LITERATURE AND NATION IN THE MIDDLE EAST

yasir suleimannewly established Iraqi republic with joy (jumhuriyyatuna, farhatuna, ibid.: 446),with childhood (jumhuriyyatuna, tiflatunaa, ibid.: 448) and with the beauty ofnature (jumhuriyyatuna, wardatuna, ibid.: 448). These equative images conveyfragility because of the symbolic associations of the second item in each pairwith tenderness and delicacy, but, through the repetition of the plural possessivesuffix -na, they also convey a sense of ownership and responsibility. Iraq, Nazikis telling us, is no longer for the ruling class as it was before; it now belongs tothe entire Iraqi people and, indirectly, the whole of the Arab nation.However, Nazik soon had reason to doubt the sincerity of the leadership ofthe newly-born republic when ÆAbd al-Salam ÆArif, who was known for his pan-Arab nationalist convictions, was imprisoned in the same year. In anotherpoem, Nazik describes ÆArif as a man who spoke the language of Arabism (kanaÆarabiyya al-shifah, ibid.: 476), as a supporter of Arab unity (Ya nasira al-Æurubati… wa-l-wihdati, ibid.) and, through the play on the word nasir (‘supporter’), asthe Gamal Abdel-Nasser of Iraq. In the political idiom of the time, Nazik couldnot have chosen a more flattering epithet to describe ÆArif: Nasser was the undisputedchampion of the cause of Arab nationalism, the man who established theunion of Egypt and Syria and, as a result, the ‘darling’ of the Arab masses. Nazikblames the fate of ÆArif – who went on to become President of Iraq in 1963 – onthe Iraqi communists who came into prominence during the rule of ÆAbd al-Karim Qasim (1914–63), the President of the new Iraqi republic (1958–63). Inher poem Thalath ughniyat shuyuÆiyya (‘Three Communist Songs’, ibid.: 566–72),Nazik expresses her derision towards the conspiratorially paranoid mentality ofthe communists and their repugnant machinations against the cause of Arabnationalism. Turning the redness of the anemone (shaqa’iq al-nuÆman, ibid.: 568)into a symbolic motif for the tyranny of communism, she mocks the brutality ofthe communists and their readiness to nourish the red colour of their ‘beloved’flower with the blood of innocent children (min ajli hadha al-lawn nujri al-najiÆajadawilan tanthal, 1979: 569); but she also warns them that the forces of Arabismare on the march and that they will finally triumph.In Shajarat al-qamar, Nazik is consumed with the events in Iraq and in theway these unfold on the wider Arab scene. In comparison, her interest in thePalestine issue is muted. There is also little interest in Islam as a force in Arabnationalism in Shajarat al-qamar. Nazik’s Arab nationalism in this collection isof the secularist kind, in line with the general articulations of this ideology atthe time. In these two respects, Palestine and secularism, Nazik differs at thisstage in her poetic career from ÆAtika al-Khazraji and Umm Nizar. However,this difference disappears in her last two collections, as will be explained later.Unlike Palestine and Islam, Algeria is not so excluded in Shajarat al-qamar: itis a subject of strong emotional interest for the poet. One such poem thatexpresses this interest is Nahnu wa Jamila (‘Jamila and Us’), which carries as a— 216 —www.taq.ir