Re: [pace] La vera lezione di Auschwitz

[mary <humdrum2 at libero.it>]

daccordo con te! Non ho questa poesia in italiano, ma in inglese sì, se
leggete quella lingua, allora, questa poema fa il nostro caso!

A Moment of Silence before I Start this Poem

Mon Sep 24, 2007 1:22 pm (PST)

A MOMENT OF SILENCE 

BEFORE I START THIS POEM 

EMMANUEL ORTIZ, 11 Sep
2002

 

Before I start this poem, I'd
like to ask you to join me 

In a moment of silence 

In honour of those who died in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon
last September 11th. I would also like to ask you To offer up a moment of
silence For all of those who have been harassed, imprisoned, disappeared,
tortured, raped, or killed in retaliation for those strikes, For the
victims in both Afghanistan and the US

And if I could just add one more thing...

A full day of silence 

For the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have died at the hands of
US-backed Israeli forces over decades of occupation. Six months of
silence for the million and-a-half Iraqi people, mostly children, who
have died of malnourishment or starvation as a result of an 11-year US
embargo against the country.

Before I begin this poem,

Two months of silence for the Blacks under Apartheid in South Africa,
Where homeland security made them aliens in their own country. Nine
months of silence for the dead in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Where death
rained down and peeled back every layer of concrete, steel, earth and
skin And the survivors went on as if alive. A year of silence for the
millions of dead in Vietnam - a people, not a war - for those who know a
thing or two about the scent of burning fuel, their relatives' bones
buried in it, their babies born of it. A year of silence for the dead in
Cambodia and Laos, victims of a secret war .... ssssshhhhh.... Say
nothing ... we don't want them to learn that they are dead. Two months of
silence for the decades of dead in Colombia, Whose names, like the
corpses they once represented, have piled up and slipped off our
tongues.

Before I begin this poem.

An hour of silence for El Salvador ... 

An afternoon of silence for Nicaragua ... 

Two days of silence for the Guatemaltecos ... 

None of whom ever knew a moment of peace in their living years. 45
seconds of silence for the 45 dead at Acteal, Chiapas 25 years of silence
for the hundred million Africans who found their graves far deeper in the
ocean than any building could poke into the sky. There will be no DNA
testing or dental records to identify their remains. And for those who
were strung and swung from the heights of sycamore trees in the south,
the north, the east, and the west...

100 years of silence...

For the hundreds of millions of indigenous peoples from this half of
right here, 

Whose land and lives were stolen, 

In postcard-perfect plots like Pine Ridge, Wounded Knee, Sand Creek,
Fallen Timbers, or the Trail of Tears. Names now reduced to innocuous
magnetic poetry on the refrigerator of our consciousness ...

So you want a moment of silence? 

And we are all left speechless 

Our tongues snatched from our mouths 

Our eyes stapled shut 

A moment of silence 

And the poets have all been laid to rest 

The drums disintegrating into dust.

Before I begin this poem, 

You want a moment of silence 

You mourn now as if the world will never be the same 

And the rest of us hope to hell it won't be. 

Not like it always has been.

Because this is not a 9/11 poem. 

This is a 9/10 poem, 

It is a 9/9 poem, 

A 9/8 poem, 

 

A 9/7 poem 

This is a 1492 poem.

This is a poem about what causes poems like this to be written. And if
this is a 9/11 poem, then: This is a September 11th poem for Chile, 1971.
This is a September 12th poem for Steven Biko in South Africa, 1977. This
is a September 13th poem for the brothers at Attica Prison, New York,
1971.

This is a September 14th poem for Somalia, 1992.

This is a poem for every date that falls to the ground in
ashes. This is a poem for the
110 stories that were never told The 110 stories that history chose not
to write in textbooks The 110 stories that CNN, BBC, The New York Times,
and Newsweek ignored. This is a poem for interrupting this
program.

And still you want a moment of silence for your dead? 

 

We could give you lifetimes of
empty: 

The unmarked graves 

The lost languages 

The uprooted trees and histories 

The dead stares on the faces of nameless children 

Before I start this poem we could be silent forever 

Or just long enough to hunger, 

For the dust to bury us 

And you would still ask us 

For more of our silence.

