"What do I say" (Arabic: ماذا أقول) is a famous poem written by the Syrian poet Hasan Alkhayer (Arabic حسن الخيّر) in 1979. He had criticized both the austere regime and the militant terrorists who together had crippled life in Syria in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He was later kidnapped and killed, in 1980.
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The poem was a remarkable contribution by a Syrian intellectual in Syria's recent history that added color to the flame of life in the stagnant political atmosphere. In this poem, Hasan succeeds in expressing complex contemporary issues in very simple language.
Hasan Alkhayer might have been an Alawite
Some verses from the poem
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Analysis
It is important to mention that "free opinion" is the biggest taboo in Arab countries. Armed with his pen, Hasan knew what fate was ahead of him for his free and recusant soul, for his trenchant writings attacking tyranny, and for lambasting tardiness, but it is the lesson of history: The darkness can only be cut sharp with a falling star, a meteor.
In these bloody years, both fighting factions, the regime and the fanatics, tried to align Syrians by using the sectarian differences. Poet Hasan presciently pointed to the importance of not losing the national unity that has always been an impregnable Syrian "trademark".
One of his most poignant and emotional verses are about the city of Hama. Sadly, in less than two years after Alkhayer's mysterious disappearance, Hama was to be in the heart of what was later called the Hama massacre.
Some verses about Hama
Translated from Arabic:
More verses
Because souls fade without hope as hope is the bird that sings in our souls and the rain that gives us a new and pure life, poet Hasan keeps faith in a new land and united people:
Translated from Arabic: