Oh Civilised World!
I appeal to your conscience in hopes that you may hear me,
In hopes that you may fathom the length of my sadness and my despair. 

I am a human being, like all other humans!
I used to have a country too,  
I used to have land, and a home,
In which love was like a sun,
Brightening my days and my nights,
In which hope in the future used to colour my days.

And on that black day,
Undeserving to even be counted in the history of humankind,
A black storm violently uprooted me,
Throwing me into the hell of exile…
Without  land , without home, without love, without hope.
Into days without sunlight.

Oh Civilised World!
Do not be so harsh on me.
My children are in the heart of a heartless storm,
Whose age is a sole chapter of endless misery,
Do not interpret their dreams the way the devil wishes.

Oh Civilised World!
I long to have a country and a land and a home,
Where days are filled with the sun’s laughter,
And where moons swim in the twilight.
I long for a world coloured with love and hope,

I long to meet all of my loved ones
On a handful of earth that used to be mine,
So that I may feel like a human being
In this “civilised” world.
Oh Civilised World!


Translation from Arabic by:
Kholood Habiballa