التّعذيب في رواية "المسكوبيّة: فصول من سيرة العذاب" لأسامة العيسة، دراسة تحليليّة

Abstract

Many Palestinian detainees wrote about the torture they experienced in Israeli occupation prisons, and their torture was documented in poetry and prose. One of the most remarkable written records in this domain is Osama Al-Eissa’s novel Al-Maskoubiya: Chapters from the Biography of Torment. The novel’s main title, “Al-Maskoubiya”, and its sub-title, “Chapters from the Biography of Torment” have informed this study. For the vast majority of the Palestinian people, the main title insinuates various semantic connotations, and as soon as the name “Al-Maskubiyya” is mentioned, it is immediately connected with a ‘slaughterhouse.’ Such unconscious semantic reference triggers a simulation of painful torture, where symbolic death ensues through exsanguination. In the past, skin flaying was one of the most severe types of torture, inflicted by the most tyrannical' rulers, amongst which Ma’ad bin Mansour, nicknamed Al-Mu’izz Li Din Allah Al-Obaidi , was the most vicious, arresting the Muslim scholar Muhammad bin Ahmed Al-Ramli, known as Ibn Al-Nablusi (363 AH. 973 AD). He defamed Ibn Al-Nabulsi on the first day, tortured him on the second, and ordered a Jewish butcher to flay his skin while alive, then stuff his body with straw. Along with addressing the psychological effects torture inflicts on detainees, this paper will present a detailed account of the most important main methods and sub-methods of torture mentioned in the novel and recognized by many Palestinian prisoners of Al-Maskubiya or other occupation prisons including physical torture, psychological torture, shabeh torture, and waterboarding torture. As such, the most significant conclusion of this paper is that overcoming the different methods of torture lies in standing up against the interrogator, who should be seen by the detained Palestinian fighter as an employee defending a lost cause.