from the editor's desk
‘I Visited His White Ribbon Prison’ by John Na’em Snobar
On 1 March 2024, PEN Perth held a ‘Spotlight on Palestine’ event at Centre for Stories. Facilitated by Dr Rashida Murphy, the evening featured readings from two Palestinian poets and two Muslim poets from our local community: John N’aem Snobar, Zaid Snobar, Hannah Magar and Marziya Mohammedali. Westerly is proud to publish the original works of these poets here on the Editor’s Desk.
John Na’em Snobar is a Palestinian Christian. He left the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in October 2023.
I Visited His White Ribbon Prison
Scratching himself offensively, with the expectation that I should be doing it for him.
He glanced behind me; then downwards into my eyes.
He declared of a colleague who dared to speak his mind:
‘I think his ethnic temperament got the better of his reason.’
I sat. I smiled. I nodded.
I walked past him, another one, this morning. Medals glaring in my face.
Triumphant ‘we’ who conquer them.
In our literal cages: they live to give ‘us’ strength.
I un-offended myself.
I sat. I smiled. I nodded.
‘Today we celebrate heritage. Let us put together a map of sacred land.
On it, let’s dot dot dot the places where we hid their coloured dots.
Those Abu-Ghraibs of white man’s law. Let us reconcile on this day:
to make our sins now your culture, and your culture far away.’
I visited the ribboned men today, who hold the fort of forbidden thoughts.
They took me to a room. I whiffed the smell of pungent solitude; confined.
Is this the smell of liberty, tamed, drugged and put away?
I left that room and looked up to see the ribboned men surrounding me.
‘Help! Help! You’ve locked me up. I’m not the silenced one!’
My foreign language was un-understood, through the want of trying.
I spoke in perfect tongue. Every syllable e-n-n-u-n-c-i-a-t-e-d.
I learnt his language, I learnt his law. I spoke in reason. I spoke slow.
As they dragged me to my cage:
They sat. They smiled. They nodded.
