كوسوفا لا تناديني!!

Notes

1. Kosovo, then a province of Serbia within Yugoslavia, was the scene in 1998 and 1999 of a campaign of killing, rape and mass expulsion by Serbian forces against its Albanian population, most of whom are Muslim. NATO bombed Yugoslavia from 24 March to 10 June 1999; the poem was published in the middle of that campaign. Throughout, Kosovo is addressed as a woman calling for help, and the speaker, an ordinary Arab under an authoritarian government, answers with bitter irony. ↩
2. Qiyāda means 'leadership', and also the act of leading or steering, as a rider steers a mount. So 'my leadership in chains' says both that the speaker cannot steer his own course and that those who lead him are themselves bound. Maghlūla, 'fettered', is used of hands shackled to the neck with an iron collar (ghull), a figure of helplessness. The idea returns in 'I do not hold the reins' (zimām, 'bridle, rein'). ↩
3. The verb and even the object pronoun (yadussuhu fī al-turāb, 'buries it in the dust') echo Qur'an 16:59, where the pre-Islamic Arab who is given news of a baby daughter wonders whether to keep her in disgrace 'or bury it in the dust'. The echo makes the hidden rifle something buried alive, out of fear and shame. ↩
4. Afdīki, 'I ransom you', is the common Arabic pledge 'may I be your ransom', that is, I would give my life for you. The next lines undo it: the pledge is made 'in words, mere words'. ↩
5. The father's saying is the Arabic form of 'walls have ears'. It captures the habit of fear under police states, where every conversation may be overheard and reported. ↩
6. The line is sarcastic: Kosovo has NATO's bombers, so it need not expect anything from the Arabs. The Arabic also makes a rhyme of nātū, 'NATO', and mātū, 'they died', in the next line, tying the foreign alliance that acts to the heroes who are no longer there to act. ↩
7. Khalid ibn al-Walid, Jaʿfar ibn Abi Talib and Hamza ibn ʿAbd al-Muttalib were among the great warriors of early Islam; Jaʿfar and Hamza died as martyrs in battle, and Khalid was called 'the Sword of God'. Saying that they 'are dead' means that the Muslim world no longer has men of their kind to come to the aid of the oppressed. That is why 'our tragedy is one': Kosovo's and the Arabs' own. ↩
8. Ḥarām means forbidden by religious law. The question is ironic: the songs must be lawful, since the official television broadcasts them. It exposes how the state's authority has taken the place of conscience. ↩
9. The Arabic is tilfāzunā ʿaẓīm… yudīruhu al-ʿiẓām, 'our television is great… run by the great'. ʿIẓām, 'great men, grandees', is also the plural of ʿaẓm, 'bone', the word used a few lines earlier for the speaker's bones knocking together in fear. The pun lets the 'great men' who run the screen be heard as mere bones. ↩
10. Al-humām is a lofty word for a brave, high-minded hero or chieftain. Applying it to a film actor is sarcastic: celebrities are welcomed as heroes, while real heroism is gone. ↩
11. 'From the roaring Ocean to the rebellious Gulf' (min al-muḥīṭ al-hādir ilā al-khalīj al-thāʾir) is a famous slogan of Arab nationalism, especially in the Nasser era, describing the Arab homeland from the Atlantic to the Persian Gulf. The speaker uses it ironically: since Kosovo lies outside this map and is not Arab, Arab nationalism owes it nothing. ↩
12. Al-shajb wa-al-tandīd, 'condemnation and denunciation', is the stock phrase of official Arab statements in times of crisis, a byword for words that change nothing. The rulers did not issue even that. ↩
13. The NATO campaign, and the mass flight of Kosovar Albanians, began in the last days of March 1999, around the time of ʿĪd al-Aḍḥā, the Feast of the Sacrifice. Whether or not the poet has that date in mind, the contrast is between mourning in Kosovo and festivity among the Arabs. ↩
14. The censor (al-raqīb) cuts words from a text, and the verb yaḥdhif, 'delete, strike out', is used of such cuts. Here it falls on the poet's hāma, his head: a censor's cut becomes a beheading. ↩
15. In Islamic teaching, jihād al-nafs, the struggle against one's own self and desires, is called 'the greater jihad'. The speaker claims it with bitter irony: his only jihad is keeping himself quiet, a struggle to suppress his solidarity with Kosovo so that he may live in safety. ↩
16. The ending draws on a well-known saying, attributed to the Prophet though its authenticity is disputed: 'Whoever loves, stays chaste, conceals it and dies, dies a martyr.' In the love tradition of Arabic literature this made the silent lover a 'martyr of love'. The speaker applies it to his hidden love for Kosovo: he will die with it concealed and be called a martyr. The last line, 'all of it is istishhād (martyrdom)', turns the word against itself: the only martyrdom he dares is dying in silence. ↩
17. Al-Mujtamaʿ ('Society') is a weekly Islamic magazine published in Kuwait. ↩