Mahmoud Darwish was present at the Sursock Museum for more than a poetic lifetime. The man whom Simon Beaton photographed appeared in 1997, and we heard the poet who became part of Arab memory, and then his poetry sat next to Palestinian texts written after him and in a more difficult time. Between these times, the evening “Darwish and Contemporary Palestinian Poetry” created its material.
The meeting was held as part of the “Mahmoud Darwish Poetry Day,” which was organized by the Pompidou Center in cooperation with the Arab World Institute, and its activities were distributed in about 30 cultural sites in France and the world within the “Mediterranean Season 2026.” The International House of Writers organized the Beirut date, and it was presented by the novelist Sherif Majdalani, one of the faces of Lebanese literature written in French, and the president of the House, and Rima Abdel Malik, the former French Minister of Culture and a long-standing presence in cultural institutions. They were brought together by a location befitting the nature of the project, in Beirut, which experienced Darwish and knew a time when Palestinian poetry was part of its cultural scene.
The film “Mahmoud Darwish: And the Land, Like Language” returned to a pivotal stage in the life of its author. Darwish in 1997 is not a poet of the beginnings for whom identity is sufficient material for confrontation, nor is he an exile waiting for the way to open. The road was partially opened, and he was able to reach Palestine after the “Oslo Accords”, the wording of which he objected to. He arrived, but did not find an end to his exile. A person may reach the place and not regain the time in which he lived.
Haifa, Cyprus, Tunisia, Amman, Paris, Cairo, Beirut, Ramallah, constitute the geography of a man who became many places after he lost the intuition of one place. Exile settles inside. A return ticket does not finish him off, because Al-Birwa, his village in the Galilee from which the child left, remained in his memory in an image that the man cannot recover.
Darwish found in language what kept his connection to the land intact after returning to it became burdened with what had changed and been lost. From the double meaning of the word “house”, the house and the house of poetry, Simone Peyton and Elias Sanbar built part of the film’s reading of Darwish’s relationship with place and language. The place, which could not be restored to what it was, remained present in the poem with its names, faces, and smells. Language did not compensate for what was lost, but it kept it from disappearing and gave memory a way to confront what time had done to place.
Palestine did not leave his poetry, but he refused to be consumed by poetry. He entered into it from mother, love, body, death, loneliness, and coffee, until the Palestinian in his poem became a specific person, not an image attached to an issue. Thus, the film was correct in Darwish’s reading, even though a defect in the clarity of the sound made following some of its parts exhausting, and lost some of the intimacy of the relationship he wanted between the voice of the poet and the viewer.
After him, there were readings by Dhana Mikhael, Rima Abdel Malik, Tariq Yaqoub, Antoine Gaspard, and Raed Tayyan, accompanied by music by Jacques Stephan, to texts by Darwish, Rifaat Al Arair, Najwan Darwish, Samar Abdel Jaber, Hind Joudah, Musab Abu Toha, Nima Hassan, Raed Tayyan, Karim Qattan, and Samer Abu Hawash.
The difference in levels of texts imposed itself on the readings. The treatment of the poetic image varied, as some texts seemed to focus more on it, while others tended to speak directly.
These selections remain too narrow to summarize the path of contemporary Palestinian poetry or the experiences of its authors. Darwish's presence among them raised the bar of comparison on its own. The poet, who spent decades distancing Palestine from direct speech, sat next to writing, some of which was born in close contact with the event, so that the tragedy seemed faster than the ability of language to transform it into poetry.
There was an aesthetic rift in the readings, more than a generational one. For Darwish, the event rarely remains the same within the poem. It was taking him away until he was bigger than the moment he left. The texts we heard remained closer to the event, especially those related to Gaza. The cruelty of what happened explains this directness to some extent, and confronts poetry with the most difficult task of finding its language in the midst of all this pain.
Overcrowding in Sursock was part of the night's picture. The hall was filled, and some visitors remained outside after it was not possible to find seats for them. They missed an event whose audience proved that poetry is still capable of filling a space and leaving others at its door.
