I Imagine June Jordan welcomed Khaliifah Marcellus Williams with a Warm Embrace
June Jordan wrote Apologies to All the People in Lebanon and 4.2 decades later there are three thousand reasons it remains necessary.
A Martyr is not a Logo by Neema G. SiphoneJune Jordan wrote Apologies to All the People in Lebanon and 4.2 decades later there are three thousand reasons it remains necessary. A man on the radio in Beirut said he donated his eye because if his countrymen have been blinded what is there to see; Khaliifah gave thanks to Allah as the world wept Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un– Indeed, we belong to Allah, and indeed, to Him we return. June Jordan wrote apologizing to all the people in Lebanon and from heaven she is still apologizing. I imagine she welcomed Khaliifah with a warm embrace The two cloaked in the kind of integrity that the afterlife was made to reward An integrity undeterred A martyr is not a logo and certainly not an excuse. I have pitied myself for far less– Misunderstanding displacement discontent and its foolishness– Microcosms of injustice I know to be sinister and that now feel silly all the same Who am I to beckon death Reading love poems from a ghost
Apologies to All the People in Lebanon by June Jordan (1982)
I didn’t know and nobody told me and what
could I do or say, anyway?
They said you shot the London Ambassador
and when that wasn’t true
they said so
what
They said you shelled their northern villages
and when U.N. forces reported that was not true
because your side of the cease-fire was holding
since more than a year before
they said so
what
They said they wanted simply to carve
a 25 mile buffer zone and then
they ravaged your
water supplies your electricity your
hospitals your schools your highways and byways all
the way north to Beirut because they said this
was their quest for peace
They blew up your homes and demolished the grocery
stores and blocked the Red Cross and took away doctors
to jail and they cluster-bombed girls and boys
whose bodies
swelled purple and black into twice the original size
and tore the buttocks from a four month old baby
and then
they said this was brilliant
military accomplishment and this was done
they said in the name of self-defense they said
that is the noblest concept
of mankind isn’t that obvious?
They said something about never again and then
they made close to one million human beings homeless
in less than three weeks and they killed or maimed
40,000 of your men and your women and your children
But I didn’t know and nobody told me and what
could I do or say, anyway?
They said they were victims. They said you were
Arabs.
They called your apartments and gardens guerrilla
strongholds.
They called the screaming devastation
that they created the rubble.
Then they told you to leave, didn’t they?
Didn’t you read the leaflets that they dropped
from their hotshot fighter jets?
They told you to go.
One hundred and thirty-five thousand
Palestinians in Beirut and why
didn’t you take the hint?
Go!
There was the Mediterranean: You
could walk into the water and stay
there.
What was the problem?
I didn’t know and nobody told me and what
could I do or say, anyway?
Yes, I did know it was the money I earned as a poet that
paid
for the bombs and the planes and the tanks
that they used to massacre your family
But I am not an evil person
The people of my country aren’t so bad
You can expect but so much
from those of us who have to pay taxes and watch
American TV
You see my point;
I’m sorry.
I really am sorry.
Above Audio: A Faithful Spirit by Polyphonic Music Library
Inna Lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un
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Very powerful. Thank you for sharing
So poignant and unsettling, thank you