Page:The Levant - Zone of Culture or Conflict.pdf/5

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. ISSN: 2164-6678