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Spare us the words, and spare us the letters

Iqbal Latif - 12/11/2006

O Sultan! Because I dare to approach your deaf walls,
because I tried to reveal my sadness and tribulation,
I was b eaten with my shoes.

Nizar Qabbani dichotomy of character is mind-boggling, an enemy of 'tyranny' but a great friend of despots. His writings against the decadent Arab imaginary Sultan are classics but when it came to tyrants like Saddam and Hafez Assad he never really criticize these dictators in person. In his later years, Qabbani's poems included a strong strain of anti-authoritarianism.

One couplet in particular:

"O Sultan, my master,
if my clothes are ripped and torn
it is because your dogs
with claws are allowed to tear me"

This is sometimes quoted by Arabs as a kind of cynical shorthand for their annoyance with life under totalitarianism. Still, Qabbani never explicitly criticized his native country or its long-reigning leader, President Hafez al-Assad, and that allowed him to be hailed across Syria as a national hero. Assad, named a main street in Damascus after the poet, and dispatched a special plane to London to carry Qabbani's body home to Syria for burial. The 'Baathist' always thought that the targets of his poetry are the Sultans of Nejd!

He participated in the assembly of poets under their tutelage. For a poet or an intellectual to have this contradiction is heartrending. Prophets, poets and intellectuals are born revolutionaries, they bring revolutions through their mind and pen. All true poets are revolution aries and he was a true poet and a closet revolutionary. As if Nizar was a true student of Machiavelli's best known work 'The Prince,' Qabbani with all his love for freedom did believe in the ways through which a Prince can retain control of his realm. Especially the principe nuovo or "new prince" (Saddam or Assad), under the assumption that a hereditary prince has an easier task since the people are accustomed to him. All a hereditary prince need do is carefully maintain the institutions that the people are used to; a new prince has a much more difficult task since he must stabilize his newfound power and build a structure that will endure. This task required the Prince to be publicly above reproach but privately may require him to do things of an evil nature in order to achieve the greater good. "The ends justify the means" - that any evil action can be justified if it is done for a good purpose. In a classic example of this 'give me my soul take my physical liberty' way Nizar yearns for freedom from the yokes of his tyrants, his demands for expression of liberty are couched in his erotically charged poetry.


O long lived one,
We vow never to seek a share of your rule.
O long lived one,
We vow never even as to look at your throne,
O long lived one,
Go on lashing, as many of the people as you wish
And killing as many of your subjects as you wish,
And fuck as many of your slave girls as you wish,
We only have one wish:
Spare us the words, and spare us the letters.

May be Nizar Qabbani had a far deeper insight than mere mortals, because in his estimation Saddam and other despots worked within the Machiavellian placed restrictions on evil actions. First, that the only acceptable end was the stabilization and health of the state; individual power for its own sake is not an acceptable end and does not justify evil actions. Second, Machiavelli clearly laid out his definition of, for example, the criteria for acceptable cruel actions (it must be swift, effective, and short-lived). Nizar Qabbani tyrants with benefit of hindsight of what is happening in Iraq today did fulfilled the two critical Machiavellian criterions. Brutality of Saddam definitely put a lid to the century's old entrenched hatred between the Shiites and the Sunnis! Any amount of blood spilled today does not seem to end the unquenchable thirst of this sectarian loathing in free Iraq of today.

Had Nizar not compromised his works would have been put on the Baathist ''Index Librorum Prohibitorum.'' Nizar as an intellectual student of history of political thought settled on a fundamental break between realism and idealism. While his believe in freedom and morality was solid, he compromised on the concept that of the sole motivation of the prince ought to be the use of good and evil solely as instrumental means rather than ends in themselves. He thought of Saddam and Assad as wise prince, the ones who properly exercised this proper balance.

Pragmatism is the theme of his philosophical thoughts in contrast with Plato and Aristotle, the ideal society was not the aim of his poetry. In fact, Nizar Qabbani accepted the exercise of brute power where necessary and rewards patron-clientalism etc. to preserve the status quo.

Go on lashing, as many of the people as you wish
And killing as many of your subjects as you wish,
And fuck as many of your slave girls as you wish,
We only have one wish:
Spare us the words, and spare us the letters.

I tend to ignore this contradiction; I feel Qabbani is one of the leading lights that epitomise freedom and expression of love in its most expressive form. In Paris, city where my mind feels free, I would like to share with posterity some of his stirring works; some of these send shivers down my spine.

The "Sultan" a poem by Qabbani, is an example of political verse that denotes Arab rulers and blames them for losing the wars because the people are unable to express their opinions. His poetry alerted readers, and listeners--since many celebrated singers like Abdel Halim Hafez, Nagat el-Saghira, Firuz, and Um Kolthoom sang his poetry--with a clarion call declaring that national and social liberation was meaningless without sexual liberation.

If I were promised safety, if I could meet the Sultan
I would say to him: O my lord the Sultan!
my cloak has been torn by your ravenous dogs,
your spies are following me all the time.
Their eyes their noses their feet are chasing me like destiny, like fate
They interrogate my wife and write down all the names of my friends.

