A New Song for February - أغنية جديدة إلى فبراير

Zayn al-‘Ābdīn Fu’ād is one of the leading movement poets of his generation, and some of his best-known poems were part of Sheikh Imam’s repertoire. Fu’ād belongs to the ‘68 generation of radical students, and he is one of the students who occupied Cairo University’s campus during the massive January-February protests against the corruption and ineptitude of the Nasser regime. During his imprisonment, Fu’ād wrote a number of short colloquial Egyptian Arabic poems, which can be found in his diwān, al-Ḥulm fi-l-sijn.

A New Song for February

(2 February 1972)

We are as ever, February!

Called before our time

If you come to see us without an appointment

You’ll find ranks gathered together

Our flags are, as ever,

On our shoulders.

Our voices, as always,

Are rifles,

Are swords.

We wear the blue prison stamps on our shoulders.

We, this year, arrived early.

Our brothers having died on the bridges,

While we, children of the alleys,

Found the alleys running to us.

We’re still as ever, February!

Opening our hearts, embracing life.

We’re singing for war, for our country

For trees, green living things, and homes.

We’re singing for songs, filling the eye

We’re opening our hearts

While the prisons open their doors to us

We are as we always were, February

Waiting for you, for you to come visit

For you to draw our pictures in blood on stone

For you to bring with you all the months, your friends,

Who will see our blood on your soil

And see our freshly planted

As vining hyacinth above your door,

As a new cover on your book.

February—so short, so long,

A piece of us, a page from the book of the Nile!

We are still here, as ever, February…

——

أغنية جديدة إلى فبراير

للشاعر زين العابدين فؤاد

(٢ فبراير ١٩٧٢)

احنا ، زي ما احنا، يا فبراير

قبل الميعاد ، ندهنا،

لو تشوفنا

من غير ميعاد ، اتجمعت صفوفنا

اعلامنا : زي ماهي،

فوق كتوفنا

اصواتنا ، زي ماهي:

بنادقنا

سيوفنا

ختم السجون ، ازرق، علي كتوفنا

احنا السنه دي ، جينا بدري

اخواتنا ماتوا علي الكباري

واحنا ولاد كل الحواري

كل الحواري ، جاتنا بتجري

واحنا ، زي ما احنا يافبراير

نفتح قلوبنا ، نحضن الحياه

نغني، لجل الحرب ، والوطن

لجل الشجر، والخضرة، والسكن

لجل الاغاني، تنفرد علي العيون

نفتح قلوبنا

تنفتح لينا السجون

احنا، زي ما احنا ، يا فبراير

نستنظرك، تجينا في الزياره

ترسم صورتنا ، بالدما ، علي الحجاره

تجيب معاك، كل الشهور، صحابك

يشوفوا دمنا ، علي ترابك

يشوفوا زرعنا الجديد

لبلابه فوق ابوابك

جلاده، فوق كتابك

فبراير ، القصير ، الطويل

ياحته مننا، ومن كتاب النيل

احنا زي ما احنا يا فبراير

...

...

1972 فبراير

سجن الاستئناف/ باب الخلق

Revolution Tourist

I wanted to interview activists as they walked me through the events of a specific day. Stations of the cross, but for the revolution.

Only not a pilgrimage. And no reenactments.

Just a tour.

I told them to pick the day they wanted to talk about. And to structure the tour however they liked. Put together their own story, in whatever way made most sense to them. An account in their own words. Of things they did, or things that happened to them. Things they saw or heard. Told to me on the same stage where the action had taken place.

I wanted them to walk me through their day, in the most mundane sense of the word. To take me, step by step, through the geography of their lives, using place and space to tell the story. I thought that this process might help produce an organic narrative structure, an unforced form, as well as bring back details otherwise forgotten.

K agreed to do it, as long as it was on a day where nothing was planned. At the beginning of our excursion he was hesitant. But he became enthusiastic as he walked me through what were for him the most important hours of the revolution. We met downtown and he paced me through the events of his January 28.

We retraced the steps K and his friends took that morning, from Abdin to Muhammad Naguib Square. K spoke while I struggled to keep up.

Bourse… tear cas canisters… onions… coca cola…

Then we went to Abdel Munim Riyad Square.

Gangs of government thugs entered from that side…

Every few minutes, we would stop and K would tell me about something that happened on this or that spot. I listened and took notes in my notebook as people walked by and stared at us. I took photos of each stop to remind myself of each scene.

Later, much later, we fled up here.

We were back on Talaat Harb when a large crowd of protesters came marching down Soleiman Pasha. It got so loud that I couldn’t hear what K was saying. We paused the tour for a few minutes as they went by, beating drums, singing songs and chanting slogans.

Eventually, they showed up and we started to run. Then we heard gunfire and we knew we had to get off the streets. See that building over there? The door suddenly opened up for us, and the doorman told us to come in. Then he locked the door behind us. They pounded on the door for minutes, but he wouldn’t open it.

As soon as we could hear ourselves again, K resumed his account.

You can find lots of things to use if you need to protect yourself. A car. Or a row of motorcycles. You know the small electric boxes next to streetlights? You can use them too. You can defend yourself with metal traffic barriers. Or curbstones. This stuff is everywhere. I met some guys who know how to use the whole street.

