Bangladesh

On 26 March, 1971 Bangladesh declared its independence from Pakistan; their Victory day came on 16 December of the same year. The borders of present-day Bangladesh were established in 1947 when the country became part of the newly-formed nation of Pakistan. The pairing arose from the common ground of the Islamic religion, but, with a 1600 kilometre expanse of India lying between Western and Eastern Pakistan (as well as economic neglect of the region that is now Bangladesh) the unity of Pakistan was a problem. Following a liberation war, Bangladesh emerged. Since independence, there’s been a great deal of political turbulence—fourteen different heads of government and at least four military coups.

While I did already know that Bangladesh is subject to annual monsoon floods and cyclones, I hadn’t realised that it is among the mostly densely populated countries in the world. As well as the floods, cyclones, tornadoes and tidal bores that occur almost every year, Bangladesh also suffers from the effects of deforestation, soil degradation and erosion. And, of course, alongside India, Bangladesh is a region in which the Bengal Tiger is found. (I can’t help it. I’m a lover of big cats, and I want to know these things.)

For today’s poem I once more fell back on the Vintage Book of Contemporary World Poetry. (It’s one of my favourite anthologies—the only one I have read cover to cover, to far, in my anthology-reading life. 600 pages of bliss.) Entitled “Border,” the poem is by Taslima Nasrin and translated from the Bengali by Carolyne Wright and Farida Sarkar.

Border

I’m going to move ahead.
Behind me my whole family is calling,
my child is pulling at my sari-end,
my husband stands blocking the door,
but I will go.
There’s nothing ahead but a river
I will cross.
I know how to swim but they
won’t let me swim, won’t let me cross.

There’s nothing on the other side of the river
                     but a vast expanse of fields
but I’ll touch this emptiness once
and run against the wind, whose whooshing sound
makes me want to dance. I’ll dance someday
and then return.

I’ve not played keep-away for years
                     as I did in childhood.
I’ll raise a great commotion playin keep-away someday
and then return.

For years I haven’t cried with my head
                     in the lap of solitude.
I’ll cry to my heart’s content someday
and then return.

There’s nothing ahead but a river
and I know how to swim.
Why shouldn’t I go? I’ll go. 

—Taslima Nasrin
translated from the Bengali by Carolyne Wright and Farida Sarkar
from the Vintage Book of Contemporary World Poetry

Greece

I’m guessing most people my age don’t think a great deal about Greece having struggled for independence. Greece? Isn’t that the country of Sophocles, Socrates and Homer? Well, yes—but empires do fall, get taken over and then have to go through a lot to become their own entities again. The Hellenic Republic is no exception, and so on 25 March in 1821 Greece declared independence from the Ottoman Empire.

Greece fell to the Ottomans in 1453, and nearly four centuries on, their War of Independence continued from 1821 until 1829, with their 1821 declaration of independence officially recognised under the London Protocol in 1830.

Independence wasn’t the end of the story—in World War I the country fell to German forces, and then, after liberation, experienced a long-lasting civil war. In 1967, there was a coup d’etat, and from 1967 until 1974 Greece was under the control of a military junta. After the fall of this junta, Greece moved transitioned into democracy. In 1981 they became the tenth member of the European Union.

As a brief aside, looking at their current population estimate (a little over 11 million) I understand by Melbourne has the third largest Greek population in the world—after Athens and Thessoloniki. In my imagination, all European nations have large populations, probably because the countries have loomed large in my mind since childhood.

Choosing a poem to represent Greece was difficult solely from the point of view of asking myself the question: Cavafy’s “Waiting for the Barbarians,” or not Cavafy’s “Waiting for the Barbarians?” There are many other fine Greek poets, and many other wonderful Greek poems available in translation. I’m a big fan of Yannis Ritsos and Odysseas Elytis… but Cavafy is the poet who moves me most, and “Waiting for the Barbarians” is a monument not just of modern Greek poetry, but of 20th century poetry in general. Cavafy died in 1933, but his influence is still felt today. I still remember discovering this poem almost 10 years ago, and it still has the same effect on me. I found the text online here, but almost any anthology of modern poetry that includes translations will include this poem. Cavafy’s Collected Poems is really very easy to find—I’ve bought it twice.


Waiting for the Barbarians

What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?

The barbarians are due here today.

Why isn't anything happening in the senate?
Why do the senators sit there without legislating?

Because the barbarians are coming today.
What laws can the senators make now?
Once the barbarians are here, they'll do the legislating.

Why did our emperor get up so early,
and why is he sitting at the city's main gate
on his throne, in state, wearing the crown?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and the emperor is waiting to receive their leader.
He has even prepared a scroll to give him,
replete with titles, with imposing names.

Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today
wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas?
Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts,
and rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds?
Why are they carrying elegant canes
beautifully worked in silver and gold?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and things like that dazzle the barbarians.

Why don't our distinguished orators come forward as usual
to make their speeches, say what they have to say?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and they're bored by rhetoric and public speaking.

Why this sudden restlessness, this confusion?
(How serious people's faces have become.)
Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly,
everyone going home so lost in thought?

Because night has fallen and the barbarians have not come.
And some who have just returned from the border say
there are no barbarians any longer.

And now, what's going to happen to us without barbarians?
They were, those people, a kind of solution.

—Constantine Cavafy
translated from the Greek by Edmund Keeley

Namibia

Namibia is a babe among nations: on 21 March 1990 the nation gained independence from South Africa. Its name comes from the Namib Desert, in the western, coastal regions of the country.

Until around 2000 years ago, the only inhabitants of Namibia were the original hunter-gatherer San people. Around this time, the Nama people (also known as Namaqua or Hottentot) settled in the southern region of Namibia. Later, in the 9th century, another group—the Damara—settled in the central region of the country. Later again, in the 17th century a group of the Bantu people, the Herero, moved into Namibia. They are said to have enslaved certain groups of people, and to have displaced traditional Bushmen to areas unsuitable for their lifestyle. It was in the 19th century that white farmers moved north from South Africa into Namibia.

In 1805, the London Missionary Society began working in Namibia—in 1811 they founded the town of Bethanie and built a church which is today the oldest building in the nation. In the 1840s. the German Rhenish Mission Society started working in Namibia. It was later in the 19th century that Europeans became interested in claiming Namibia as colonial territory. Britain made the first claim in 1878, followed by Germany. In 1884 Bismarck established German South West Africa as a colony.

Early in the 20th century, South Africa (itself a member of the British Commonwealth) occupied and then undertook administration of South-West Africa. From 1966 to 1990 Namibia struggled to gain its independence. From the 1970s, there was a great deal of international pressure on South Africa to withdraw and grant Namibia independence. Though South Africa agreed to cooperate at this juncture, is continued to administer Namibia, and when UN Commissioners for Namibia were appointed, South Africa refused to recognise them from 1973 to 1988. Finally, from 1989 to 1990 the transition to Namibia’s independent nationhood was made.

One of the new independent government’s policies was land reform: Namibia’s colonial past and the South African influence of Apartheid meant that ownership of the majority of the land was in the hands of a minority. Under land reform, land is meant to be redistributed to previously landless communities, but this reform has been slow—Namibia’s constitution only allows land to be bought from farmers willing to sell, and land prices are high.

Today’s poem is by Namibian poet Mvula Ya Nangolo, who was born in Oniimwandi Village in the Uukwambi district of northern Namibia in 1943. The poem comes from an anthology of African poets I found in my library searches, When My Brothers Come Home.

A Flower

Ever walked that footpath
     to my village
between that communal well
     and your uncle’s homestead?
If next you come
     not by flying machine

but walking in single file
     with your chum and scum
from the city…
     just don’t walk by
but stop

Put a flower on my grave
     for I died like a brave
for your salary so high
     which you receive with no sigh
I’d freed you
     and lest you forget the brave

there on my grave
    just a flower—child
onto my eternal bed
     where I rest but not yet dead
just a flower lad.

—Mvula Ya Nangolo
from When My Brothers Come Home

Tunisia

On 20 March 1956 Tunisia gained its independence from France. Perhaps because it is the smallest of the countries situated along the Atlas Mountains, I feel like I often forget Tunisia when I’m thinking of the countries along the northern coast of Africa: it’s wedged between Algeria and Libya, which in their way have figured more prominently in my consciousness, along with Morocco and Egypt, which round out the northern end. But Tunisia is the home of Carthage, which I have to say makes me want to go there. (Not that there are any places I don’t want to go.) The capital is Tunis, and official language Arabic.

Tunisia has been settled by outsiders since the 10th century BCE, with travellers from Tyre (in Lebanon) founding Carthage in the 9th century BCE. In the Aeneid, on his way to founding Rome, Aeneas stopped in Carthage. From the 5th century AD onward the country changed hands a few times, including, in the 7th century, being conquered by Arab Muslims. Later Tunisia was under control of Turkish Beys.

In the 1800s the Turkish Beys borrowed money from Europe to finance modernisation in Tunisia. Following this, the country was bankrupted, and the country’s finances fell into administration under an agreement by France, Britain and Italy. With a little dealing (the British gained control of Cyprus, and then backed the French in their Tunisian interests) in the 1880 France gained control of Tunisia, and the country was made a French protectorate in 1881.

