How Must I Believe / يا أمة إقرأ ماذا قرأتم – Farah Chamma

13.06.2013   |  Farah Chamma  |    eplume.wordpress.com

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXnSuzGJpok%5D

Poem Translated:

How Must I Believe?

How must I believe when you have made belief more like blasphemy
As you separated countries, killed, and spread corruption
All in the name of religion and devotion
You, who in the name of God, orphaned children
You, who in the name of God, have stolen, lied, demolished homes
Only to live in castles built with bricks of injustice and slavery
Are you going to respond to this, o summoned ones?

For we have tired of your senseless speeches
We have tired of poetry, of songs, of chants,
We have tired of reform movements, of extremism, of neutrality
We have tired of presidents, security councils, and leadership
We have tired of religious adherence and apostasy
We have tired, grown weary in excess
For is there value in a Constitution under the shadow of tyranny?

I sat with myself but didn’t find myself
For I too, have been colonized
Within me, there’s a political prison
Within me, there’s a settlement
Within me, there’s a man carrying a weapon
And another looking for backwardness
Within me, a woman breathes a letter that falls on deaf ears
Within me, there are airplanes and explosions
Within me, there are worshippers bowing before God, within them hearts that do not soften
Within me, there are Arab countries from which only harm befalls
So how must I believe when within me, there’s an enemy that fears nothing at all

My Arab identity antagonizes me,
It melts in my chest like ice, as a another Cold War;
It antagonizes me… It stops me from passing and never stamps my passport
It antagonizes me… as it roams in the streets searching for a
Foreign government to shelter her
It roams… from officer to officer, from embassy to embassy, completely ignored
My Arab identity antagonizes me,
It melts in my chest like ice,
As another Cold war
For how must I believe
When my Arab identity
Has become as shameless as a woman astray:
A beseeching, imploring whore

We have abandoned knowledge and so
Have been abandoned
As we rejoice in mere oblivion and pleasure
O Ummah of Iqraa,
What have you read?
You have preferred everything over the mind instead
We have sought knowledge abroad
And so too will do our children
So how must I believe while I yearn to live in countries other than my own?

How must I believe when you have made belief more like blasphemy?
As you separated nations, killed, and spread corruption
All in the name of religion and devotion
You, who in the name of God, orphaned children
You, who in the name of God, will obtain nothing
As long as you oppress mankind
Do what you wish and claim what you wish,
For I have believed in Him,
So why must I believe in you?
Withdraw your belief systems,
For I declare my disbelief in you.

Translated from Arabic by Laith Aqel

 @farahChamma