K explained everything to me and listened to my plodding questions very patiently. He looked at his phone then said, “I didn’t know there was something going on today.”

A few minutes went by before another loud march crashed down on us. Hundreds of young men and women went by, singing songs. We had to pause our tour again. No sooner had they passed than another group came behind them. K looked at me and shrugged. He texted a friend, then another. Then he told me more about his January 28.

The parades went by for about an hour until we finally gave up. As the daylight began to fade, we ducked into the headquarters of an officially-recognized opposition party whose leaders had condemned the protests during those first days. I suddenly remembered another time, in this same room, listening to Khaled Mohieddine deliver a rousing speech, long ago, on a sweltering September afternoon.

…the Iraqi people… and Palestine… solidarity

It was like visiting the stage of an abandoned theater.

K called out, “Anyone here?” A man walked through a darkened doorway in the back and waved to us, “Welcome! Come in!”

We went out on the balcony where K resumed his story.

Funny enough, later that same day, we came in here to use the bathroom, drink tea and catch our breath. I stood here on this same balcony for hours waiting. There were some MB youth who set up barricades over there. They were tough. Into weightlifting and karate and shit. If it wasn’t for them, the police would have broken through.

As he talked, another group of activists came marching down the street. Between them and the flocks of sparrows chirping in the twilight of the ficus trees, it was again too loud to carry on a conversation. K checked his messages while I made recordings of the songs. When it quieted down again, K returned to his story.

Suddenly, a huge crowd of Ultras appeared over there. Coming from Marouf. The police began to run. It was over just like that.

We smoked another cigarette and sipped more tea as K added other details. Like the sound a Molotov cocktail makes when it hits concrete versus when it hits metal. Or the piles of cheap black uniforms and cheap black boots the police left behind when they fled. I made a note of everything.

The man reappeared as we began to leave.

“Will you be coming back later?”

“No, Uncle. You can lock up for the night.”

K paid the man and suggested that we end our tour in Midan Tahrir. The square was, after all, the climax of his story, and the destination of our journey. We’d never spoken about it, but we both knew that that would be where we ended up.

We nearly made it there but were interrupted again by another group of activists on the march. At first, we stood there silently, waiting patiently for them to go by. And then, K began shouting to people who shouted back. Finally, K turned to me and explained, “Sorry, these are my friends. I’ve got to join them. Can we finish tomorrow?”

“Of course.”

With a sudden apology, the tour was over.

Of course, we never did go back to finish the tour. There was always something happening every time we tried to make plans. Things would come up—a sit-in, a demo, a meeting—and we’d postpone it again.

Months later, we laughed about it every time we saw each other at the Greek Club. Last time I saw K he said, “What were you thinking, Man? The revolution’s not something you can tour.”

May is Here

[This short sonnet, composed by Giovanni Francesco Buonamico (c. 1672), is regarded as the second oldest extant poem in Maltese. It is a short work of 16 lines, with a regular rhyme scheme (abba, cddc, effe, gggg). Beneath the English translation, I’ve supplied the original Maltese and an en face Arabic transcription. My notes follow.]

————-

May has come, bringing roses and flowers

Gone the cold, lightning, and rain,

The earth now covered with bouquet and bud.

The winds have calmed, the sea gone silent. 

From heaven’s face, the clouds have flown 

On stony hills sprouts the green

Every bird returns to song

Every heart fills with joy

There would be little happiness on this island

Were it not for the one who keeps her company.

Were it not for the one who watches over her

You’d cry with hunger, seeing her as a prisoner.

You are happiness, and our joy

Cotoner, light of our eyes!

As long as heaven keeps you with us,

At the end of the biting cold, he warms us. 

Giovan Francesco Buonamico

Mejju gie bil-Ward u Zahar / مايو جاء بالورد والزهر

Mejju gie' bl'Uard, u Zahar مايو جاء بالورد والزهر
Aadda l bart, e Sceta, u 'l Beracq عدى البرد الشتاء والبرق
T'ghattiet l'art be nuar u l'Uueracq تغطّت الأرض بالنوار والأوراق
heda e riech, seket el Bachar هدا الريح وسكت البحر

Tar e schab men nuece e'Sema طار السحاب من وش السما
Sa f'l'e Gebiel neptet el chdura صفا الجبل نبتت الخضرة
Regeet t'ghanni col Aasfura رجعت تغني كل عصفورة
U' f' el fercol cqalb t'ertema وفي الفرح كل قلب ترتمى

E qaila ferh kien fe di Gesira وقلة فرح كان في دي جزيرة
li ma Kiensce min i uuennesha إلا مكانش من يؤنسها
li ma Kiensce min i charisha إلا مكانش من يحرسها
Kecu tepki el giuh phl lsira كيشو تبكي الجوع في الأسيرة

Enti el ferh, u 'l hena taana انتي الفرح والهناء تاعنا
Cotoner daul ta aineina كوطونير ضوء تا عينينا
Tant li e Sema i challic chdeina تانت السماء يخليك حذانا
Fl'achar bart i colna e schana في الاخر برد يكلنا يسخنا

Translator’s notes:

The first two stanzas celebrate the return of Spring to Malta with fairly standard references to cycles of return and rebirth. In the third stanza, the poem appears takes a turn toward the panegyric, praising those who protect the island from outside threat, ending with the metaphor of the island as hungry captive, a figure that would have resonated with audiences living with Mediterranean piracy, kidnapping and ransom. In the fourth stanza, the object of praise comes into focus when the poet mentions the Mallorcan-born Grand Master of the Knights of Malta, Nicólo Cotoner. It thus appears that the poem was composed to celebrate the expansion of the fortifications of Malta, which was undertaken in the wake of the Ottoman capture of Crete in 1669. The walls built during this period are still known as the Cottoner Lines (Is-Swar tal-Kottonera).

I am not a scholar of Maltese. But I am conversant in Egyptian colloquial Arabic, and possess a smattering of French, Latin, Spanish, and Italian — which gives me the (false?) confidence that I can “read” this little text and render it into English. Also, it helped that there was already an established English translation, by Wettinger and Fsadni (1968), and one very ornate musical setting. Nonetheless, some aspects of the lexicon syntax are ambiguous, like the phrase “Kecu tepki,” which, drawing on the Tunisian colloquial, I scan as “كيشوفو تبكي“ (upon seeing him, you’d cry), which makes sense with the conditional voice of the rest of the stanza. But that’s a guess. Comments, corrections? Please email me!

Mathias Hubertus Prevaes, The Emergence of Standard Maltese: The Arabic Factor (PhD thesis, Nijmegen, 1993).

Arnold Cassola. “An alternative meaning for achar in G.F. Bonamico’s Sonetto”, Melita Historica, 10: 3 (1990), 290-292. 

March 19

And so it turns out

Like so much else

Time, too, is a fiction

“Spring forward!”

They say

And we reply

“Fall backward!”

As together we change the batteries

And remake the days to suit the seasons of sleep.

But mostly we forget.

Has it really been … years?

It was sort of on the news back then.

We watched the flicker of shadows

On the walls of our caves

Sometimes thumbnail pictures of the martyrs

Appeared on A19.

But we don’t call them martyrs

That’s what they do.

Later we told each other stories of healing, redemption and Surge.

Gradually, the procession of heroes came to a halt

The parade was over

We bade farewell to Walter Reed

And drove back across Memorial Bridge

As if that was “it”

As if it was “done”

As if time was a thread

That we cut and tied off

As we finished our stitching.

Some regrets, maybe.

Like never learning that terp’s real name.

Like never having the chance to converse with a native

Without the gun in our hand.

And other things.

Things we’ve forgotten.

Like dropping a stitch and having to start all over again,

One more time.

Or that time we forgot to change the batteries in the smoke alarm

And it went off at 3AM.

Splitting Dems

The Republican Party cannot win fair elections. Everyone knows this. Most especially Republican strategists. Which is why they are so practiced in voter suppression and gerrymandering. Which is why they are developing strategies for political dominance by way of the non-representative majorities baked constitutionally into the Senate and judicial branches.

Republicans also know that they can win by other means as well. One method involves the Democratic Party engaging in losing strategies and/or failing to fight effectively for victories actually won. Like Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2016. Or John Kerry’s in 2004. Or Al Gore’s in 2000.

Another method is to create and exacerbate chaos within the Democratic Party. As Rick Perlstein chronicled in his classic Nixonland, Nixon’s ’68 and ’72 campaigns illustrate how this can be accomplished with just a handful of committed spooks, goons and bagmen. Perlstein’s story reminds us that Nixon might have gotten away with all of this had it not been for his deep paranoia and little bad luck. Next time, Republican burglars and ratfuckers will be wiser.

But the most plausible for 2020 seems to be this: splitting the Democratic Party into two or more parties, neither of which would be strong enough to compete against the Republicans.

Lots of commentators have already spoken about how creating a three-party system will only benefit the Trump in particular and Republicans in general. They’re right—but how might a splitting of the party begin?

In 2019, it might begin by way of self-identified centrists dismayed by the social democratic values of younger activists. It might begin with billionaires—who may or may not be Democrats at all—launching third-party candidacies that promise to continue the neoliberal policies of the Obama-Clinton wing without serious reform or revision. It might begin with the donor class threatening that they will not allow the party to engage in substantive critique, let alone reform, of the financial sector.

The accusations will be multiple, but many of them will be generational in nature, with the olds acting like olds as they denounce the identity politics of the whippersnappers, and with concerned seniors worrying about how SJWs are polluting the discourse with intolerant calls to deplatform. Brocialists will be the hilarious butt of jokes, as they were in 2016. Commentators will express their alarm about the hypocrisy of prominent social democrats, about the clothes they wear and the cut of their jib.

While there are already Koch-sponsored projects designed to peel “Home Depot” Dems from the party, most of these efforts will come from inside the right wing of the Democratic Party itself. Expect familiar figures to lead the charge, basing their attacks on the conviction that they stand at the left edge of acceptable American politics. They will be aided by phantom, principled conservatives who never fail to weigh in with their concerns about the direction the Democratic Party is headed. (h/t to Citations Needed for noticing that pattern.)

Instead of arguments and debates, there will be blanket dismissals and presentations of self-evident truths. There will be hand-wringing about going too fast or too far, and worries about whether the American public is ready for change at all. Again, the Republicans need not do much at all, since most of this will come from inside the party establishment.

There will be lots of consensus proclamations in favor of maintaining moldy alliances and dirty arrangements and bloody policies. Thought-leaders, influencers and entrepreneurialism evangelicals will threaten IMF austerity plans on any young-un’ who tries to embarrass the party with talk of universal health care or free college. ‘Serious’ commentators and other adults-in-the-room will talk about NATO or Saudi Arabia as if these relations were sacred bonds of matrimony. Already one group of Democrats have thrown down the gauntlet on Israel, demanding that the party continue to support Israeli apartheid no matter how much it conflicts with liberal values.

There will be lines in the sand regarding the necessity of remaining ‘engaged’ with the world, which entails, natch, leaning forward in Syria and Venezuela. Mention of empire will be grounds for removal. Disagreements about unrestrained interventionism will be treated with lectures on what it means to be grown up.

You might as well hear it here if you haven’t already, there will be lots of AIPAC interference (abetted by Republican allies) and false accusations of anti-Semitism. Get ready for one long, negative adze campaign that will peel off the right wing of the party purely on this issue.

As segments of the old guard get upset and lose, they will leave the dinner table in a huff. At that moment, they will mimic their favorite imaginary friends, those reasonable Republicans who say: I didn’t leave the party, it left me. Or, alternatively, they will refuse to relinquish their posts in party leadership and drive out everyone else.

The only fun part of this will be watching the centrist exiles consummate their steamy romance with never-Trumpers. David Frum might just get some after all. Ross Douthat, Thomas Friedman, Bari Weiss and David Brooks will celebrate that day, along with the donor class, which has always been the base of the centrists. Corporate media and the liberal think-tanks will celebrate the wedding day as the start of a new era, or a return to how things used to be, back when civility reigned and everything was so bipartisan that we didn’t need a special word for it.

And when all this is over, Brookings and the Atlantic Council will sigh, glad to have weathered the storm, and it’ll all make sense again. Whether the emboldened centrists strengthen their grip on the Democratic party and expel their leftist foes, or whether they leave and join Howard Schultz in something new, liberals will get to have their imperial politics, their austerity economics, and their conviction that they alone are experts and realists. They will go back to praying at the high temple of wonk, singing the same old nostrums about access and opportunity. And the Republicans will laugh all the way to power again.

Republicans know that splitting wood warms you twice: once when you chop it, and once again when you burn it. And they also know that today’s Democratic Party, with its various interest groups and constituencies, will be easier to split than a cord of seasoned birch. And it will burn even hotter.

Hear that chunking sound? The chopping has already started. Even Michael Bloomberg is bothered by it.

Don’t expect these lumberjacks to stack the logs neatly by the back door when they’re done.

That’s not their job. Never was.

Ahmed Fouad Negm: Important Announcement

The Egyptian giant Ahmed Fouad Negm passed away five years ago today. Below is my rough translation of “Bayān Hāmm,” * a poem that was composed for recitation, not song. When Negm performed it, he liked to mimic the public speaking style of Anwar Sadat and there was no mistaking who the butt of the joke was. It is replete with references to the trips Sadat made to Iran in 1976 to visit his friend, the Shah, and filled with the kinds of linguistic gaffes — overcorrections, grammatical infelicities and surprise leaps from register to register — for which Sadat was famous. I’ve tried to capture the brilliance of Negm’s language which captures all the “mistakes” of an incompetent (or stoned) public official.

Negm was arrested in the fall of 1977 for a performance of this poem he gave at Ain Shams University. He was initially charged in a civilian court with defamation and incitement. The defamation charges were quickly dropped since, to prove them, the aggrieved party — Sadat — would have had to come forward to show that he was the basis for the ridiculous figure of Shahhata al-Mi‘assal. Sadat declined to do this, depriving history of great theatre.

The eminent Egyptian historian, Salah ‘Isa (who passed away last year at about this same time), wrote the story of how Negm and five others were eventually convicted in a military court on charges of fomenting rebellion and insulting the President of the Republic. Before sentencing, however, Negm went into hiding. Negm remained a fugitive for more than three years before he was finally caught. Here’s the poem that caused all the trouble.

Important Announcement

Upsidedownistan here.

Your sweet ole radio station.

Coming to you from Cairo and Kurdifan

From every Arab country and Japan

From Venezuela and even Iran

And any country open to the rule

Of tourism à l’américaine.

Tumblestan here.

Your good ole radio station.

We present to you, in every language

Plays and movies and all the arts

And press and speeches and televisionings

And mosque sermons, cheese and olives.

We show up in your home uninvited, riding on every airwave

Studying and grasping all issues

No matter the occasion, we’re bright and loud

No one listens, and no one cares

Listen or not, it doesn’t matter to us

You see, we’re the types who get paid either way.

Keep to yourself and don’t make us give you a lashing with our pen and tongue!

Somersaultistan here.

Your good ole radio station.

It pleases us (even if it doesn’t please you)

On this occasion (to which you haven’t been invited)

To bring to you—and don’t be disgusted—

Shaḥḥāta al-Mi‘assal, totally unvarnished.

The Chief Broker of the Developeding World

Educator of Croupiers

Destroyer of Farms, Pawner of Crops

And—may your wishes come true—Commander of Armies

You can’t deny it, can’t say you don’t know him.

Can’t say you’ve never heard of him.

Shaḥḥāta al-Mi‘assal, beloved by all hearts

He gets out the stains, the worries and fears,

He tokes, he snorts, he pops pills

You won’t understand him as he blathers on

Understand, or not—we don’t care.

Because you understand, even if you pretend you don’t.

You can deny it and swear it, but I tell you:

Don’t bother. You’ll give us both a headache.

Upsidedownistan here.

Your good ole radio station.

Because what was hidden has been revealed, clear as day

The issues are out for all to see

Stories have been told, even in print

About the smuggling and shirking and about this and that

About the influence peddling and deceit

That have appeared in the city like a flood

Sinking boats and inundating fields.

More boats are yet to sink.

And the crisis in housing, and the crisis in public safety.

While some eat well off a hungry world

The place is filled with a stench of conspiracy

And planning treason with the Americans

To slaughter the people and burn down the neighbors

People are chattering about it, so an announcement is in order.

As the ears have reported to us

For this reason and that, and the other one, too

We present to you the sugar doll and horse

Shaḥḥāta al-Mi‘assal, and this announcement.

Upsidedownistan here.

Your good ole radio station.

In the name of God.

A peace upon you. And salmon and bananas.

As far as everything’s going, it’s all hunky dory.

O Brethren, O Brothe…

Here is my announcement, as to what follows:

Everything is A-okay.

And all that talk that’s going around is just talk.

Verily, Don’t be impatiently! And don’t worry—

It’s the stuff of small-minded people, and I won’t accept it!

Nothing is wrong.

I swear most solemnly, most solemnly thrice,

There is nothing wrong, nothing at all.

And know this: even if there was something

There’s nothing.

There’s no reason to talk about it or nag me.

And shame on kids

Who go on with their churlishness

Making me pay them attention, forcing me to debate them.

By my very nature, I am against big dealers

For the sake of free competition and neighborliness.

But, it is not in my character

To expose the scandal

Of an associate of mine who’s pocketed a few bills.

Everybody puts things away for themselves

The new ones do it, just like the old ones did before.

So People: Zionize yourself and go with the flow!

Have a good toke and a good evening.

My good Iranian buddy, Prince Bazarmīṭ

Wrote me this year to invite me to a big party,

I accepted, of course, and we went to the bash,

It was the kind of banquet that only happens once.

My God—what fried foods, and the puddings!

What stews and platters!

To be frank, my head began spinning

From all the luxury and Persianate trimming.

There, for instance, when you drink second-hand dregs

They serve it with sweetmeats and veal pastrami as appetizers.

Over there, I never saw anyone envying anyone

Or people insulting anyone

Who happened to purchase two farms on the cheap

Because he was such a smart entrepreneur and developed them into housing.

After the feast we collected our presents

Silver plated and gold plated, and faience, too.

And of course, my good buddy the Prince Bazarmīṭ

Told me something

Which I’ll tell you about

at some appropriate time.

Some punks will come after me without cause.

Getting up in my face, sitting to judge me.

That is socialist resentment, and I will not tolerate it.

If they were my sons, I’d ground them at home.

Talk about wheeler-dealers, Talk about whoring—

Fake news and tired old slogans!

They want to turn the whole country into chaos!

They have long wanted me to leave the country

But I will not give it up, or let security slip

Not by the police, nor by the public prosecutor.

O People, do me a solid and hang tightly tight!

Stay the course and the money will come.

Eat and drink according to what comes to you,

Let yourself drown in a sea of slaves and slave-girls,

Paint your life as you like

As brothels and palaces fill the streets.

Say your prayers and thank God

For the blessings of garbage and sewer overspills.

In closing, peacely,

And finally, in terms of words,

Necessitarily, calm and harmony must prevail

Or else, and if not, I will smash it to bits, or else…

I will take all my money and leave this country at oncely!

A peace upon you, and salmon and bananas,

By my authority as president, and father and husband.

—————————

* This translation is based on a recording of the November 14, 1977 performance of “Bayān Hāmm” at ‘Ayn Shams University. Negm composed and performed versions of the poem in the first months of 1976. These, along others, exist in multiple guises across different print and electronic media. The print version closest to this transcription can be found in Aḥmad Fu’ād Najm, al-A‘māl al-kāmila (Damascus: Dar Tlas, 1986), v. I, 133-158. An earlier print version of the text can be found in: Aḥmad Fu’ād Najm, Bayān hāmm: ghanā’ Shaykh Imām; dirāsat al-Ṭāhir Aḥmad Mikkī (Beirut: Dār al-Fārābī, 1976). For more information on Negm’s legal troubles with this poem, see: Ṣalāḥ ‘Īsa, Shā‘ir takdīr al-amn al-‘āmm: al-milaffāt al-qaḍā’īya li-l-shā‘ir Aḥmad Fu’ād Najm (Cairo: Dar al-Shorouk, 2007), 205-242.

At the Ramparts of the Human

Here my words and bear witness to my vow. Night gathers and now my watch begins. It shall not end until my death. I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children. I shall wear no crowns and win no glory. I shall live and die at my post. I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the shield that guards the realm of men.

— “The Oath of the Night Watch,” Game of Thrones.

