Analysis of Mahmud Darwish's "Passport"

In Passport, Mahmoud Darwish reflects a strong resentment against the way Palestinians identity is always put on customization due to Israeli aggression. He strongly asserts that his identity is reassured by nature and his fellow people, so no document can classify him into anything else.

The poem begins with a sense of frustration, as the poet looks at the passport and feels like his identity has been stripped away from there. His nationality is altered and a new identity is imposed upon him. However, he strongly feels that these papers can never show the length of attachment a person can have with his native land. The historical, natural and cultural bon is innate, impossible to completely wipe out.

His anger reflects in these lines- "Stripped of my name and identity? /On soil I nourished with my own hands? /Today Job cried out/Filling the sky: /Dont make an example of me again!"- Here he rejects any kind of moral, grand narrative like religious verses that encourages people to be patient. He feels that patient is not an option for Palestinians anymore, they have been pushed way too far to be patient. Rather, he finds reassurance in natural elements which are never questioned about their identities they become an inseparable part of a landscape just by originating there. Poet feels the same kind of innate connection with his native land. This connection gives him enough courage to completely reject the passport that tries to set him apart from his native land.

I think Mahmoud Darwish views human beings just as another element of the nature. The way a mountain or river belongs to a land, he feels human beings are also like that. If those things never change their identity with the change of political power, human beings also should not have to.