A Formula for Being Human

Posted by sepoy on August 02, 2014 · 4 mins read

...
I am a man in exile in Beirut in 1982 - cast out by a military dictator.

On this ground too
unfurls
my blood stained standard

where the flag of Palestinian home
flows

Your Master has destroyed
one Palestine;
My wounds
have prospered
how many Palestines.

...
I am a woman; long hair, dreadlocked; ashes covering my naked body; living inside a tree; in love with an apparition. I am hunted by the emperor.

I, Lalla, set out
wanting to flower
like the bloom of cotton:
that was I, tenuous,
whom the seed-picking cleaner
then the carder so abused
when the woman spinning
had lifted me off
thread by trembling thread
that was I, so cruelly used,
set to hang in the weaver's room.

I have seen a serious man hunger, and of hunger dying:
as a leaf being taken in winter
by the least wind,
ever so gentle.

I have seen a moron murderously beating a cook
and since then I, Lalla, am waiting —
will it not be torn? This love,
ever so delightful. ((translation from Kashmiri original by Sonam Kachru))

...
I am a man; wandering; obese; in love with a young man who follows me, at some distance. I am sought by emperors for conversation. Eventually, they cut off my head.

O Sarmad, you won such fame throughout the world
After converting from kufr to Islam
And yet, in the end, what fault you found with Allah and the Prophet?
that you became a disciple of Ram and Lakshman?

...
It is hard for us to imagine what it means to speak outside of our privilege - to look at the world through the eyes of the dispossessed. We have sequestered our fears.

I quote three individuals: Lal Ded. Sarmad. Faiz. In fourteenth century Kashmir. In seventeenth century Delhi. In twentieth century Beirut. These individuals spoke, and acted outside the worlds which they inhabited. We tend to remember martyrs from the fact of their martyrdom but their life and words before had enough courage to achieve immortality. Seeing them as immortals before their deaths, allows us to conceive of the courage to speak and express our critical world view as an everyday courage, and a everyday concern.

Like many of you, I have done little but read the news from Gaza in the past few weeks. I have shuddered in witnessing how everyday life in Gaza has vanished under plumes of smoke and under debris. I feel helpless and I try to read poets and I try to reconcile my sorrow at a world spinning away.

For Gaza, for Syria, for Iraq, for minorities in Pakistan, this summer of destruction is etched in poetry. For resistance, for hope, please read Lal Ded, Sarmad, Darwish, and Faiz:

Forever thus
have people tangled with tyranny;
nor their rituals new, nor our ways new.

Forever thus
have we blossomed flowers in fire;
nor their defeat new, nor our victory new.

...
I am a woman; writing books and pamphlets in prison; working to unionize workers in Berlin. I am kidnapped, shot in the head, and my body is dumped in the canal.

I'm telling you that as soon as I can stick my nose out again I will hunt and harry your society of frogs with trumpet blasts, whip-crackings, and bloodhounds-like Penthesilea I wanted to say, but by God, you people are no Achilles. Have you had enough of a New Year's greeting now? Then see to it that you stay HUMAN... Being human means joyfully throwing your whole life "on the scales of destiny" when need be, but all the while rejoicing in every sunny day and every beautiful cloud. Ach, I know of no formula to write you for being human...


COMMENTS


TQ Chāt | # 15 | Tanqeed | August 06, 2014

[…] A Formula for Being Human, and Poetry in Translation: Lullaby for a Palestinian Child […]