Join us as we delve into the rich intersections of literature and cinema as we speak with author and film critic Saleem Al Beik. This episode unpacks his unique lens on Palestine, exploring themes of 'return,' the evolution of Palestinian cinema, and the power of documentation in cultural preservation.
This conversation is conducted in Arabic, in celebration of World Arabic Language Day, observed annually on December 18. For our non-Arabic-speaking listeners, you can use this link to read the English transcript.
This episode is hosted by Tala Elissa. Tarwida’s lead producer is Tala Elissa and it is co-produced by Lobna Monieb. Our executive producer is Zina Jardaneh. Social media by Kiera Doherty. Social media video production by Leen Karadsheh. Research by Nadia Roeske. Branding by Sara Sukhun. Theme music includes excerpts from Clarissa Bitar, The Popular Art Centre - مركز الفن الشعبي & Rim Banna.
This episode was recorded on October 2nd, 2024.
Tarwida is a series of conversations that bring Palestinian arts, culture and heritage to the forefront. We hear from artists including writers, filmmakers, musicians, architects, culinary practitioners and more about their very own Palestine.
In a nutshell, if you want to know more about (Creative) Palestine, this is the place to be.
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Have you ever imagined what it would be like to return? To walk the paths of a village your parents or grandparents were forced to leave? Where would you even begin? And how would it happen?
For Palestinians, the idea of return is a collective dream that has united us all for ages. And maybe because it feels so close, so personal, we often shy away from thinking beyond the dream itself. To consider the actualities of return feels overwhelming, even paralyzing.
But today's guest doesn't shy away. He embraces the complexity and dares to confront it head on, asking himself and others what it truly means to return, what it means to be a Palestinian refugee, and more importantly, what it means to write about Palestine without ever visiting it.
Saleem Al-Beik is a Palestinian author, film critic, and cultural editor. He has authored seven books, including novels, poetry, and film analysis.
Expelled from Tarsheeha in 1948, Saleem's grandfather sought refuge in Syria, where his parents were born in Palestinian camps. He is currently residing in France, where he lived as a refugee for 10 years before recently gaining citizenship.
The fifth episode of Tarwida is a special one. It marks our first ever interview conducted in Arabic in celebration of World Arabic Language Day, observed annually on December 18. This episode honors the beauty and depth of the Arabic language and the profound meanings it carries. Hosting this time is our producer Tala Elissa.
For our non-Arabic speaking listeners, we appreciate your patience as we work on providing an English transcript. This episode was recorded on the 2nd of October, 2024.
T: I am your host, Tala Elissa, and you're listening to Tarwida. Saleem Al Beik, we are so happy to have you with us on Tarwida. Welcome!
S: Hello, Tala. Thank you and to all your colleagues at Tarwida for inviting me and for this opportunity to make this interview.
T: In a previous interview you gave, I heard you say that you first introduce yourself as an author, and then as a film critic. So, we would like to start with the personality of Saleem, the author and writer. In most of your novels, or the texts you wrote, the theme of exile is very clear, and the refugee camp is also clearly shown.
So tell us more, why did you want to focus on this theme specifically?
S: Look, the subject of migration and the subject of diaspora is at the core of the Palestinian issue and Palestinian identity.
And I consider, myself, that my Palestinian identity is fundamentally and primarily present in any aspect, or any angle that I see myself in, or that I might present myself in - through texts, through articles, and so on.
And, well, I am a refugee, a refugee's son, a refugee's grandson. I also talked about, in Two Tickets to Saffuriyah, my first novel, I further expanded the idea that I inherited this exile from my grandfather, who left Tarshiha in 1948, and of course, we are talking about the fact that he fled - I inherited this exile. And, at the same time, I established, or was also forced to establish, my own refuge; a refuge that encompassed, I mean, a broad cross-section of Syria’s Palestinians alongside, of course, a mass migration of Syrians starting roughly in 2011.
So, now: I lived for ten years in a state of– with the papers of a refugee, a Palestinian refugee in France, and I lived the entirety of my life in a state of, or having the papers of a refugee, which I was born with. I mean, I inherited it from my grandfather and my father, and my mother - my ancestors and my parents. So, I don't feel that this is a bad thing, or shameful, or something I want to get rid of– no, this is a part of my identity as a Palestinian. And we Palestinians, most of us are refugees, whether we are abroad or in the country.
He, who lives in his country, in his city, from before 1948 until today, in his great great grandfather’s home, but beneath him is settler colonialism with all its circumstances and condition - this person also lives in a kind of intangible exile, an internal exile. He lives in his house, but not in his land. For when he leaves out of the door of the home, he enters a country that is colonised, and so he is actually a refugee inside his house. So, we are a people - in the general sense of the word - a people of refugees, wherever we are. This is an integral part [of us].
T: Okay, so your literature and your work reflect this reality.
S: Exactly, exactly. Because I'm a fan of literature that comes from the personal experience itself. And that is what I like to read. In cinema, also, that is what I like to see. But in literature, this is the thing I most like to read.
Of course, I like to read things based on research or, or history. I don't like science fiction in general, I mean, in literature. I feel like it's a kind of escape, which we can talk about later. But a historical book, a researched text, a literary book that is based on research and so on, I like to read from time to time, just like anyone amongst us enjoys watching a historical film. But what attracts me more, what I believe more– this is an important point, what I believe as a reader more, what I work with more– is the novel or literature that resembles the writer. Because every one of us is the person who can talk most about himself. That is why, in my three novels, the main characters intersect with me in many things – not because I am full of stories, but because each one of us could write ten novels about himself.
