Matiullah Turab's View of American Security

Dear Mr. President,

It’s been said that poets are the true revolutionaries and I suspect that’s because poets have the ability to pierce the veil of propaganda, bullshit and hypocrisy and speak the truth in powerful, stirring and memorable ways. Lorca was assassinated by the Spanish, Pasolini by the Italians, Roque Dalton by Salvadorians (possibly with the help of the CIA)…there are many, many others. Matiullah Turab is an Afghan ironworker by day who, by night writes “poetry as hard and piercing as the tools he uses by day.” (today’s NYT, “An Afghan Poet Shapes Metal and Hard Words” p. A1) He is not interested in writing about nature or romance: “A poet must write about the plight and pain of the people,” he says. And so he does, writing for “ordinary Afghans weighed down by the grinding corruption and disappointment that have come to define the last decade of their lives.” He writes simple, truthful, hard poems that counter the spin of “government, diplomats, religious leaders and the media.” (How we need an American version of Matiullah Turab!) He has no use for the Afghan government, politicians in general, the Taliban or the Americans. Here’s what he has to say about the U.S.:

O flag-bearers of the world

you have pained us a lot in the

name of security

You cry of peace and security

and you dispatch guns and

ammunition

After reading the article and listening to an online video clip of Turab reciting one of his poems, I watched a short clip of Josh Earnest, the principal deputy White House press secretary tell the press during the daily briefing this morning that the Brits had given us a “heads-up” that they were detaining David Miranda but denied we had anything to do with it. The contrast between Matiullah Turab and Josh Earnest couldn’t have been starker and the reason people have no use for politicians (or their spokespersons) more clear. U.S. involvement in the detention and questioning of Miranda (and confiscation of his laptop, cell phone, DVDs and memory sticks) couldn’t be clearer. The questioning was relentless, the threat of arrest and imprisonment constant, but the questions were not about terrorism or terrorist plots, only about Greenwald, Snowden and Poitras and other random questions—who he knows in the Brazilian government, why Brazilians were protesting. He was never accused of being a terrorist but treated like one. I don’t understand Pashto, but I’d rather listen to Matiullah Turab’s truth than Josh Earnest’s lies any day.

Matiullah Turab