by Marc Falkoff
audience. Pinioned impossibly in the context of a global war on terror, they seem to realize that a vocabulary of Islamic militancy is poor currency for such ends, even if it were available to given detainees. Instead, the poets strive for a language that is more likely to win advantage: the discourse of universal human
rights. This is the claret most likely to linger in the chambers of the world’s justice systems, especially those in Western
countries. Indeed, as Slyomovics has argued, human rights
discourses are entering the repertoires of a growing number
of transnational Islamist organizations, especially when their
members are incarcerated.⁵ At Guantánamo, detainees are pre-
paring their arguments not in sophisticated legal terminology,
which most of them lack knowledge of, but rather in the famil-
iar idioms and vocabulary of their youth. Whether describing
scenes of nurturing parents or destitute children, of valiant sib-F O R M S O F S U F F E R I N G
15
lings bound by fate or worldwide victory for the oppressed, the idioms most apt for the detainees are those drawn from populist discourses of Arab national liberation.
If the poems surprise us by their return to a political vocabu-
PoemsfromGuantánamo
lary of the past, they also remind us of the enduring power in
crosscultural responses to global inequality. The ultimate re-
ception of the detainees’ verse is likely to be as varied as the aims of the poets, rendered in as many strains as an anthem
can have. However construed, the poets strike a deep chord with many audiences, reminding them of the stunted nature of
justice at Guantánamo. At the very least, their verse has given voice to a new Muslim responsiveness to the United States’ assertion of global legal sovereignty.
NotES
1. Montasir al-Zayyat, The Road to al-Qaeda: The Story of Bin Lāden’s Right-Hand Man (Sterling, Virginia: Pluto Press, 2004), p. 31.
2. Sayyid Qutb, Muhammat al-Sha` ir fi al-Hayah wa Shi` r al-Jil al-Hadir (Cairo: Dar al-Shuruq, 1933 [1974]), pp. 18–19.
3. Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has stated that the Guantánamo detainees are “among the most dangerous, best-trained, vicious killers on the face of the earth.” The validity of such a claim is questioned by the Pentagon’s own personnel at the base, some of whom have estimated that, at best, only a few dozen of the five hundred detainees have any connection with terrorism (Joseph Margulies, Guantánamo and the Abuse of Presidential Power, New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006), p. 211.
4. Susan Slyomovics, The Performance of Human Rights in Morocco (Phila-delphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005), pp. 10–11.
5. Ibid., pp. 191–92.
6
f o r m s o f s u f f e r i n G
POEMS FROM GUANTÁNAMO
SHAKER ABDURRAHEEM AAMER
Shaker Abdurraheem Aamer is a Saudi Arabian citizen and
British resident who has been detained at Guantánamo Bay
since early 2002. The U.S. military alleges that he has ties to al Qaeda, apparently because of his work in Afghanistan for
a Saudi charity—the Al-Haramain Foundation—suspected of
funneling money to terrorist organizations. A leader among
the Guantánamo detainees, Aamer helped broker an end to
one of the hunger strikes. He elicited a concession from the military that it would allow the detainees to form a grievance committee and treat them in a manner consistent with the
Geneva Conventions. In September, 2005, just days after the
grievance committee was formed, the military disbanded it
and sent Aamer to solitary confinement, where he remains
today.
19
THEY FIGHT FOR PEACE
Peace, they say.
Peace of mind?
Peace on earth?
Peace of what kind?
I see them talking, arguing, fighting—
What kind of peace are they looking for?
Why do they kill? What are they planning?
Is it just talk? Why do they argue?
Is it so simple to kill? Is this their plan?
Yes, of course!
They talk, they argue, they kill—
They fight for peace.
20
S H A K E R A B D U R R A H E E M A A M E R
ABDULAZIZ
Abdulaziz, who wishes not to reveal his last name, had just
graduated from university in his native Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, when U.S. forces launched their attack on Afghanistan. He
traveled to the region to find his brother and bring him home safely. Soon after Abdulaziz found him, both men were picked up by Northern Alliance forces. After being tortured in an
Afghan prison, he was turned over to the U.S. military in
early 2002 and eventually sent to Guantánamo along with
his brother. Both were classified as enemy combatants. His
brother was subsequently released, but Abdulaziz remains in
detention.
21
O PRISON DARKNESS
O prison darkness, pitch your tent.
We love the darkness.
For after the dark hours of the night,
Pride’s dawn will rise.
Let the world, with all its bliss, fade away—
So long as we find favor with God.
A boy may despair in the face of a problem,
But we know God has a design.
Even though the bands tighten and seem unbreakable,
They will shatter.
Those who persist will attain their goal;
Those who keep knocking shall gain entry.