Which is great, but the style– another thought, I agree with the adage that ‘there's no story that hasn't been told.’ All stories have been told. I mean, from The Iliad and Homer, to Kalila and Dimna, to A Thousand and One Nights, to Cervantes, Don Quixote— to this day, and I'm talking about the foundational texts of prose— to this day, what hasn't been said? In my opinion, everything has been said. The writer, then, is his style. It’s how he talks, not what he's talking about.
T: We will talk a lot about your style later, because it's really special, and I have a lot of questions about it. But the thing that caught my attention personally as a reader, in The Cock’s Eye, which is your latest novel— I was drawn to how much the main character is at peace with Paris, and with her being an immigrant, or, let's say, a refugee who then naturalised.
The character does not think a lot about return, or about Palestine, and this is something we [readers] are not very accustomed to in Palestinian literature. The Palestinian character in literature or Palestinian art, there is a kind of tragedy and nostalgia, and the dream of returning to Palestine, and the glory of the past and so on.
So, tell us more, why did you decide to show us this model of characters which we may not be very well-acquainted with, and why did you make this decision?
S: One word - the character. I mean, the story, if it was in literature or cinema, the story, in my opinion, should follow the character. The literary text, the novel, which I like to read as a reader, and I like to write it as a writer – it is the novel of the character, the person. Everything else follows him. I mean, I don't want to write about a certain idea and then devise characters for it.
I don't want to write a specific story and set up characters to fulfill it.
I don't want to write about ideas, about certain desires, about a country, I don’t want to write about a cause and give it a character, you know..
l write the character, and then I adjust to them what suits this novelistic character, the storied character, I adjust ideas to them in a way that fits them.
And this thing, I mean, I will give you an example, because in the series, in the novel, Two Tickets to Saffuriyah in 2017, I wrote about someone who wants to take French citizenship and return to his country, to Saffuriyah, to his village. In 2019, in the novel Scenario, I wrote about someone who is asking, does the return from France, does it have to be to the refugee camp in Syria, or to the village, or the city, – it was Haifa in this novel, not Saffuriyah – to his grandfather’s city. Well, Palestine, for him, is the camp. The Palestinian dialect, the Palestinian lifestyle, it is the camp. It's not Haifa, which he does not know. So here he asks, does he want to go back to his town in Palestine or to the camp?
I'm not providing answers here, I'm asking questions. I don't say, oh, he has to go back to the camp. I’m putting forward questions. I'm putting forward the concern of this character, which I also put forward to myself, and this question and concern is present within me. Where do I want to go back to?
In The Cock’s Eye, I took a step forward. I mean, I asked myself, wait a minute, do I want to go back to where I was originally? To Palestine or to a camp, or wherever, or is it done - I am already here, I am in Paris, which is the city of outsiders, and it accepted me as an outsider, like anyone else in the street. Because, if I go back to Tarsheeha – the village was Tarsheeha in the novel The Cock’e Eye – If I want to go back to Tarsheeha, I will have to be a stranger. I mean, I will have to ask people, I will have to open Google Maps, to see where I should go. It's very simple.
There are simple things I won't know. There are codes that only the people of the city or the country know: that you shouldn't cross from this street, or that you should go that way, because there is a shortcut.
I want to be strange here. I want to see where there are signs. If I don't have internet on my phone, I want to see where there are signs and I – in my town, Tarsheeha, if I want to ask someone two words about how to get here or there, the response is ‘Ah, where are you from brother?’ in all simplicity.
So, this is an experience that I don't live out here, you know. And if I lived it here, that’s fine. I don't mind being a foreigner in Paris, but it makes a big difference to me to be strange in any area in Palestine or any Palestinian camp.
That's why I chose to be the outsider in both cases. To be foreign in a place that accepts me as an outsider, and I accept the place as it is, I do not want anything from that place, I don't want any relationship to it.
T: Yes. And this made me think how, despite you addressing the same subjects of exile and diaspora, and even almost the same character– the characters in all your novels are similar to a great extent, with a few differences in the details– let us think about how you are able to present to us, despite this similarity, a new perspective in every story, and we feel this change without feeling repetition.
So, for example, even though it's the same character to a large extent, and the same circumstances, but every time we see a slight adjustment, we see that there is a change in the situation maybe, or in the perspective of the character in reading the situation, more than the situation itself.
Personally, I really enjoyed this, and I felt as though the stories are talking to one another, and continuing one another. And it's not necessary that they agree with each other– sometimes, as I said, there is contradiction, and sometimes there is controversy, and there is conflict between the characters and the stories.
In more than one story, you dedicate the book to your grandfather.
S: That’s correct.
T: So tell us a bit more about him. It is clear that you mention your grandfather a lot in your three novels. And it is clear that he, to some extent (if I am not mistaken), is pushing you to write and pushing you to create these characters.
S: That's right. I mean, in The Cock’s Eye, the narrator says that I came to try and write my grandfather’s story and I am unable, so I am writing my own story until I am capable of writing my grandfather’s story.
Now, my grandfather emigrated in 1948 from Tarsheeha. He was a farmer, a leader– he was the leader of a group of farmers, like a number of groups in many villages in Palestine that existed in 1948.
A few farmers gathered together and started resisting with rifles and bayonets. And he was forced to flee, personally, because he and his group were pursued, and he left. And for me– he died many years ago– but for me, he lives on. He is Palestine, he is Tarsheeha - what he says, how he speaks, he is the embodiment of Palestine for me. He is the last relationship– I mean– he left Palestine and he was the last material connection between me and Palestine.
And my relationship to him, as well, my relationship to him was very strong as a grandson, so– and in my generation I am the oldest grandchild, so because of this he loved me a lot and so, from a literary and intellectual point of view, our relationship is very strong and from a personal and emotional point of view my relationship to him is very close. His name as well…
T: He's also called Saleem.