At this very moment, large, well-organized caravans of migrants are marching towards our southern border. Some people call it an “invasion.” It’s like an invasion. They have violently overrun the Mexican border. You saw that two days ago. These are tough people, in many cases. A lot of young men, strong men. And a lot of men that maybe we don’t want in our country.

— Donald Trump. November 1, 2018.

Turns out I wasn’t wrong to suggest back in the summer that there were deep affinities between Israeli and American border rhetoric and the apocalyptic imaginary of contemporary Hollywood. When I wrote, I was grappling with the border-wall imaginary around Gaza and how it worked to transform (in image and story) one of the most destitute and desperate societies of human history (contemporary, besieged Gaza) into vicious enemies who were not quite human. The more I thought about it, the more I saw how it resonated with genre narratives (from sci-fi and fantasy to Westerns) about the frontiers of humanity. Game of Thrones meets World War Z meets Lord of the Rings meets The Searchers.

In both news reporting and fiction entertainment, we now regularly encounter images of walls erected to protect beleaguered groups of heroes from invasion by masses of humanoid monsters in the form of zombies, orcs, White Walkers, and unruly natives.

At the time, I had not yet discovered The Green Line, the fash podcast from Border Patrol brass Brandon Judd, Chris Cabrera, and Art Del Cueto. Thanks to an especially brilliant episode of Intercepted, I learned about this podcast, which is sponsored by Breitbart, as well as a knife manufacturer, a boot company, and a Texas physical therapy provider corporation that specializes in workman comp cases. The hosts play up the fact that they are leaders in the National Border Patrol Council, a right-wing frontier militia that poses as a labor union for federal employees.

Day after day, the hosts bring the voice of nativist ressentiment and weapons-positive chauvinism to a discussion of American politics. They call for wider gun proliferation and criminalization of non-citizen residents. They also, unsurprisingly, advocate a cruel if familiar military strategy against refugees fleeing the ravages of US-backed dictators and death squads in Central American. If you ever wanted reasons to abolish the Department of Homeland Security, you’ll find them here.

What’s fascinating and disturbing is that this podcast very consciously broadcasts from the ramparts. Yes—the hosts see themselves as the Night’s Watch, as cosmic guardians not just of a particular civilization, but of humanity itself. Westeros is real to them, and so is the Wall. Take a listen to this 2016 episode of the Green Line or any other and judge for yourself.

Do Border Patrol leadership imagine they work for Jon Snow? How many patrolmen really believe that Honduran refugees are White Walkers? Shockingly, some do.

Sadly, Herzl and Sobchak were correct to point out that if you will it, it is no dream. For those with enough will and weaponry, the wall between the imagined and the actual is never too thick or too high.

Obviously, science fiction doesn’t cause zombie apocalypses. But apocalyptic-minded armed thugs, with the full force of the state behind them, might just act on their fantasies in this actual world.

Our Cherry Orchard

Washington, DC is supposed to be famous for its cherry trees. Each year, there is a very official National Cherry Blossom Festival on the Mall at which we are reminded that some of the first trees were a gift from the Mayor of Tokyo in 1912. Today, there are colorful celebrations of the trees, complete with kimonos, parades, and a ceremonial lighting of an old stone lantern. The Tidal Basin becomes, for 10 days, a pilgrimage site.

By design, cherry trees have proliferated in the leafier neighborhoods of the District’s upper northwest since even before the date of 1912. Even so, I am not sure if these cherry orchards will survive. I look around, and I can’t help notice that there are a lot of dead ones this year.

If you walk on the sidewalks in the District, you will have noticed the confusion of the cherry trees these past few autumns. Without fail, during warm spells in November or December, many of the trees begin to bloom. Thinking it’s spring, they put out gorgeous pink and white blossoms along barren, dark branches. Not a bee around. The frost comes, as it does, a day or so later and the tiny withered flowers fall onto the carpet of brown and yellow leaves. The trees go back into hibernation. Having already sprung their spring, they have little to look forward to come March.

I haven’t lived here long enough to say how long this has been going on, but definitely in my neighborhood for the past five years, at least. This year, something else started to happen. Some of the cherries in my neighborhood failed to bloom this spring. They also failed to leaf. By May, their striped-bark trunks and barren twisted branches were conspicuous among the burst of green all around. By June, owners were sawing off the more grotesque limbs. Then the city came through and sprayed the tell-tale orange mark on curbside cherries: dead tree; vector of fungus and insect infestation; for removal.

On the way to work today, I passed five cherry tree skeletons like this one. They’ve been like that all spring and summer, shouting “mortality!” while every other plant exploded with green life. They weren’t the only kind of trees to die this summer. In the local woods — Battery Kemble, the C & O Canal, and Great Falls — we saw lots of trees come down this summer. Tulip trees and beech trees in soil so soaked that they toppled over in June’s high winds. I saw a line of hundred-and-fifty-foot oaks cut in half during a storm in July.

But the cherries were different. They died before spring came. By late summer, their owners had stripped the limbs off each, leaving only the trunk and flat stumps where thick branches used to be. These weren’t saplings. These were established trees, 20+ years old. They were well cared for, some of them the centerpiece of well-groomed gardens. But they all chose to die at the same time, which must have been sometime after they went into false blossom last fall.

