LITERATURE AND NATION IN THE MIDDLE EAST

darwish’s ‘indian speech’ as dramatic performancewho are dead, none left to greet you in peace,which is nowhere to be found.Here we flourished before the onslaughtof English guns, French wine, and Influenzaliving as we should, side by side with the people of the deer,learning our oral history by heart.We brought you tidings of innocenceand daisies, but you have your godand we have ours.The audience, knowing what has gone before – having experienced forthemselves the legacy of the French and the British – are challenged, as in suchrecitation centuries before, to complete the poem, to transform the story of thenarrator and give meaning to it for themselves. The future is in fact all but written.These seem to be men of a different race, a different ordering of humanity:boundaries are starkly drawn. Both saddened and exasperated, the narratorasks:Don’t you memorize a few linesof poetry, perhaps to make you refrain from massacre?Weren’t you of woman born?Didn’t you suckle the milk of longingto a certain mother like us? Didn’t you everput on wings to chase the swallows as we did? [Section 5]What is required, then, is an assessment of the present in terms of the past.For the Native American this means – within the dimensions of this story –safeguarding what is precious, what is celestial, the synchronic dimension of life:A long time will pass for our presentto become past, like us.We shall goon our way, but firstwe will defend the treesthat we wear; a bell of night, the moonwe venerate over our shacks. We will defendour cavorting deer, we will defend the clayof our jars, our feathers in the wing of last songs. [Section 6]It is in the metaphysical reality that this people will be reborn, the brashmaterialism of the white man ultimately destroying not only itself, but themeaning of humanity as well. In the end, Time will judge the Ends:Let’s give earth enough time to say the truth, thewhole truth about you and us …about usand about you! [Section 6]— 89 —www.taq.ir