S: Yes.
T: And I also had a question related to your grandfather and Tarsheeha. The whole time I was reading, I felt that if I was in your place, I would visit Tarsheeha in my imagination in the literature I'm writing.
But every time you would bring us closer to Palestine, to the historical Palestine, not the Palestine of exile, every time you would bring us closer, you would take us away from it again. In Two Tickets for example– for anyone who has not read it, it is about a character who tries to go back to his village after he has naturalised in France. So the whole book is– of course I am spoiling the story here a little bit– it is an attempt at return. Yet in the end, instead of you taking us back, may God forgive you Saleem, you leave us stuck in the airport! We do not see Saffuriyah, or Palestine, or even him landing there!
So, I felt that this was a deliberate decision of yours, to not show us Palestine. And even in Scenario, I felt this feeling. So tell us more, why didn't you visit Palestine in your imagination?
S: Simply, I go back to the idea that I mentioned earlier: honesty. I mean, I have to be honest with myself in order for the reader to believe me. So, I have not visited Palestine. I stopped at this point. And I put it in my head, I mean, some time after I finished my first novel, I told myself, at some point I will write a novel after I visit Palestine. I wrote my second novel, then my third, and I was supposed to go to Palestine in October last year. But, I mean, everything happened, and the trip was cancelled.
So, at some point, and I'm telling myself until now, at some point, I want to go to Palestine, and I will write something about that visit, about that trip. So, simply, I can't write about something I haven't lived or felt. I mean, I imagine, if I wrote about someone who arrived in Palestine for the first time, and I haven't lived this moment, I imagine that, at some later point in time, when I live this moment, I will feel how much I wrote about trivial feelings because I will only access the depth of the feeling once I live this reality. And, maybe, I will not live it, and I will return here to Paris and say to myself, ‘hmm, no, I will not be able to write about such a thing because the literature will not be able to reach the level of real emotion that I lived in that moment.’ So I leave it open for the future, but I have the desire, of course I have the initial desire and wish to go to Palestine, and I am curious to know how I would write about it. Because my three novels, as you said, talk about somebody who wants to go and does not want to go, and in the instance that he arrives and it does not work out for him– and he questions ‘If I go will I feel good or will I feel bad– so, the answer, maybe, for these three novels is that, I really do go and what I actually feel when I am there, then that will be the answer for me, emotionally.
T:I'm the opposite of you, I mean, when I'm talking about myself as a reader or as a writer, I mean, I’m not really a writer, I try to write.
S: We all try, we all do.
T: But for me, it is the opposite: literature is a window for me to imagine a reality that I can't live. So for me, in this way, it opens doors. But maybe this becomes a kind of escape, a way for us to run away through literature, which might not be better–
S: Possibly, I mean, look, I always think and say, be that in the arts or in literature, there is no right and wrong, no single way that is correct and every other way is wrong, or anything like that. I mean, it's all different experiences, different life experiences, different styles, different approaches, different topics. Maybe, for me, if there wasn’t this emotional violence that is so strong, in such a case I would be able to imagine it. I would have been able to, in my three novels, imagine relationships of love–
T: By the way, in Scenario, I wanted to tell you in Scenario, you talk about, or not you, the narrator talks about how he wants to write about love, even though he has never experienced it. On the contrary, because he hasn't ever experienced it, he will write about–
S: Right, right. I forgot this idea - thank you. Exactly. You’re right, I mean, also writing about something from the outside will certainly shed light on things which, from the inside, are not–. I mean, look. I just remembered an example– a scene I wrote in Scenario– and I lived it.
You know the columns, small columns on the sidewalk, for people to park their bicycles on, you walk next to them and you don't pay attention to them. At the time, I was walking normally next to the columns– the short columns about a metre and a half tall, that are positioned one after the other– at some point there was a column missing, pulled out. I noticed that not to the missing column, but to its place, to the absence of it, not to its presence. Sometimes, it must be that– and I mentioned this in a Scenario, I wrote it– sometimes something must be missing for us to notice it. And this is where literature comes in.
T: Yes, but it depends, as you said, on the character, and the style, and how everyone understands literature, and how they treat it in their lives.
S: Correct.
T: And I remember, also in a previous interview of yours, you were talking about, I mean, you were criticizing Palestinian historical films, how they are always inside, either the West Bank or Gaza. And this, I am relating this to what you are saying, that it is important, whether it's a historical film, or any other kind of literature or art, it's important to talk about the Palestinians who are also present in all other places, because Palestine is also a concept, or a cause, much greater than just the geography they limit us to.
S: Yes, of course, this is an entirely political idea. I mean, for a completely political reason, it is a political position that I don't like when a Jerusalemite makes movies that only happen in Jerusalem, or someone from Haifa makes movies which only happen in Haifa.
I want to see someone from Nazareth, make a film in the rest of the West, with all the events there, and so on. I mean, I'm not even asking him to be in Nablus, for example, or something. I am asking for– So, there's this insularity, between, I mean, or like gaps in the Palestinian cinema industry, where each person works and makes films in his area.
Here I want to point out an essential idea here, and tie it back into what I was saying about how each person tells his own story. And this, as I told you before, I believe literature when the author resembles the literary persona.
Now, in cinema, here we have an industry - this is not a literary text trapped between the readable text and the author of it, when we talk about cinema we talk about an industry. We have scriptwriters, there should be specialised script writers to write these scripts. And when the scriptwriter is Palestinian, there should be, I mean, whether it is the producer, or a specialist, or a specific entity, or a company, or consultants, to review this script. And then there should be the production, before which, of course, is the filming, - there is an industry, there are production companies, there’s funding, etc. and the story! There has to be a story you can put out, that you can create, you can go into the ideas of, but the scenes need to tell a story - unless we are talking about very artistic and experimental cinema.
