We're all shocked by all-out war breaking out on European soil again after so long... we too easily forget the horrors of the Balkans in the 90s, which if Putin's fellow travellers get their way may return in all their technicolour gory glory. But I do worry at some of the language used that almost plays down conflicts in other continents, involving people who "don't look like us". "This is Europe..."
But for all my reading (and to be honest my reading has been selective as I do not have the emotional resilience to cope with the 24/7 coverage on mainstream media, never mind the infiltered, un-fact-checked outputs of social media - 30 second snippets of horror displacing vacuous dance-crazes for a time on Tik-Tok) I do not know enough or have enough personal engagement with those from Ukraine to offer any real insights as to what is happening or what we can do (I have one Ukraine-related anecdote that has been wheeled out far too often in the past week - I think I am now going to formally decommission it).
So I have not posted any of my long rambling Cummings-esque rants for which I was previously known on this platform... Nor, despite repeated doodlings, have I been able to distil my limited thoughts and feelings, or rather numbness, into any form of "poetic" reflection that isn't glib. So I was pleased this morning when re-reading Rovelli's "The Order of Time" to come across a poem by Saadi Shirazi, the great Persian poet, written in 1258 (when, many miles away Kyiv was picking up the pieces after being destroyed by the Mongol hordes invading from the east!)
It had been proposed as the motto for the ill-fated League of Nations back in 1929, and when the later United Nations were established there was a persistent rumour that it had been inscribed over the entrance to the UN building either in New York or in Geneva. This was myth however, but in 2005 a large 5 metre by 5 metre carpet containing Saadi Shirazi's poem woven into it in gold letters, as pictured, was donated and installed in a meeting hall in United Nations headquarters and its words have subsequently been regularly quoted by Secretary Generals and visiting dignitaries, including President Obama.
The translation of the poem varies (understandably - we have all learned this week how important the translation from one language into another can be, seen symbolically with the use of the East Slavic derived Kyiv instead of the Russian echoing Kiev becoming more prevalent in the west). The one on the wall of the UN has been shorn of reference to "Adam," probably out of what is probably an unnecessary desire to make it more accessible to those of non-Abrahamic faiths, but losing some of the poetic nature of the original. I have drawn this version together from a variety of sources, choosing specifically to use the somewhat more inclusive "children" rather than the literal "sons" of "Bani Adam", which means "Sons of Adam" but infers all of humanity... Humanity that is often less than humane.
All children of Adam are part of one single frame,
Since all, at first from the same essence came.
When time afflicts one limb with pain
Others cannot unmoved, undistressed remain
If another’s in pain and you do not care,
the name of "human" you cannot share!
Saadi Shirazi (1258)
Shalom
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