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“Americans see history as a straight line and themselves standing at the cutting edge as representatives for all mankind.”
― Frances FitzGerald
The Vietnam Memorial is a piece about death for a culture in which people are constantly being told that life is the only thing that matters. It doesn’t say that death is noble, which is what supporters of the war might like it to say, and it doesn’t say that death is absurd, which is what critics of the war might like it to say. It only says that death is real, and that in a war, no matter what else it is about, people die.
What am I thinking of today? For me, Memorial Day is a day of remembrance of all people caught up in wars. The way I see it, at the micro-level, there are no winners in a war in that the people who are caught up in it are hurt, and carry it for their lifetime. Whether it is their own home nation which declares war on them or war is foist upon them from outside, individuals who survive carry the damage and it becomes part of the family.
Have you been to war?
Have you lived in a place where you heard a real event air raid siren?
Have you heard planes overhead and wondered which side they belonged to?
Have you lived in a country which had war declared upon it by another?
Have you lived in a country which declared war on another?
Have you been to any war memorials?
All the war memorials I have been to, have immense power.
Nevertheless, I’m unable to explain why, the Viet Nam Memorial in particular, is the one where I can feel, and see again with my heart, the thoroughly broken nature of warfare. To me the Wall, as a memorial and the way it is situated, represents a fault line we seem unable to mend or walk away from.
Over the years, I’ve met people who survived wars. Wars live on for all our veterans, regardless of which war they fought in. All veterans I’ve met are proud to have served. They may be ambivalent about the war itself, but never of their service.
Achilles to Agamemnon. Illiad, Book One
The Trojans never did me damage, not in the least.
they never stole my cattle or my horses, never
in Phthia where the rich soil breeds strong men
did they lay water to my crops. How could they?
Look at the endless miles that lie between us. . .
shadowy mountain ranges, seas that surge and thunder.
No, you, colossal, shameless – we follow you,
to please you, to fight for you, to win your honour
back from the Trojans
People who have been in the killing fields of war, carry remnants of those wars within them, in their brain and bodies — scars, the chronic pain, and related health problems affiliated with agent orange, depleted uranium, and much more.
War Fire by Farrah Sarafa. 2006.
High-wired and fuel ridden
their toes withdraw in fear
of dying.
What do you hear?
Gun shots, army trucks skidding tires
whose squeaks were once minaret adhan
Your grandparents are now buried beneath
the mountains of your sacred pasts,
the rubble of disturbed memories and
American deeds, what can we heed?
"Saddam, Saddam!" They cry out for the
despot whose regime was better
than the conditions are now.
Iraqis are dying, hundreds by the day
and here we stay watching films
whose figures spit on the fires of war
from so far away,
I cry to help put out the flames
Similarly scarred, battered and shell shocked are the civilians who survive wars in the battlefields; as well those who managed to escape from the bloodletting, by choosing a dangerous path to exile out of their homelands so that they can simply live. As we well know, many refugees die on the road. Fleeing has its own brand of horror. Refugees are shaping and altering the countries adjoining the war zones, near and far.
Poem for Syriaby Marwa Katbi
we used to whisper
playfully
to one another
us sisters
insults about Assad
man who insists
he rule above
a country of graves
who chases
after the setting sun
our frightened young words
now storm
the country
while thousands of claps
echo in swollen alleyways
and the people will march
for all the days stolen from the deadcity that takes its time
damascus
the world is asking for your news
carrier of old memories
place where we used to
kick soccer balls
summertime
between passing cars
and race to buy snacks
from shop owner who insisted
we pay him back later
each time
syria
is it true that your army is full of heartless killers?
daraa’s streets
are alive today with running voices
crowded with
live bodies
fighting tanks
live bodies
fighting bullets
bodies
lying lifeless on the ground
fighting Assad’s legitimacy
while others have
five more minutes
left
and run
I hear
some soldiers
are still switching sides
Wars are not self contained. The destruction and the despair which wars bring to the people involved, either as the warrior or as the warred upon, lives on for a while. The battlefield is a strange place where the absolute worst of humanity competes with the absolute best. The ground upon which wars are fought, bear long term scars, whether that ground be the human body or the physical terrain. The people who live there and the people who manage to get out, bear long term generational scars, because memories are passed on. Memories of the fear, the destruction, the sheer terror, pain and horror, and always, the weariness, the confusion and the absolute will to survive. The wars of this century, as it has, seemingly, reaching a crescendo, is changing the face of an entire region.
I Am Syrianwritten by Youssef Abu Yihea / Translated by Ghada Alatrash
Exiled, in and out of my homeland and
On knife blades with swollen feet I walk.
I am Syrian, Shiite, Druze, Kurd,
Christian,
and I am Alawite, Sunni, and Circassian.
Syria is my land.
Syria is my identity.
My sect is the scent of my homeland,
the soil after the rain,
and my Syria is my only religion.
I am a son of this land, like the olives
Apples pomegranates chicory cacti mint grapes figs …
So what use are your thrones,
your Arabism,
your poems,
And your elegies?
Will your words bring back my home
and those who were killed
accidentally?
Will they erase tears shed for this soil?
I am a son of that green paradise,
my home town,
but today, I am dying from hunger and thirst.
Barren tents in Lebanon and Amman are now my refuge,
but no land except my homeland
will nourish me with its grains,
nor will all the clouds
in this universe.
What are you thinking about this Memorial Day?