So this means that film work, for the film director, is less protective than literary work for the author. And this allows cinema to break out of that subjectivity of the writer, out of the self of the director, and this very thing is what allows someone from Nazareth to make a film that's events unfold in Gaza - this is easier than a novelist writing– a novelist from Nazareth writing a novel that happens in Gaza. Because cinema is an industry, not just creation.
T: And if we're going to talk a little bit about your style now, I mean, allow me to burden you a little bit, because your style is ruthless. I mean, either way, we are living in complete absurdity and confusion these days, but you decide to confuse us further. When you read Saleem’s novels, guys, you will feel that you are in a deja vu that never ends. There is deja vu, and inception, and a story within a story, a character within a character, to the point that I personally was, at times, unable to discern whether I was hearing your voice as an author or the voice of the character or the voice of the narrator, if it was the character and not the narrator. So, tell us a little bit more about this style because it is confusing but also engaging.
S:Now, between you and me, I've never written or spoken about it, but I think about it a lot. Sometimes, I say to myself, well, should I maybe have written one or all three novels in a less— not confusing way— but less complex way? And in a more chronological way; for example, what happened yesterday and then what happened today and what will happen tomorrow? And so it’s easier to read. And then immediately, immediately I answer, no, enough, I wanted to write like this. It's not easy to read, I know, but it's not hard. I mean, yes— but I felt like I wanted to write like this and that's it, it turned out how I wanted it.
But, I mean, whether it is cinema or literature, I like to read, and it's clear that is reflected in what I like to write.
I like to read pages that are, or paragraphs, or pages, that are enjoyable within themselves, not that it’s enjoyment—or rather, they are not purely functional - their function is not to serve other upcoming pages.
T: So they take us, for example, from one event to another.
S: Exactly, yes. I'm reading these two pages, I want to enjoy them as two pages. Now, then, of course, all my literary works are one, and I am talking about a main character, and I also do not change up between characters, I like to focus and dive deep into one character, around whom there are a few supporting characters and that’s all. I do not like this range of, say, seventeen characters - I mean, I feel one sort of stays on the surface level of each character if there are many characters.
T: Yes, totally.
S: I prefer to have one character and really get into it. And also, I do not like linearity – that is, linear narrative – which is why, in my three novels, the thing which you will read in three pages may have happened before the thing you are reading now on this page, you know? But it is all like a circle, like a circle, and everything is connected to each other. It's like something is happening, all of it, at the same time, and you are reading it from different sides.
T: In the same way, I felt this narrative was a spiral - it revolves around itself but every time, every time you go around the spiral again you understand something new.
S:Exactly, I did this more in Scenario than in the other two novels. Maybe that's why people found Scenario slightly harder.
But in this story, for example, I go back to the same scene, but from another character’s perspective. Or I go back to the same scene, to the same place and time, as a narrator, for example, outside of the characters.
I mean, here, I think this is the nice thing about the novel, and it's not found in any other kind of art. I mean, whether it's cinema or theater – storytelling types of art – I mean, don’t come and tell me there are artistic paintings — I am talking about, for example, a play, a cinema, a poem, literature, etc. The novel is what allows you to play with time. You can bend time as you wish. You are the Lord of the text in front of you, you can do whatever you want with it. With time, with place, with the characters. You can play with it— just like a person cooking tries different things like this or that — maybe he cannot make the same dish again, but he made something he enjoyed, and those eating it also enjoyed it. Now, does he explain this, or does he give logical reasons, or something?
T: It’s difficult.
S: Yes, it’s difficult.
T: And I even felt, as a reader, when I read the three novels – because I read all three in a row – I developed a new skill as a reader. I mean, when I read the first book in this style, I was nervous – I would try and go back to the previous page to see what came before what, as the book was just talking about it— and so I would try to arrange everything and take control. Then, after a few pages, I gave up. Enough, Tala, do not try to understand, do not try to understand the timeframe, try to understand the feelings, the character—
S: Exactly, the scene.
T: So in your first novel, Two Tickets to Saffuriyah, you used the third person, and in the other two novels, you used the first person, that is, the narrator was speaking to us directly. So, do you as a writer, whilst you are writing, change your style when you use a different pronoun, or not?
S: Yes, definitely. Now, I want to tie this back to what you said, a part of your question, a part I didn't answer: where am I and where is the character? Now, someone once said, or wrote, or something, though not to me, but I came across it – I cannot remember where I read it – that he was hiding behind his characters. So, if someone tells me that, no, I'm not hiding, I am my characters, okay, so you can relax. You don't have to ask, who is this, who is this, who is this.
I am my character, and that's it, that’s all of it. Now, you want to know what is imaginary and what is reality— in Two Tickets to Saffuriyah, sorry, The Cock’s Eye – it is seeped in what is imaginary and what is real, but in literature there is none of this. This question does not get asked in literature. Here, we are talking about fiction and there is no complete fiction – the imaginary always depends on— I mean, Elias Khoury says in his novel, Children of the Ghetto, something like - the imaginary depends on memory. If there's no memory, there's no imagination. Imagination needs memory. If one loses his memory, his imagination will be lost. For me, this literature, which is a mixture, and this is something I said in The Cock’s Eye, a mixture between reality, and fiction, and fantasies, and wishes, and authorship, and everything.
T: Mm, mm, yes. And this reminds me of how the subjective itself is personal, and the personal is subjective - you cannot separate them from each other.
S: Exactly, exactly!