The average lifespan of the yoshino cherry—which, along with the kwanzan, is the dominant cherry cultivar in the District—isn’t much longer than 20 years. So perhaps this all routine circle of life stuff, as natural as the annual festival that celebrates the blossoms?

There is another chapter in the history of the cherry trees, told here by the National Park Service, which suggests that there is little in this circle of life that is natural. In brief, the 1912 gift of cherry trees was a replacement for an earlier gift. In early 1910, Tokyo’s gift of 2000 cherry trees arrived in Washington, DC.

6 January, 1910: Arrival of cherry trees in Washington, DC. [photo: National Arboretum]

But, on closer inspection, the trees were found to be infested with insects and nematodes.

Inspection of cherry trees [photo: National Arboretum]

Within weeks, the trees were burned to prevent agricultural contamination.

28 January, 1910. Burning of diseased cherry trees. [photo: National Arboretum]

As much as we should celebrate the 1912 importation of cherry trees, we should also remember that it was part of a very complex, global history of immigration, transportation, infestation, and contamination. In this regard, we might similarly recall that these first cherry trees were imported into DC at the very same moment that the dominant tree of the region—the American chestnut—was killed off by a fungal blight that arrived with another species (also imported from Japan). Not long after, north American elms were ravaged by beetles that arrived in logs imported from the Netherlands. Our landscapes are filled with such importations. The point is not simply to mourn the loss of a pristine environment that predates all this history. Rather, it is to suggest that these landscapes were already precarious in 1912, and that my sidewalk observations today are old news.

In the coming weeks, when the weather warms up again some cherry trees will no doubt be fooled by the weather. A false spring will come and they will bloom. The cherry trees may do this for a year or for a few, but at some point, they’ll give up, worn out by the expenditure of so much energy out of season. Then they will be stripped and prepared for removal. Is this widespread? I don’t know. But in my particular neighborhood, it’s a thing.

The silence of this process may be the biggest difference between this small, local event and the melancholic final act of Chekov’s The Cherry Orchard. That play, you might remember, ends with the noise of axes cutting down the cherry orchard. When our cherry orchard goes, there won’t be much of a sound.

Happy autumn, folks.

Humanity's Border

In May, Israel and the USA staged a bloody diptych of spectacles. On the left, the opening of the new US embassy in occupied Jerusalem. On the right, the daylight massacre of unarmed Gazans by Israeli snipers.  

On one side, the age-old figure of the gleaming "City on the Hill," the Citadel of God's chosen, a favorite of colonial settlers from Cotton Mather to Golda Meir. On the other, the Gate to the citadel, or more exactly, the barbarians that lie outside that gate .

The City and the Gate: rarely are we afforded such a clear glimpse of this vision—on the one hand, civilization, on the other, barbarism. Freedom and tyranny. Or more simply put, humanity and inhumanity—which is to say, the human and the non-human, the latter less an intellectual category than a gory menagerie of animals, monsters, subhumans and inhumans. 

Wall v. Border

The US media, echoing IDF press briefings, has long referred to the barriers around Gaza as a "border fence." The reference to borders could not be any wronger. 

A border is the line that stands between two sovereign states. Gaza is not sovereign, and never has been; Israel's sense of sovereign territory fully encompasses Gaza. 

A border may be open or closed, but it is not something that is only ever open on one side, and only ever closed on the other. While Israeli forces freely move back and forth across the line that demarcates Gaza, the converse is not true. Israeli crossings into Gaza are not considered transgressions even when they are military and violent; any Gazan movement outside the line, whether accompanied by violence or not, becomes an aggression. 

Thus the fence that separates Gazans from the world can not be called a border. It neither represents a relation of mutual recognition nor a balance of power. It is a line, unilaterally imposed by Israel on Gaza. (And, for the record, the example of Gaza is not unique: Israel has consistently refrained from defining its borders with all its neighboring states). 

So what is it? Most of it looks like a fence. But it is best understood as a prison wall. Just as prison walls are built with one-sided gates designed to allow prison guards to enter, so too does this wall have such gates. But the highest goal of a prison wall is to prevent incarcerated bodies from moving freely. The walls around Gaza accomplish this goal every day. 

Purity and Danger in Israel-Palestine

Conceptually, however, these walls do much more than trap bodies. They prevent also "Palestine" from mixing with "Israel." To borrow from Mary Douglas, they create one space imagined as safe, and pure. 

And a second space that is chaotic, inhuman and full of danger and contamination.  

In this, the walls build on the fundamental Balfourian and Zionist distinction between Jew and non-Jew in Palestine. Now, as during the British Mandate, this distinction between Jew and non-Jews is one between the fully human and the not-quite human.

Only in this conceptual sense can we call the line between Israel and Gaza a 'border'. It was built to mark the categorical division between Israelis (as humans) and Gazan Palestinians (as not-quite humans).

Monsters at the Gate

But as real as these resonances are with older colonial conceptual divisions, they reverberate even more strongly with stories and images in contemporary pop culture, particularly in dystopic sci-fi and fantasy genres, where noble humans fight against monsters in existential combat. Not accidentally, many of these stories involve epic sieges, where the humans of the citadel must fend off the invasion of creatures whose hideousness and evil derives in no small part from their likeness to humans. It is their status as humanoid—not-quite human—that is so monstrous.

Consider the above representations of Gazans at the gate against these images of embattled citadels pulled from recent blockbuster hits. 

