Erminia
I am glad that you like the poem. I am happy for you to translate it,
but please contact me if it is published and let me have a copy.
Thanks!
John
Date sent: Wed, 20 Oct 1999 01:03:02 +0100
Subject: Re: Roots Amarchy by John Moore
From: "erminia" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
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> I think this poem is great. I will translate it and have it
> published in Italian. Will I benefit of the author's permission?
> (early morning wonders).
>
>
> Roots Anarchy
> Do you remember
>
> Burning Spear's
>
> 'Days of Slavery'
>
> with its refrain
>
>
>
> 'Do you remember the
> days of slavery?'
>
>
>
>
>
> Do you then remember
>
> your history
>
> your identity
>
> as an Ethiopian
>
> as a free individual
>
> in primal Ethiopia
>
>
>
> in these days of
> slavery?
>
>
>
>
>
> Or do you then remember
>
> that all labour
>
> is forced labour
>
> that all labour
>
> is hard labour
>
> that then as now
>
> we all live in
>
>
>
> the
> days of slavery?
>
>
>
>
>
> Do you remember
>
> the empire
>
>
>
> (Latin im-, upon, over
>
> parare, to make ready, order
>
>
>
> (...the enlarging
>
> of the bounds of
>
> Human Empire,
>
> to the effecting of
>
> all things possible
>
>
>
> (the endeavour to
>
> establish and extend
>
> the power and dominion
>
> of the human race itself
>
> over the universe
>
>
>
> F. Bacon
>
>
>
> in these
> days of slavery?
>
>
>
>
>
> Do you remember
>
> 'Rule Britannia'
>
> with its refrain
>
> 'Britons
>
> nevereverever
>
> shall be slaves'
>
>
>
> that rising hysterical
>
> emphatic
>
> nevereverever
>
>
>
> Never?
>
> never ever?
>
> never ever ever?
>
>
>
> Not even in
>
>
>
> the
> days of slavery?
>
>
>
>
>
> Do you remember
>
> your roots, slave
>
>
>
> (Greek, slave
>
> a Slav
>
> a Slavonian captive)
>
>
>
> living in captivity
>
> in the house of bondage
>
> in the house of pain
>
> your identity
>
> your freedom
>
> your autonomy
>
> your creativity
>
> your gifts
>
> your uniqueness
>
> your difference
>
> your will
>
> your desire
>
> erased
>
> in
>
>
>
> the
> days of slavery?
>
>
>
>
>
> Do you remember
>
> that in chattel slavery
>
> the chattel,
>
> dispossessed,
>
> becomes
>
> a possession
>
> and
>
> belongs to
>
> the master
>
>
>
> but in wage slavery
>
> the worker,
>
> dispossessed,
>
> becomes
>
> a possession
>
> who can choose
>
> to belong to
>
> as many masters
>
> as desired
>
> and call that freedom
>
> in
>
>
>
>
>
> the
> days of slavery?
>
>
>
>
>
> Do you remember
>
> that
>
> (Neither slavery nor involuntary
> servitude,
>
> except as a punishment for crime,
>
> whereof the party shall have been
> duly convicted,
>
> shall exist in the United States,
>
> or any place subject to their
> jurisdiction
>
>
>
> I3th Amendment, US Constitution
>
>
>
> but
>
> the will to slavery or voluntary
> servitude
>
> shall exist
>
> in every place subject to
> jurisdiction
>
>
>
> (It is the people who enslave
> themselves,
>
> who cut their own throats:
>
> who having the choice
>
> of being vassals or freemen,
>
> reject their liberty,
>
> and submit to the yoke,
>
> who consent to their own evil,
>
> or rather procure it
>
>
>
> (Let us then conjecture ...
>
> how this obstinate desire of
> slavery
>
> has so far taken root,
>
> that it would seem
>
> at present
>
> the love itself of liberty
>
> were not so natural
>
>
>
> La Boetie, Discourse on Voluntary
> Servitude
>
>
>
> in these
> days of slavery?
>
>
>
>
>
> Do you remember
>
> the need to remember
>
>
>
> (It is incredible,
>
> how suddenly the people,
>
> the moment they are enslaved,
>
> fall into so profound a
> forgetfulness
>
> of their freedom,
>
> that it is not possible for them
>
> to rouse themselves up
>
> to regain it,
>
> serving so easily and willingly,
>
> that one who sees them
>
> might be tempted to say,
>
> that they had not lost their
> liberty.
