Tamim al-Barghouti
Tamim Al-Barghouti (Arabic: تميم البرغوثي, born in Cairo) is a Palestinian poet, columnist and political scientist. He is known for the capacity of his poetry to draw the attention of hundreds of thousands of people. The reception of his poetry among a diverse audience from various backgrounds and age groups is a testimony to the vitality of the centuries-old tradition of classical Arabic poetry.
Early life and education
Al-Barghouti was born in cairo to Palestinian poet Mourid Al-Barghouti and Egyptian novelist Radwa Ashour. That year, the Egyptian government had embarked on a peace process with Israel and expelled most Palestinians of prominence, including Al Barghouti’s father. Since childhood, Al-Barghouti has been immersed in the political realities of the Arab world, the way they affect the most personal aspects of an individual’s life, as well as in the literary means to express them.
Al-Barghouti studied spent his childhood between Egypt and various Europe, where his father worked as a diplomat. He received his B.A in Political Sciences and Economics in 1999 from Cairo University, his M.A. in politics and international relations from the American University in Cairo in 2001, and his Ph.D. in political science from Boston University, Massachusetts, in 2004.
Poetry and career
He wrote his first short poem (the Canon) at 6, His first published poem at 18. In 1999, at age 22, he was able to return to Palestine for the first time, where he wrote his first poetry collection, “Mijana,” in the Palestinian spoken dialect of Arabic and published it in Ramallah. His second collection, “Al-Manzar,” followed shortly thereafter, written in Cairo using the Egyptian spoken dialect.
In 2003, on the eve of the American invasion of Iraq, Al-Barghouti left Egypt in opposition to the war and the Egyptian government’s position. The experience resulted in two works that gained Al-Barghouti a degree of fame in Egypt and the Arab world; the first was “Aluli-Bet- hebb-Masr” (They Ask: Do You Love Egypt), written in the Egyptian spoken dialect, and “Maqam Iraq,” in Standard Classical Arabic. Both works were well received. “Maqam Iraq” in particular was described by one critic as “something of a classical Arabic masterpiece…a lengthy epic-like diwan on Iraq comprising a variety of stylistic forms: song, narrative, and prose...that established Al-Barghouti as a master of Arabic language and history.”
In 2007, Al-Barghouti’s work “In Jerusalem” became something of a street poem. Palestinian newspapers dubbed Al-Barghouti “The Poet of Jerusalem”. The poem, which describes an aborted journey to the city, became the basis for a number of performances in Nablus, Ramallah, Hebron, Bethlehem, Jericho, Amman, Beirut, Muscat, Berlin, The Hague, and Vienna, among others. "In Jerusalem" and other poems by Al-Barghouti have also had millions views of various TV Channels as well as on the internet, winning the poet an exceptional celebrity status in the Arab World.
On 26 January 2011, one day after the Egyptian Revolution that toppled President Hosny Mubarak, Al-Barghouti wrote the lyrical poem " Ya Masr Hanet "; itsArabic title roughly translates as " Oh Egypt, It's Close. With the internet down, he faxed the poem to a Cairo newspaper, copies of which were distributed in Tahrir Square. Then Al-Jazeera TV Channel asked him to record it. The video of his reading was projected in the Square every couple of hours on makeshift screens.
On the 27th, at the request of The Guardian, Al-Barghouti sent a commentary on the unfolding events in the Arab World which was published the next day in which he wrote: " I will venture to say that the Egyptian regime has already fallen: it might take some time, but the fear, the perception that the regime is invincible has gone once and for all. All this is followed quite closely in Palestine; any future intifada will not be directed only against the occupation, but also against any Palestinian entity that co-operates with the occupation. Tunisia sent out the message that client regimes fall – that if we can drive the empires out, we will surely be able to drive out their vassals ".
Al-Barghouti has since been associated with political activism in Egypt and the Arab World as an opposition figure to the military regime that took over Egypt from February 2011 till June 2012, and then again from July 2013.
Al-Barghouti worked at the American University in Cairo as a aprofessor of Politicla sicne s 2004-2005, as a Human Rights Officer at the UN Mission in Sudan 2005–06, a Research Fellow at the Berlin Institute for Advanced Studies, part of Europe in the Middle East and the Middle East in Europe, program, 2007–08, As a visiting professor of politics at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. 2008–11, and is currently a consultant to the United Nations Economic and Social Committee for West Asia.
Published academic works
- The Umma and Dawla: The Nation-State and the Arab Middle East (Political Science: English). London: Pluto Press, 2008.
- Al-Wataniyya Al-Alifa. “Benign Nationalism”: (الوطنية الأليفة) (Political Science-Middle East History: Arabic). Cairo: The Centre of Contemporary Egyptian History of the Egyptian National Library, 2007.
- “War, Peace, Civil War: a Pattern?” in Palestine and the Palestinians in the 21 st century, Edited by Rochelle Davis and Mimi Kirk, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013.
- “The Post-Colonial State: The Impossible Compromise” in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam and Politics. Edited by Emad El-Din Shahin. Oxford University Press, 2014.
- “Cracking Cauldrons” in Shifting Sands: the Unraveling of the Old Order in the Middle East. Edited by Raja Shehadeh and Penny Johnson. London: Profile Books, 2015.
Published Poetry Collections
• Ya Masr Hanet: Dar Al-Shorouk, 2011
• Fi Al-Quds, Cairo: Dar Al-Shorouk, 2008
• Maqam Iraq. Cairo: Dar Atlas, 2005
• Qalu li Bethebb Masr. Cairo: Dar el-Shourouk, 2002
• Al-Manzhar. Cairo: Dar el-Shourouk, 2002.
• Mijana. Ramallah: Bait al-She’r Al Falasteeni (Palestinian House of Poetry), 1999.
Journalism and other literary publications
Biweekly articles on Arab and international politics at the Egyptian Daily Al-Shorouk From April 2010 to 2014
Weekly articles at the Electronic Paper: Arabi21 since 2015
Weekly features on Colonialism and Arab history, culture and identity published in the Daily Star Newspaper, Beirut, Lebanon from August 2003 to October 2004.