“…like over the dark cloud,
the sun will shine over
Turkey and Syria again.”
O Turkey,
O Syria,
Have you both been brought so low,
Reduced to a mere rubble,
And humbled in just a matter of moment?
Down you may both be now,
Humbled you may be now,
Broken and flattened you may be now,
Scattered, fractured and disjointed you may be now,
With the fractured and dangling limbs of your children,
Held together now only by tiny ligaments and veins,
And crying beneath the rubble, writhing with excruciating pains
And experiencing unparalleled agonies
As they are trapped between the concrete slabs
crying and crying beneath the piles of rubble unheard,
And buried deep in the rubble,
with heavy slabs pressing them down beneath,
Some dead, some alive still in spite of,
With others merely gasping for breath
Beside helpless women in labour underneath
to bring forth new lives into a world now walking on its head,
with everything now in a constant flux and topsy-turvy,
You will rise again from this rubble in the sun
Yea, Turkey will rise again!
And you both will rise again with the rising sun from the East.
O Syria! O Syria! O Syria!
My floods of tears do cascade down
My cheeks for your double tragedy –
Torn, bloodied and destroyed
by the war of blame for these past seasons,
Again, you now lay subdued, helpless and powerless
under the tyranny of intemperate, irascible,
crassly insensate, capricious and fiery gods.
Yet, it is the decree of the heavens that you will rise again.
And doubly so, from your double tragedies!
Yes, Syria too will rise again!
both from the war and this undeserved anger
of unprotecting Mother Nature.
With all your Hagia Sophia triumphalism
and vaunting infantile exhibitionism,
a ‘General’ ought not to be thus shaken -
Confused, overwhelmed, browbeaten and conquered
like an ensnared mouse in a hole with such tears
in profusion cascading down your cheeks
in such Niagara Falls rapidity.
But where goes your signature boasting?
Yet, here is water, Recep,
Here is water like the cooling, soothing
and balmy dew from the East
To wipe off the tears rolling down your cheeks
and those of your country men and women.
Weep no more Tayyip, for help is on the way.
Weep no more, for all the world have heard your cries.
Weep no more, for your cries are already
reverberating in the nations and help is coming.
And all the nations in every realm and clime,
in every republic and kingdom collectively
have said: We hear you; and we hear your cries too.
We are on the way; our parties are on the way –
We hear you and help is coming!
We hear you loud and clear, and help is coming.
Don’t cry no more, we are just by the corner – help is coming!
And you, junk Assad,
In that war of blame for these past seasons,
Confederated with infernal and fiendish Vlad to destroy Syria,
Which now lays further prostrate under the weight
of death’s dark angels, vicious, cruel, mindless and merciless!
But nevertheless, the heavens ‘ve decreed Syria too shall rise again.
Behold, how a power greater than you
has exposed your powerlessness and vainglory,
leaving you naked and shamed
before the curious and peering eyes of the world
Nevertheless, weep no more, for help is on the way.
O Syria,
O Turkey,
In your hour of bereavement,
Let me be your cicada to let out my shrill cry
from every mountain top, hill and valley in Turkey and in Syria,
And let my shrill voice too with tears
cascading down my cheeks reverberate
first, from every mountain top,
hill, in the valley and roof top
all over Turkey and Syria
And more, let my wailings from Everest’s top,
echo in every realm and clime;
In every kingdom and nation;
And from every republic and emirate,
Let my voice echo,
Let my voice echo loud from every town and city
In the nations of the world;
Let my voice echo loud from every hamlet and village
To prick the conscience of all the peoples of the world
‘Dead’ or alive to let their humanity shine.
All you peoples of the world,
North or South, let your humanity shine,
From the West, let your humanity shine,
From the East, and every corner of the globe,
far and near, let our humanity shine,
O’ let our humanity shine, let it shine,
And now is that hour, when shine indeed,
Shall our collective humanity shine
To shame all the powers of darkness.
And to every Turkish and Syrian, you must ever
Calm remain and resilient with a resolute determination
To quake the quake itself, holding on to your hope and faith,
Never letting your hope nor your faith fail you
As like over the dark cloud,
the sun will shine over
Turkey and Syria (Alepo/Idlib) again!
By JOHN ODEY ADUMA, Author of the bestseller, “Be A Beacon of Hope in the World: A Message to Young Britain”, February 7, 2023.