O crisis, intensify!
The morning is about to break forth.
22
A B D U L A Z I Z
I SHALL NOT COMPLAIN
I shall not complain to anyone or expect grace from anyone
other than God, so help me God.
O Lord, my heart is plagued with troubles.
I shall not complain to anyone other than You, even if the seas complain of dryness.
My spirit is free in the heavens, while my body is overpowered
by chains.
Praise God, who has granted me patience in times of adversity
and gratitude in times of gladness.
Praise God, who placed a garden and an orchard in my bosom,
so they will be with me always.
Praise God, who has granted me faith and made me a Muslim.
Praise God, Lord of the world.
A B D U L A Z I Z
23
ABDULLAH THANI FARIS AL ANAZI
Abdullah Thani Faris al Anazi is a double amputee,
having lost both of his legs in a U.S. bombing campaign
in Afghanistan while he was employed as a humanitarian
aid worker. After his first leg was amputated, he was arrested on his recovery bed by bounty hunters and turned over to U.S.
forces. While in U.S. custody, his second leg was amputated.
He has been held at Guantánamo since 2002, where he has
received inadequate medical care. At times, he has been
forced to walk on prosthetic limbs held together with duct
tape.
24
TO MY FATHER
Two years have passed in far-away prisons,
Two years my eyes untouched by kohl.
Two years my heart sending out messages
To the homes where my family dwells,
Where lavender cotton sprouts
For grazing herds that leave well fed.
O Flaij, explain to those who visit our home
How I used to live.
I know your thoughts are swirled as in a whirlwind,
When you hear the voice of my angu
ished soul.
Send sweet peace and greetings to Bu’mair;
Kiss him on his forehead, for he is my father.
Fate has divided us, like the parting of a parent from a
newborn.
O Father, this is a prison of injustice.
Its iniquity makes the mountains weep.
I have committed no crime and am guilty of no offense.
Curved claws have I,
But I have been sold like a fattened sheep.
I have no fellows but the Truth.
They told me to confess, but I am guiltless;
My deeds are all honorable and need no apology.
They tempted me to turn away from the lofty summit of
integrity,
To exchange this cage for a pleasant life.
By God, if they were to bind my body in chains,
If all Arabs were to sell their faith, I would not sell mine.
A B D U L L A H T H A N I F A R I S A L A N A Z I
25
I have composed these lines
For the day when your children have grown old.
O God—who governs creation with providence,
Who is one, singular and self-subsisting,
Who brings comfort and happy tidings,
Whom we worship—
Grant serenity to a heart that beats with oppression,
And release this prisoner from the tight bonds of
confinement.
26
A B D U L L A H T H A N I F A R I S A L A N A Z I
USTAD BADRUZZAMAN BADR
Ustad Badruzzaman Badr is a prolific Pakistani essayist
with an MA in English. Along with his brother Shaikh
Abdurraheem Muslim Dost, he spent much of the 1980s
publishing magazines that supported rebel fighters against
the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and writing for the cause of Pashtun nationalism. In November 2001 the brothers were
arrested by Pakistani intelligence officers, who subsequently turned them over to the U.S. military. Badr was returned
to Peshawar in 2004 after the military determined that he
represented no threat to the United States. With his brother, he recently published a memoir of his time in detention,
The Broken Shackles of Guantánamo.
27
LIONS IN THE CAGE
In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Most Merciful,
a poem written in Camp Delta, Guantánamo, Cuba
We are the heroes of the time.
We are the proud youth.
We are the hairy lions.
We live in the stories now.
We live in the epics.
We live in the public’s heart.
We are the shield before the oppressor.
Our courage is like a mountain.
The Pharaoh of our time is restless because of us.
The Chief of the White Palace,
Like other sinful chiefs,
Cannot see our patience.
The whirlpool of our tears
Is moving fast towards him.
No one can endure the power of this flood.
It mostly happens, in these cages,
That the stars at midnight
Bring good news—
That we will surely succeed,
And the world will wait for us,
The Caravan of Badr.
28
U S T A D B A D R U Z Z A M A N B A D R
MOAZZAM BEGG
Moazzam Begg is a British citizen who was arrested in
Pakistan and detained for three years in Guantánamo. While
there, Begg received a heavily-censored letter from his seven-year-old daughter; the only legible line was, “I love you, Dad.”
Upon his release, his daughter told him the censored lines
were a poem she had copied for him: “One, two, three, four,
five, / Once I caught a fish alive. / Six, seven, eight, nine, ten, / Then I let it go again.” Released in 2005, he was never charged with a crime. The biggest problem at Guantánamo,
he explained to Amnesty International, is “the sheer lack of any ability to prove your innocence because you remain in
limbo, in legal limbo, and have no meaningful communication
with your family.” Begg recently published a memoir, Enemy
Combatant: My Imprisonment at Guantánamo, Bagram, and
Kandahar.
