Od Masrika do Magriba

I salute the heroic and valiant Bosnian Muslim Army, defenders of their land, people and faith.




Od Masrika do Magriba

[From East To West]

Od Masrika do magriba, svuda gdje se ezan cuje,

ubijaju jata Tvoja, Tvoje seve i slavuje,

Nase selo umaklo je, pa nebesa tuzna stoje,

Al' sto vise kvarimo, sve vise Te mi volimo.

Sve glasnije mi klicemo, i u zori osvicemo.

Ovog casa dok ti spavas kolju grlo jedne ptice,

ubijaju ni zbog cega, njenu bracu i sestrice.

Ovog casa dok ti spavas, na odzaku gnijezda pale,


nocas mrznu ni zbog cega, mtrtve oci pticje male.

Ovog casa dok ti spavas, novo jato na put krece,

grlimo se i gledamo, koga sutra biti nece?


Poems by Margaret O'Beirne:

Ethnic Cleansing

Look into that chasm
And see forever
The rape of a nation;
See the writhing mass, the crooked leers,
The brutish couplings,
Where drunken lust stalks its prey:
The Muslim mothers, wives and daughters.

Did ever fox move so stealthily
Or hungry wolf pursue its prey
As they, in clumsy uniforms
Breached our refuge, locking the door
Behind them.

After a quick review
They shared the spoils: such a
one's coveted wife, the other's
Nubile daughter;
Commanders first, others later,
In strict pecking order.

Young girls, large-eyed, ripped like
lambs from their dam,
Were sacrificed
On a rude kitchen table,
Their full horror
Caught in thrashing limb and piercing
Scream.

Night darkness was no shield for
pregnant mother or wizened age;
Like hungry wolves they
Tore the flesh, splayed
The arthritic legs, made obscene
their 'patriotic' aims as
they bayed and they brayed
In lustful revenge.

Sated, they left, the door half- hanging
from its hinges. Loud laughter carried
In the cool night air.

Prologue

It was a neat strategy with a single aim-
the 'cleansing' of Herzogovina :
' Kill the men and rape the women'- familiar war-cry
to the dispossessed.

Then it was that Serbian betrayed Muslim neighbour:
Forgotten the meals shared,
the kitchen chats over the filjan - all the intimacies
of community life.

Friendly neighbour became brutish enemy:
First, the muslim men were herded into lorries and
carted away, corralled like beasts and left to starve;
Then their women and children became the
Front line of battle, soft targets for the chetniks.

The Women's Chorus

"Oh where are our men now,
Our husbands and fathers,
Oh who will defend us?
The military police? No, their
shadows announce them,
They've had their orders and
are eager to enjoy,
One brutal thrust and our doors
fly open.

They reel into our kitchens with feverish eyes
And drag us, the muslim mothers and grandmothers of
Foca, our infants and dark-eyed, questioning children
To their rape camps right by the police-station.

Oh no, not my daughter, she's only twelve,
Oh remember, neighbour, our good times together.
Oh no, my little one, your snowy loins are gashed.
Now your child's treble makes a horrible babble.
This will kill your father.

Oh now are the fiends unleashed :
They bring us down, down into the abyss,
the stinking pit of darkness, strip away our modesty,
use their tools- oh shame!- on young and old,
repeatedly, in an orgy of revolting lust,
until they are sated."

Epilogue

Oh who can stifle the screams of agony
which echo forever across Herzogovina?
Who can stem the flow of tears, wash clean
the defiled bodies? Gather up the blood spilt?
Still the racing images of violation?
Who can exact atonement?

Let the screams forever echo in the ears
of their tormentors,
And pictres of torture haunt us too
Lest we forget, in our complacency.