Asafa Tafarra Dibaba
Indiana University
USA
Following is a Prefatory Note to the Collection of my Poems
Published as THE HUG (Resistance Poetry) in September 2011.
Now as it all happened to pass, or as it seems so,
and the Past left its trace once again
and this time of the Present, in THE HUG...
There we see in the footprint of Time,
the Future is the move forward into the Past,
the Future is the move forward into the Past,
in which case we are going but going nowhere!
And the Journey is not the Destination in itself!
But a Ritual-- journeying into Nowhere! a Human element!
But a Ritual-- journeying into Nowhere! a Human element!
To go forward and going Nowhere, to an Impasse!
This is an interesting paradox
of being (and/or becoming) Human(e)!
of being (and/or becoming) Human(e)!
If this is something to the fund of human knowledge
And if Words matter and make Humanity any better,
and I write, but I
and I write, but I
Write Poetry as Life is too short a Journey!
And as the Oppressed, we have but no Patience
but Preponderance. We have no Time to wait
And as the Oppressed, we have but no Patience
but Preponderance. We have no Time to wait
No Time to kill no Time to die… we sing songs…
and beat drums…and tell tales
and beat drums…and tell tales
Stories of Bygones times…of Resistance…to Today
as Humanity IS, Time WAS!
January 1, 2012
IU, Bloomington
____________________________________
CONTEXT: POETIC (-SELF) RESISTANCE
In the beginning. These two dreams of mine that follow my other disposable dreams! Have I been a dream storer/storier? Yes & No. First, a folkloric interpretation of dream, as a psychic discharge of the mind. To see twice my five year old son Ebba running away from me in my dream was much exasperating for a father poet living alone on exile. Folkloric dream interpretations signify an aspect of oneself and childlike qualities of the primitive self. It also means that one's sense of morality and character is in conflict. The metaphor of child in dream could also mean retreating back to a childlike state and longing for the past: trying to satisfy repressed desires and unfulfilled hopes. Perhaps there was something that I needed to see grow and nurture.
Second. I saw me and my younger son Doti fall to a bottomless pit only to overspill us soon like a child belch or like the overflow of some mystic emotion. Hence, I decided to take some time off to meditate and cater for this inner child impish.
Alternatively, the dream may be also alluding to innocence, purity, simplicity, and carefree attitudes impairing the developing self. To save a child in dream signifies attempts to save a part of oneself from being destroyed. To be separated from one's children in a dream could also symbolize failure in some personal endeavor or a setback in some ideal one had.
With this in mind, in April 2011, I went to present a paper titled “The Self in Folkloric Field-research” at the MELUS Conference hosted by Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, to come back to Atlanta imbued with some seeds of The Hug still entangled by more astounding (and recurring) fearful dreams.
Fear. Fearful dreams to inspire such apprehensive poems! "Not I but Zeus owns the thunder," the Greek poet Callimachus1 once said, when critics complained that he was ignoring his civic duties preferring to write small poems about love rather than poems aspiring to a great deal of cultural weight. When the poet was meditating the Muse (Atete) 2, Apollo is said to appear and reprimand, "fatten your animal for sacrifice, poet/but keep your muse slender," the same story echoed in the pastoral landscape of Virgil's "a Shepherd / should feed fat sheep and sing a slender song". To meditate the natural order of things, to evade the ruses of mischievous and rough demigods, I worship Atete, the goddess of fecundity and bountiful creativity.
Philosophers, politicians and literary critics have always distrusted poetry. Distrust is normal as the stuff of poetry, of its intrinsic opacity. The problem is the refusal to recognize that in a society engaged in some social change and transformation poetry has a great role. Also poetic language is said difficult. (One notes such complaints around my Anaan’yaa (1998/2006) and others.) Poetry revels in duplicity and disjunction. And how is it that one judges any particular poetic gesture is inevitably responsible or irresponsible to the culture that gives the language meaning? It is believed that a poem's opacity and obfuscation of the established terms might be the poem's most accountable act.
