“Invincible Spirits”... Stories of Gaza in Italian and embers of light in the darkness of genocide

Writer Haneen Soufan, accompanied by the Italian politician Alessandro Di Battista, who supports the Palestinian cause (social networking sites)

The book “Gaza: Invincible Souls... Ten Embers of Light in the Darkness of Extermination,” recently published in Milan (Lalucci Publications, 2024) by writer Haneen Soufan, falls on the borders of narrative journalism as a type of journalistic writing that employs the tools of narrative narrative to formulate non-fictional stories. The short story as a literary genre is based on imagination, even if it is inspired by reality.

The writer chose to combine writing genres that are contradictory and similar at the same time, in line with the taste of the Italian market regarding Arabic materials specifically, as the Western reader is accustomed to works that stand on the borders of reality and imagination, which gives the narrative the exotic taste that the reader is looking for in stories coming from southern countries. But without the Palestinian-Italian writer falling into the trap of completely surrendering to the vulgar formulas that Arab writers usually fall into when writing for the Western reader.

The book “Gaza: Invincible Souls... Ten Embers of Light in the Darkness of Extermination” was published in Milan by the Palestinian-Italian Haneen Soufan (Al Jazeera)

Western angelism and Arab humanism

While much material has accumulated in recent years by Italian journalists and writers about the Arab world, most of it resembles the works of 17th-century travelers in terms of narrative sophistication, with the difference that the contemporary Western writer has begun to present himself in his updated image in the form of a luminous entity whose most important qualities are compassion and kindness, as if A secular version of angels who come to embrace the poor souls of earth's wretched from above; In parallel, the works of writers from the South, directed to the Western market, spread. It is not clear whether they are literary works, personal testimonies, realistic stories, journalistic narratives, or fiction.

However, the common feature of these works remains the commitment to the “humanist” line (human-centrism), in which the Arab writer appears as if he is searching through his sad writings for a Western embrace to broadcast his concerns to, and to complain about the injustices he is exposed to from the reactionary forces that want to drag him into medieval life. Obsolete while bursting with modernity and enlightenment, this type of narrative is usually accompanied by many secular sermons and ideological slogans consistent with the spirit of the times.

The antithesis of the hero

Against this exhausted formula in Arabic narratives written in European languages ​​(or intended for translation), Haneen Soufan (born 1992) rebels intelligently without breaking the same hybrid writing mold that comes as bait to bring the reader in and shock him later with an unexpected dose of a philosophy of life that draws from the Palestinian depth and constitutes a missing link in the story. The network of concepts related to the Palestinian issue among the Italian reader.

Thus, we find that Soufan does not present the Palestinian in her texts as a fragile, weak, and collapsing character, in keeping with the image of the antihero that accompanied the development of narrative in the modern era and whose features had begun to take shape in the Renaissance. Rather, her characters almost appear in the image of the classical hero according to the Aristotelian definition. This is through adopting a spontaneous narrative language imposed by the subject of the work, which dealt with 10 stories of Palestinian characters who were linked to the ongoing Zionist aggression against Gaza and whose steadfastness inspired the whole world, which turned them into real icons that were not fabricated by the media or poetic epics.

Here we read the publisher’s word on the cover: “Al-Jazeera correspondent Wael Al-Dahdouh stands tall in front of the camera to continue conveying his testimony even though he witnessed the massacre of his entire family, and behind him is the backdrop of an inhuman war. And grandfather Khaled, who is embracing the body of his soul Reem, has become an icon for those who do not know how to surrender or surrender.” He loses tenderness.”

The publisher continues, “The book also tells the story of Israa and her boundless determination as she survived the fires and hell of captivity, and it tells the miracle of Reem, who gave life to her son while she was surrounded by death and unbearable pain. The stories of Mays, Shurouk, and Nadine from Jerusalem and Ramallah, between captivity and in the embrace of the churches of Gaza, Muslim women.” Christian women united by the tragedy of being Palestinian and the hope for a future of freedom.”

He added: “We cannot forget the bravery of Moataz and Ahmed under the fire of Israeli snipers, and the amazing courage of the director of Al-Shifa Hospital, Muhammad Abu Salmiya, who did not abandon the besieged hospital. Ten Lives tells of pain, but also of the heroism, love, dignity, beauty and hope of an invincible people, who managed to... The darkness of annihilation, from inspiring the world with the amazing light of his faith.”

