Dante's Inferno

Dante's Inferno
Translation by: John Ciardi with notes
Dante's Inferno, Circle 7 is where the warmongers reside after their life here on earth. Here is where those who commit the violence againt the neighbors, the great war-makers, cruel tyrants, all who shed the blood of their fellowmen. As they wallowed in blood during their lives, so they are immersed in the boiling blood forever, each according to the degree of his guilt, while fierce Centaurs patrol the banks, ready to shoot with thier arrows any sinner who raises himself out of the boiling blood beyond the limits permitted him.
Canto XII, Circle 7, Round 1 But turn your eyes to the valley; there we shall find (line46 The river of boiling blood in which are steeped All who struck down their fellow men. Oh blind!   …”Here they pay for their ferocity. (line 106 Here is Alexander. And Dionysius, Who brought long years of grief to Sicily .   That brow you see with the hair as black as night Is Azzolino; and that beside him, the blonde, Is Opizzo da Esti, who had his mortal light   Blown out by his own stepson.” I turned then to speak to the Poet but he raised a hand: “let him be the teacher now, and I will listen.”   Further on, the Centaur stopped beside A group of spirits steeped as far as the throat In the race of boiling blood, and there our guide   Pointed out a sinner who stood alone: “That one before God's altar pierced a heart still honored on the Thames .” And he passed on. (120)   We came in sight of some who were allowed To raise the head and all the chest from the river, And I recognized many there. Thus, as we followed   Along the stream of blood, its level fell Until it cooked no more than the feet of the dammed. And here we crossed the ford to deeper Hell.   “Just as you see the boiling stream grow shallow along this side,” the Centaur said to us when we stood on the other bank, “I would have you know   that on the other, the bottom sinks anew more and more, until it comes again full circle to the place where the tyrants stew.   It is there that Holy Justice spends its wrath On Sextus and Pyrrhus through eternity, And on Attila, who was a scourge on earth: (135)   And everlastingly milks out the tears Of Rinier da Corneto and Rinier Pazzo, those two assassins who for many years   stalked the highways, bloody and abhorred.” And with that he started back across the ford. 47. the river with flowing blood This is Phlegethon, the river that circules through the First Round of the Seventh Circle, then sluices through the wood of the suicides (the second round) and the burning sands (third round) to spew over the great Cliff into the Eight CIrcle, and so, eventually, to the bottom of Hell (Cocytus). The river is deepest at the point at which the Poets first approach it and grows shallower along both sides of the circle until it reaches the ford, which is at the opposite point of the First round. THe souls of the dammed are placed in deeper or shallower parts of the river according to the degree of their guilt. 55. The Centaurs: The Centaurs were creatures of classical mythology. half-horse, half-men. They were skilled and savage hunters, creatures of passion and violence. Like the Minotaur, they are symbols of the bestial-human, and as such, they are fittingly chosen as the tormentors of these sinners. 65. Chiron: The son of Saturn and of the nymph Philira. He was the wiest and most just of the Centaurs and reputedly was the teacher of Achilles and of other Greek heros to whom he imparted great skill in bearing arms, medicine, astronomy, music, and augury. Dante places him far down in Hell with the others of his kind, but through he draws Chiron's coarseness, he also grants him a kind of majestic understanding. 67. Nessus: Nessus carried travelers across the River Evenus for hire. He was hired to ferry Dejanira, the wife of Hercules, and tried to abduct her, but Hercules killed him with a poisened arrow. While Nessus was dying, he whispered to Dejanira that a shirt stained with his poisoned blood would act as a love charm should Hercules' affections stray. When Hercules fell in love with Iole, Dejanira sent him a shirt stained with the Centaur's blood. The shirt poisoned Hercules and he died in agony. Thus Nessus revenged himself with his own blood. 107. Alexander: Alexander the Great. Dionysius: Dionysius I (died 367B.C.) and his son, Dionysius II (died 343) were tyrants of Sicly. Both were infamous as prototypes of the bloodthirsty and exorbitant ruler. Dante may intend either or both. 110. Azzolino (or Ezzelino): Ezzelino da Romano, Count of Onora (1194-1259). The cruelest of the Ghibelline tyrants. In 1236 Frederick II appointed Ezzelino his vicar in Padua. Ezzelino became especially infamnous for his bloody treatment of the Paduans, whom he slaughtered in great numbers. 111. Opizzo da Esti: Marquis of Ferrara (1264-1293) The account of his life is confused. One must accept Dante's facts as given. 119-120. that one...a heart still hnored on the Thames: The sinner indicated is Guy de Montfort. His father, Simon de Montfort, was a leader of the barons who rebelled against Henry III and was killed at the battle of Evesham (1265) by Prince Edward (later Prince Edward I) In 1271, Guy (then Vicar General of Tuscany) avenged his fathers death by murdering Henery's nepher (who was also named Henry) The crime was openly committed in a church at Viterbo. The mudered Henry's heart was sealed in a casket and sent to London, where it was accorded various honors. 134. Sextus: Probably the younger son of Pompey the Great. His piracy is mentioned in Lucan (Pharsalia, VI, 420,422) Pyrrhus: Pyrrhus, the son of Achilles, was especially bloodthristy at the sack of Troy. Phrrhus, King of Epirus (319-371 BC) waged relentless and bloody war against the Greeks and Romans. Either may be intended. 135. Attila: King of the Huns from 433 to 453. He was called the Scourge of God. 137. Rinier da Corneto, Rinier Pazzo: Both were especially bloodthirsty robber-barons of the thirteenth century. The Inferno, Dante Alighieri, Translated by John Ciardi;1954

