the history of English literature and the author of great plays that mock the British aristocracy like An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest, in addition to one brilliant novel that is considered a masterpiece of English literature, The Picture of Dorian Gray, was sentenced for two years of imprisonment with hard labor for the charge of gross indecency. His secret love affair with Lord Alfred Douglas (1870-1945) that was discovered, exposed and submitted to court by Lord Douglas’ father was the cause of his imprisonment for homosexuality. At that time, Wilde was married and had two sons. While in prison, Wilde wrote a letter in 50 000 words for his lover describing his suffering in the prison, reflecting on his own life and what lead him from the luxury of the aristocracy to the darkness and loneliness of a shameful imprisonment. He starts his very long letter with the following words: Suffering is one very long moment. We cannot divide it by seasons. We can only record its moods, and chronicle their return. With us time itself does not progress. It revolves. It seems to circle round one centre of pain…For us there is only one season, the season of sorrow. The very sun and moon seem taken from us. Outside, the day may be blue and gold, but the light that creeps down through the thickly-muffled glass of the small iron-barred window beneath which one sits is grey and niggard. It is always twilight in one's cell, as it is always twilight in one's heart. And in the sphere of thought, no less than in the sphere of time, motion is no more. The thing that you personally have long ago forgotten, or can easily forget, is happening to me now, and will happen to me again tomorrow. Remember this, and you will be able to understand a little of why I am writing, and in this manner writing. . . . He then starts to blame himself in a very touchy piece where he says: I must say to myself that I ruined myself, and that nobody great or small can be ruined except by his own hand. I am quite ready to say so. I am trying to say so, though they may not think it at the present moment. This pitiless indictment I bring without pity against myself. Terrible as was what the world did to me, what I did to myself was far more terrible still… I used to live entirely for pleasure. I shunned suffering and sorrow of every kind. I hated both. I resolved to ignore them as far as possible: to treat them, that is to say, as modes of imperfection. They were not part of my scheme of life. They had no place in my philosophy. He ends his letter by facing the fact that he is to be banished from society for ever. Society, as we have constituted it, will have no place for me, has none to offer; but Nature, whose sweet rains fall on unjust and just alike, will have clefts in the rocks where I may hide, and secret valleys in whose silence I may weep undisturbed. She will hang the night with stars so that I may walk abroad in the darkness without stumbling, and send the wind over my footprints so that none may track me to my hurt: she will cleanse me in great waters, and with bitter herbs make me whole. Wilde was not allowed to send the letter but he took it with him and after his release in 1897, he submitted it to publishing under the title De Profundis (Latin for “From the Depth”) After his release, he had a religious awakening and he asked for the membership of a catholic community but was refused, something that devastated what remained sane in him and he decided to live incognito and in a chosen exile in France where he stopped writing and only produced a poem titled The Ballad of Reading Goal (the prison where he was kept) which was published under a pseudonym, among its very memorable lines: Some love too little, some too long, Some sell, and others buy; Some do the deed with many tears, And some without a sigh: For each man kills the thing he loves, Yet each man does not die. Wilde died of meningitis* in 1900 after being united with his lover against the wish of friends, families and community. On the epitaph of his grave in Pere La Chaise cemetery in Paris, the following lines from his last poem are written: And alien tears will fill for him Pity's long-broken urn, For his mourners will be outcast men, And outcasts always mourn. The following are very useful links about Wilde and the full texts of both works mentioned above. http://www.online-literature.com/wilde/ http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/921 http://www.emotionalliteracyeducation.com/classic_books_online/rgaol10.htm *Meningitis is an inflammation of the membranes surrounding the brain and spinal cord, it is caused by many factors like some kind of bacteria, overuse of some drugs and migraine, but sometimes it occurs without a specific reason.