T: There are many connections between them. Have you been in any funny situations, for example, that were very mixed between your characters in the stories and your personal life?
S: Now, I'm Palestinian, funny things do not happen to me for starters.
T: (Laughing) Well you made me laugh!
S: I mean it happens. You see, in the three novels there is the Palestinian angle which is me entirely - the questions and the worry, etc., that is me entirely. But the other angle — let us say the relationships – the love which are present — these are imaginary. Now you know a person in a family who has people that do not read his work, or they read it but they read it to their children – I mean my father had the observation of ‘Oh, my son, these words are inappropriate, why did you write like this?’ ‘Was it, well, necessary, to include these few bad words, these curses or such things?’ Of course, he doesn’t talk to me about specific intimate scenes because, well, maybe he’s in a state of denial.
T: Yes, yes – and I mean this is even that character, this is not Saleem, here we make the distinction/
S: Exactly, yes. Or maybe someone hacked the novel and added stories to it—
T: “of course my son could never write like this”
S: Yes, hahaha, exactly. So, I do not have an answer other than, ‘Well, Dad, everyone writes bad words in literature and their novels and so on,’ but I cannot tell him this, because he does not care what other people write. So, that leaves me with the one answer: ‘Okay, inshallah in the next novel there won’t be any swear words.’
T: And so you hope we won’t read the next novel! Because all of them have swear words…!
S: (Laughing) Oh I don’t know. Well, my next novel will also have in it — yes, yes I told him, though it was a failed attempt at an answer, that this is our reality. This is our life, this is how we speak. So he just felt that, ‘oh you speak this way in real life, too?’
T: That’s even worse for you!
S: Exactly!
T: You came wanting to make it better and you made it worse!
S: Yes! So, in the end, I told him ‘well, you have a point, and I am wrong, and the next novel - you know in 2, 3, 4 years maybe, he will have forgotten! He will come and give me the same observation on the next novel inshallah.
T: The same ‘inshallah’ that our parents used to use on us we now use on them, huh?
S: Hahahaha, yes, exactly.
T: “Inshallah, Inshallah.” So, Saleem, talk to us a little bit about Romman Magazine. When was it founded and why did you start it?
S: In 2011, there was, I mean, Palestinian writers, Palestinian topics, you used to find them more— there were no Palestinian press at all. Like, there were local reporters in the West Bank – there still are to this day – local reporters in the West Bank and in Gaza. So they would write in Arabic newspapers and Gulf newspapers, and so on. And then I said to myself that I could do something to bring this together.
So in 2011, I learned a bit, I practiced a bit, I got a bit better at Photoshop and Photo InDesign so I could design a PDF magazine. I called it Romman, and I started to collect the articles and texts written by Palestinians in this magazine, and of course include ‘featured in x newspaper, on this date, etc.’ I used to make my own material. Some of my friends made their own materials, just a few small things and such.
A few editions came out and a few pieces, over about a year and a half, and then I stopped because it takes a lot of effort. So, it stopped, and that was it, I mean, that was all.
In 2016, I met some friends who had a media project, called the Palestinian Refugees’ Gate, and they told me, ‘well, what do you think about there being, within this project, within the features of the website concerning Palestinian refugees in camps, there be something cultural?’ And they, they told me: ‘Romman— you’ve already done Romman, so bring it back, we will go back to publishing it.’ So it started, and Romman was revived as an online website, not as a PDF, and it came back in a professional way; meaning stories specifically for the magazine and there was a small budget for the magazine, so we started like that in 2016, in August of 2016. And now, well the magazine just reached its eighth year, and it’s going well, and it’s going forwards. And its main goal is Palestinian culture firstly, then Syrian and Middle Eastern [culture] secondly, and Arab and global [culture] thirdly.
T: You were telling me that there is a new launch in October, and you even have a new logo.
S: Yes, correct, correct. I mean, the logo is new - it is the first time we make a new logo since the launch 8 years ago until today that we make a new logo, a new website –more professional, as a website and as an electronic magazine, as an electronic website for journalists, it’s more professional. And now, for the first time, we will have a slogan, which is, We write for Palestine.
Now, We write for Palestine is a slogan I took from another slogan which is ‘We write for Palestine with blood’ which was the slogan of the Union of Palestinian Writers in the seventies – the time of the Revolution, a time in which, I mean— I attribute this slogan to Hanna Muqbil, the President of the Union of Writers at the time. But, styles have changed, times have changed; we cannot even say we write for Palestine ‘with ink’ because— and it isn’t pleasant to put ‘with digits’ or ‘digitally’ shall we say.
T: With zeroes and ones.
S: Yes, exactly. And so, we write for Palestine, with what is unimportant, we write for Palestine. And I liked We write for Palestine because it is present, it is a present tense verb, ongoing, we are currently writing for Palestine, and we will continue to write for Palestine. And the words we write for Palestine are, in my opinion, when we write about democracy, and freedoms, and the freedom of the people, and individual freedoms in any Arab country, this means we are writing for Palestine. When we write about the right of the Lebanese to resist the occupation, this means we are writing for Palestine. When we write about Syrians’ right to a democratic regime, this means we are writing for Palestine. So I felt the slogan was very suitable for, in essence, what we are and what we intend to continue doing.
T: And it was an inspiring thing for me to know that you are launching anew, and are excited to improve the website, because in the shadow of the genocide, sometimes, you feel, and this is something that was affecting us at Tarwida, that sometimes we feel, from the amount of injustice and oppression that we are seeing in front of us, what do we want talking about culture, and arts, and literature? I mean, you feel that the subject may be a bit unsatisfactory.
Then you remember that, actually, the genocide is not just happening to bodies, but also is happening to our culture, and our art, and our history.