If you want a moment of silence 

Then stop the oil pumps 

Turn off the engines and the televisions 

Sink the cruise ships 

Crash the stock markets 

Unplug the marquee lights, 

Delete the instant messages, 

Derail the trains, the light rail transit.

If you want a moment of silence, put a brick through the window of Taco
Bell, And pay the workers for wages lost. Tear down the liquor stores,
The townhouses, the White Houses, the jailhouses, the Penthouses and the
Playboys.

If you want a moment of silence, 

Then take it 

On Super Bowl Sunday, 

The Fourth of July 

During Dayton's 13 hour sale 

Or the next time your white guilt fills the room where my beautiful

people have gathered.

You want a moment of silence 

Then take it NOW, 

Before this poem begins. 

Here, in the echo of my voice, 

In the pause between goosesteps of the second hand, 

In the space between bodies in embrace, 

Here is your silence. 

Take it. 

But take it all... Don't cut in line. 

Let your silence begin at the beginning of crime. But we, Tonight we will
keep right on singing... For our dead.

EMMANUEL ORTIZ, 11 Sep 2002



At 22.09 28/01/2008, you wrote:
> Non è necessario arrivare a
> tanto... La storia la scrivono i vincitori, e i vincitori sono sempre
> buoni e i loro crimini di guerra non vanno ricordati per quello che sono,
> ma come atti di liberazione e di "democrazia"... Ma qualcuno di
> quelli che sanno distinguere tra il male assoluto di Auschwitz e il male
> "relativo" delle bombe atomiche sganciate su popolazioni inermi
> dai "buoni" a stelle e strisce... qualcuno di voi saprebbe
> spiegarmi perché la mia memoria dovrebbe funzionare a senso unico?
> Accetterò di partecipare a una "giornata della memoria" (che
> poi dovrebbe durare tutti i giorni della nostra vita), solo quando
> saranno ricordate tutte le vittime dello sterminio dagli indiani
> d'America ai palestinesi fino ai morti sul lavoro, nelle fabbriche e
> nelle miniere.
> Grazie a Lorenzo Della Corte per il suo intervento!
>
> Mario Bonica
>
>
> Il giorno 28/gen/08, alle 19:09, Gualtiero Via ha scritto:
>
> > ci manca solo di aggiungere che
> > Hitler era in realtà
> > nato nel Midwest e si chiamava Smith!
> > per favore!
> >
> >
> > ...in ogni caso, questa sfilza di dati senza una sola
> > fonte su ui verificare lasciano il tempo che trovano,
> > mi pare
> >
> > un grazie a Tiziano per il bell'articolo, che mi
> > sarebbe sfuggito altrimenti (piuttosto confortante,
> > fra l'altro, leggere che sia stato pubblicato dal Sole
> > 24ore)
> >
> > Gualtiero
> >
> >
> > --- Lorenzo Dellacorte <l_coortis at yahoo.it> ha
> > scritto:
> >
> > > L'olocausto va riletto insieme
> > > alla II Guerra
> > > Mondiale: introduco in modo sintetico alcuni
> > > elementi di riflessione:
> > > 1) L'ascesa di Hitler è stata finanziata da
> > > capitali americani,
> > > 2) L'organizzazione dell'esercito nazista, del
> > > Ministero della difesa, delle SS è avvenuta con il
> > > supporto indispensabile della multinazionale
> > > americana IBM.
> > > 3) La stessa IBM ha organizzato con i suoi
> > > calcolatori elettromeccanici gestiti in loco da
> > > funzionari della stessa IBM, la classificazione
> > > degli ebrei, la retata e la gestione dei campi di
> > > concentramento;
> > > 4)
> >
> >
> >       ___________________________________
> > Scopri il Blog di Yahoo! Mail: trucchi, novità, consigli... e la tua
> > opinione!
> > http://www.ymailblogit.com/blog/
> >
> > --
> > Mailing list Pace dell'associazione PeaceLink.
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> >
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>
>
> --
> Mailing list Pace dell'associazione PeaceLink.
> Per ISCRIZIONI/CANCELLAZIONI:
>
> http://www.peacelink.it/mailing_admin.html
> Archivio messaggi:
>
> http://lists.peacelink.it/pace
> Area tematica collegata:
>
> http://italy.peacelink.org/pace
> Si sottintende l'accettazione della Policy Generale:
> http://web.peacelink.it/policy.html