No, I will not swear by this country
nor by the bloody evening that falls upon it.
I will not swear by that other country,
massacred Indians, enslaved Blacks,
that pretends to rule the world.
I will never swear by this Judeo-Christian West,
the Chosen people of the God of power,
former persecutor of the Jew, persecutor of all races
of all colors, and that claims to teach the world
lessons of tolerance.
Rest in peace, Adolf Hitler! Nazism dead.
Zionism!
Adolf Eichmann, look at the descendants of your victims
in the name of the Eternal, on the altar of the Torah, sacrificing
the Arab, so that their rights,
their justice, their culture may live.
Here is the world where you fight, Arafat, alone:
cars on the roads, advertisements for brain-washing powders,
world opinion indifferent to the event,
anguish spread across the earth,
and this civilization of reason that declares
God is dead
in churches, in cities, and in souls,
the law preceded by a gun,
the wrong having a right to citizenship,
man has become a mere economic agent,
and the writer or self-proclaimed one selling and sold
to those who provide bread, to those who give him food…
This is the world where you fight, Arafat, alone.
The world against which you fight, Arafat, alone.
This world that takes away all humanity from us.
Well, no, Arafat!
If there is a country that is your country,
it is also mine,
and I am your brother.
Souffles, Special Issue 15, 3rd Quarter 1969
Translated from Arabic by Aomar Boum