Let Us Speak Out For Man
M. Zohar (January 2011) / translated by Issy Gershon
[לטקסט בעברית: "נשמיע קול בעד האדם"]
It has happened, it is happening, it shall happen –
So now's the time and here's the place
To speak out for man.
~ ~ ~
The situation here and now is neither a rehearsal nor a repetition,
It is not what has already been –
Things are clear even without comparing them to other, dark and infamous, places:
We are on the verge of an abyss and an evil spirit is hovering over the earth;
The sun still shines, the loquat still flowers –
While the clouds of terror condense and multiply.
And we are unwilling to believe – “It won’t happen to us”, so we deny;
(But it is already happening! – And it is real, it is no play! –
And what else must happen for us to agree to look plainly and see?)
And “The situation could be worse – it’s not so terribly bad”,
Soothe the analysts; and the compromisers collaborate –
Distribute decrees of appeasement, solicit and incite to consent,
Making kosher, and apparently purifying every horror and every crime:
“We’re not really like that – we simply have no alternative”;
“Look – that’s what everyone does!”;
“It’s either us or them”, and ‘They’ are never ‘Us’ –
'They' are the aliens, the ‘Them’ of every color and name;
And so ‘We’ and ‘Them’ fight, inflict injury and get hurt,
Time and again forever right, a dead end:
“With blood and fire, sperm and womb, we shall invade and conquer and purify” –
Thus ‘Us’, as well as ‘Them’; “We have the right!”, “It serves them right!” –
Thus speak the possessors of the Holy Word, based on a promise,
With a strong hand and an outstretched arm, demand the right of return
And settlement in the Land of the Forefathers ("ours, not theirs") –
Confiscating and disinheriting, uprooting and blocking and oppressing,
Shooting and stabbing and trampling; supervising and governing and policing,
Prosecuting and judging, blaming and justifying and punishing and avenging –
According to the law of the idols that we have created in our own image
(and absolutely not in the image of others).
~ ~ ~
Here and now we are together alive,
And there is no escaping the actions’ consequences –
As we do to others, so we hurt ourselves:
It is the same discrimination, the same hatred, it is the message of darkness;
These are the same complexes – patronizing and victimizing;
The same fear and ignorance unsettling and paralyzing,
Exploding in our faces and castrating the heart and spilling the guts;
The same violence and obtuseness, fanaticism and corruptness,
Imperiousness and ruthlessness, isolationism and suspiciousness –
There is no human and no home that they pass over.