My unequivocal reaction to Ethiopic Apolo's reprimand is this: Atete put the thunder in my hand. And where the thunder bolt falls, there I erect the sacrificial altar, the miiloo3, and sing songs of freedom and resistance with the oppressed. Only an irresponsible and opportunist Shepherd may fatten Ate-lon4, a totem for the muse (Atete), and starve and slender the muse and the multitude with less or no dutiful songs of cultural weight.5
In such a song of desolation performed by one Salale fiddler, a celebrated Naggasa Abdi,
nan deema bariitee
nan bula yoo dhiitee
halkan ka’ee boo’a
nami bultiin miitee.
the dawn is near for me on the long trek
and to sojourn, if weary, at dusk!
one sits upright over night to whine
to woe wretchedness, to lament being, wretched.
the oppressed clearly communicate fundamental socio-historical issues in their folksongs and narratives as they do through violent resistance. Through the deconstruction and articulation of ‘subjectivity’/‘captivity,’ folk artists turn what is a mere ‘spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings’ or ‘emotion recollected in tranquility’ into ‘objectivity’/‘freedom’. The aesthetic presence in the oral poetry and the ‘phenomenalization of the poetic voice’ render it objective articulation of the real life situation of the people. Here, to ask “do we believe the singer or the song, the teller or the tale?” as Edward Chamberlain asks6, may not do any justice or may be misleading. It is only believe it and not; not believe it or not! My folks still sing with resentment about their ritual sites desecrated, sacred trees destroyed and religious leaders converted and humiliated their home deserted, their people dispossessed, dislocated, and dehumanized. And should I feed to fatten my animal and slender the muse?
In the collection of my poems, Decorous Decorum (2006), the alliterative ‘de-‘ is an allusive reference to the de-humanization processes ‘We’ are put in Ethiopia. It is the antithesis, an attempt to de-mystify the historicism of nation-building thesis, the mystification that we have been suffering. It is an organ of the ongoing struggle to ‘de-linking’, ‘de-centering’, ‘de-colonizing’, ‘disengaging’ the Self from bondage and from the mainstream discourse we have grown to experience: the Unity deprived, in its all organic whole, of equality, mutual respect, recognition, and, above all, Common Factor, a shared vision. Before ‘We’ are united, tolerated our differences, if any, we cannot talk of unity with others. The ‘de-‘ is the language of ‘breaking free’ and separating from a hegemonic Past and Present in a manner that is so decorous, but so curious. It is a search for willpower through indigenizing the struggle both in its conceptual and empirical manifestations (see the poem, ‘My People,’ in The Hug).
The Tibetan religious leader, Dalai Lama, was once told by a group of American scientists that around twelve percent of the American population suffers from depression. In his discussion the Dalai Lama came to infer the main cause of the acute problem was not lack of material necessities but a deprivation of the affection, love and care, of others.
The metaphor of ‘the hug’ is far-reaching. It is the need for love and compassion that lies at the very foundation of human existence. It is the language of profound interdependence humans share with one another from early days on in one’s mother’s cute arms. Set in here-and-now, and tucked in a hug, huggers focus in opposite directions though: they look at two separate antipoles. Even folded in a full-shoulder hug (unlike in a half-shoulder hug today where huggers pretend to focus in the same direction), the difference remains irresistible but tolerable! Now, it is time to give and take the hug to begin and end the positive action and to emphasize the kaawoo, the 'common factor' set before us.
In The Hug there can be a nasty side like anything else but that is not all the book brings to the table. Behind the poems is struggle. Struggle of the oppressed. Struggle of the poet with personal ayana. Pain, laughter. Success, failure. Much love, not much hate (or how much is much?). Politics and poetics of exile, or raided humanity! And faith. (I said faith?) But what do we have faith in if one soul's god is another’s stone? It is just believe it and not.
The meaning is in the "common ground".
The fear of failure in Man projected towards Wo-man from the time of the mythic Adam/Eve biblical metaphor is revealed through men's negative actions and attitudes in cyclic existence and to be subverted by women’s resistance! It is an inescapable fear in Man that the Salale elder reiterates as
dur yeroo dhirsi qotuu
niitiin meeftuuf’ footuu
eenyut’ baatee
eenyut’ nyaatee
lubbuun lubbuu hin caaltuu?
in the beginning when Man plowed
and Wo-man span and hoed
who was Master
who was Slave
no one soul better; nor one bitter?
The poetic voice impressionistically critiques events which relate to the present but remain oblique and unsaid. Harshly commenting the social evil around, he remains safe and isolated from the myriad of events, protected behind the time’s cart dur (in the beginning) whereas the focus is to critique the present as time enforces the need for a certain cohesive unity that the surrounding universe seems to lack.