World War Z (2013)

World War Z (2013)

White Walkers at the Night's Watch Wall, Game of Thrones (2017)

Battle of Helm's Deep, The Two Towers (2002) 

The suggestion I am making is that, as bizarre as it may seem, media representations of the Gaza massacres dovetail with these other narratives, and with their imagistic vocabulary, to buttress and extend the walls around Gaza. Whether this is conscious is another question, but the regularity of the shared conventions are unmissable. Just as these fictions imagine an existential battle at the very border of humanity, so too does the Gaza prison wall serve as a staging ground, in the imagination of Israel's right and its allies, in a war against non-human threats.

The media corps of the IDF appears to be fully conscious of these tropes. At the very least, it does not hesitate to make use of them, as we saw in May. 

Palestinians at the fence, negative image from This is Hamas' Plan

Consider the video, "This is Hamas' Plan," that was posted to the IDF Spokesman's Twitter account on May 15. In a series of shots, which simulate surveillance, infrared, night vision, drone and clandestine broadcast footage, this short video depicts Gazans as shadowy ghouls marauding Israel. 

Accompanied by a scratchy, distorted soundtrack that creates a mood of impending doom, it embraces the Blair Witch Project aesthetic so pervasive in contemporary horror-genre film and television. 

This, no less than any physical wall, is part of the larger project to dehumanize Gazans and to render them as morally expendable as any other orc, zombie or humanoid monster we might encounter in fiction or fantasy.

What does it mean for Israel to make a cheap horror film that depicts Gazans as monsters? The real horror, of course, is that there is a state that dispossesses masses of indigenous people, drives them from their lands, cages them as stateless refugees in an open air prison, assaults them for decades, and massacres them in broad daylight when they dare to protest—and then creates a cultural tradition filled with monstrous representations of its victims.

But then again, that's settler colonialism for you. 

Lithographs of events in the Seminole War in Florida in 1835. (Charleston, S.C.: T.F. Gray and James, 1837.

The Siege of the Fort at Detroit by Frederic Remington

We Have An Orchestra Here

Today, Propublica released this audio tape of children being held in a south Texas detention center. In the midst of all the crying, a Border Patrol guard laughs at them, singing, "We have an orchestra here... all we need now is a maestro." 

It adds another disturbing dimension to the reports coming out of children’s detention centers where grown men and women are holding infants, toddlers and children in steel cages. Policy forbids government employees from touching the children, and so these children are left to cry with comfort. 

These reports are like Abu Ghraib. But for kids. On US soil. Now. 

This is not happening in secret. In fact, some leading officials are bragging about it while Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, interpreting scripture like a slaveholder, claims it’s “biblical”. And this is taking place with the full, knowing participation of the leadership of government agencies — ICE, HHS, Homeland Security — and the thousands of ordinary employees in those agencies who make this nightmare happen each day. 

One of the ugliest aspects about this policy is that it is fully intentional: separating parents and children and inflicting harm and grief on them is meant -- somehow -- to deter refugees from seeking asylum here. 

This has been going on for months. While roughly 2000 children have been separated from parents in recent months, the total number of children in government detention camps is actually 11,432. (source: Washington Post). 

The flashpoint for this crime is the border, but the center of this problem is, of course, Washington. Even so, we are all implicated wherever we're situated: from the thuggish Minuteman vigilantes who "patrol" the borders, to the Obama officials who expanded deportations in order to capture the votes of "moderate" republican voters, to the rest of us who were vaguely aware something bad was happening, but failed to do anything to stop it. 

And it is not just a problem located "over there" in the South or in the border states. The deportation system is national—which means it's also intensely local. Which means, we owe it to ourselves to ask questions about how our communities are implicated in these crimes.

Where is the nearest ICE office in your area? Do you know what happens there? Are there detention camps in your community? Who works there—any neighbors or family or friends? What takes place in them? Are there children being held there?

The answers to these questions are not completely secret, though some may be. To answer them entails getting out and meeting people who have been directly impacted by these policies. In the DC area, Sanctuary DMV is a great group to join. The Democratic Socialists of America are also fighting on this front.

[Update 6/20: And it turns out that we do have an orchestra here. I am proud to say that last night, my chapter (Metro DC-DSA) found Kirstjen Nielsen, one of the primary enforcers and apologists for the family separation policy, eating at a local Mexican restaurant and shamed her into leaving. Check out the video here. I applaud everyone who is willing to erupt, interrupt and disrupt business as usual: that is the appropriate response to this emergency. NB: if White supremacists want to be anti-immigrant, the least we can do is enforce an all white-bread diet on them.]

If giving money is an option, there a number of organizations (such as the ACLU or the Texas Civil Rights Project) that are working to fight the family separation policy, and others (such as The Florence Project) working to give material support to detained children. The Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights in Chicago is a non-profit organization that advocates on behalf of children caught up in ICE’s nets. 

Ignorance is no longer acceptable: we must learn the facts of these policies as they are implemented in our cities and towns. Each time ICE arrests a migrant or asylum seeker, they do so in the name of all Americans. Each time they throw a toddler into a jail cell, they do so in the name of America. Those of us who remain silent while this takes place will be harshly judged. 

Image from Casa Padre, HHS detention center, Brownsville, TX.