Poems from Guantanamo
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An’ will ya ever, ever go jihad again?
An’ them er says to me, if ya’s walking down d’ street,
Sees a fine girl will ya sweep her off her feet?
Or leave her standing thinking that she sweet,
For the next mans to come and reap?
An’ them er says to me, now you’s back from d’ core,
You’re a terrorist, a big-time hardcore.
But my friends them know the score,
Cause back in d’ day me use to g’waan juss like a whore.
Now me a Muslim, so me whan f ’ shut that door.
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M A R T I N M U B A N G A
But the government’s them, them a feeling sore!
Cause like a page in a book you know me done a tore
A hole in them heart, them exposing hypocrisy,
For all the world them to clearly come ’n see.
Now them ask me, will ya come work for us?
Had to hold my breath so they would not hear me cuss,
Dumb mother sumthings, I’d rather suck pus,
Than work for the mans that Allah did a cuss.
An’ them a says to me, we can make your life sweet,
Give you all the things you ever wanted to eat.
All you got to do is practice deceit,
An’ everything a go be really neat.
“Sauf ofaker fi haza. Let me think about it.”
Qurrratu Qur’an.² There was no need to doubt it,
Did you think for a second I really did doubt it?
There wasn’t even need for me to go shout it.
They’re scum, they’re criminals, on their way to hell,
And not for all of the dunya³ would I join them as well!
Now me’s coming with these lyrics from Guantánamo B,
In my prison cell down by the sea,
For hard-core detainees like you an’ me,
Terrorist 2003,
So called. Yeah, that’s me!
NOTES
1. Acronym for Joint Interrogation Facility at Guantánamo.
2. Arabic for “I read the Qur’an.”
3. Arabic for worldly, material things as opposed to spiritual matters.
M A R T I N M U B A N G A
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ABDULLA MAJID AL NOAIMI,
THE CAPTIVE OF DIGNITY
Abdulla Majid al Noaimi is a twenty-four-year-old citizen of Bahrain who attended Old Dominion University in Virginia,
but returned home after a year, heartbroken over breaking
up with his girlfriend. Shortly after beginning his electrical engineering studies in the United Arab Emirates in 2001,
Noaimi traveled to Afghanistan to find a family member who
had not been heard from in some time. After an unsuccessful
search, he made his way to the Pakistani border and asked
to be taken to the Bahrain embassy. Instead, Pakistani
authorities turned him over to the U.S. military. He was
detained in Kandahar, Afghanistan, for about five months
before being transferred to Guantánamo. He was released
from the prison camp in November 2005.
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I WRITE MY HIDDEN LONGING
I write my hidden longing:
I tried to defend him with my eyes,
But I looked around and was cornered.
Destiny had found me.
My rib is broken,
And I can find no one to heal me.
My body is frail,
And I can see no relief ahead.
Before me is a tumultuous sea;
The land continues to call me.
But I am sailing in my thoughts.
The impious have murdered me in my home.
I wish someone would comfort me;
At night I taste bile and cannot sleep.
The tears of someone else’s longing are affecting me;
My chest cannot take the vastness of emotion.
The book of God consoles me,
And dulls the pains I have suffered.
The book of God assuages my misery,
Even though they declared war against it.
I stand tall and smile in the face of misery.
I am satisfied.
A B D U L L A M A J I D A L N O A I M I
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Oh Father, tell the tearful one,
“Do not forget me, as I do not forget you.”
He will understand my condition.
And when you pass by life’s familiar objects—
The Bedouin rugs, the bound branches,
The flight of pigeons—
Remember me.
I salute the brothers,
And pray peace to those who remain faithful.
I say hello to Shwayman,
And to everyone whom I love,
And to every one who misses me.
Remember, pray to God for those whom I love.
Maybe God, with His kindness, will have mercy on me.
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A B D U L L A M A J I D A L N O A I M I
MY HEART WAS WOUNDED BY THE STRANGENESS
This is a poem that I have written about my brother and
friend Salman al Khalifa at the Guantánamo prison, after a
long separation between us. The Americans were keen on
keeping us apart. Four months later, he sent verbal greetings
with the brothers, in which he said, “May Peace, God’s Mercy
and Blessings be upon you. I miss you a great deal and I’m
trying to write a poem for you.” I felt guilty about this. Will he write a poem for me when he is no poet, while I, who claim to
be a poet, have written nothing for him?
I then said, “If he writes a poem for me before I write one for him, I deserve to be scoffed at until the Day of Judgment.” So I set out to write, but I could not concentrate on the poem. I put poetry writing aside and turned to memorizing the Qur’an.