There are things we have heard before and are likely to hear again in The Hug. The use of anecdotal situations and clear real-life examples is common in the book. We may need to maintain some modicum of dignity, some decorum as we expect in the anthology. We may be offended by the cutting-edge style used as a vehicle for rebellion and experimentation against every form of dehumanization, domination, wherever-whenever. The feeling accompanying resistance poetry is impressive but can be heavy. In spite of inevitable disillusionments in the world, one may see in poetry a shining beacon of hope in an often violent, tragic, and chaotic universe.
Poetic relevance. A freedom of expression matters when in Ethiopia one could swing the poet activist by the neck for speaking/writing truth. Folks were crucified in the struggle against the injustices and dehumanizing activities. Both still exist, i.e., the domination and the resistance/resister against it. In the end, when the poet is banned to sing songs of freedom in his homeland, and his voice is muted, not echoed, he cannot also live at peace in his songs on exile. The reason is, as an interim measure, there are intimate relations between the host country and the one outlawing resistance literature, critical pedagogy and the struggle for self-determination. To choose to stay silent, particularly for the poet, is like to come out of the dessert to the sea and to choose to stay dry. May be one can be predisposed to the cultural baggage that surface his/her creative groundwork and work on succumbing to or getting over it already.
One prime subject of The Hug is the significance of love, compassion, decency, morality and wisdom as ideal principles of peace. All world religions, including the African Oromo traditional belief daniya, or waqeffanna, hold peace as a fundamental rule to benefit humanity through love and compassion with the help of the underlying divine moral order, safu, and the altruistic principle of ubuntu. Through the basic moral precepts do not lie, do not steal or do not take others' lives, religions, beyond a political ideology, aim at the advancement of mind, body and action based on unselfishness. In conditions, ‘globalizers’ may believe in telling lies or taking the lives of others to save others as morally justifiable, which still simply has a zero-sum effect by leaving humanity in a vicious circle!
For peace to overrule war, no religion is better than another. Every religion is suited in its own way to the orientation of a particular group, i.e., orientation to their varied ways of life, diverse spiritual needs, and inherited national traditions. Every society has some spiritual significance or material and social capital to contribute in some way to world civilization and world peace. As a society, should we hoist as our own the problem of the world religious differences and the consequent devastating effects, to fail to work towards interfaith understanding and some degree of unity among us, respect for each other's beliefs and ideas and concern for human wellbeing will have an unbearable direct impact on our common interest whatsoever! If we think we are paving the way towards the future, what would be our future like when our present is entangled by too many a conundrum?
Whatever we build let it not be of selfishness and lust based on hatred and anger but on vibrant love, tolerance and compassion toward each other and toward others. Let us give each other the hug that the world denied us as the oppressed, seeing us as wretched of the earth. If the foundation for building our free nation is love among us and peace at large, we remain salt for this part of the earth. To disregard the fundamental principle of daniya, i.e., the Oromo divine moral order, safu, is to sacrifice the best part of humanity and intelligence, i.e., wisdom (oguma), the ability to decide on right and wrong.
In the "Postscript" to Anaan'ya (1998/2006), the collection of my poems, I stated that every one of us, in our basic instinct, we have a strong sense of concern (anaan) toward humankind and owe moral obligation to enact it to maintain human agency. As humans, we are compassionate, kind, benevolent, loving and caring by nature—that is what we are and what we all need(ed) as infants beyond the location of culture.
Borders can be demarcated on the ground, not in our hearts. And in The Hug, not to wait until "…over our heads the hollow seas close up," as if we were sleepy, and we sang those songs of bygone days to conciliate god, we told stories to console the drowsing self, and to mend the broken heart. A poem's consolation is neither permanent nor complete. For a moment, we are rescued from the narratives of desperation that structure every second of our life as the poem's language creates an interior space where for a moment we can hide. But at the end of the journey, the therapeutic effect of poetry is self-evident: a poem can't help but it may speak as easily to us as to the oppressed. Resistance poetry is nourishing because of the fervor with which it confronts itself, harnessing the inevitable tendency of language to mean one thing because it threatens to mean another.
