Peace, peace to far and near

[liv]

So a while back there was a meme for people to post anti-war songs. I thought that was a good meme, but at the time I didn't participate because I thought, I don't know any anti-war songs except really obvious ones like Universal Soldier and Blowing in the wind. I realized somewhat belatedly that I do in fact know the several Israeli anti-war songs, including the Song for Peace. I started composing a translation of it and found it was coming out with scansion. What I ended up with was not really a translation of the song as such, but a poem based on my (probably reliable) memory of my (almost certainly unreliable) transcription of the song. It's not really good enough for public but it's not bad enough to destroy and try to forget the memory of having written it, so here you go:

Let the sun rise
To light the morning –
Prayer's purest eyes
See no returning;
Whose light is out
Who sleeps in dust
No bitter shout
Brings back to us,
From death's dark pit
No man is raised.
All empty now are victory's joy
And songs of praise!

So only sing the song of peace,
Forget your mumbled prayers,
Better to sing the song of peace,
Shout it loud!

Let the sun shine
To greet the flowers.
Don't look behind;
The dead aren't ours.
We can't just say
"The day shall come!"
We'll bring that day,
We'll sing our song
In every town
From west to east,
Our many voices all as one
Shout out for peace.

It's so tempting right now to pray for peace. That would be the wrong thing to do for me personally, in my religious framework, if I don't also do something practical to make peace happen. I really don't know what though. Of course, it's far too easy to feel helpless to have any effect on distant foreign wars, but that feeling is worse right now, as a foreigner in a country where I have no contacts and don't know how these things work. Does anyone have any suggestions? Even something as simple as a charity I could donate to would be a good start.

And if you don't have any ideas about that, suggestions for improving the poemlet are also welcome. I'm particularly concerned about the line: All empty now are victory's joy / And songs of praise! because while it's obviously a plural statement grammatically, aesthetically it feels like it should be singlular. Any ideas?

Comments

[smhwpf.livejournal.com]

since you know both the peace movement and the Swedish scene

Ha, really don't know the Swedish scene (except some of the ISM Sweden people I met out there), as the language issue and the fact I was only there 8 months stopped me getting involved. I mean, the fact that while everyone speaks English, I felt I couldn't join groups out of work because I couldn't expect everyone else to speak English on my account. But I know, as you say, the peace movement, and I know Google. :)

...in some ways I would prefer to get involved with Jewish peace movements, because at least I don't have to worry that they might start blaming me for everything that is wrong with the world at the moment. Though in general I believe it is good for Jews to be seen to be involved in this sort of activism outside a specifically Jewish context.

Yeah... I think it's important to start somewhere you feel safe. And I think it's very valuable for Jewish groups to be saying, as Jews, "not in my name". (Did you see about the advert condeming Israel's Gaza campaign signed by 300+ British Jews btw?)

But why should they take an expat seriously?

Because you can still vote for them. UK Expats have voting rights in the UK for 15 years. (Most EU countries have no time limits for their citizens.) You may choose not to exercise that right, but they don't know that.:)

But yeah, British politics right now, yeek. Sweden's so much nicer in that regard! Though when I was there, it was right in the build-up to the Iraq war, I was there when it started, and it was frustrating in a way, I felt, as it were, hors de combat, as the Swedish government was always opposed to the war anyway. We had a very big demo for Sweden on Feb 15, about 35,000, but hardly compared to London!