“Lighten My Burden, Stop the Train”

“Lighten My Burden, Stop the Train”
By Marion Boulby
These are words from the poem “ I am Your Spy” written from solitary confinement by Mordachai Vanunu.
Vanunu was a subordinate nuclear technician at what proved to be a clandestine nuclear weapons program in Dimona Israel . Following his personal convictions and opposition to the proliferation of nuclear weapons he delivered evidence about the Dimona program to a London newspaper, the Sunday Times , in 1986. Israel 's Mossad then abducted him to Israel , via Rome , in violation of the territorial integrity of Italy . He was sentenced as a spy to 18 years in prison. He wrote “ I'm Your Spy ” early during the first 11 1/2 years of his imprisonment when he was held in strict isolation. He was released on April 21 this year. But he is not really free. Under restrictions based on regulation 6 of the State of Emergency Regulations imposed by Britain in 1948 Vanunu is prevented by an order of the Ministry of the Interior from leaving the country for at least one year, from associating with foreigners, severely limited in his movements and under the constant surveillance of the security establishment. His lawyers from the Association for Civil Rights in Israel are presenting a challenge to these restrictions to the High Court. The court hearing has already been delayed from June 28 to July 11 by the Israeli authorities. Since his release in April Vanunu has been asked many times if he has any regrets and he has none. He is a man of considerable courage and strong moral principles who felt when confronted with the reality of the nuclear weapons program at Dimona that he had no choice but to reveal Israel 's nuclear secrets, to be, in his words “ the spy of the people .” Yes, you,. he wrote to himself and the world in “ I'm Your Spy” You are the secret agent of the people. You are the eyes of the nation. Agent-spy, tell us what you've seen. Tell us what the insiders, the clever ones, have hidden from us. Without you, there is only the precipice. Only catastrophe . I have no choice. I'm a little man, a citizen, one of the people, but I'll do what I have to. I've heard the voice of my conscience and there is nowhere to hide. I met the “little man” a few weeks ago in the courtyard outside St George's Cathedral in Palestinian East Jerusalem . Vanunu, a devout Christian, has been receiving sanctuary at St.George's since his release from prison. I was immediately struck by his calm, his serenity and gentleness. Eighteen years of prison may have etched some lines around his startlingly green eyes but they did not break the man. He endured eleven years in solitary confinement and the first two with the electric light constantly on. His only visits (infrequent) were from family members, especially from his brother Meir, his strongest and most devoted advocate. . His main company was the BBC radio and there were of course, thousands of letters from human rights supporters and anti-nuclear activists around the world. For a period of several years he refused to respond to the correspondence because of Israeli censorship of what he wrote. How did he survive? Through a combination of profound faith, courage, utmost and creative endurance. Vanunu had converted from Judaism to Christianity in Australia before making his disclosures about Dimona to the Sunday Times and before being kidnapped by the Mossad in Rome . How does he feel about Judaism? It is not the religion for him. He sees Christianity as a most progressive religion that is evolving with changing times. How does he feel about Israel ? He rejects the concept of the Jewish state on the grounds that it is inherently exclusivist and anti-democratic. Israeli should