The hero returns

With characters like these, the world saw the details of most of their stories live; It is impossible for any narrator to avoid drawing images that are far from the traditional characteristics of the hero, the hero who is filled with beauty, nobility, courage, and dignity and who embodies in his person the values ​​of virtue that would save the world.

Thus, we find Gaza returning to the contemporary narrative the character of the hero, which was almost archived by writers from their worlds after they tended to give the heroic role to characters who embody values ​​that are opposite to the values ​​of classical heroism. Thus, characteristics such as psychological weakness, vacillation, and fear of facing danger have become characteristics that are celebrated as characteristics that show the “humanity” of the character. Thus, the world passed from celebrating bravery and audacity to contemplating the concepts of abandonment and foresight, considering them representations of “fragility” and “delicacy,” similar to the fragility of rose petals and butterfly wings.

Surrendering to the weakness of the human soul and transforming it into an aesthetic literary value took interesting forms in contemporary Arab narrative that appeared through many narrative works that began to celebrate the characters of the “scoundrel” and the “coward” and even the “traitor” and “agent” and illuminate them from a post-modern philosophical angle. Not in the moral sense, and this may not be the subject of her study now, but Soufan’s book came to turn the tables on this narrative fashion that has taken root in recent years in Arabic literature, and thus the young Palestinian writer restores the values ​​of virtue to her place in the Arabic narrative written in European languages.

It does not seem that the writer has written an intentional strategy to revive the image of the hero and the classical values ​​of literature through her work, and this is evident in her lack of care in drawing the features of her characters accurately, as if she is restoring the hero’s position by specifically addressing it and directing the reader to his noble traits through a classic narration that approaches rhetoric while staying away from it. About "focusing" the character or placing it completely in the narrative focus.

It was also clear that Soufan did not want to present her characters in a naive image of Hollywood-style superheroes, because the true hero, as appears from the lines of the work, is not the ten characters that Haneen chose, but rather the faith that simmers in the hearts of these people.

Personality balance

In this way, the Palestinian writer creates a state of balance between the moments of weakness of her human characters, with the help of the artist Badr al-Din Abu al-Khair, who captured the moments of crying and sadness for all the heroes of the work, and the moments of strength and fortitude that were quickly given to them by stations of remembrance, supplication, and recitation of the Qur’an, or when they met someone who reminded them of God’s power.

Here we are brought by the Italian journalist specializing in Palestinian affairs, Romana Rubio, who tried to explain the phenomenon of heroic Palestinian steadfastness in Gaza during the ongoing war: “Religion does not play the same role for the Zionist as it plays for the Palestinian (…) Religion for the Palestinians is spirituality and true faith, which is what makes them cling to hope.” "It provides them with what seems like superhuman endurance."

Italian journalist Romana Rubio: Religion does not play the same role for the Zionist as it plays for the Palestinian (Al Jazeera)

Thus, Haneen Soufan recorded a real breakthrough on the Italian scene in her first work, as she dared to approach the Palestinian personality humanely from a religious angle in light of the dominance of non-religious approaches in presenting the Palestinian issue in Italy, which for decades intended to separate the Palestinian from the religious component of his identity and link him humanely to philosophies. None of them were able to solve the mystery of Palestinian steadfastness in the eyes of the Italian observer.

Soufan’s bold approach is clearly demonstrated through Mays’s only story, divorced from the current Gazan context, in which the writer deliberately used all the mental and linguistic images associated with the progressive and feminist context of the Palestinian struggle in the Western imagination, to arrive at the end of the story for the only moment of hope that the Palestinian prisoner liberated from inside her cell was waiting for. It was hearing her mother’s voice on the radio: “We are praying for you, my daughter. May God give you the strength to face these ordeals and return you to us safely.” It was her mother’s voice alone that gave her the ability to resist.

It is noteworthy that the proceeds of the book go entirely back, according to the publisher’s announcement, to the Gaza Strip. Its foreword was written by the Italian Jewish artist and playwright, Moni Ovadia, who called on the Italian reader in his speech to “learn from these heroic stories imbued with real pain engraved in the bodies, veins, hearts, and souls of women and men who are stubborn to submit.” “Let us learn from these painfully true stories to never again look away from the injustices faced by the Palestinians, to whom the world has turned its back for decades,” Ovadia says.

Source: Al Jazeera