Jaro’s Birth

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My son Jaro
At that moment
At that time
On that day
When you were born
In the land of your grandfather little children
Were being dragged from the laps of their mothers.

My son, my soul,
At that time
You uttered a cry of unrest.
At that time
You breathed in the air of the world of tyranny.
At that time, when you tumed towards me,
Your eyes were not yet open.

At that time,
When you cried,
At that time
Babies in your country were being killed.

My son, my soul,
You have the right to cry,
But why do you not cry every night?
Why do you not shake up this European world with wild unrest
And rage?
Why do you not turn into an earthquake
And smash the German factories?

My son, my soul,
Believe me, this labour room
In which you were born
Can have been built by the hands
Which delivered a bomb to Kurdistan.
This machine which hung above your bed
Carries perhaps the finger-prints of a
Murderer of the Kurdish children.

My son, my soul,
This is a strange world.

My son, my soul,
You are my hope.
If one day you have a child
Which comes to the world in a labour room like this one
Take heed of the scissors which cut the cord from its mother.
lt could just be that
They carry the finger-prints of a
Murderer of the Kurdish children.

Berlin 1989, Feryad Fazil Omar
translated from "Stimme in der Stille/Deng le bêdenîda", Feryad Fazil Omar