{"id":1788,"date":"2003-11-14T17:03:00","date_gmt":"2003-11-14T21:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.meehawl.com\/Blogfiles-wp\/?p=1788"},"modified":"2003-11-14T17:03:00","modified_gmt":"2003-11-14T21:03:00","slug":"the-jackals-wedding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.meehawl.com\/Blogfiles\/2003\/11\/14\/17\/03\/the-jackals-wedding\/","title":{"rendered":"The Jackals’ Wedding"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

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’.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/a>The Jackal’s Wedding*<\/b>
\nO, Mudhaffar al-Nawab,
\nmy life-long comrade
\nWhat are we to do about the jackals’ wedding? <\/p>\n

You remember the old days
\nIn the cool of the evening
\nunder a bamboo roof
\npropped on soft cushions stuffed with fine wool
\nwe’d sip tea (a tea I’ve never since tasted)
\namong friends…
\nNight falls as softly as our words
\nunder the darkening crowns of the date palms
\nwhile smoke curls from the hearth, such fragrance
\nas if the universe had just begun <\/p>\n

Then a cackling explodes
\nfrom the long grass and date palms –
\nthe jackals’ wedding! <\/p>\n

O, Mudhaffar al-Nawab –
\ntoday isn’t yesterday
\n(truth is as evanescent as the dream of a child) –
\ntruth is, this time we’re at their wedding reception
\nyes, the jackals’ wedding
\nyou’ve read their invitation: <\/p>\n

For tho’ we trudge past Dahna** empty-handed
\nWe depart Dareen** our purses line with gold
\n‘While the town folk attend to their affairs
\nNow, Zuraik** fleece them, quick as a fox!’<\/p>\n

O, Mudhaffar al-Nawab,
\nlet’s make a deal: <\/p>\n

I’ll go in your place
\n(Damascus is too far away from that secret hotel…)
\nI’ll spit on their lists,
\nI’ll declare that we are the people of Iraq –
\nwe are the ancestral trees of this land,
\nproud beneath our modest roof of bamboo.<\/p>\n

– Saadi Youssef<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/a>*The pro-occupation gathering in July is now referred to as “The Jackals’ Wedding” by many Iraqis
\n** These are all references to pre-Islamic texts, often used in Arabic grammar text books<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meehawl.com\/Blogfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meehawl.com\/Blogfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meehawl.com\/Blogfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meehawl.com\/Blogfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meehawl.com\/Blogfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.meehawl.com\/Blogfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1788\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meehawl.com\/Blogfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meehawl.com\/Blogfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meehawl.com\/Blogfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}