Mahmoud and Malik in Karbala

I am crushed under the hooves of an Israeli tank;
Shot from afar for throwing a stone.
I am every child who dies needlessly;
Riddled with bullets and slain
going to school.

I am dust under a bunker buster,
A shadow of me lies where the bombs fell.
I lie in blood at the side of a checkpoint,
As my mother and I depart
My father cries, alone.

Tonight they came again, and
I was born with a different name.
My parents bereft
I was briefly a soldier
And I have won.
My name is recorded everywhere
And each year you weep.

I am Qasim of the Intifada
And today my name is
Mahmoud Abou Samra
And I am Malik Shat.

Our mothers’ tears are of pain
and also pride and
we join the battlefield
in some way, everyday
unbeknown to you who cry.

You do not - dare not, care not? –
Join me,
So at least learn my name:
I am Farish Oudeh, and Mohammed Al-Durra
I am Iyman Hams.
I am Yahya Hayek and
Haya and Lama Hamdan.

Remember me and cry tears of sorrow
And rejoice
For I died in Karbala today.

I am Qasim of the Intifada,
Endlessly crushed under the hooves of Yazid’s army
So you will be free.
All the Qasims have liberated you
And yet,
You still do not see.

The love of Ali Akbar

It is simple
When you are Ali Akbar.
No-one need ask you
And you require no
Clarification.

Today is Ashura
And you will fight,
And today you die,
Except that it is not death,
But the infinite realms of bliss
Wherein you are rewarded
With nearness to Him.

You do not seek answers,
For you already knew
Because you are
the closest
in manners and looks
To the most beloved to Him.

You go to battle quietly,
In so doing
you break
Your father’s back –
Yet he is, he must be
So proud
Ali Akbar,
Of you in Karbala,
And Gaza, and Sarajevo
Grozny, Fao and all
The places you are seen.

Quietly leaving,
Valiantly fighting,
To defeat forever
The ignominious
Zaalimeen.

You ask nothing,
But one question needs to be
Asked to all those who say
They care,
Who weep,
And name their sons
In the vanity
of their tears.

If you really love
Ali Akbar,
When are you leaving?

Iris Murdoch

How deliciously fascinating – so many questions, can anyone answer them? I heard the most interesting piece on the Radio 4 Today programme yesterday morning (http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8467000/8467961.stm) outlining the late Irish Murdoch’s political views. Murdoch – a celebrated 20th century writer and poet, was from her school days a committed Communist as were it appears many of the later great and (perhaps not so) good, including figures who were simultaneously members of the Communist Party, fascists groups, the Labour and Conservative parties and so on.

Can it really be that, as Murdoch’s biographer describes, the writer was, at her school ‘trained to think of Stalin as a benevolent grandmother figure…’ She then went to Oxford University and immediately joined the Communist Party. Despite defections from the CP at the outset of the Second World War, over the issue of the pact between Hitler and Stalin, Murdoch stayed loyal.

Radicalised at school? Joining radical student societies at University? Why is this woman remembered so fondly? Does it mean that radical politics are okay in hindsight, however dubious some may be? Indeed, come to think of it, despite suffering various humiliations from the US establishment in blocking her entering the country for a while, and of course personal traumas related to her political beliefs, she managed to live out a long life replete with literary accomplishment. Not exactly control orders, detention without charge and rendition is it?

A few questions (of many that I have)… Why are contemporary radicals treated so drastically differently? Is it a class issue, ethnicity, religion? Or was Stalin somehow more of a benevolent granny than say Osama bin Laden, who let’s face it, even if all the things they say about him are true will never have the death toll attributed to him as has been attributed to Stalin.

Will history view the staunch and loyal supporters of the Taliban, Osama bin Laden or any number of so-called Islamists be viewed so kindly in 10, 20 or a hundred years time?

In the knowledge of Hur.

There will be no water. But you know that. There will be no mercy. But you knew that too and that they will show wanton cruelty to you and Asghar, Sukaina or Roqayyah. The others too.