As a true realist renders of very effective portrayal of Arab defeat at the Israeli hands by writing on the Sultan's guards:

Who fiercely face student demonstrations,
And turn into ostriches when facing the enemy.

O my lord the Sultan!
you have lost the war twice
because half our people has no tongue.

He depicts a conniving image of Arab rulers:

Walking behind the prophet's coffin,
Holding their blooded daggers under their mourning cloaks.'

O Sultan! Because I dare to approach your deaf walls,
because I tried to reveal my sadness and tribulation,
I was beaten with my shoes


In 1995 the poet of love caused another uproar by declaring the death of the Arabs as a nation:

A horrifying chain of degenerations, Swiftly soaked us into the age of senility, eroticism, love, lament, political satire, a heavy sense of history, anger, violence and death could all be found in one verse of his works of the period. His eldest son, from his first wife Zahra, died in an accident in Beirut in 1973. Balquis his love was killed in 1981 when pro-Iranian terrorists blew up the Iraqi embassy in Beirut where she worked.

He entitled an anthology "To Beirut, the female." Many verses in that book illustrated how he mastered his craftsmanship of preserving the image of the woman tenderly loved with the herbs of lament, political--often sad--awareness and history. Nizar Qabbani wrote the most beautiful Poem of Balqis - Jismuki Khaaritati.

"your body is my map"
jismuki khaaritati

raise me more love raise
mezideeni oushkan zideeni

my prettiest fits of madness
ya ahla nawbaati junooni

O' dagger's journey in my flesh
ya safar-al-khanjari fi ansijati

and knife's plunge
ya ghalghalatah-sikkeeni

sink me further my lady
zideeni gharaqan ya sayyidati

the sea calls
meinna-al-bahra younadeeni

add to me more death
zideeni mawtan

perhaps as death slays me I'm revived
aalla-al-mawta, itha yaqtouloni, youhyeeni

your body is my map
jismuki khaaritati

the world's map no longer concerns me
ma aadat khaaritato-al-aalami ta'aneeni

I am the oldest capital of sadness
ana aqdamu aasimatin lil-hozni

and my wound a Pharaonic engraving
wa-jorhi naqshonn farrouni

my pain extends like an oil patch
waja-i yamtaddu kaboqa'ati zaytin

from Beirut to China
min Bayroota il-a-Seeni

my pain a caravan dispatched
waja-i qafilaton arsalaha

by the Caliphs of "A'Chaam" to China.
kholafaa'ou a'chaami il-a-Seeni

in the seventh century of the "Birth"
fil-qarni a-ssabi'i lil-miladi

and lost in a dragon's mouth
wa daa'at fi fami tinneeni

bird of my heart
"naysani" aasfoorata qalbi naysani

O' sand of the sea, and forests of olives
ya raml-al-bahri, wa ya ghaabaati a-zayatooni

O' taste of snow, and taste of fire
ya ta'ama a-thalji, wa ta'ama a-nnarr

my heathen flavor, and insight
wa nak'hata kufri wa yaqeeni

I feel scared of the unknown, shelter me
ash'ur bil khawfi min al-majhool fa-aaweeni

I feel scared of the darkness, embrace me
ash'ur bil khawfi min a-athalmaa'i fadummeeni

I feel cold, cover me up
ash'ur bil bardi faghatteeni

tell me children stories
ehkee li qisasan lil atfaali

rest beside me
idtaji'i qurbi

Chant to me
ghanneeni

since from the start of creation
fa ana min bid'i a-takween

I've been searching for a homeland to my forehead
abhathu aan watanin li jabeeni

for a woman's hair
aan sha'ari emra'atin

that writes me on the walls, then erases me
yaktoboni fawka a-judrani wa yamhooni

for a woman's love to take me
aan hobbi emra'atin ya'a-khuthuni

to the borders of the sun and throws me
li hodoodi a-shamsi wa yarmeeni

from a woman's lip, as she makes me
aan shafati emraatin taj-a'a loni

like dust of powdered gold
ka-ghobari a-thahabi al-mat'hoon

shine of my life, my fan
Nawwarata oumri marwahati

my lantern, declaration of my orchards
qindeeli Bawha basaateeni

stretch me a bridge with the scent of oranges
muddi li jisran min raa'ihati al-laymoon

and place me like an ivory comb
wa da'eeni moshtan aajiyyan

in the darkness of your hair, then forget me
fi aatmati sha'araki, wa enseeni

I am a drop of water, ambivalent
ana noqtato maa'in, haa'iraton

remaining in the notebook of October

baqiyat fi daftari Tichreeni

your love crushes me
yadhasoni hobboki

like a mad horse from the Caucasus throwing me under its hoofs
mithla hisaanin quqaaziyyin majnooni yarmeeni tahta hawaafirihi

and gargles with the water of my eyes
yataghargharu fi maa'i ouyooni

add to me more fury, add to me
zideeni ounfan zideeni

O' prettiest fits of my madness
ya ahla nawbaati junooni

for your sake I set free my women
min ajliki a'ataqtu nisaa'i

and effaced my birth certificate
wa shatabtu shahadata meeladi

and cut all my arteries,
wa qata'atu jamee'a sharaayeeni.