Spare us the words, and spare us the letters
Feb 12, 2006
Iqbal Latif, Paris - Persian Journal
iranian.ws
Your Body is my Map
Jismuki Khaaritati
Nizar Qabbani dichotomy of character is mind-boggling, an enemy of 'tyranny' but a great friend of despots. His writings against the decadent Arab imaginary Sultan are classics but when it comes to tyrants like Saddam and Hafez Assad he never really criticize these dictators in person.
He rather participated in the assembly of poets under their tutelage. For a poet or an intellectual to have this contradiction is heartrending. Prophets, poets and intellectuals are born revolutionaries, they bring revolutions through their mind and pen. All true poets are revolutionaries and he was a true poet and a closet revolutionary.
However, most of the Arab intellectuals have to be given a carte blanche for this aberration with the norm, they find great comfort of freedom of expression only under a tyranny, devoid of protection of the tyrant they have no sanctuary from the excesses of tyranny, they need to couch their criticism in a manner that looks up to be addressing a different tyrant, the one they have their refuge with feels great that the criticism is launched at the other despot. Inter Arab rivalries and the joke of 'Democratic republic' attached with every other Arab republic name (they are neither democratic nor republic) gives every despot in the Arab world to believe that his is a democratic republic hence any criticism of the other despot is acceptable. The Baathists believed in popular support albeit through barrel of the gun for them Nizar poetry aimed at oil rich 'despots' of Saudia, therefore Nizar was accorded a despotic protection. I tend to ignore this contradiction; I feel Qabbani is one of the leading lights that epitomise freedom and expression of love in its most expressive form. In Paris, city where my mind feels free, I would like to share with posterity some of his stirring works; some of these send shivers down my spine:
O long lived one,
We vow never to seek a share of your rule.
O long lived one,
We vow never even as to look at your throne,
O long lived one,
Go on lashing, as many of the people as you wish
And killing as many of your subjects as you wish,
And fuck as many of your slave girls as you wish,
We only have one wish:
Spare us the words, and spare us the letters.
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