When a culture threatens to foreclose a poem's potential for subversiveness, the assumption of poetry's relevance can be oppressive to the poet unless the poet embraces the system. Similarly, the assumption of poetry's irrelevance can be liberating if the poet voices the plights of the people, poetry (song, in the case of oral society) being a medium that succeeds by exploiting rather than suppressing the inevitable tendency of culture to resist.
Resistance Poetry also helps us remember who we are and why we are as in the verse, "consider well your seed / you were not born to live as a mere brute does, / but for the pursuit of knowledge and the good" which scare away a feeling of self-forgetfulness and desolation. The feeling of its wisdom may be far from consoling. The lines, however, aim at luminosity to glow the darkened side of the self shattered by the spectacular failure of quest. We may see the mountain of purgatory looming before us and drown with all our hope before reaching the destination.
To fail to discover one's true potency, for the poet, is to feel the ghost of Callimachus bearing down, to cool the thunder bolt, to bemuse the lightning and to choose to stay silent. Without some mechanism of poetic self-resistance, we could not feel the wonder of poetry more than once nor could we rediscover our pleasure in the unintelligibility of the world.
In the view of critical cultural resistance, the dissent is not in response to a manifestation of a particular oppressive system but resistance grounded in a belief in fundamental freedoms. That is what an emancipatory resistance is/does! Creative resistance is viewed not as an individual’s casual response to a particular oppressive situation. It is a catalyst for collective awakening to the possibility of fundamental social change.
Imagine forgetting for a while what we are for even when lamenting a funeral song or singing a love song. Poems/Songs never ask us to be justified; they ask us to hug (and) to exist or to resist.7
_________ NOTES
1. Callimachus (Kallimachos) was a poet and scholar who lived c. 305 to c. 240 bc at Cyrene / Shahhat, now Libya
His most famous poetical work, illustrative of his antiquarian interests, was the Aitia (Causes). In the prologue to Aitia, he claims that Apollo visited him and cautioned him to "fatten his flocks, but to keep his muse slender," a clear indication of his choice of carefully crafted and allusive material. He urged poets to "drive their wagons on untrodden fields." That is, rather than following in the well worn tracks of Homer and the long epic poems, he idealized a form of poetry that was brief, yet carefully formed and worded, a style at which he excelled.
2. Atete is the Oromo goddess of fertility, creativity and abundance. As a symbol of gender relationship between man and woman, Waaqa and Ogliya represent the patriarchal view of man and the physical world and Atete represents the matriarchal view of women's divinities known in different names as Ayyole, Maram, Ayyo-baar. Atete Guyye, among the Salale Oromo, is a guardian of the gates, doors or doorways, like the Roman god Janus. Most often she is depicted as having two heads. Symbolically they look simultaneously into the future and the past, back at the last year and forward at the new.
3. Miiloo is a metal post used in the traditional Oromo society to mark a ritual site that belongs to a specific gosa, clan also known as miiloo.
4. Ate-lon is the totem of Atete, the cow revered as a symbol of fecundity, productivity (creativity) and praised in rituals and songs to appease gods and goddesses.
5. In “The Arts and creation of the Mind”, E.W. Eisner (2002) states that the arts have an important role to play in refining our sensory systems and cultivating our imaginative abilities. In this regard, a culture populated by people whose imagination is impoverished is believed to have a static future. Also there will be little chance because there will be little sense of possibility.
6. In his If this is your land, where are your stories, Ted Chamberlin (2003) clearly reveals his concern for the new global community, where often those peoples and traditions that were and are essentially local are overlooked, and which calls for glocalization. Indeed, the use of the very term ‘indigenous’ peoples seems to evoke the stigma of the backward and primitive, rather than its actual meaning of those who are rooted in the land of their ancestors re-enacted through stories and songs. Through songs and stories the indigenous people are able to speak their experience of the oppression in their own voices and pass it on the succeeding generation to contemplate.
7. Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It's that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that's what the poet does.
__________ Allen Ginsberg
In Barry Miles Ginsberg (1989), ch.5.
In Barry Miles Ginsberg (1989), ch.5.
___________
One can find the book at Universal Book Center, Addis Ababa or on
and eBook on http://www.amazon.com/The-Hug-ebook/dp/B005N9GOIK/ref=tmm_kin_img_popover?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2
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