Palestinians have HUMAN rights
November 23, 2012Lost for words. I started following this issue in 1980, when I started my activism (volunteer work) as a translator and a member of Amnesty International in the Middle East group. It’s such a nightmare of abuse after abuse after abuse till genocide till never-ending hell on earth.
The other day I wrote a poem in Spanish (I’ll post it as a comment here), and I’ll try to translate it the best I can into English here (I might be editing it some day! Keep changing things) for you unexpected lovely net surfers! I was so surprised when you dropped by. I’m not very good at blogging, though. Anyway, thanks for reading! 🙂 I wrote this poem after watching a beautiful documentary on Palestinian teachers and musicians, who were improvising a school of music and dance. When you can be bombed or crushed in so many other ways, LIFE is NOW.
Stop genocide! War is not inevitable! Religions should be about each person’s spirituality, OUT OF POLITICS NOW! Once we’ve created and understood the notion “human rights” it’s anachronic to keep giving religions the power of deciding over people’s lives and deaths!
Olive skin is gold and green.
Eyes and hair black night rain
and so deep,
like summer in jasmine bushes.
Leaves are ash green underneath
and turn twist to the open sky,
once and again and again
making such an effort, feeling such pain,
and slightly shiny on top,
like a memory
of olive oil and hands, of the time
when we could plant olive trees, see them grow.
Music is banned.
(It’s law in the democracy of genocide)
Young persons do not fear more
than they love — that’s why they sing
in some secret space among the rubble.
Rubble in the back of their eyes,
storming on the olive trees under the sun,
on the yellow ground worn out exhausted
desert-like, rocky, hard, persistent; turned myrrh,
and they learn to play with boxes and string
and they risk their lives because they are dancing.
This is what you will never learn from reading
the chronicles the fathers of all the wars write.
Michelle Ford's Projects for English Learners (EEOOII Madrid, state-run language education, 2010-2013) 
LOS OLIVOS
La piel oliva es dorada y verde.
Los ojos y el pelo negro noche lluvia
y profundos,
como el verano en los jazmines.
Las hojas son verde ceniza por abajo
y se vuelven al cielo abierto,
tantas veces
con tanto esfuerzo, con dolor,
y levemente brillantes
por encima, como un recuerdo
de aceites y manos, de cuando
podían plantar olivos, verlos crecer.
La música está prohibida.
(Es ley en la democracia del genocidio.)
Las personas jóvenes no temen más
que aman, por eso cantan
en un espacio de ruinas secreto.
Sus ojos contienen al fondo cascotes
caídos sobre los olivos bajo el sol
sobre la tierra amarilla gastada agotada,
llana, terrosa, dura, persistente; hecha mirra,
y aprenden a tocar en cajas con cuerdas
y se juegan la vida cuando bailan.
Es lo que nunca cuentan las crónicas que escriben
los padres de todas las guerras.
michelle renyé 1980 – 2012
My friend Tico also wrote one a few years ago.
Hay una escuela, en Ramalah
Con una campana oxidada en la puerta
Que añora los lápices mordidos
Y el olor de las gomas de borrar
Es una extraña escuela, una escuela vacía;
Vacía de risas, vacía de carreras y de nidos de golondrina,
Vacía de juegos, vacía de futuros
Vacía de niños.
Llena tan solo de vacíos.
Hay un encerado limpio de esperanzas
“Fátima pierde una pierna.”
“La pierna es perdida por Fátima.”
“Los niños buenos mueren en la escuela.”
“¿Cómo son los niños?”
“Buenos. Muertos.”
Y cristales en el suelo
Junto a las hojas de una libreta,
En blanco, amarillenta, vacía.
Vacía.
Aletea movida por la brisa
Y por la nostalgia de las ondas expansivas
Aletea en el suelo, como un pájaro moribundo.
En los pupitres, el silencio se arrastra
Volviendo transparentes los lápices de colores
Colándose por las ventanas vacías
E invadiendo el patio vacío.
Vacío.
Donde los agujeros para jugar a las canicas
Están en las paredes.
Y el suelo está manchado,
Las escaleras están manchadas,
Los bancos del patio están manchados,
¡Las paredes están manchadas!
¡Y no es tinta!
¡Y no es pintura!
¡Y no es creyón!
¡Y no es arcilla!
Hay una escuela, en Ramalah
Donde miles de Otros Mundos Posibles
Se estremecen ante el recuerdo de la metralla
Que ya los volvió Imposibles
Para nueve niños palestinos
Cuando el ruido de los helicópteros
Se fundió con el repique histérico
De una campana ahora oxidada.
Tico Pelayo
(Málaga, octubre de 2006)
(Shit, I can’t add the pic – a classroom after a bombing)
Israeli young people who refuse to do their military service because they are fighting in this way against the genocide their government is perpetrating against Palestinians.
http://december18th.org – watch the video!
I wouldn’t have said it better myself, beautiful words.
Hello, Jeff! Thanks! 🙂 But I think you can!:
“While more than 1,000 airstrikes, supplemented by American made drones, have pounded Gaza the narrative stays the same that Israel is acting in self-defense. Hmm, let’s see…Israel is a thermonuclear nation defending itself against a population that has to bring their supplies in through tunnels from Egypt and are not allowed to receive humanitarian aid or export goods to build their economy? The Palestinian fighter firing rockets from his shoulder is the equivalent of bringing a Swiss army knife to a gunfight. In what world is this argument even feasible from “respected” thinkers? But…but…the Palestinians strap bombs to their chests and blow up innocent civilians. Well, dear reader(s?), again context is indispensable for comprehension. It’s a common tactic in wars of attrition to create the conditions economically, politically and psychologically, in which one side oppresses the other side to the point where tension and resentment build like a pot of boiling water to the point where violence seems like the only option. This is exactly what the oppressor wants as it then gives them the previously absent moral justification for the use of force to deal with the matter. When someone reads about a suicide bomber killing people in a crowded bus the reflexive reaction is that the victims have a right to defend themselves by any means necessary. Again, that two sides to every coin adage pops up its annoying head to remind us that the people of Gaza are the ones crowded into an out of sight out of mind concentration camp under conditions that are reminiscent of apartheid South Africa or the segregated South. Maybe the U.N. should just finally start calling Gaza and the West Bank reservations so at least they can build some casinos there.”
And what follows is also worth reading!
By Jeff Nguyen
To read the complete article Jeff wrote, check out this link: http://deconstructingmyths.com/2012/11/17/the-giant-and-the-boy-who-threw-stones/