No roof except the sky by Abdulaziz Ali Omer

Where is that morning, morning with no prison or jailer? Where is the morning in which our houses are open to the sea sky and the birds?Is it there on the Carribbean coast ,on the bank of the Nile River or on the beach of a heart that will bleed more for no creed but the humankind whose wounds are still raw in Gaza and some European cities in the wake of Malaysian Airline disaster. I have referred lately to this tragic incident in a previous article and again I stop to reflect on my brothers ordeal. When Abraham Lincolin, the 16th preident of the United States fell from a bullet in the head by John Wilkes, his assassin in April,1865,mourners from various American cities waited patiently for the arrival of his funeral train. Ithink of the Malaysian plane casualties. Thier waiting families. I think of the train that moved from Eastern Ukraine with thier multi-national bodies on board . The scene is reminiscent of those attractive people who waited in the line reception of Lincolin in the poem of lonesome train by Millard Lampell. "…Abrookylin black-smith, apittsburg preacher,a small town tailer, an old store-keeper shaking his head and handing over a loaf of bread and a buffalo hunter telling a story from the Oregon territory.." and the lonesome train is travelling again in Ukraine "… There was silence in "Torez town" when they carried "ruins of lives on MH17" down a lonesome train travelling the long road from Dontesk to Torez, Kharkiv to Kiev. A slow train. A quiet train carrying "ruins of lives on MH17" home again."
After the train arrived in Kiev station in front of the Dutch embassy in Kiev, the capital of Ukrainan Republic, by coincidence, I found a mong the heaped messages, a message from Samir Attallah. He is a colleague from Al-sharq Al-awsat Newspaper. In his message , he didn't express an empathy but an affection and a sense of guilt to world victims. He said in a pologetic tone:" We have given nothing to millions of mankind but fear, tents , destroyed homelands and dreams. We have given them devestated cities, deserted villages, wailing instead of a song. I feel yearning tempered with guilt when I recall the simple home of my grandparents. How poor is this generation! Many of them live under no roof but the sky.." Why do we use powder in an attempt of conniving at the truth? Why there is still a fear in the eyes of God's children? Why cities are vigilant to watch with swollen eyes snipers? The answer is as clear as the rain of july rain. There is no security of justice and that the International tribunal is a mere fig leaf .
Our lone some train today brings to us more than one Lincolin a round the globe. There is a bang. Then , there are horrid screams, silence , tears and a tale to tell . What matters is not the termination of life but as Lincolin, the assassinated American put it " In the end, it 's not the years that count but the life in your years" we see ambulance workers and doctors with much sense of love and duty making their way to their work places at the risk of their safety to bind wounds. We see protests and to protesters we whisper some thing from I have adream by Martin Luther "…We mustn't allow our creative protest degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heieght of meeting physical force with soul force…"

Arabic Forum