But then I could not concentrate on the Qur’an, because my
mind was occupied with the poem. With my mind divided,
time began to pass. And then I was inspired:
My heart was wounded by the strangeness.
Now poetry has rolled up his sleeves, showing a long arm.
Time passes. The hands of the clock deceive us.
Time is precious and the minutes are limited.
Do not blame the poet who comes to your land,
Inspired, arranging rhymes.
Oh brother, who need not be named, I send you
My gift of greetings. I send heavily falling rains
A B D U L L A M A J I D A L N O A I M I
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To quench your thirst and show my gratitude.
My poem will comfort you and ease your burdens.
If you blame yourself, my poem will appease you.
My mind is not heavy with animosity.
I will be satisfied once you are free, and I will embrace you.
There is nothing, brother, like a mild, agreeable temper.
I will offer advice out of pure cordiality—
Advice from one who has experienced the impossible:
You will not gain everything that your soul desires;
Some things will come to you, but others will not.
Forget what people say and be satisfied with who you are.
Patience, the bony animal, will lead you to meat.
Be generous to others, brother,
And leave behind your avaricious spirit.
If your brother has hurt you,
Recall his good deeds and the pain will go away.
Hide the sadness of your heart as in a valley.
Make it your captive; if released, it will make you suffer.
No matter how long our separation lasts, I will not forget you.
What is hidden in our hearts is expressed in my words.
You are precious and grow more preci
ous.
He who has companions like you will never lose dignity.
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A B D U L L A M A J I D A L N O A I M I
I hope that your nights will always be cheerful.
May the Lord compensate you for what you have lost.
I ask the Merciful One to guide you to peace.
May the Lord keep you fast on the path of virtue.
I conclude my poem by invoking prayers and blessings,
On the messenger of Allah, Ahmed, his chosen one.
A B D U L L A M A J I D A L N O A I M I
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abdullahthanifarisalanazi
AbdullahThaniFarisalAnaziwasteachinginPakistanwhen
hewasarrestedbymercenariesandsoldtoalliedforces.
Areligiousscholarwhodislikeshostilityandwasoncea
candidateforajudgeship,hehasadaughter,bornjustthree
monthsbeforehewascaptured,whoisnowfiveyearsold.
Duringamilitaryadministrativehearing,hewastold,“Ifyou
areconsideredtobeacontinuedthreat,youwillbedetained.
Ifyouarenotconsideredathreat,wewillrecommendrelease.
Whyshouldweconsiderreleasingyou?”AlAnazi’sresponse
was,“Intheworldofinternationalcourts,thepersonis
innocentuntilprovenguilty.Why,here,isthepersonguilty
untilproveninnocent?”
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oDe To The sea
O Sea, give me news of my loved ones.
Were it not for the chains of the faithless, I would have dived into you,
And reached my beloved family, or perished in your arms.
Your beaches are sadness, captivity, pain, and injustice.
Your bitterness eats away at my patience.
Your calm is like death, your sweeping waves are strange.
The silence that rises up from you holds treachery in its fold.
Your stillness will kill the captain if it persists,
And the navigator will drown in your waves.
Gentle, deaf, mute, ignoring, angrily storming,
You carry graves.
If the wind enrages you, your injustice is obvious.
If the wind silences you, there is just the ebb and flow.
O Sea, do our chains offend you?
It is only under compulsion that we daily come and go.
Do you know our sins?
Do you understand we were cast into this gloom?
O Sea, you taunt us in our captivity.
You have colluded with our enemies and you cruelly guard us.
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
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Don’t the rocks tell you of the crimes committed in their midst?
Doesn’t Cuba, the vanquished, translate its stories for you?
You have been beside us for three years, and what have you
gained?
Boats of poetry on the sea; a buried flame in a burning heart.
The poet’s words are the font of our power;
His verse is the salve for our pained hearts.
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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
SIDDIQ TURKESTANI
Siddiq Turkestani is a thirty-three-year-old ethnic Uighur
raised in Saudi Arabia. In 1997, while traveling in Afghanistan, he was abducted by members of al Qaeda and tortured until
he “confessed” to plotting to kill Osama bin Laden. He was
imprisoned by the Taliban at Kandahar until 2001, when U.S.
intelligence personnel visited the jail. He told them his story and was promised a quick release. Instead, he was eventually sent to Guantánamo and held for four years on accusations
that included being associated with the Taliban and al Qaeda.
The military determined that he was not an enemy combatant
in January 2005 and he was released from Guantánamo
nearly six months later.
