Poem for Libya

“Violence is man re-creating himself. ”
— Frantz Fanon

 

 

 

Freedom is there for the taking

now

see your world’s new

future in the making,

now,

but by the powerful

you will only be forsaken,

so,

you must take up your weapons

and take your own world

take it from tyrants

and guard it from greed,

take it for freedom

for life, for yourselves

with your hands and your guns

and not the guns of another

take and destroy

so you can build and enjoy

a future of justice and peace.

 

I wrote this quickly and quite spontaneously, so I will edit it further to make it flow better, as the metre needs sorting out. I feel it was good to write something topical about events in the world, especially given the full brutality and horror of what is going on in Libya right now. Listening to BBC’s World Service radio station (the only BBC I can get where I live) reporting on the development of the revolution taking place there, I felt strong anger and outrage at the lengths a megalomaniac dictator would go to to keep himself in power. Gaddaffi was using his military aircraft to bomb protest gatherings, and had drafted in mobs of foreign mercenaries to do the killing that many Libyan soldiers had refused to do. There were even fears he could unleash gas and even biological weapons on his own people to quash their rebellion.

I sincerely hope that the people fighting for their freedom in Libya are able to overthrow Gaddaffi as quickly and as cleanly as possible, and this bit of poetical armchair rebellion is my spiritual contribution. It was partly inspired by the writings of Frantz Fanon, a Caribbean Frenchman who joined the Algerian freedom fighters in their struggle against French colonial forces earlier this century. He believed oppressed people should not wait for the powers that be to hand them their freedom, but that they should take their own freedom through violent action. I feel that for Libyan people themselves to destroy the dictatorship would be far better than having to rely on outside forces like America to give them their freedom.