>
> but their servitude
>
>
>
> It is true,
>
> at first, they serve by constraint,
>
> subdued by force;
>
> but those who come afterwards,
>
> having never seen liberty,
>
> and not knowing what it is,
>
> obey without regret,
>
> and do willingly
>
> that which their fathers
>
> did by constraint
>
>
>
> So it is,
>
> that when men are born under the
> yoke,
>
> and afterwards brought up and
>
> educated in slavery,
>
> without looking forward,
>
> contenting themselves to live
>
> in the condition in which they were
> born,
>
> and thinking they have no right
>
> or other good but what they found
> at first,
>
> they look upon the state of their
> birth
>
> as their natural state
>
>
>
> La Boetie
>
>
>
> in the
> days of slavery?
>
>
>
>
>
> Do you remember
>
> how Power
>
> uproots us
>
> and carries us away
>
> into captivity
>
> /captivation
>
> /deprivation
>
>
>
> exhausting
>
> decentring
>
> unbalancing
>
> entangling
>
> us
>
>
>
> in distractions and diversions
>
> in word-drunkenness and
> mind-wandering
>
>
>
> stunting imagination
>
> stymieing creativity
>
> deforming activity
>
>
>
> through
>
> inhibition
>
> as much as
>
> prohibition
>
>
>
> until we become
>
> mere things
>
> lost in things
>
> lost in a world of things
>
>
>
> in the
> days of slavery?
>
>
>
>
>
> Do you remember
>
> your roots
>
> your rootedness
>
> in the here and now
>
> in the biological centre of the
> individual (Nietzsche)
>
> (existence precedes essence
> (Sartre)
>
> in my one flesh
>
> in the creative nothing,
>
> the nothing out of which I myself
> as creator
>
> create everything (Stirner)
>
> in original mind
>
> in visionary imagination
>
> (the imagination of the
> insurrection
>
> in energy
>
> (energy is eternal delight (Blake)
>
> in the marvellous
>
> in creative spontaneity & creative
> spontaneity
>
> in the web of life
>
> in the ebbs and flows
>
> in anarchy
>
>
>
> Lacking this memory
>
> this knowledge
>
> this rootedness
>
> practice errs
>
> insurgency fails
>
>
>
> so do not forget
>
>
>
> To travel the
>
> roads to freedom
>
> is to trace
>
> the routes to recovery
>
> roots recovery
>
> the recovery of roots
>
>
>
> the restoration of equilibrium
>
>
>
> (There are always some ...
>
> who are sensible of the weight of
> the yoke
>
> and cannot refrain from throwing it
> off,
>
> who can never become tame in
> subjection,
>
> but ... cannot help reflecting
>
> on their natural privileges, and
> remembering
>
> their predecessors and former
> condition
>
>
>
> These are the men who
>
> having clear understandings,
>
> and sharp sighted wits,
>
> are not satisfied with the bulk of
> the people,
>
> in looking only where they step,
>
> but likewise take a view of
>
> what is before and behind them,
>
> and recall the memory of things
> past
>
> to compare with the present,
>
> and make a judgment of the future
>
>
>
> These men,
>
> were liberty entirely lost and out
> of the world,
>
> conceiving it,
>
> and finding it in their own minds,
>
> and charmed with its lovely image,
>
> could never relish servitude,
>
> how finely soever it might be
> dressed up
>
>
>
> La Boetie
>
>
>
> These are
>
> the uncontrollables
>
> the men and women
>
> who
>
> create the impossible
>
> those for whom the
>
> thousand flowering
>
> micro-insurrections
>
> of everyday life
>
> are not enough,
>
> and whose projects
>
> aim to eradicate
>
> Power in all its forms
>
> and burn the productive forces
>
> in their quest
>
> to recover
>
> their roots
>
>
>
> in these
> days of slavery?
>
>
>
>
>
> Do you remember
>
> that you are living in
>
> the world of living objects
>
> that you are a living object
>
> until you rebel
>
> and overthrow power and dominion
>
> that these are still
>
>
>
> the
> days of slavery?
>
>
>
> John Moore
>
>
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