From the early 20th century the movement toward self-governance and independence was strong, including a group known as the Neo-Destour—declared illegal by France. One of the leaders of the Neo-Destour, Habib Bourguiba, spent a lot of time in French prisons, but following Tunisia’s independence, Bourguiba became first Prime Minister, and, after 1957, the first president of the Republic of Tunisia. He remained President until, in 1987, he was deposed by the current president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in a coup. There is a distinct lack of public political discourse, and it is apparent that dissidents are routinely arrested—there are significant restrictions on freedom of speech and human rights.

Today’s poem is by contemporary poet Amel Moussa, born in 1971. She works as a journalist for „Al-Shark Al-Awsat” and has published three volumes of poetry.



A formal poem

In the old house
where my grandfather composed his formal poems
I live as a concubine in my kingdom,
my dress is wet,
and on my head I place a crown.

In the old house
where the jug is tilted
water seeps out
mixed with prayers.

In the old house
where my first cry echoed,
I spread the soil of lineage
for us to sleep on,
one soul stacked next to another.

In the old house
where my grandmother was throned a bride
I search for her shawl
and place it for my shoulders to kiss.

In the old house
I cross ancient nights
and carry food to dervishes.

In the old house
I hand away my embers as a dowry
to lovers bathing in rain.

In the old house
Love wears us like a cape
and the courtyard becomes
twice its size.


— Amel Moussa
translated by Khaled Mattawa
from: A Crack in the Wall: New Arab Poetry

Aruba

18 March is Aruba’s Flag Day. It marks a few different milestones for the country—in 1948 at a Netherlands-Surinam-Curaçao conference in the Hague, Shon A. Enam, an Aruban leader, presented a petition in favour of independence. In 1976 it was decided that this date would be used as a national day for Aruba. In 1986, Aruba achieved “Status Aparte,” granting Aruba an autonomous status within the kingdom of the Netherlands, and separating the island from the Netherlands Antilles. Further movement towards full independence was halted by Aruba in 1990.

I was interested to learn that due to Aruba’s aridity the island has a somewhat different history to other Caribbean nations. The climate meant that Aruba was not a plantation site, and so also largely avoided being part of the slave trade. Its demographics are different from those I’ve looked at in other areas of the Caribbean, with over 80 percent of the Aruban population comprised of Mestizos—people of mixed European and Amerindian descent. Apparently no full-blooded Arawaks remain, but the genetic heritage of the original Arawak population remains.

I was interested to learn that, while tourism is the main economic industry in Aruba today, both aloe and oil have been important in the past. Because of the desert-like ecology of the region, aloe was introduced in the mid-19th century, and was a major industry. It is less important today, but it still exists. Oil became an attractive industry as a result of Aruba’s proximity to Venezuala. For a time, the Lago Oil and Transport Company was the largest oil refinery and storage facility in the world. Refineries had been previously shut down, the Lago refinery was reopened in the 1990s, and is a key contributor to the country’s economy.

On the poetry-front, I’m afraid that today’s poem is something of a “cheat”—though if anyone wants to provide an alternative, I’m happy to update the site later. Today’s poet, Merle Collins, was born in Aruba, but actually grew up in Grenada, and therefore writes in English. What I like about the poem, “No Dialects Please,” is that is explores an idea that is prevalent through a number of Caribbean poetries, that have introduced languages and also dialects that evolve drawing together the international influences through the Caribbean. I found the poem online here.



No Dialects Please

In this competition

dey was lookin for poetry of worth

for a writin that could wrap up a feelin

an fling it back hard

with a captive power to choke de stars

so dey say,

'Send them to us


but NO DIALECTS PLEASE'

We're British!

Ay!

Well ah laugh till me boushet near drop

Is not only dat ah tink

of de dialect of de Normans and de Saxons

dat combine an reformulate

to create a language-elect
is not only dat ah tink

bout de part of my story

dat come from Liverpool in a big dirty white ship

mark

AFRICAN SLAVES PLEASE!

We're the British!

But as if dat not enough pain

for a body to bear

ah tink bout de part on de plantations down dere

Wey dey so frighten o de power

in the deep spaces

behind our watching faces

dat dey shout

NO AFRICAN LANGUAGES PLEASE!

It's against the law!

Make me ha to go

an start up a language o me own

dat ah could share wid me people

Den when we start to shout

bout a culture o we own

a language o we own

a identity o we own

dem an de others dey leave to control us say

STOP THAT NONSENSE NOW

We're all British!

Every time we lif we foot to do we own ting

to fight we own fight

dey tell us how British we British

an ah wonder if dey remember
d
at in Trinidad in the thirties

dey jail Butler
who dey say is their British citizen

an accuse him of

Hampering the war effort!

Then it was

FIGHT FOR YOUR COUNTRY, FOLKS!

You're British!

Ay! Ay!

Ah wonder when it change to

NO DIALECTS PLEASE!

WE'RE British!

Huh!