be a democratic state for all citizens. Jerusalem should be an international zone. He has no further interest in living in Israel , in a country which rejects him as a traitor. Indeed there have been threats against his life. Walking through the streets of Palestinian East Jerusalem he has been harassed by not only the Israeli Occupation Forces but also by Jewish settlers living in the neighbourhood. He deserves and needs political asylum in order to have the right to live the life he has missed for 18 years, a normal life in a house with a family, working for peace and against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The apparent justification for the restriction against his leaving the state of Israel is that he may still harbor nuclear “secrets” which could harm Israel 's security. In his order imposing the restrictions on Vanunu Interior Minister Avraham Poraz stated that he “was convinced that a real risk exists that in the event that Mordechai Vanunu , ID No. 06841193 leaves the country {….} that state security is liable to be damaged”. This is blatantly nonsense. Vanunu told everything he knew twenty years ago, his information is clearly out of date in a world where there has, sadly, been such rapid development and proliferation of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. He was also a technician “clerk, driver, mechanic” rather than a nuclear scientist. The clerk driver technician mechanic looked up, he wrote,  He stepped back and saw — what a monster. Can't believe it. Rubbed his eyes and — yes, it's there all right. I'm all right. I do see the monster. I'm part of the system. I signed this form. Only now I am reading the rest of it. This bolt is part of a bomb. This bolt is me. He left Israel with 60 photographs of Dimona and traveled for several months across Asia , to Australia . All the time and all the way he thought about the burden in his backpack, the secrets in his backpack, and he knew that he would risk his life by exposing them. He has no more secrets or any desire to harm the state of Israel . I mentioned not only the strength but creativity of his endurance. While in prison he played loud German opera and read the Bible to irritate the listeners. He said that only by engaging in return psychological warfare could he survive the isolation. After almost twenty years in prison many things are new to Mordechai Vanunu and sometimes I joked with him as he reminds me a bit of a kid in a candy shop. He is fascinated by computers and spends hours on his laptop. He is horrified by nachos (unhealthy greasy food) and loves red wine. He likes to chew gum. In prison he had to make a few pieces last for weeks. So he would take his gum out for a while and then resume chewing it again. Old habits die hard. After lunch with him one day I noticed he had left a small piece of gum arranged neatly on its paper for another time. I say old habits die hard but why wouldn't they after 18 years and a complete lack of assurance of personal security and a future life in freedom? Walking down Salah al-Din, the main drag of East Jerusalem , Vanunu is hailed by Palestinians who invite him to stop for coffee. But later, in front of the Israeli Post Office at the bottom of Salah al- Din Israeli Border Guards summon him and radio in ID No. 06841193 to some central command. A small crowd of Palestinians gather in the bustling street which grows momentarily quiet. Then the Palestinians are angry and start to argue with the Border Guards asking why he has been stopped. Vanunu is stoic as usual. After several tense minutes the Border Guards receive the OK to release No.06841193 (but for how long?) and we walk away quietly into the dusk. He is still not free No. 06841193.