Did you know though about Hur? Did your father tell you that from the depth of
Evil, a heart would change and his shame - in days, not even that, but hours - would and did and can change to never ending loyalty?

Today he says, “No water.”
Tomorrow the pain of thirst begins,
But you are sated,
And it is he
Who finds himself thirsty
Desperate and in despair
As he drinks from Furat
A poison that cannot nourish
Or sustain life.
Instead maybe he is made aware of
The death he is already dying.

And on his knees he falls in front of you hopeless and contrite, unforgiven without your say – except that you already said it. And you smile. Not for his humiliation or his pain, or the humbling of your enemy - their deaths in Karbala, today and today, and today, are not succour for the valiant true.

You smile because you know Hur. And you can see glory upon glory in his hands, and his happiness – eternal - in closeness to Him, because He it is who rushes towards those that take just one step towards Him. And though we cry, we weep, ashamed and contrite, so we think, through your tears and pain - you are, you all are, happy in the knowledge of Hur.

No Words.

What is there left to say,
when you have been to
Sayyeda Zainab?

Every mother of Grozny,
The sisters and mothers of Srebrenica,
Afghanistan,
even Iraq in all its bloody
ridicule,
know what you are Zainab.
They know what is Zainab.

I saw your follower in Zaria,
a photo of a coffin,
Another son who died for truth.
He died in Kaduna for
Palestine,
He is another of the 1400
years of Karbala's martyrs.
And his mother knows,
Dear Lady Zainab,
That there is nothing left to say
that hasn't already been said.

The grief that crushes into silence
Cannot be obeyed,
And so,
No matter it is just repetition,
No matter that everyone
already knows,
We say together again, and
again,
The truth that everyone
knows if they but dare:
Ya Hussain. Ya Hussain.
Ya Hussain.

I saw you, Zainab

I saw you Zainab, wizened and grey
Your maybe 60 years all of a sudden upon you
As corpses and maimed flowed in front of you
Your eyes beholden to bloody streets
Makeshift stretchers, blocked and broken ambulances, burnt out
bombed.
And in your anguished cry you hit
yourself again and again
As if to say, though you did not need to
Today is Ashura and this is Gaza.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rGOWkWYqJ4

Bismillah...

Too much has been happening these last few days. At least too much to keep me from my pen any longer, as has been the case for some time now. Maybe I just realised I've been silent too long.

In this week I received a leaflet from the BNP, and then one from New Labour for the European elections. I was hard pressed to see the difference. Both celebrate the iconic 'white' family on their cover. Obviously the BNP would do that, even having the audacity or ability however you see it, of sending leaflets to households in the country's most ethincially diverse borough. Believe me it was at once strange, funny and nauseating to read it, standing as I was in a street where so many nationalities are represented, not as newcomers (only the Hungarian family next door and the two English boys across the road fall into that category), but of Australians, and Barzilians, Portuguese, Gujerati, Pashtoon, Punjabi, Russian, Somalian, Nigerian, Tamil, Iranian, Iraqi, the list is endless and doesn't include thos emixed up homes like my own that managed (I pray without any hypocrisy) to get over the 'race' thing.

Whilst the BNP's leaflet was doubtless generic, New Labour's carried some local heading on it. Where would this family be in Brent? I would ask my New Labour MP, but as he has never spent a night in the borough since winning the seat in 1997 (well maybe a few nights...), I think he would be genuinely flumaxed.

Maybe I should have asked some of the Milwall supporters who graced the streets of Wembley this weekend, which I drove through to give my step-son a lift to a friend's. Between the car and his destination (via mounds of police horse poo and rubbish kindly deposited by said fans) he was growled, yelled and sworn at about three times. He was surprised to say the least and a bit confused. I was strangely unnostalgic for my youth at that moment when sometimes almost everyday was like having Milwall fans in your school (I grew up in North, north London, somewhere near Amy Winehouse. Having found out where she grew up, I now understand where some of her problems might have come from).

Then of course there was Sri Lanka... More on that when I have gotten my thoughts together some more.