His words inspire change, his poetry moves people. Adonia is the voice of an Arab world that wants to progress, beyond the forces of oppression and suppression. An overview on his dialogue at THINK
He is a revolutionary poet who began his revolution beforehe transformed into the voice of humanity and dissent. Ali Ahmad Said Esber was17 when he became Adonis, his nom-de-plume. Gradually and then rapidly, Adonisbecame the TS Eliot of the Arab poetry. And yet, unlike Elliot, Adonis wasconstantly at war against the war on humanity and freedom. And as he sat tospeak about his life and his works in Arabic, with his speech constantlyinterpreted by Professor Rehmad Said of the Jamia Milia Islamia University, andaccompanied by another all-time great Nobel laureate, Sir Vidiadhar SurajprasadNaipaul or simply Sir Vidia.
This was, to those who sensed it, one of the most poignantmoments of the THINK. Here was a writer who broke the shackles and chains hiscountry and region were subjected to, in a land where contemporary India,despite of having freedoms ordained, still fight for the same.
As Sir Vidia said, “Adonis is a secular poet, not in the waythe term secular is claimed by one party against another. Adonis’ had a biggeridea – The idea of the Mediterranean civilisation. He reaches out a grandeur,which is bigger and compasses the time civilisation took to grow. Adonis is aremarkable poet but he is a finer humanist. His poetry is about what love cando in the time of war. And as he said as he began his talk “The work of poetryis to continue working. It cannot be a tool. It has to be a vision”. He quicklybrought all of us at par with today’s reality, when he said “Arab society isgoing through great difficulty. Today it is closer to the middle ages ratherthan the contemporary. There are no freedoms. The first freedom we fight for isthe freedom of women from the Shariya law. Without this liberation, there is noexistence for a woman. Freedom is giving to the demand of individuals for theirrights and liberties. Freedom is freedom of thought, belief and expression.”
Just a thought. Was he speaking of the Arab world or ourworld? The cosmos and its issues shrunk as Adonis spoke in his lilting Arabicwith the crest and fall of his words like waves of poetry. He then went to theobvious – the Quran – and asked us to read the Quran not as a religious textbut a cultural one. And poetry isworking to shake this religious dominance”
“Separate religion and politics and you will see that it’sall about aiming for a civil, secular existence where people live in equality”.Tarun Tejpal, the Tehelka Editor in Chief, who was moderating interjected, “Butpoetry makes nothing happen in the face of tyrants”. Adonis replied “Naturallypoetry cannot change. But poetry can open horizons to seek change”
On the condition in the Arab world, the poet laments “Deathdominates life. There is no Arab university that competes with the best in theworld. There is no scientific center” Adonis is however a world citizen. In thesixty years since he went to a Syrian university in Damascus to studyphilosophy, he moved to Beirut where he spent most of his writing years andthen moved to France to establish firmly the Neo Sufi trend in Arabic poetry,and yet remained a rebel forming his own rules. No wonder Sir Vidya calls him“a master of our times”
Adonis’ connection, with India and Indian poets run deep.Faiz Ahmed Faiz and Ali Sardar Jafri spent a lot of time in Beirut living withhim. In fact Faiz Sahab’s “Hum Dekhenge”, a seminal work was conceived here.But a true expression of a poet is always in his poetry, not in the prose thatis written about him and as he read from his work and Professor Rehmad Saidtranslated, there were many many moist eyes. I can speak for myself. Here’sAdonis on “Jihad”, the so called revolution of terrorists
“He is here in jihad uniform,
He struts with ideas that intoxicate,
He is a trader and a merchant,
Not selling clothes,
But selling innocent people, to die on the streets”
