Give The Man His Poetry

The March 6th, 20006 episode of This American Life on NPR covers the reality of Guantanamo and the demographics of the prisoners there. I can't link to the direct page because their ite uses frames, but you can find it easily at ThisAmericanLife.org.

Specifically they mention how many of the prisoners in Gitmo got there. After the fall of the Taliban, $10,000 bounties were awarded to anyone who turned over an al qaeda "operative." The incentive to simply turn in a neighbor for $10,000 USD is pretty enormous. I can't remember the numbers they quoted in the piece (and honestly it would serve everyone well to take an hour out of your life to listen to it), but the effective amount of information coming out of Gitmo in the war on terror is nil. It almost seems like some kind of strange pride that it is kept open.

I think the ratio of Abdul Rahim Muslim Dosts to Bin Laden protegés is pretty high. Let's admit a mistake and close up shop.

It's a sad thing, but the first thing I thought when I read your article is:

I guess we can expect that the FBI now has a file on Celestina.

That is the mistrust that I have for our government these days.

Congrats for sticking up for him, though. The small things do matter.

Celestina,

I've had you on my 'watch' list for a while now. It really is quite refreshing to know that there still are some people that have the moral fortitude to make a request of this nature on behalf of fellow human being. You are a political activist of a highest caliber. I salute you for you courage and conviction. All people should lead by example- and you're doing just that.

Keep up the good work. I look forward to seeing more work from you here on Newsvine.

P.S.

I sent a letter in support of this effort to the links you supplied above.

This is an amazing contribution, Celestina. I was stunned as I read it, and that rarely ever happens, I am sorry to say. Your efforts, and this article may be less significant in a quantitative analysis and from a purely rational point of view, but it has its justification and a certain poetic sonority, the resonance of the highest form of humane interest. Whoever brought you up and influenced you to think and feel and respond the way you do should be proud, and I say that without any irony or reservation. It would probably never have entered my mind to make a case of this. I'm off to write a letter...

Translating outrage into action -- that's fantastic, Celestina. I'll be writing my letter, too. I've already written a couple of letters to the journalists who wrote the three original pieces which were mentioned in Aine's articles and in the subsequent comments. I've asked them if they have any contact with Mr. Dost and any further information on his situation. If I hear back positively from any of them, I'll see if they are willing to broker an introduction so that we Newsviners can contact Mr. Dost and see if there's any way we can help if he cannot get his poems back. I'll keep y'all posted.

Celestina,

Wonderful, wonderful idea.. and let me just abuse for a moment the Newsvine's commenting system by quoting a poem this story made think about..

For My People, Margaret Walker

For My People
by Margaret Walker

For my people everywhere singing their slave songs repeatedly: their dirges and their ditties and their blues and their jubilees, praying their prayers nightly to an unknown god, bending their knees humbly to an unseen power;

For my people lending their strength to the years, to the gone years and the now years and the maybe years, washing ironing cooking scrubbing sewing mending hoeing plowing digging planting pruning patching dragging along never gaining never reaping never knowing and never understanding.

For my playmates in the clay and dust and sand of Alabama backyards playing and baptizing and preaching and doctor and jail and soldier and school and mama and cooking and playhouse and concert and store and hair and Miss Choomby and company;

For the cramped bewildered years we went to school to learn to know the reasons why and the answers to and the people who and the places where and the days when, in memory of the bitter hours when we discovered we were black and poor and small and different and nobody cared and nobody wondered and nobody understood.

For the boys and girls who grew in spite of these things to be Man and Woman, to laugh and dance and sing and play and drink their wine and religion and success, to marry their playmates and bear children and then die of consumption and anemia and lynching;

For my people thronging 47th Street in Chicago and Lenox Avenue in New York and Rampart Street in New Orleans, lost disinherited dispossessed and happy people filling the cabarets and taverns and other people's pockets needing bread and shoes and milk and land and money and something—something all our own;

For my people walking blindly spreading joy, losing time being lazy, sleeping when hungry, shouting when burdened, drinking when hopeless, tied and shackled and tangled among ourselves by the unseen creatures who tower over us omnisciently and laugh;

For my people blundering and groping and floundering in the dark of churches and schools and clubs and societies, associations and councils and committees and conventions, distressed and disturbed and deceived and devoured by money-hungry glory-craving leeches, preyed on by facile force of state and fad and novelty, by false prophet and holy believer.

For my people standing staring trying to fashion a better way from confusion, from hypocrisy and misunderstanding, trying to fashion a world that will hold all the people, all the face, all the adams and eves and their countless generations;

Let a new earth rise. Let another world be born. Let a bloody peace be written in the sky. Let a second generation full of courage issue forth; let a people loving freedom come to growth. Let a beauty full of healing and a strength of final clenching be the pulsing in our spirit and our blood. Let the martial songs be written, let the dirges disappear. Let a race of men now rise and take control.

...and "give the man his poetry".

Celestina - great job. I admire you for doing so.

I'll write to them too.

Hey, everybody! I got an email this morning from Declan Walsh, the author of the most recent article in the Guardian UK. The email has one of those boilerplate corporate confidentiality notices at the bottom so I can't reprint the whole thing until I get permission from Mr. Walsh. When I get that permission I'll post the whole thing here just for a record.

Here's what I can tell you: he forwarded my email to Dost's brother Badr, indicating that there are some people trying to do what we can to get the poetry back. He has also looked at the website. He said that Dost believes that the poetry still exists because each time it was confiscated it was placed in sealed envelopes with his name and cell number. Dost was also told that the poems were translated into English.

I think that letters to the military are a good idea, but we may have better luck if each of us Americans contact our Representatives and Senators and request their assistance. Those of us who are not Americans might be able to contact their Foreign Ministers to see if they can help. I have a hard time believing that our military would throw anything out -- except gays, of course -- so I think this might not be a totally quixotic quest. Keep those cards and letters flowing!

This is a very cool piece.