S: Of course.
T: And you remind yourself again that, okay, there may be more radical solutions, which we should see now, but at the same time, it's very important to have awareness about culture and art in parallel to that.
S: Right, right. This is a big issue, by the way, and I'm with you in it, and it's an issue that raises a moral question; I mean, when I come to the time in which I'm writing, when I'm working on a book— now, during the genocide, I am in the final stages of working on a book, or when I'm writing about a subject that's not about the war, not about Palestine– my articles. Sometimes I come and say to myself, I ask myself this moral question, of how useless this thing is that I'm doing, compared to the sacrifices of the people present in the West Bank and in Gaza today? Especially in Gaza.
T: And you're asking what are the priorities? This isn’t a priority, it’s something of a luxury.
S: Exactly, exactly. Now—but I have an answer to this. I also do not want– in five years, or ten years– when I come not just as myself, Saleem, but as a Palestinian man, I come and ask ‘What did we do during this year that passed, or this year and a half, or two years? Oh, the whole world was watching TV just consuming this news and that was all. No, I do not want this situation to exist, you know?
And we, as you said, the genocide has consumed us by way of artistic and cultural production.
Now, I'm happy that we're releasing a few books, a few films, a few I don't know what, and so on. But in the end, Palestinian cultural production— from articles, to research, to books, to films, to albums, to music –- has declined. It’s normal to decline, I mean our spirit and our time is completely taken up, completely taken up. And with that, when one goes to turn off – when I go to turn off the news and turn on some music just so that I am able to—
T: You are drained.
S: Exactly. Just so that I am able to write something that I am obliged to write, since I have a contract with a certain entity or something, just that I am obliged to write. Or even for work, an article or something like that, I feel that I missed something, that something is happening in Gaza and I am missing it. This is a moral question, but I return and answer myself that, no, I don’t want it to be that in five years it comes to be said that there was a period of Palestinian trauma, like the period of silence, the trauma that we lived during the fifties after the Nakba – there is no Palestinian voice during the fifties. So, where was it? There is no Palestinian voice, at all, during the fifties. I don’t want for there to be this, like— that israel forbade us from telling the tale. Every person in his style, in his place, what he knows and how he knows; I don’t want israel to have also been able to forbade us from telling the tale of our stories in the way that, for example, I know, or you, or her, or he knows how to do.
And another thing is, I don't want this war of extermination to separate us from the culture. Culture as an idea, as a production, as a living condition. That's why I've published a lot of literary texts from Gaza. I mean, there were poems, and there were stories, and so on, because I used to send messages to people there that if you can write, you should write. I mean, you write. You are the one to whom people should listen,
Not someone from the outside writing a political position about what is going on an analysis about what is happening in Gaza. So, it's necessary to be witnesses to this thing that's happening.
It's necessary that we don't allow the circumstances of genocide, or circumstance of war or the circumstance of colonialism to come out or come down to prevent us from continuing our cultural life and our cultural production and continue our artistic tale of our version of what is happening, our narrative of what is happening.
T: Of course. And now, if we move on to the Saleem of cinema, or Saleem the film critic. Tell us a little bit about the different milestones of Palestinian cinema which you write about in your latest book, which was released recently, and you explain to us every stage, and you explain it to us. So, if that's the case, can you give us a general idea about Palestinian cinema - how would you explain it?
S:Well, I released the book last year, Reflections on Palestinian Cinema, and it talks about feature films in Palestinian cinema. I begin with the first Palestinian feature film, which is Wedding in Galilee by Michel Khleifi, and I end on the last Palestinian feature-length film before the genocide which is The Teacher by Farah Nabulsi. Between them, I talk about, I think, all the Palestinian feature films that have been released. Here, I divide Palestinian cinema, or the films of Palestinians - because Palestinian cinema includes the seventies, during which Palestinian feature films included Arab filmmakers—
T: So, it wasn't necessarily a Palestinian production.
S: Exactly, the director was an Arab, like, I mean, Tawfiq Saleh with the film The Deceased, and Burhan Alaouié with the film Kfar Qasim. Tawfiq Saleh is Egyptian, Burhan Alaouié is Lebanese and Qasim Hawa is Iraqi, with the film Return to Haifa. This is the period of the seventies, the age of Palestinian revolutionary cinema, which was an Arab and Palestinian industry.
Now, after that, the Palestinian cinema has the eighties, which was a transitional period. And in the book, I always say, I present each segment with the political context, I call it the ‘national context’, because the political context for Palestinians is where the national movement had reached, that is, the [Palestinian] Liberation Organization. So in the 1980s, we were at a transitional stage. The Palestinian Liberation Organization left Beirut, and didn’t know where it wanted to go, and finally [there were those who] went to Tunisia, and who went to Syria, and then those who went to Yemen, and to Algeria, until a group of them returned to Palestine with the Oslo Accords. So we have the eighties, which was a transitional stage, and, cinematically, it was also a transitional period. We only have one film, which was in parallel with the genesis of the Intifada, the beginning of the Intifada in 1987.
The nineties is the second stage of Palestinian cinema, which is the cinema of Oslo. I mean, Oslo, in the misery that it brought, the state devastation and hopelessness, we see it in the films of the nineties. And it was mainly Michel Khleifi and Rashid Masharawi— Elia Suleiman came at the end of the nineties and started to get out of that. We have a completely different film by Ali Nassar, which is, I mean, it goes back in time to the time of military rule.
After the 2000s, I see that after the 2000s to this day, it's a single stage. But there have been natural developments, since we're talking about 24 years, from 2000 to 2024.
