El-Youssef / The Levantine Review Volume 1 Number 2 (Fall 2012)
refugee camp could be. A mere fifteen minutes walk from the camp stood the ancient Phoenician port-city of Tyr; a harbour town housing the awesome vestiges of one of the greatest, most pacifist, most benevolent builders of civilization. The refugee camp (in its indigence,) and the ancient city (in all its glory,) standing side by side, is a stark example of the Levant being both a land of conflict and culture.
When
Philip
Larkin’s
offensive
letters
were
published
in
1993,
some
people
suggested
his
poetry
be
struck
off
from
school
curricula.
This
reaction
made
me
think
back
to
the
old
school
of
my
boyhood,
back
in
the
Rashidiyyé
refugee
camp.
Our
teachers
then
talked
up
a
storm
about
politics,
the
conflict,
the
hopelessness
and
indigence
of
our
situation.
Yet
I
don’t
remember
any
of
them
suggesting
a
school
tour
to
the
nearby
Phoenician
port-city
of
Tyre,
a
living
testament
as
it
were,
to
the
ancient
Levant;
a
place
where
we
could,
even
for
a
fleeting
moment,
forget
the
misery
of
our
present
days
and
learn
something
new,
something
different,
something
hopeful;
learn
how
when
looking
at
what
lay
outside
the
“prison
walls,”
and
when
considering
that
which
challenges
prevalent
assumptions,
one
might
be
able
to
see
above
the
clouds
of
past
traumas,
and
beyond
the
paranoia
of
present
days.
∗ Samir El-Youssef is a London-based Palestinian novelist. He is the author of several books and novellas, including Illusion of Return and a collection of short-stories, Gaza Blues, co-authored with Israeli novelist Etgar Keret. An essayist and public intellectual, El-Youssef has contributed to various publications in Europe and the Middle East, and was recipient of the 2005 PEN Tucholsky Award in recognition of his commitment to the promotion of peace and freedom of speech in the Middle East. This essay is an adaptation of a November 2012 talk that El- Youssef delivered at Boston College, under the auspices of the Heinz Bluhm Memorial Lectures Series in European
Literature.