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EVEN IF THE PAIN
Even if the pain of the wound increases,
There must be a remedy to treat it.
Even if the days in prison endure,
There must be a day when we will get out.
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S I D D I Q T U R K E S T A N I
WHERE THE BURIED FLAME BURNS
ARIEL DORFMAN
Three decades ago, when I was living in exile and my country,
Chile, was being devastated by a dictatorship, I met a woman
who had been arrested by agents of Pinochet’s secret police and then tortured endlessly in a cellar in Santiago.
It was poetry, she told me that day in Paris, which had al-
lowed her to survive. In the fierce darkness of her ordeal, she repeated to herself those verses sent from some dead poet, she
said, as a way of differentiating herself from the men who were treating her body like an object, like a piece of meat. That was how she protected her besieged identity, the one thing those
jailers could not touch, could not deny her, could not erase: just some words, just some precarious, almost evanescent, words
from the past as a defense against what seemed an eternity of
pain and humiliation.
It is shameful and yet also wondrous that I immediately
evoked that woman as soon as I began to read the poems from
the prisoners at Guantánamo.
Shameful because it is the United States, supposedly a
democracy, that is treating its detainees in the same brutal
manner that dictatorial Chile and countless other desolate gov-
ernments across the planet have treated their own captives.
Shameful because it is the United States, supposedly a beacon
of freedom, that has tortured these “enemy combatants” and
denied them the basic human rights all men and women on
our earth possess, regardless of whatever crimes they may or
may not have committed. Shameful because it is the United
States, supposedly a model of justice to be globally envied and imitated, that has locked up these men indefinitely, refused to charge them or put them on trial, blocked them from communicating with their families and the outside world, degraded
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their humanity, and abused their religion and convictions to pressure them into “confessing” their “terrorist links.”
And wondrous, yes. The fact that men held in the most ap-
palling, the most desperate conditions, recur like that woman
from Chile did, to poetry as a response to the violence they are subjected to, can anything give us more hope for our species?
These prisoners, let us remember, could not be sure, when
their minds groped for words to sing their sad nights, that
anyone other than their God would listen or would care. They
did not intend these poems for publication; indeed, had prob-
ably no expectation that their isolated verses would even reach their fellow prisoners, let alone the wider world. Some of the
words they composed are haunted with beauty. Others are less
accomplished. There are those who are almost fanatically mili-
tant and those who only crave the serenity of home, the absent
mother, father, son. A few considered themselves poets before
they were captured, while most appear to have discovered the
power of sounds and syllables once they found themselves, for
the first time, cut off from the life and family and landscape
they had always known. Some trust in God and
some trust the
dawn and some have no trust left at all. But every one of them
seems to have understood that to express his anguish in writ-
ing was a wager against despair, a way of affirming his defiant humanity.
In this, they were encouraged, certainly, by their Muslim
religion, which believes that the Written Word is sacred and
that the curves and flow of the Script in which their Prophet’s sayings were transcribed are mirrors of the divine. And the
Guantánamo detainees were undoubtedly assisted as well by
a tradition, prevalent in the cultural environment where they
originally grew up, proclaiming reverence for poets.
And yet, something else, I suspect, is going on, something
which joins them to that woman tortured in Chile and to so
many other victims in so many relentless dungeons elsewhere
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T H E B U R I E D F L A M E
who have, since the beginning of history, as a response to the worst abandonment, also used poetry to redeem their wounded
dignity.
What I sense is that the ultimate source of these poems
from Guantánamo is the simple, almost primeval, arithmetic
of breathing in and breathing out.
The origin of life and the origin of language and the origin
of poetry are all there, in each first breath, each breath as if it were our first, the anima, the spirit, what we inspire, what we expire, what separates us from extinction, minute after minute, what keeps us alive as we inhale and exhale the universe.
And the written word is nothing more than the attempt
to make that breath permanent and secure, carve it into rock
or mark it on paper or sign it on a screen, so that its cadence will endure beyond us, outlast our breath, break the shackles
of solitude, transcend our transitory body and touch someone
with its waters.
Breathing in and breathing out.
What these prisoners shared with their jailers, what they
shared with the men who incarcerated them and feared them
and saw them only as the enemy.
Poetry as a call to those who breathe the same air to also
breathe the same verses, to bridge the gap between bodies and
between cultures and between warring parties.
And that is the deeper, and perhaps more paradoxical,
significance of the appearance of these poems in the United
States, rescued by American lawyers, printed by an American
press, copyedited by American eyes, published in the very heart-land, the very center, of the nation that has so maltreated these men.