29
HOMEWARD BOUND
Begins this journey without reins,
Ends in capture without aims;
Now lying in the cell awake,
With merriment and smiles all fake:
Freedom is spent, time is up—
Tears have rent my sorrow’s cup;
Home is cage, and cage is steel,
Thus manifest reality’s unreal
Dreams are shattered, hopes are battered,
Yet with new status one is flattered!
The irony of it—detention, and all:
Be so small, and stand so tall.
Years of tears and days of toil
Are now but fears and tyrants’ spoil;
Ordainment has surely come to pass,
But endure alone one must this farce.
Now “patience is of virtue” taught,
And virtue is of iron wrought;
So poetry is in motion set
(Perhaps, with appreciation met).
Still the paper do I pen,
Knowing what, but never when—
As dreams begin, and nightmares end—
I’m homeward bound to beloved tend.
30
M O A Z Z A M B E G G
JUMAH AL DOSSARI
Jumah al Dossari, a thirty-three-year-old Bahraini national, is the father of a young daughter. He has been held at
Guantánamo Bay for more than five years. In addition to
being detained without charge or trial, Dossari has been
subjected to a range of physical and psychological abuses,
some of which are detailed in Inside the Wire, an account of the Guantánamo prison by former military intelligence soldier Erik Saar. He has been held in solitary confinement since the end of 2003 and, according to the U.S. military, has tried to kill himself twelve times while in the prison. On one occasion, he was found by his lawyer, hanging by his neck and bleeding from a gash to his arm.
31
DEATH POEM
Take my blood.
Take my death shroud and
The remnants of my body.
Take photographs of my corpse at the grave, lonely.
Send them to the world,
To the judges and
To the people of conscience,
Send them to the principled men and the fair-minded.
And let them bear the guilty burden, before the world,
Of this innocent soul.
Let them bear the burden, before their children and before
history,
Of this wasted, sinless soul,
Of this soul which has suffered at the hands of the “protectors of peace.”
32
J U M A H A L D O S S A R I
SHAIKH ABDURRAHEEM MUSLIM DOST
Shaikh Abdurraheem Muslim Dost is a Pakistani poet and
essayist who spent nearly three years in Guantánamo with
his brother, Ustad Badruzzaman Badr. Dost was a respected
religious scholar, poet, and journalist—and author of
nearly twenty books—before his arrest in 2001. While at
Guantánamo, he composed thousands of lines of poetry in
Pashto, most of which were retained by the U.S. military after his release in April 2005. In October 2006, shortly after Dost and his brother published a memoir of their Guantánamo
detention, Dost was again arrested by Pakistani intelligence.
He has not been heard from since.
33
THEY CANNOT HELP
In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Most Merciful,
a poem written in Camp Delta, Guantánamo, Cuba
Those who are charitable
Cannot help but sacrifice for others.
They cannot help but face danger
If they wish to remain true.
When they face injustice, dishonesty, and iniquity,
They cannot help but be under the power of the traitors and
the notorious.
Consider what might compel a man
To kill himself, or another.
Does oppression not demand
Some reaction against the oppressor?
It is natural that a man is driven to invention
And to creation in times of duress.
The evildoer will be punished.
He cannot avoid making amends, and must apologize
eventually.
Those who foolishly dispute with Dost the Poet
Cannot help but surrender, or else run away.
34
S H A I K H A B D U R R A H E E M M U S L I M D O S T
CUP POEM 1
What kind of spring is this,
Where there are no flowers and
The air is filled with a miserable smell?
CUP POEM 2
Handcuffs befit brave young men,
Bangles are for spinsters or pretty young ladies.
S H A I K H A B D U R R A H E E M M U S L I M D O S T
35
TWO FRAGMENTS
1.
Eid has come, but my father has not.
He is not come from Cuba.
I am eating the bread of Eid with my tears.
I have nothing.
Why am I deprived of the love of my father?
Why am I so oppressed?
2.
Just as the heart beats in the darkness of the body,
So I, despite this cage, continue to beat with life.
Those who have no courage or honor consider themselves free,
But they are slaves.
I am flying on the wings of thought,
And so, even in this cage, I know a greater freedom.
36
S H A I K H A B D U R R A H E E M M U S L I M D O S T
MOHAMMED EL GHARANI
Mohammed el Gharani, a fourteen-year-old Chadian
national raised in Saudi Arabia, had recently arrived in
Pakistan to learn English and to study information technology when he was imprisoned by Pakistani police. They hanged