Abstract
Qatari poet
Jasmine Revolution
Prime minister Mohamed al Ghannouchi: If we measured your might it wouldn’t hold a candle to a constitution. We shed no tears for Ben Ali, nor any for his rule. It was nothing more than an interlude for us, historical and dictatorial, a system of oppression, an era of autocracy. Tunisia proclaimed the people’s revolt: When we lay blame only the base and vile feel it; and when we praise we do so with all our hearts. A revolution was kindled with the blood of the people: Their glory had worn away, the glory of every living soul. So, rebel, tell them, tell them in a shrouded voice, a voice from the grave: Tell them that tragedies precede all victories. A warning to the country whose ruler is ignorant, whose ruler deems that power comes from the American army.
ABOVE: A view of Doha’s business district, Qatar
Credit: Fadi al Assaad/Reuters
ABOVE: Najwan Darwish
A warning to the country whose people starve while the regime boasts of its prosperity. A warning to the country whose citizens sleep: One moment you have your rights, the next they’re taken from you. A warning to the system – inherited – of oppression. How long have all of you been slaves to one man’s selfish predilections? How long will the people remain ignorant of their own strength, while a despot makes decrees and appointments, the will of the people all but forgotten? Why is it that a ruler’s decisions are carried out? They’ll come back to haunt him in a country willing to rid itself of coercion. Let him know, he who pleases only himself, and does nothing but vex his own people; let him know that tomorrow someone else will be seated on that throne, someone who knows the nation is not his own, nor the property of his children. It belongs to the people, and its glories are the glories of the people. They gave their reply, and their voice was one, and their fate, too, was one. All of us are Tunisia in the face of these oppressors. The Arab regimes and those who rule them are all, without exception, without a single exception, shameful, thieves. This question that keeps you up at night – its answer won’t be found on any of the official channels… Why, why do these regimes import everything from the West – everything but the rule of law, that is, and everything but freedom?
Translated by Kareem James Abu-Zeid
Footnotes
More than a year later, al Ajami was arrested in Doha, Qatar, and charged with insulting Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani, Emir of Qatar from 1995 until his abdication in 2013, and “incitement to overthrow the ruling system”. The latter offence may be punishable by death.
In November 2012, after months of incarceration in solitary confinement, he was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment (later reduced to 15 years). Al Ajami, 37, has always acknowledged his authorship of the poem but has denied that he ever intended it to be insulting towards the emir.