Edward Said: A Contrapuntal Reading

Edward Said: A Contrapuntal Reading
By Mahmoud Darwish New York / November/ Fifth Avenue
The sun a plate of shredded metal I asked myself, estranged in the shadow: Is it Babel or Sodom ? *** There, on the doorstep of an electric abyss, high as the sky, I met Edward, thirty years ago, time was less wild then... We both said: If the past is only an experience, make of the future a meaning and a vision. Let us go, Let us go into tomorrow trusting the candor of imagination and the miracle of grass/
I don't recall going together to the cinema in the evening. Still I heard Ancient Indians calling: Trust neither horse, nor modernity *** No. Victims do not ask their executioner: Am I you? Had my sword been bigger than my rose, would you have asked if I would have acted like you? *** A question like that entices the curiosity of a novelist, sitting in a glass office, overlooking lilies in the garden, where the hand of a hypothesis is as clear as the conscience of a novelist set to settle accounts with human instinct... There is no tomorrow in yesterday, so let us advance/ *** Advancing could be a bridge leading back to Barbarism.../ *** New York . Edward wakes up to a lazy dawn. He plays Mozart. Runs round the university's tennis court. Thinks of the journey of ideas across borders, and over barriers. He reads the New York Times . Writes out his furious comments. Curses an Orientalist guiding the General to the weak point inside the heart of an Oriental woman. He showers. Chooses his elegant suit. Drinks his white coffee. Shouts at the dawn: Do not loiter. *** On wind he walks, and in wind he knows himself. There is no ceiling for the wind, no home for the wind. Wind is the compass of the stranger's North. He says: I am from there, I am from here, but I am neither there nor here. I have two names which meet and part... I have two languages, but I have long forgotten which is the language of my dreams. I have an English language, for writing, with yielding phrases, and a language in which Heaven and Jerusalem converse, with a silver cadence, but it does not yield to my imagination. *** What about identity? I asked. He said: It's self-defence... Identity is the child of birth, but at the end, it's self-invention, and not an inheritance of the past. I am multiple... Within me an ever new exterior. And I belong to the question of the victim. Were I not from there, I would have trained my heart to nurture there deers of metaphor... So carry your homeland wherever you go, and be a narcissist if need be/ The outside world is exile, exile is the world inside. And what are you between the two? *** Myself, I do not know so that I shall not lose it. I am what I am. I am my other, a duality gaining resonance in between speech and gesture. Were I to write poetry I would have said: I am two in one, like the wings of a swallow , content with bringing good omen when spring is late. *** He loves a country and he leaves. [Is the impossible far off?] He loves leaving to things unknown. By traveling freely across cultures those in search of the human essence may find a space for all to sit... Here a margin advances. Or a centre retreats. Where East is not strictly east, and West is not strictly west, where identity is open onto plurality, not a fort or a trench/ *** Metonymy was sleeping on the river's bank; had it not been for the pollution it could have embraced the other bank. *** - Have you written any novels? ï I tried... I tried to retrieve my image from mirrors of distant women. But they scampered off into their guarded night. Saying: Our world is independent of any text. A man cannot write a woman who is both enigma and dream. A woman cannot write a man who is both symbol and star. There are no two loves alike. No two nights alike. So let us enumerate men's qualities and laugh. - And what did you do? ï I laughed at my nonsense and threw the novel into the wastepaper basket/ *** The intellectual harnesses what the novelist can tell and the philosopher interprets the bard's roses/ *** He loves a country and he leaves: I am what I am and shall be. I shall choose my place by myself, and choose my exile. My exile, the backdrop to an epic scene. I defend the poet's need for memories and tomorrow, I defend country and exile in tree-clad birds, and a moon, generous enough to allow the writing of a love poem; I defend an idea shattered by the frailty of its partisans and