MESSAGE FROM GUANTANAMO
Book: Poems from Guantanamo The
Detainees Speak
Editor: Marc Falkoff
Publisher:
University of Iowa Press
Pages: 72
Year: 2007
ISBN-10: 1-58729-606-3
This recently released thin volume of poems written by the
detainees at the U.S. detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba is a startling reminder of two things in our so called scientifically and culturally sophisticated modern world: firstly how a legal system can be abused to strip human beings of their life and dignity and secondly where there is so much talk of human rights, racial equality and justice on the international scene, it is still possible to brand people as terrorists and condemn them to indefinite exile .What do these poems tell us and what are they about? Do they just express the agony of unjust confinement and homesickness in exile? Why were these poems written even in the absence of paper and pen, on the prison walls, on dinner trays, Styrofoam cups, with pebbles and even toothpaste inspite of the fact that they ultimately landed in the waste paper bins?
According to Marc Falkoff for many of these detainees who are in the sixth year of confinement, poetry is a means of survival and for maintaining their sanity. The poems have also been seen in the larger context of the traditions of Arabic poetry. However the sole purpose of the writers as can be seen from the poems themselves appears to be an ex-pression of their flawless faith in God and as an appeal for justice.
Not a single word or line of the poems expresses pity or self defeat.
The words and ex-pressions in the poems go far beyond the ex-pression of human agony. Infact they cross the bounds of expressing agony and suffering and reveal the firmness and steadfastness of spirit of those who have surrendered themselves to God.
Many have called these poems a work of art, but they hardly qualify as works of art that artists in various historical climes created in times of peace and prosperity.
They are rather the blood soaked signature of the oppressed, as they die out bravely hoping and crying for justice.
As is evident from many of the poems they have stubbornly resisted giving up hope and have shown in deepest turmoil and crises that they are the true believers in God.
:
’I shall not complain to anyone or expect grace from anyone
other than god, so help me God.’
These lines have been written by Abdulaziz once a graduate from Riyadh. One wonders whether the writer of these lines could be a hardened killer. Do these lines not resemble the cries of
innocent Job in the Bible?
The following lines by Abdul Thani Faris Al Anazi a humanitarian aid worker, a double amputee who lost both legs in a U.S. bombing raid express integrity and pride in being true to his soul and God:
I have no fellows but the Truth.
They told me to confess, but I am guiltless;
My deeds are all honorable and need no apology.
They tempted me to turn away from the lofty summit of integrity,
To exchange this cage for a pleasant life.
By God if they were to bind my body in chains,
If all Arabs were to sell their faith, I would not sell mine
The next lines which were penned by the Pakistani poet Shaikh Abdurrahim Muslim Dost on a cup express the effect of the horrors of Guantanamo Bay on a sensitive soul:
What kind of spring is this,
Where there are no flowers and
The air is filled with a miserable smell
. . .
Eid has come, but my father has not.
He is not come from Cuba
I am eating the bread of Eid with tears
I have nothing
Othman Abdulraheem Mohammad who used to teach the Quran in Afghanistan and who has faced a number of affronts to his religion in Guantanamo Bay writes thus:
Do not weigh the death of a man as a sign of defeat.
The only shame is in betraying your ideals
And failing to stand by your beliefs
The words of Osama Abu Kabir a Jordanian truck driver captured for wearing a Casio digital watch, a brand supposedly favored by members of Al Qaeda are symbolic of the cry of innocence and despair:
But do you hear me oh Judge, do you hear me at all?
We are innocent,here, we’ve committed no crime.
Set me free, set us free, if anywhere still
Justice and compassion remain in this world!
The world mourns the killing of Jews in the German concentration camps but these poems testify to suffering and torture of humanity that is not less in anyway and is equally innocent and oppressed. While the day came for the release of detainees from the Nazi concentration camps, the Muslim detainees at Guantanamo Bay are still looking on with hope.
How apt are these lines by Abdulaziz:
For after the dark hours of the night,
Pride’s dawn will rise.
. . .
O crisis intensify!
The morning is about to break forth.