Now, the question I ask is, is this war of extermination going to bring about a new kind of Palestinian cinema? Will it bring new topics or new approaches? Because I always associate— and this is a conclusion I reached in my book— major political events, for Palestinians, are the turning points of Palestinian cinema.
I mean, the Revolution started, and the revolutionary films began. With the beginnings of the eighties, the Revolution ended and the revolutionary films ended. We entered a transitional phase and then we had a big event, which was the Oslo Accords, and we entered a new stage. Then the Second Intifada happened, and there was a new cinematic phase. From the Second Intifada until today, there was no such event that had an effect, and had such a strong effect on like the start of the revolution, and the end of the revolution, and the Oslo Accords, which were linked to the Intifada, the Intifada of the Stones – the Intifada of Stones was also a major event and it could have ushered in a new phase—and that is why I say transitional— a new cinematic phase. And yet, this was stopped by one film which was Wedding in Galilee. Why? Because Oslo was stuck to — Oslo came along and stifled the Intifada, and brought about its own cinema.
Now, from 2000 to today, there are events like the infighting of Hamas and Fatah, for example, this had some effects on and reflections in cinema, but it hasn't triggered a new cinematic stage. I mean, it wasn't, in the minds of the Palestinians, it didn't have an effect on the same scale of the Revolution, or Oslo, or the Second Intifada. And I ask in the book, is the genocide— will cinema, beyond it— I ask, and I say, that this must be; cinema after the genocide must be different to cinema before the genocide.
T: Because this is really a turning point.
S: Yes, a turning point. I mean, we are saying that this is something like the Nakba. And nothing less, on the contrary, I think it is more catastrophic than what happened with the Second Intifada, and with Oslo and from the end of the Revolution. I compare this to the Nakba.
T: Saleem, documentation is one of the main goals of cinema, especially when we are talking about, for example, films about struggle, like Palestinian cinema. But with social media, and especially now we are seeing with Gaza and Lebanon, and God forbid, who is next, I mean, we're seeing how social media is really a weapon in the hands of the people on the ground to document the live scene, I mean, without any obstacles, and at a high speed.
So, do you think that, maybe films, especially documentaries or films that keep a record, after social media, maybe should reevaluate its main goal or style so that it can keep pace with this development we are witnessing?
S: In my opinion, I think they need to be open to the many videos that are coming out, which will become an archive in the years to come. Like how, now, cinematography, many films, are concerned with archives that have existed for 50 years or 30 years. So, I'm not against this, but I'm not comfortable with it. I mean, I insist that this is a video series, and this a documentary film.
A documentary is a movie, it needs to be made, it needs to be produced consciously in itself. It might benefit from a new spirit, or new techniques which are present in the videos, that are now live or not live, or available, or that we are all seeing. And these need to be archived, by the way, I mean someone needs to archive these videos. And this serves the documentary industry, we cannot say that it is now in danger, and such— cinema started as documentation anyways, and continues to be documentary. And there have been innovations in documentary cinema— I mean, you notice the moments of development in documentary cinema– there are different types and such. And these are videos which are coming out, they are videos and not cinema, like I am telling you, “Palestinian cinema before the Nakba”— there is no ‘Palestinian cinema’ before the Nakba, there are only videos. Or Palestinian cinema in the fifties - there is no such thing, there are videos. ‘Cinema’ is an industry, it is conscious work within itself; you come along and say ‘I want to create a movie. Let’s go. What do I have to do? How do I do it? What is the production? What is the filming? What is the script? Who are the characters?’
T: It’s a craft. I mean, it has a beginning, an end, a process.
S: Exactly, exactly. If someone filmed two minutes of the visit of King I-don’t-know-who to Palestine, doing whatever, it's not a movie. This is a video, you know. It has great documentary value, but it's not cinema. When we talk about cinema, we talk about work, with conscious production that it will be a movie. And that's how the movie industry started around the world, and how it continues, and how it will continue to be. There will be no videos that will endanger it.
Just like TV didn't do anything dangerous for cinemas, and platforms didn't pose a threat to movie theatres. Because, there was this question, and so on, but no, movie theatres still exist.
But, the cinema industry, and this is happening, the cinema industry is adapting, and it must keep adjusting with all these new technologies. Because the cinema industry–- as I said earlier on a different subject— in comparison to literature, it's not just creative work, it's an industry. And so, it must— you cannot just come and film with a 28-year-old camera. Unless it is intentional that you do that. There are always changes. Even tripods or I don’t know what, they are always coming up with something new. You know, even things that aren't electronic or electric or things like that. So, that's why the cinema industry is an industry, And it's not only a creative idea, it's bigger than that, and it's more complicated than that.
T: And I mean, I'm also asking, and I expect there are a lot of people asking, especially after this year, what is the viability of documentation? I mean, if we open up to a slightly philosophical topic, what's the point of the documentation if there's no change in the reality on the ground? Whether we're recording documentary films, or recording videos, or even in literature, because one of the goals of literature is documentation, even if it's not 100% a true story. But if we look at the big picture, what's the purpose of documentation? Maybe it's a very obvious question, but it's actually, after this year, one has to ask. I mean, there has been no genocide documented to this extent since the beginning of humanity but, in spite of this, is not ending.
S: I mean, the main problem during the period of trauma after the Nakba was— and this was also said by Elias Khoury in Gate of the Sun— is that people do not want to speak! They do not want to speak, it’s enough! You know, when something bad happens and a person does not want to speak about it because it's done, they don’t want to keep coming back and returning to the subject; it’s over, what happened, happened. So, documentation is important, maybe not for today— all of production, not just documentation. Novels, Palestinian novels being released today - Palestinian books coming out, Palestinian films being released - this is, as I told you a little while ago, one feels that these are frivolous in the face of the sacrifices [being made]. I mean, that I even have the luxury of sitting down to write, for example, or to sit down and make a film, I mean this is a sensation, where one feels his frivolity amidst the sacrifices that are happening. But the role of this [production] is not for today, the role of this is to be cumulative for tomorrow.