defend a country hijacked by myths/ *** - Will you be able to return to anything? ï My ahead pulls what's behind and hastens... There is no time left in my watch for me to scribble lines on the sand. I can, however, visit yesterday as strangers do when they listen on a sad evening to a Pastorale: "A girl by the spring filling her jar "With clouds' tears, "Weeping and laughing as a bee "Stings her heart... "Is it love that makes the water ache "Or some sickness in the mist..." [until the end of the song]. *** - So, nostalgia can hit you? ï Nostalgia for a higher, more distant tomorrow, far more distant. My dream leads my steps. And my vision places my dream on my knees like a pet cat. It's the imaginary real, the child of will: We can change the inevitability of the abyss. *** - And nostalgia for yesterday? ï A sentiment not fit for an intellectual, unless it is used to spell out the stranger's fervour for that which negates him. My nostalgia is a struggle over a present which has tomorrow by the balls. *** - Did you not sneak into yesterday when you went to that house, your house in Talbiya, in Jerusalem ? ï I prepared myself to sleep in my mother's bed, like a child who's scared of his father. I tried to recall my birth, and to watch the Milky Way from the roof of my old house. I tried to stroke the skin of absence and the smell of summer in the garden's jasmine. But the hyena that is truth drove me away from a thief-like nostalgia. - Were you afraid? What frightened you? ï I could not meet loss face to face. I stood by the door like a beggar. How could I ask permission from strangers sleeping in my own bed... Ask them if I could visit myself for five minutes? Should I bow in respect to the residents of my childish dream? Would they ask: Who is that prying foreign visitor? And how could I talk about war and peace among the victims and the victims' victims, without additions, without an interjection? And would they tell me: There is no place for two dreams in one bedroom? *** It is neither me nor him who asks; it is a reader asking: What can poetry say in a time of catastrophe? *** Blood and blood, blood in your country, in my name and in yours, in the almond flower, in the banana skin, in the baby's milk, in light and shadow, in the grain of wheat, in salt/ *** Adept snipers, hitting their target with maximum proficiency. Blood and blood and blood. This land is smaller than the blood of its children standing on the threshold of doomsday like sacrificial offerings. Is this land truly blessed, or is it baptised in blood and blood and blood which neither prayer, nor sand can dry. There is not enough justice in the Sacred Book to make martyrs rejoice in their freedom to walk on cloud. Blood in daylight, blood in darkness. Blood in speech. *** He says: The poem could host loss, a thread of light shining at the heart of a guitar; or a Christ on a horse pierced through with beautiful metaphors. For the aesthetic is but the presence of the real in form/ In a world without a sky, the earth becomes an abyss. The poem, a consolation, an attribute of the wind, southern or northern. Do not describe what the camera can see of your wounds. And scream that you may hear yourself, and scream that you may know you're still alive, and alive, and that life on this earth is possible. Invent a hope for speech, invent a direction, a mirage to extend hope. And sing, for the aesthetic is freedom/ *** I say: The life which cannot be defined except by death is not a life. *** He says: We shall live. So let us be masters of words which make their readers immortal -- as your friend Ritsos said. *** He also said: If I die before you, my will is the impossible. I asked: Is the impossible far off? He said: A generation away. I asked: And if I die before you? He said: I shall pay my condolences to Mount Galilee , and write, "The aesthetic is to reach poise." And now, don't forget: If I die before you, my will is the impossible. *** When I last visited him in New Sodom, in the year Two Thousand and Two, he was battling off the war of Sodom on the people of Babel ... and cancer. He was like the last epic hero defending the right of Troy to share the narrative. *** An eagle soaring higher and higher bidding farewell to his height, for dwelling on Olympus and over heights is tiresome. *** Farewell, farewell poetry of pain. Translated by Mona Anis http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2004/710/cu4.htm

