TEHRAN-In a ceremony at the venue of Iran Cultural and Press Institute in Tehran on Sunday, the Persian translation of the book “Journey Through the Embers” written by the Palestinian author and thinker Munir Shafiq was unveiled in the presence of the author and several prominent domestic and foreign personalities.

Translated by the Iranian politician Hossein Jaberi Ansari, the book, containing memoirs of the 90-year-old Shafiq, has been published by Iran Publishing House, affiliated with the Iran Cultural and Press Institute.

The book was originally published in Arabic Beirut by the Centre for Arab Unity Studies in 2022. The following year, it was translated into English and now it is available in Persian.
  
At the beginning of the event, Jabari Ansari said: “Shafiq’s book is not just his memories; Rather, it is the abstract of reflections on a life full of struggles and thoughts as he had a unique life in terms of ups and downs and different phases he went through”.
 
Also speaking at the event, Ehsan Salehi, Managing Director of Iran Institute, said: “Honoring Munir Shafiq is honoring Palestine”.
 
“Shafiq is the living history of Palestine as he has seen the process of occupying his land since his childhood and, God willing, he will soon see the victory of Palestine,” he added.
 
“Shafiq has done his duty in fighting and narrating his struggles, which is a motivation for the Islamic world,” Salehi noted.
 
For his part, Shafiq explained a turning point in his life and said: “After 1970, Black September in Jordan and the expulsion of the Palestinian movement and Fatah from Jordan to Beirut, a few people and I together formed a closed political circle within the Fatah movement to focus on our main goal, which was the fight against the idea of compromise”.
 
“It was decided that we should start the constructive guidance of the Palestinian movement through action by emphasizing several principles, the most important of which was that not even a piece of Palestine soil will be traded,” he recalled.
 
“Later, all the members of this circle were martyred and only I survived because they prevented me from participating in the fights,” Shafiq continued.
 
“The important point of our circle of four people was our teachings from Imam Khomeini (RA). We read and heard that he relied on two principles: First, the U.S. is the great devil, and second, the Zionists are a cancerous entity that must be eradicated. Therefore, we emphasized and focused on these two important things in our performance in our intellectual circle and stuck to it,” he underlined.
  
“Journey Through the Embers” has a pleasant narration by the author mentioning the memories and events of different periods of his life and also describing how Palestine was occupied over many years. The formation of resistance groups, the evolution of the thought process of this prominent Palestinian thinker, and the change of his view on the issue of Palestine and the occupation of this land have been discussed in the book.
 
It should be noted that the book, which has received attention in the field of Palestinian studies and the resistance front, won the special prize of the first edition of the Palestine World Prize for Literature in 2022.

The pages of this book present the memoirs of a prominent Palestinian resistance figure who has lived through the Palestinian issue since the Nakba in 1948 until today. Shafiq accompanied this issue since his childhood, before the Nakba, and joined its path early.

Munir Shafiq, born in 1936, grew up in a distinguished family environment. He belongs to a Christian family, cultured, open, Marxist, patriotic, and proud of their Arabism and Islamic civilizational heritage. This image, which seems closer to “Mosaic,” was consistent with the Palestinian cases that know and cherish the Palestinian identity, stand against the British occupation and the dangers of the Zionist project, and seek change, advancement, and liberation.

Shafiq’s father graduated as a lawyer in 1925, and his mother graduated from the Teachers Training College in 1927. Because the father was proud of his Arabism and heritage, he was keen to augment his son’s Arabic tongue, so he encouraged him to recite the Qur’an and poetry. 

By the age of 13, Shafiq had memorized three parts of the Qur’an, many poems of al-Mutanabbi and Abu Tammam, and Nahj al-Balaghah book. He also memorized many articles from Majallat al-Ahkam al-Adliyyah, which is the first code of Islamic jurisprudence in the civil field within the framework of legal provisions.

He lived through the major historical stations that this issue went through, and the Arab, regional, and international transformations that affected it, and dealt with them according to different intellectual, ideological, and organizational approaches, sometimes even contradictory; but he was in control of those approaches, putting ideology in the service of the national cause, not the national cause in the service of ideology, as many did. This prompted him to switch from one ideological framework to another when he felt that this or that framework was no longer capable of accommodating the national issue, which also prompted him to join the political and militant organizations of different ideological orientations, but he maintained his distinct positions within each of these organizations, so he had his vision and his reading of events, alignments, and contradictions.

Therefore, these memoirs do not reflect the viewpoint of the leaders of the first row in the Palestinian resistance. Rather, they were dominated by the presentation of the personal experience of Shafiq, which is undoubtedly a rich and distinguished experience, and it provides many struggles, intellectual, and moral lessons. Also, the memoirs were dominated by his approach to the political situation at every stage of his struggle.

“Journey Through the Embers” is an expression that meticulously describes the conditions lived by the Palestinian patriotic intellectual, who has been committed to Palestinian fundamentals, facing difficulties patiently and paying heavy prices with years of imprisonment, displacement, injustice, and pain, without deviating even an iota from his position.

The book is appealing for its smooth and captivating style and it is rich in experiences, stances, and lessons. It provides a critical and objective reading of Palestinian political and resistance action over 70 years, from the midst of the leftist and Fatah, while conveying the atmosphere of Islamic and nationalist trends. He was close to Palestinian decision-makers, but at the same time has never assumed first-tier leadership positions.

The personality of Shafiq unfolds throughout the chapters of the book. With a free, self-harmonious character holding firm convictions, Shafiq adopts rational reasoning, systematic analysis, and self-criticism. When he is convinced of an idea, he is ready to defend it to the end, whatever the costs. He is a person who does not like compliments or social hypocrisy, especially when it comes to national action or the requirements of objective evaluation.

There are also basic values that Shafiq has maintained and adhered to as a communist and a Fatah affiliate, and when he embraced Arab and Islamic perspectives. On top of these are honesty with oneself and refusal to lie, including self-criticism when he errs.

Therefore, he does not care much about the consequences of contradicting public opinion or general trends if his objective scrutiny leads to such conclusions, even if it might sometimes shock the elites or the general public. Thus, he was a “pioneer” seeking to establish trends rather than justifying the paths of others. This can be found in his affiliation with and exit from the Communist Party, when he was in Fatah when he established the “Trend” within Fatah, and when he converted to Islam and adopted Islamic thought as well as in his interpretation of the 1948 catastrophe and the 1967 defeat, besides when the fida’yyin (guerrillas) left Jordan and other issues.

SS/