I am the mother; I am the earth, the giver of life. I am all the mothers standing there, hands raised to the skies, armed with hope and faith. Their bodies are a shield that thwarts the woes of injustice and murder, keeping them away from their children; the very pieces of their hearts that they conceal between their ribs.
I am writing to you and your friends, brothers and sisters, and all your generational kin, a message of love; for life and for peace. I wish to embrace you. To hide you deep under my skin, to girdle you with a belt heavy with faith and love; a belt that will anchor you in a sea of peace in this life, rather than send you to the next one.
I belong to a generation that has never known peace. I have known all the forms of war, the wars that tore asunder all my attachments and severed my humanity. I grew up in the shadow of a monolithic fear, a fear that abducted me and took me away from my own life, halted all joy in my life, and darkened all the colors in my sky. It made me a nomad, never being able to establish any roots; so I fled all the dictums that my family, religion, region and culture were allegedly built upon. It was an anguish that made me wish to apologize to my children for having brought them to this world; for having taught them my language, and the history and prose of my ancestors.
For those who are born in burned cities, live the pain of stolen memories, and search all their lives for the springs of love to snuff the fires of their hearts burning with terror and nostalgia.
As a mother and as human; I claim my right to demand the rejection of war.
I also claim my right to acknowledgement and gratitude; for all the years taken from my life by these wars.
Is it too much to ask?
I will not allow you to throw your years to the wind. I will not allow you to imprison your ambitions and future behind the bars of hatred and death. I will not allow that to happen; this tragedy is never to befall you.
Do you hear me?
You, the descendants of sailors and scribes. Let your heritage envelop you; let science, culture, music, colors, silk handkerchiefs, ports and beaches reign in your world.
Fill your nests with books and tenderness; fill your walls with drawings and paintings. Don’t grow up to be fighters, rather, become poets, builders and artists, cultivators of nature; advocates of the world, shapers of humanity.
Leave the glorious mottoes of war and death to those noble people whose hearts and souls have already departed. Memorize the lyrics to a good song; do not memorize political catchphrases that can only be described as foreshadowing titles on the cover of horror stories. Work hard and with confidence. Dance free like butterflies. Grow tall like a cypress tree, strong like an oak branch. And hold your heads up high with your convictions and moral compass, not with the sorcery of ignorance and greed; because when the blood is spilt, your mothers’ hearts will be bleeding rather than yours.
Be loyal to your mothers’ womb. You are mistaken in thinking you are no longer part of them, for you are their life and limb that refuses to be severed from them.