We must keep recording and keep— even the Palestinian story, the imaginary, this is also a kind of documentation. This is a documentation for our Palestinian imagination, for our literary production. The accumulation of this will show tomorrow. I do not want, after 10 years, for us to say that Palestinians don't have a voice. No, after 10 years, Palestinians will have a voice. I mean, when we say— now when you want to introduce someone to or familiarise them with the Palestinian cause, any foreigner or any person, what do you give them? Now, I, and it has happened a lot with me, I send him a link to a movie, or I buy him a novel, or I tell him, go and buy this novel. Literature and cinema. It's not Ilan Pappé’s book, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, this is for those at more advanced stages, it’s a bit too advanced, you know?
So, novels and movies, and specifically novels, because films have a dimension of consumerism and rapid consumption– an hour and a half, two hours, it's over, and you leave - this is a bad thing. But this is also a positive point, that it's easy for some people, it's easy to teach through films and to teach them about Palestinian cinema.
T: You get through to them faster.
S: Exactly. And for other people, the novel, it reaches, not faster, but it reaches further – further, more robustly, and deeper.
T: Saleem, I mean, I expect that you may agree with me, regarding our lack, in the Arab world, for criticism, real literary criticism, whether it's a novel, or film, or any other kind of art. So, tell us more about why this deficiency exists. Me and you were chatting a few days ago and you were telling me that there are reasons. Reasons you personally, I mean, you may have listed them from your experience.
S: Critique is opinion. I mean, we accept reading research. In research there are no opinions, in general. We accept reading research about a film or a movie, a particular director or something, but critiques are not very widely accepted. My opinion, my explanation, is that criticism is based on opinion, and opinion is based on, as I said earlier, knowledge, and research as well, tastes, and so on. And, aside from this, we are not very used to listening to each other's opinions. I mean, maybe if you like something, a book, or a movie, or a dish, or a job, or music, if I tell you that I don't like it, you feel like it's personal, it’s something personal. I mean, no, it’s simple, if you like it, and I cannot like it—, and I'm not forced to like it— it’s simple: you don't have to take it personally.
T: It’s not a personal attack.
S: Exactly, yes. Now, because I write a critique, a critique of a film, sometimes I feel that when I write that I don't like something, I might get a comment, for example, that says, “oh, what is going on between you and the director?”— even if I didn't like the movie. Dude, I didn't like the movie. And God knows, I don't know him, and he doesn't know me, or… But when I write a positive critique, no one comes and tells me “oh, what's going on between you and the director?” You know? Because we are used to, especially in criticism, we are used to the articles on public relations. I mean, a PR article, simply, not even a reading, not a review, because there is a difference between an article of criticism, a critique, and a review. A review gives you more information.
T: A summary.
S: Yes, a summary. And technical details about the film, what they did, what they didn’t do, maybe two or three works by the director, and what the film is about. That's it. Criticism is something else. Criticism is a realm of its own.
T: Saleem, if there are three Palestinian movies, which would you recommend to any Palestinian, or anyone who cares about the Palestinian cause, what would you recommend?
S: Well, there are very few, but let me choose ones that are also important, not just because they're nice or not nice. Wedding in Galilee, by Michel Khleifi, in 1987. The Time That Remains, by Elia Suleiman is, in my opinion, the best film by a Palestinian director, or the best Palestinian film, be that by a Palestinian or non-Palestinian director – The Time That Remains, from 2009, I think, by Elia Suleiman. And let me choose something new. Mediterranean Fever, from a few years ago, by Maha Haj. So, this is new, because it's a bit removed from typical Palestinian stuff, from the Palestinian tradition, and it's well written.
The Time That Remains is a genius film. The film The Time That Remains by Elia Suleiman, 2009. Wedding in Galilee is the first feature film by a Palestinian director and, still, to this day, if I want to talk about one of the five best films, it is one of the best. I mean, in form and content.
T: Okay, thank you very much, Saleem. I'm excited to read your upcoming novels and books.
S: Thank you, thank you, Tala.
T: And we will meet soon, God willing.
S: Thank you. Thank you to you, and to Tarwida. And this name is very nice! And really, may God grant you wellness. I really enjoyed this, I talked about a lot of things— oof, I am telling myself now that I want to go back and listen, I want to take advantage of them, I want to write articles!
T: Exactly, out of every question comes an article!
S: So, thank you very much for being able to talk about a lot of things in a comfortable way and in depth. And I also like this about the podcasts, you know, the podcast is like the electronic newspaper— when someone comes and tells me, I have an article, two thousand words, two thousand words, no newspaper is allowed to publish two thousand words, because there is a page that needs to be filled, you know, you can't.
But an article, an electronic newspaper, a magazine, I tell him, give it to me! You know? This is also the good thing about podcasts, we can sit and talk casually, we have nothing we have to do— There's no news broadcast that has to come atop the hour.
T: Yes, I mean the only thing that might ruin the podcast— of course, there are a lot of things that could ruin the podcast— but for me, if we get into live broadcasts or the podcast was broadcast live, we would have lost the beauty of the slowness of the podcast.
S: That’s right, yes, yes. That is a lovely thing and I spoke with such comfort— I have done many interviews on TV but when I know I only have so much time, three-quarters of what I want to say I leave out. I only talk about the final thing, the result. But now, with you, I feel at ease.
T: Great. Well, thank you so much.
S: Thank you, thank you Tala and all of your colleagues!