We own what’s ours/ we own “the glory, the beauty, the brightness, and magnificence”. We own “life, survival, happiness, and hope” in your heights and in your breeze “my homeland;” for us you remain “safe, pampered, and honored.” We own youths “that will not tire, that are keen to their independence or to their fate”/ we own youths that do not accept “their eternal humiliation, and their grumpy living” but will restore “their past glory” with their unified hands/; we own the dawn that comes after the nightfall: “what comes after the nightfall is but the glorious majestic dawn”/; we own “the spotted scarf black and white, thyme bread/ Msakhan / the oil and the olives/ the flag that is flowered by the various colors: the bright white, the dark red, the deep black, and the grassy green / the embroidery of the dresses of our women;/ we own “the sunflower” dispersing its words through young men and women, holding their heads up high/ and scattering their tunes in the fields and valleys/ banging the ground with their feet/ and shaking the corners of the world/ fixing their feet to the ground and beholding the sun of their lives;/ we have our young men and women holding their sword in one hand and their pen in the other/ they despise talks and conflicts/ are rattled by glory, honor and duty/ “they burry their defeats in the flesh of darkness”/ “and plant in the heart of light their fingers”. They trust in the ability of their people to defeat their enemies, chanting: “oh what happiness in your greatness defeating your enemies” / “my homeland… my homeland”
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When my mother talks about her visit to Cairo in the late eighties, she never ceases to talk with admiration about the interference of her three year old grandson who modified the tune of the song, when his grandmother sang to him the song “Mawtini” or “My homeland.” The little boy responded, trying to play the tune with his own small hands on the table: not like that grandma, but like that Mawtini Mawtini.
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When troubles amass, and despair prevails, and people fail to withstand reality; they invent jokes, and play with the words of their national anthem; they harm their history, their symbols, and themselves, without noticing or meaning to do so.
When words are emptied of their hints and symbols, and start reproducing the wretched reality, words become harsher than reality and life becomes impossible to bear.
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If we break the distance between art and reality; we lose the art and we lose ourselves.
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A poem is not considered a poem by adding a rhythm to it; the spirit of the poem makes it what it is.
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A poem requires loyalty to poetry not to the poet.
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If you wanted to go back to the spirit of revolution; consider poetry.
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Poetry soothes the life that is dried out by politics.
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Poets decided to form an opposition party, and to run for the coming presidential and legislative elections, and to demand politicians to step down.
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He looked at the wreckage of the house and shouted: leave me the sky!
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The little girl stood up on her feet, pointed to her head and said: I own my head.
The little boy stood up on his feet, raised his neck up high and said: I own my stories.
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Beware of the one that would tickle your feelings, believe the one that would quake it.
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So that they wouldn’t fish in the dirty water; keep yours clean.