Mohammed Khaled-Beirut
On the wings of the metaphor, the Palestinian prisoner Bassem Khandakji is thrown out of the Israeli occupation prisons. He travels through the international book fair in the Lebanese capital Beirut, defying the prison proceedings to be a guest celebrated by his fans through his novel "Khasuf Badr El Din" (Dar El Adab).
Thus, he will not be in the Hadarim detention center in the Umm Khaled area of occupied Palestine, but he is sitting behind the table in the exhibition so that the visitor thinks for a moment of his arrival to take a copy of his new version that he will see a name, but in fact, despite all the aspects of the signing ceremony he will not see it. Since his arrest in 2004.
The signing ceremony of a novel by the name of Khandakji (35 years), an initiative launched by the Lebanese writer Talal Shtawi during the signing of his publications, replacing the traditional gifts and chants of the novel "Khasuf Badreddine" free of charge.
"I feel there is a name with us here in Beirut through the words of his novel Badr al-Din," he says. "The most important one who says that he is detained is free and exercising more freedom than the jailer himself," he said. "He managed to write poetry, fiction and literature. In the space of literature to land here in Beirut through his new novel. "
| Part of the signing ceremony of the novel "Khasuf Badr al-Din" for the Palestinian prisoner Basim Khandakji (Al Jazeera) |
"Bassem is not just a writer or a writer, but a resistance, and he was able to worry the enemy and prove that no matter how the occupation tried to remove him and isolate him, he can not captivate his soul, the prison literature is one of the most authentic types of writing."
The signing ceremony was attended by a number of media, literary, artistic and political figures and the children of the Palestinian camps who read Bassem and came from various Lebanese regions in solidarity and support for him. The most prominent was the Lebanese MP Faisal Karami, who stressed the importance of prison literature in fighting the occupation.
Al-Karami said that this event is a resistance action. In the name of Khandakji, he managed from his cell to resist with his culture the Israeli occupation, pointing out that at a time when some Arab countries are rushing toward normalization, he alone can resist the occupier with his steadfastness,
He was able to write many literary articles, poetry, prose and Marxist criticism, despite the various harassments he was subjected to, including the denial of the entry of books and the confiscation of his possessions.
| Lebanese writer Talal Shtawi and Palestinian artist Maysa Khatib (Al Jazeera) |
Youssef Khandakji, a brother of Bassem, says his brother is inspired by his reading of reality. Although he is in prison, he follows the news by visiting the parents and following up some of the satellite channels allowed by the so-called prison administration, in addition to reading some novels and references, And the "Badr al-Din eclipse."
The prisoner's writer challenged many difficulties, including being transferred to another prison when the occupation learned that he was writing a new novel and how to produce the novel "Khasuf Badreddine" from prison. Yousef Khandakji said it was "very difficult and complicated" Prisoners released or by mail but were confiscated by the occupation.
Bassem Khandakji is fond of and follows the Lebanese poet and media scholar Zahi Wahbi, whose former office presented him with "the first time ritual".
Wahbi, who lived a literary experience during his detention in Khiam prison in southern Lebanon during the Israeli occupation, says that this literature is gaining added value because it is a form of various and varied Palestinian struggle, which has always been an organic part of the struggle. "Captive literature" especially at the forefront of that struggle, reality and writing.
According to Zahi, what distinguishes the prisoner's literature as Khondakji is that he does not only convey the individual suffering, not even the suffering of his fellow prisoners. In addition to challenging him with hard will and free will, and with the ink that shines with the oppression and restraint of the Israeli jailer,
He adds that Khondakji goes deep and bold in presenting the various subjects literature, narration and poetry, to assure the occupants that he could not imprison him and confined him inside the walls of the cell, and that he made the words wings of freedom fly them into the vast space and flying in the broad sky to Beirut.