I Am Fallujah
Jenny Campbell 12 Nov 2004 03:52 GMT
 
This poem was written a few days before the invasion began and
updated it the day of the invasion. May it circulate widely!
I am Fallujah.


I am Fallujah.
Once before I endured the colonial arrogance
of another nation
upon my soil.

That was 87 years ago,
and with their superior weapons,
they, too, came to liberate us.

I cried out.
I warned them
that I would not endure
an uninvited presence.

The Empire thought
my people ignorant.

And now, under a different flag, you strike with the precision of deranged camel,
your weapons missing your stated target
again and again,
all the while knowing
your real target
is complete conquest.

You screamed when my people vented their rage upon one or two of your suited predators.
With false indignation, you summoned your weapons of mass destruction while truckloads of our dead rumbled past your snipers to a lonely mass burial.

Sometimes you even shot at the drivers.

And when my people reported the downfall of another child, another family
in one of your precision strikes
you claimed they lied,
they exaggerated,
they falsified the facts.

Do they exaggerate today when a pall of ten thousand
misinformed soldiers enter their city
with homicidal rules of engagement?

Have you told your own people that those orders include
shooting surrendering citizens on sight?

And still you use the language of benevolence.

You promote the dubious presence of a sinister entity
to re-direct world attention
through your selective, rhetorical lens.

Zarqawi, Zarqawi, Zarqawi you chant
as you handsomely reward your media servants
for their silence.

Yet you dare not acknowledge that with each death,
you induce the birth of another fighter.
With each bomb,
the hatred of your colonial ambition grows.

And around the world, with every drop of blood you cause,
you feed reaction and backwardness the very food it needs
to sabotage the aspirations of the worlds people.
The true freedom from oppression you so cynically claim to champion.

To meet your ends, you consciously blur the distinction between
terrorist and insurgent.

The terrorist is your ally, although you call him enemy.
The terrorist is the veil behind which your blood encrusted nails
attempt to gouge out the clear vision of humanity.
The terrorist is your very own Frankenstein monster
forged in the laboratories of your foreign policy.

The insurgent simply fights to be free - of you,
a searing resistance born from the fires of scorned dignity.

While your craven campaign
may momentarily subdue those who survive,
you shall neither defeat them, nor befriend them,
for the tincture of time
will barely soothe the memories
of such atrocities as yours.

I am Fallujah. I am all cities under imperialist siege.
We have fought you before.
We know what motivates you.
We know your eyes.

They reflect the barrels of black poison
that have drained you of decency.
And in your murderous pursuit of plundered profits,
you stand to condemn all of our children
to a lifetime of intellectual and emotional anguish.

Remember this: we did not invite you into our house.

When you claim the mantle of nobility,
know that it is in infamy your legacy will find its home.

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