To tink how dey so dunce

an so frighten o we power

dat dey have to hide behind a language

that we could wrap roun we little finger

in addition to we own!

Heavens o mercy!

Dat is dunceness oui!

Ah wonder where is de bright British?


—Merle Collins

Ireland

So. Ireland. St Patrick. Potatoes. The Troubles. Green, and a lot of it. I’ve been thinking about Ireland lately, due to some research on Maria Edgeworth’s literature, and a rereading of Yeats. Irish literature is such a pleasure.

Ireland and England have historically had an uneasy relationship. For me, it’s the anecdotal that has really made this apparent to me. A few years ago, a teacher told me a story about some English friends who were showing off their newborn baby to family friends in Ireland. The reaction? “He’s really very nice, in spite of Oliver Cromwell.”

After the Irish Rebellion in 1798, the British and Irish governments enacted the Act of Union that made Ireland a part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Following this union, the issue of a separate Irish identity was on the table again, and home rule became a goal. After three attempts, the Government of Ireland Act 192o instituted home rule. Northern Ireland—largely a protestant region—opted out and stayed a part of the United Kingdom, while Ireland became a separate entity. This division of Ireland created tensions that continued throughout the twentieth century, especially during the thirty or so years leading up to 1998’s Belfast Agreement. More recently, the Provisional IRA announced the end of the armed campaign in 2005, which was followed by full disarmament under the supervision of international weapons inspectors.

Seamus Heaney is a poet who has moved between Northern Ireland and Ireland. As a recent winner of the Nobel Prize and one of the most widely read poets of the past fifty years, he was an obvious choice. More than that, he is a poet that has meant a great deal to me for many years now. The poem I have chosen is “The Toome Road,” which I found online here.



The Toome Road

One morning early I met armoured cars
In convoy, warbling along on powerful tyres,
All camouflaged with broken alder branches,
And headphoned soldiers standing up in turrets.
How long were they approaching down my roads
As if they owned them? The whole country was sleeping.
I had rights-of-way, fields, cattle in my keeping,
Tractors hitched to buckrakes in open sheds,
Silos, chill gates, wet slates, the greens and reds
Of outhouse roofs. Whom should I run to tell
Among all of those with their back doors on the latch
For the bringer of bad news, that small-hours visitant
Who, by being expected, might be kept distant?
Sowers of seed, erectors of headstones...
O charioteers, above your dormant guns,
It stands here still, stands vibrant as you pass,
The visible, untoppled omphalos.

—Seamus Heaney

Mauritius

12 March marks the National Day of Mauritius, the anniversary of their independence from the United Kingdom in 1968. On the same date in 1992 Mauritius became a republic.

Located east of Madagascar, the Republic of Mauritius comprises not only the island of Mauritius itself but also the islands of St Brandon, Rodrigues and the Agalega Islands. Records of Mauritius date back to the 10th century, when Arab and Malay sailors visited the island. In 1507 the Portuguese travelled there, establishing a base. In 1598 the Dutch came to the island by accident (they were blown off course during a cyclone) and gave the island its name, in honour of Prince Maurice of Nassau. The Dutch abandoned the island in 1638, and next it was the turn of the French, who came to Mauritius in 1715. In 1810, during the Napoleonic Wars, the island came under British rule, though the French language was still used. Today, English is the official language, but Mauritian Creole, Bhojpuri, French and Chinese are all recognised regional languages. Mauritius is a parliamentary democracy.

Mauritius was also the only known habitat of the Dodo, which were extinct by 1681.

Edouard Maunick is a Mauritian poet who writes in French. In 2003 he was awarded the Grand Prix de la Francophonie. He is of mixed African, Indian and French descent.

Below is a section of a longer poem by Maunick entitled "Carousels of the Sea". I've taken it from the wonderful Vintage Book of Contemporary World Poetry, which I recommend to all readers interested in world literature. (I promise, not all my poems come from this anthology. I do some genuine ferreting around online and in the library.) The poem is translated from the French by Gerald Moore.

From Carousels of the Sea

6

Further off is the measured force the word of the sea
Further without leeway for the blueing shoulder of the horizon

harm is born of the light
when it capsizes under the voyages’ assault
when it watches oblivion like a beast
and seeks the shipwreck of ten-year-old villages
conclusive shifts of time in exile

further off is risk without defeat
the ever renewed patience of the shadow
to find words beyond language
further the serpent in the blood
broken by all betrayals
victories of voluntary resignation

I did not leave in order to forget
I am mulatto

the Indian ocean will never give way to the city of today
but harm compromises in me harm however come by

I repeat further off to stain the liquid mirrors
to cross a threshold where you await me since the poem


—Edouard Maunick
translated by Gerald Moore
from The Vintage Book of Contemporary World Poetry