The Jackals’ Wedding
In Southern Iraq, on a summer’s night, in order to recover from the day’s heat, people in the village often sleep in the open air, underneath a starlit sky. Their peace is sometimes disturbed by a conclave of noisy jackals, some engaged in mating, others clamoring to be next, and a few simply quarrelling. After an hour or more it reaches a climax. By this time the noise and stench is unbearable. Suddenly, the animals depart. Next time they will meet elsewhere, but wherever and whenever they do, the villagers recall, with disgust, the nights disturbed by a ‘jackals’ wedding’.
Ali provides his readers with Youssef’s scathing indictment of the Iraqi collaborators, “The Jackals’ Wedding,” in English translation for the first time. The piece, written on the occasion of the creation of the collaborationist Iraqi Governing Council, and dedicated to fellow Iraqi poet in exile Mudhaffar al-Nawal, is now a big hit on the Iraqi street.
The Jackal’s Wedding*
O, Mudhaffar al-Nawab,
my life-long comrade
What are we to do about the jackals’ wedding?
You remember the old days
In the cool of the evening
under a bamboo roof
propped on soft cushions stuffed with fine wool
we’d sip tea (a tea I’ve never since tasted)
among friends…
Night falls as softly as our words
under the darkening crowns of the date palms
while smoke curls from the hearth, such fragrance
as if the universe had just begun
Then a cackling explodes
from the long grass and date palms –
the jackals’ wedding!
O, Mudhaffar al-Nawab –
today isn’t yesterday
(truth is as evanescent as the dream of a child) –
truth is, this time we’re at their wedding reception
yes, the jackals’ wedding
you’ve read their invitation:
For tho’ we trudge past Dahna** empty-handed
We depart Dareen** our purses line with gold
‘While the town folk attend to their affairs
Now, Zuraik** fleece them, quick as a fox!’
O, Mudhaffar al-Nawab,
let’s make a deal:
I’ll go in your place
(Damascus is too far away from that secret hotel…)
I’ll spit on their lists,
I’ll declare that we are the people of Iraq –
we are the ancestral trees of this land,
proud beneath our modest roof of bamboo.
– Saadi Youssef
*The pro-occupation gathering in July is now referred to as “The Jackals’ Wedding” by many Iraqis
** These are all references to pre-Islamic texts, often used in Arabic grammar text books