COUNTER CULTURE AND THE DISCOURSE OF CULTURAL RESISTANCE IN ARAB POETIC WRITINGS; TAMIM AL-BARGHOUTI AS A CULTURAL CASE STUDY

Abstract

Language represents a cultural weapon that creative writers consciously use to shape their stance and express their perspective toward the individual’s surrounding social reality. There is no life without language, just as there is no revolution without both material and linguistic arms. In this sense, the latter constitutes a cultural theme and a civilizational act adopted by many different intellectuals and writers to portray their positions regarding different social conditions, issues, and circumstances. Among the most significant human causes that have occupied both creative and critical spheres is the Palestinian issue, whose representations were distributed across both reality and writing. Thus, the rhetoric of writing has formed a cultural mode wielded by practitioners of cultural resistance to represent the elements of civilizational conflict between both the identity of the Self and the alterity of the Other. This conflict ignited the spark of creativity and the flash of resistance in the throats and pens of poets who embraced the path of revolution and resistance to weave various ideas that reject the presence of the oppressive Other. Additionally, their words became cultural landmines that called for the unveiling of humiliation and the necessity of struggle to reclaim the lost identity amidst the rubble of occupation and invaders. Literary history is replete with the achievements of the Palestinian poet Tamim al-Barghouti, who demonstrated remarkable creativity and mastery in composing poetic works that mirror Arab reality and its severe conditions. Accordingly, his poetry emerges as an outpouring of pent-up emotions, rich with both significations and cognitive momentum, that carry the discourse of cultural resistance and advocate for the cultivation of civilizational awareness regarding the reality of Arab life.