Sharon's Latest dilemma

Sharon's Latest dilemma
A Poem - Unknown sent to my email
October 2, 2004
Sharon 's latest dilemma: How to extricate himself  from Gaza  and still be called "Victory" ? Failing that impossible feat he would settle for "Honorable Retreat" ! If the first is an impossibility..then the latter alternative is a mockery.. Deep inside the psyche of IDF generals there is some myth called: "Bringing Palestinians to their knees..." No need to ask how it came to being? It is a fact that keeps surfacing... Given the formidable arsenal of the latest US weaponry in Israel that "illusion" becomes very tempting & urging to say the least ... Poor and starving Palestinians Have come to the conclusion  that no matter what the price will be.. Sharon & IDF will leave Gaza with their tail between their feet... No doubt this is taking heavy toll among Palestinian civilians.. Saying otherwise would be ignoring facts or putting one's head in the sand... For the Palestinians it is a historic moment to inflict defeat on Sharon & IDF... It may sound rather "suicidal" ..but military history is full of such heroic stands .. Given the "size" of the Israeli military contingent in Gaza ..not to forget the settlements...   it is always possible for Intifada brave highly motivated fighters to have a good strike...  that will defeat all attempts by Sharon at declaring the withdrawal as a "Victory".. Palestinians are now re-drafting all known military manuals.  Soon their achievements will be taught at military academies. The truth of the matter said in few words: Palestinians are fighting for their beloved fatherland Israelis are currently sending their financial assets out...

Listen Up Rise Up

Listen Up Rise Up By Yahya Abdul Rahman - Sept 29, 2004 http://www.montrealmuslimnews.net/listenup.htm Yo , listen up............. Now we have a bunch of fat-cats Wanting to kill all the poor blacks Possessing weapons of mass destruction Lecturing the world with their pontifical instructions ******** Poverty rampant everywhere No one around seems to care ******** Give the people a voice Give the people a choice ******** War criminals getting a Noble prize Poor people trying to get nutrition on left over curly fries ******** We don't want your racist pity Let's get down to the nitty gritty ******** WE WANT JOBS! ******** We wanna feed our families Have a little bit of security ******** Breathe a little clean air Does anyone reading this even care? ******** They talk about the horrors of terrorism How about the horrors brought about by capitalism? ******** Unfair wealth distribution Meaningless pieces of paper called a constitution ******** Entire nations being ethnically cleansed Kabala reading divas seeing the world through a rose coloured lens ******** We're tired of the hypocrisy We want real grassroots democracy ******** Go ahead and plant you injustice seeds Go ahead and commit your dirty deeds ******** We'd rather die on our feet than live on our knees We want a good life and not collectively bleed ******** You might not like the colour of our face You might not like the content of our faith ******** Well tough We've had enough ******** Go ahead and fabricate history Go ahead and spread your misery ******** If you squeeze a cat you're gonna get scratched If you oppress us we're gonna fight back ******** We're not the ones with guns in our hands We're not the ones who drew artificial lines in the sand ******** A nation has nothing to do with geography A nation is all about identity ******** We know who we are, but do you know what you have become? Treating the rest of the world like a piece of scum ******** Just remember that you reap what you sow And we will rise up and won't take it anymor

When...

When...
by Yahya Abdul Rahman - Sept 27,2004 http://www.montrealmuslimnews.net/when.htm
When Hitler is praised and peace is defamed When villages are levelled and innocents maimed When the masses are used like pawns in some game When countless injustices are done in their names
When invoking some faith innocents die When lies become truth and truth becomes lies When history is distorted to justify killing When the cemeteries are continually filling When fact becomes fiction and fiction becomes fact The fruits of it all is the rape of Gujarat .

