Wonderful column
from the Independent on Mahmoud Darwish:
Mahmoud Darwish, however, did not come from a country which swapped communist oppression for blatant capitalist excess. He came from Palestine, or what would be Palestine if the state were allowed to exist. At the age of 12, he was invited to write a poem for Israel's Independence Day and wrote one contrasting the experience of living in Israel of an Arab and a Jew. He was summoned to the military governor, who told him that if he continued to write such subversive material, his family would suffer. From that point on, he never stopped.
