I understood you… I Understood you…

I understood you… I Understood you… By: Ali Hattar

Translated by: Adib S. Kawar

 One by one we understood you…
At last we understood you…
The mean Zein Al-Abdin shouted
on behalf of all presidents
on behalf of Sharm Al-Sheikh and Doha
on behalf of allegers
of all the miserable
After how many years our misery you understood?
suddenly important we become
in pillage and plundering account
At your end… suddenly you charlatans??...
suddenly in the name of justice… and reform we are ordered…

Immediately?? where were you??...
when we for help we called…
a bitter call after another… we shouted…
A homeland!!!

Just with a touch on the switch…
conditions turned upside down!!!
Are you mad… Are you nuts…
Damn you… with the same wanton
this homeland is ruled?!
 Is such a homeland for fools it belongs?
Stupid we are not.

After how many decades of injustice…
you understood?
That people we are who deserve to exist?
that more than numbers we are…
that weight we have
when pretenders on the scale are weighed??

After how many decades of injustice…
you need to understand?
that captives, bondmaids…
and puppies we are not…

In your women’s brothels…
for your women’s paramours...
Bribes we are not…
at random and generously given
to your women and sons’ wives servants…
No, we are not a punch of porters…
servants and harlotry witnesses
After how many decades of injustice…
do you require to understand?!
Slaves we are not in palaces you built
of the remnants of others you demolished
with disdain… contempt and scorn

After how many decades of hunger you need to be alarmed?
and us abandoned over the sidewalk finishing?
 After how many years of cold you shall be aware…
We, from the flayed skin of our backs became naked
to make leather and cloth to manufacture
your women’s handbags and shoes…
for boasting at your harlot’s races?
with everything you do… you come…
you come so that wretched we be
with your instructions hungry we be
thirsty we are, and poor we shall remain
our children the night they spent
in the open under the sky
they slept

Nonsense is all what you say
Poppycock is simply what you tell us
On us you imposed all sorts of extinction
in your name all sorts of debouch we get
and lowliness, stealth and the noble’s repression
for it was always
your silence was the giving

You all hungered us
No food no water
You all said… and one day…
our villages you’ll demolish…
you’ll rubble our villages
over the heads of the weak
At night you all weapons buy…
that internationally you prohibited…
fissionable… why…?
for the miserable’s chests

All of you foreign mercenaries you hire
to stifle us when the confronting intensifies
All of you definitely beasts you become
and with Phantoms and Mirages on us you dive
when to bend we refuse
but we…
the wake of Iben Al-Bou Azizi
taught us…
we came… but not to ignite fire in us
but ignite fire in your desires…
We dashed… No retreat…
No kneeling… No bowing…

… You are all the maladies… You are the disease
You are the stain in our history…
You are the foreigner’s choice
You are whatever you say
You are not at all innocent
You are never innocent
in the codes of continuity.