I'm trapped inside my own despair suffocated by this hopeless war; on Iraq occupation

I'm trapped inside my own despair suffocated by this hopeless war; on Iraq occupation
And soon we will exercise our right of return, on Palestinian right of return Don't Forget and Simona are two poems by Yahya Abdul Rahman and Ehab Lotayef
Don't Forget by Yahya Abdul Rahman
Don't forget Qibya Don't forget Jenin Don't forget Sabra / Shatila Or the murder of Shiekh Yassin It's been said by some he's a man of peace But in fact the "Bulldozer" is a destructive beast He killed our people He robbed our lands And history testifies he has blood on his hands We will not forget In our memories these facts will burn And soon we will exercise our right of return by Yahya Abdul Rahman - Sept 17, 2004 Simona * By: Ehab Lotayef You stretch your hand to a weeping kid to save him from the burning pit I stretch my hand to help you out I see you not I reach you not I'm trapped inside my own despair suffocated by this hopeless war You long for peace I long for peace We pray for a world that kills no more -- Ehab Lotayef Montreal , September 17, 2004 *Praying for the safety of both Simonas and their coworkers in Iraq .

When is a Fig tree really an Olive Tree?

When is a Fig tree really an Olive Tree?
By Mike Odetalla www.hanini.org http://www.palestineremembered.com/Jerusalem/Lifta/index.html
Our situation as Palestinians in negotiating with the Israeli governments on borders and other items brings to mind this tale told to me by my grandfather (God bless his soul) when I was a child...
This tale concerned 2 neighboring Palestinian villages in the late 1800's (yes there was Palestinians back then). These 2 villages had a border dispute that had been ongoing for a while. The names of these 2 villages were Lifta (which was ethnically cleansed in 1948) and Beit Iksa which remains as part of the occupied West Bank (since 1975, Beit Iksa has lost nearly 80% of its land to Israeli settlements). These 2 villages were located in the Jerusalem district, as was my own village of Beit Hanina . All three villages had a common border with each other. The dispute concerned a small plot of land on top of the hill that served as their border. For the longest time the people of Lifta claimed that their village border ended just past an old olive tree and thus, the land belonged to a family from their village. The people of Beit Iksa on the other hand claimed that the village limits were just past an old fig tree, and that the land belonged to a family from their village!  The difference between them was a mere 50 meters. If the border was drawn according to the people of Lifta who used the olive tree as the marker, then Lifta would get the extra 50 meters. If the border was drawn according to the people of Beit Iksa, who used the fig tree as the marker, then they would gain the 50 meters. This dispute simmered for years, until one day the people of Beit Iksa seized a sheep that they claimed strayed in to their village boundary to graze. The village elders from both villages were summoned to sit with a “third party” to try to resolve this dispute once and for all. The third party's decision, no matter what it may be, would be accepted as final and binding on all sides. This was the way that most disputes were handled in the rural areas of Palestine .

This To I will Remember

This To I will Remember
This too, I will remember By Mike Odetalla
This too, I will remember... My people huddled in darkness Frightened, hungry, and thirsty
Caged like animals... This too, I will remember... The humiliation and sadness Cries of the children in the air The death hopelessness and despair This too, I will remember... Those that closed their eyes Covered their ears And silenced their voices Oblivious of our suffering and tears This too, I will remember... The ones that cared Spoke out and shared In our suffering with others We will remember them as our brothers... All of this I will remember... Be it kindness I will not forget Kindness in return you will get... For those that heaped on us suffering and death We will remember this until our last dying breath... All of this we will always remember... Mike Odetalla 4-2002

Four More Years in a Bush Whacked Palestine ?

Four More Years in a Bush Whacked Palestine ?
By Genevieve Cora Fraser
Four more years Under a Bush Sponsored And funded Peace negotiation Promises more Israeli Peace barbs Experimental rockets Gasses, bullets Exploding Palestinians Ripped to shreds By Israeli flachette Warhead missiles Over three score Times fifty killed Tens of thousands Wounded over Twenty eight Thousand Made Homeless Farmlands Ground to dust In a wasteland Existence Bleaker than A moonscape Waiting For a rocket Honeymoon Ride to the next World Dismembered Into three parts Gaza is truncated By troops amassed For a dawn raid North and South School children Await execution Of the next atrocity Five weeks to Register to vote In Palestinian Elections may Not be sufficient Time with Palestine Closed for a month Due to Israeli Atonement For transgressions Amassed near the base Of their conscience But unable to penetrate Israeli Foreign Minister Shalom means Peace Promises to rid Palestine (But never say Goodbye) Of its President And Prime Minister In advance Of the election Arafat’s days Are coming To a close In advance Of Israel’s Planned Extinction Of Palestine This could happen Under four more Years of AIPAC Likud Zionist American Rule Want to see?

A song to my brother

Song to my Brother
Tanya C. Hsu   2002
Do you remember When we first played together? When you first came to our land? We welcomed you We lived in peace.
We played together   We grew up together   We tilled the soil and shared our food.   We sang our songs.   Three thousand years we lived not as neighbours   But as brothers who sang to a different tune.   And then your foreign cousin came to stay.   He bullied your friends   He demanded our land.   He said he was staying because he had been picked on at home.   So he picked on us.   Then he said that he must be on our land because God told him it was so.   I told him that God spoke to me too   But this was news to me - please explain.   Your cousin said it was not necessary to tell me more   Because he was Chosen   And that was enough.   So I gently asked him to please leave now   Because I am at peace with my God and do not want to debate you   Or invite you back to force your God on me.   He said no. I am Chosen and that is that.   Please go now, I replied, and stay with your cousins.   There aren't many left, he replied, so what does it matter?   Politely I begged of him, please leave my land.   I think I will stay forever, he said,   They don't want me anywhere else.   I wonder why, I thought. I extended my hand and I gave him my bread.   He took it and kicked sand in my face.   I asked you, my lifelong friend, why your cousin was behaving so badly   No one likes him, you explained.   He is staying here now. Will he live with you, was my question to you,   And you said that you hoped not, because your God is loving   Your cousin is demanding.   He is political.   He inflicts pain.   Your cousin took my bread and hurt me, I said.   He will be back for more.   But I did not ask him.   Ah, you told me, but he thinks he has the Right of Return.   He can bring his brothers and take your bread at will.   And your land.   And your crops.   And your water.   Be careful.   The grey cloud above became heavy and black   And lightning struck down   And marked a line in the sand   Between you, my lifelong friend, and me.   Your cousin laughed in the distance.   He came back.   And he took my land, my crops, and my water.   Then he took my home.   And then he tried to take my dignity.   He demanded I leave   Because he was growing fatter and needed more room   To grow.   I had nowhere to go.   I did not want to live with my aunts and uncles   As they liked different songs and ate different foods   Their flowers were of a different perfume   And they had their own children. I asked the Wise Men and Elders to decide.   They told me to be a good son, and share.   God will reward.   So I went back   To the big foreign boy   Asked for my land back   And said we should share the crops, the water, the food. But he kicked me again   And laughed   And curled his angry fist in to a ball   And pushed it in to my face.   So I picked up a stick.   When I was down, he kicked me.   So I picked up a stone.   He ran away.   Peace?   The next day he returned with a gun   So I picked up a rock.   He ran away.   Peace?   Then he returned with his friends   Who carried missiles upon their shoulders.   So I found a gun.   They ran away in tears and cried to their Elders, their aunts, their  uncles.   He said that I hated him and told him to fall in to the sea.   I went to my Elders and said   Why does he hate me?   Why does he think I want him to drown in the sea?   I shared my bread with him   I just want him to move away from my house.   The Elders talked and agreed that   The big foreign boy must take his foot   Off my land now   And they left. But your cousin did not.   He put both feet on my land instead   And pointed to the sky.   He grinned as his new toy circled above   The jet with the bomb hanging low   Looking for me.   I cannot move.   If I move my foot away from this land   I will lose my home. I will lose the breath of my ancestors   Who worked the soil with their hands   Their sweat   Their tears   Their joy   Their bones   Their souls.   And now I am surrounded by your cousin and his friends   Who are angry and hungry   Tanks, rifles and jets   Shadow the olive trees.   So I put down the stick.   I put down the stone.   I put down the rock.   I rest the gun. But I will not move my feet from my soil.