- Being cast
- as lower caste
- makes you an outcast
- makes you the one to blame
- The one to vilify
- the one to dominate
- the one to terrify
- and to humiliate
- But like new strains of flu
- or less useful poison
- immunities can form
- and a boldness surge forth
- With memories of old
- fresh as the dawning dew
- inhabiting your moves
- informing all you do
- And in this manic rush
- to find the space to breathe
- to crawl out from the rocks
- and meet the morning sun
- You enact the nightmare
- that once visited you
- on others in your path
- and make them fear the day
- That banshee in your mind
- now makes the eyes turn blind
- to all the things you do
- the things you fail to see
- For you are now the fiend
- that made you once cry out
- the master once outcast
- blaming new pariahs.
Celta Arabica – Poems for Palestine by Jim Aitken and Ghazi Hussein. Available from the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign, c/o Peace and Justice Centre, Princes Street, EH2 4BJ. (No price given – donations)