18 years have passed since the passing of Mahmoud Darwish, and Palestine has experienced successive losses, and poets have come whose experiences were born in another world, yet his impact has not turned into a memory that can be recalled on occasions. The further away his time is, the more we find him waiting for us in our time.
Egypt is moving to establish new controls for the appearance of doctors in the media, to ensure “protecting the reputation of the medical profession, combating misleading information, preventing deception of the public, and eliminating negative phenomena spreading in some media outlets.”
The new controls are represented in a draft regulation submitted by the Egyptian Medical Syndicate to the Supreme Council for Media Regulation, aimed at regulating the media appearance of doctors, according to what the Supreme Council for Media announced in a statement. The Supreme Council for Media Regulation is scheduled to study the draft regulation and send its opinion regarding it to the Medical Syndicate, before the union’s general assembly is held on October 9, to discuss approving the regulation.
According to the statement, the project includes a number of controls regulating the appearance of doctors in the media and digital platforms, including the obligation to introduce the doctor himself, his professional capacity, and his general and precise specialty, and not to exploit media appearances to promote personal interests or for another party, or to disclose any relationship that may involve a conflict of interest, as well as not to harm the reputation of the profession, colleagues, or medical institutions, and not to use media appearances to announce the achievement of unconfirmed treatment results, or to make misleading claims to the public.
The proposed regulations also prohibit providing misleading or inaccurate medical information, promoting treatments and results that are not scientifically proven, or claiming to achieve unconfirmed therapeutic capabilities, in addition to prohibiting the promotion of medications, diets, or therapeutic systems that are not officially recognized by the competent authorities.
The regulation emphasizes the protection of the confidentiality of medical information and the privacy of patients. It prohibits publishing or circulating any data, images or medical information related to them except with their express written consent or in cases permitted by law, as well as prohibiting the exploitation of children in any advertising or medical media content, while adhering to legislation related to the protection of children.
The regulation prohibits the use of artificial intelligence techniques or any modern digital means to create, modify, or publish visual, audio, or digital content that includes incorrect or misleading data that may lead to deceiving the public or misleading people with unreal facts.
The former head of the Doctors Syndicate in North Sinai, Dr. Salah Salam, believes that this proposed regulation, if implemented in a strict manner and under close supervision by the Medical Syndicate and the Supreme Media Council, would greatly control the media appearance of doctors, adding to Asharq Al-Awsat that “the reason for this proposed regulation is the state of chaos, randomness, and manipulation of the public practiced by some under the name of nutrition or weight loss experts, or (life coach), or other names that delude the public that they are doctors, when they are not.” They often spread misleading information or exaggerate results of their successes, which requires strict oversight.
He points out that some people claim to be doctors and provide prescriptions or methods of treatment that are completely incorrect, and he continues: “It is necessary to have a mechanism that allows the Supreme Media Council to ensure that whoever appears on screen and speaks about medical matters is qualified to do so and is a member of the Doctors Syndicate. Advertisements that promote medicines that have nothing to do with medicine must also be confronted and stopped, which requires strict follow-up and oversight by the Syndicate and the Council.”
Dr. Sarah Fawzi, a specialist in digital media at Cairo University, confirms that “this regulation should have been approved a long time ago and controls must be put in place to prevent the chaos witnessed by many programs claiming to specialize in medicine and promoting incorrect medicines, drugs, and prescriptions, in addition to the appearance of doctors for propaganda purposes only, as if television or the media give them legitimacy.”
She added to Asharq Al-Awsat: “The controls must include not promoting doctors by displaying their clinic data on the screen, and limiting the conversation to the medical side of the issue in which the doctor is speaking, with the necessity of ensuring the doctor’s eligibility and registration in the Medical Syndicate, and differentiating between the doctor, the pharmacist, and those with other specialties that may intersect with medicine.”
