Ali

You had not even lived long enough to be conscious of your misfortune.
Your baby life was cut short by murderous killers
Hiding behind God’s mantle and their dire hypocrisy.
Of course, condemnation poured out aplenty.
Its familiar tune repeated by leaders of the free world –
Free to look the other way and tut tut inaudibly
At the inconvenience of your death.
Free to offer meaningless condolences to the dispossessed and the defenceless.
Free to lie, cheat and foment hatred undeserved;
Whilst weeping over a dead lion and hounding its killer.
Your killers, my child, like thousands before them, will go free.
Or maybe, if enough noise is made, which it will not be,
Maybe spend a short while in a comfortable cell;
Leisurely planning their future – the future that they took away from you.
As if the land of Palestine were not big enough for both futures.
As indeed it is – if only hearts and minds were big enough to love, forgive and coexist.
Which can happen, if enough noise is made, which it will not be.
Your tender little body, cinders and all, displayed on social media
As abused as your death for every political end that meant nothing to your baby eyes.
You would have not grown to harm anyone
And so did not deserve to die – so the scholars tell us.
With your bib whispering “good morning mummy”…
And, in time, what then?
As ever, little and less when
You, apart from the disfigured few left behind, you will be forgotten
By Netanyahu and his wordsmithing machinations,
Obama and his empty promises,
Cameron releasing the puppies of war to show the French how it is done,
Aided by Merkel’s: refugee status is sad but less so when there are so many of them
And Hollande and his aimless, purposeless and vacuous presidency “thank God je ne suis pas Ali” –
For they are much too busy protecting their precious freedoms
Except yours and mine and our peoples’ freedoms
For we exist not and are invisible
And so can not possibly die – for we were never there in the first place.
Were we?
In that vast space called Palestine
Where we could live together and be – oh so fine.
For it is enough. There is no more space for the dead –
Just the living – side by side, hand in hand with straight human head.
Can we? Can we? Can we?
The world’s turned deaf just condemning…

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This post was written by Faysal Mikdadi