Mohamed Idris Boush (Sudan) - Ray Liversidge
Mohamed Idris Boush
Never leave you alone and never let you down
Your enemies are there in the bushes,
laying like lions cowardly on the ground
waiting to hunt you.
I will be there when many have left you alone,
when many have let you down.
They are around you, trying to surround you,
swearing to cage you.
But steadfast I will be
My love
When you are a prisoner, I will break the lock,
we will escape like hungry birds in the morning
rushing out for seeds.
In those moments when you can’t fly,
I will be your wings
to take you away to the blue sky.
In the moment when you stare at the darkness,
I will be your light.
And when you’re scared
to cross that ocean,
be a ship,
I will be water to carry you out
My love
A cell is a home where both innocent and criminal can be,
you just be whatever, I will fight your battle from cell to hell
to be free, to demand justice.
And I will let you know when their soldiers are jeering
at the ring of justice,
and your soldiers celebrating
with victory and joy.
My love
I will never leave you alone.
I will never let you down.
I will be your cover
Steadfast,
I cherish that honour.
Massacres, mass systematic rape, torture, enslavement, starvation, denial of medicines, forced displacement of more than 6million people. Sudan and her people have been suffering under the brutal terror of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the escalation of violence during the battle between RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) for control over the state since April 2023.
The RSF is primarily comprised of the notorious Janjaweed militia, a supremacist armed militia group empowered by Al Bashir. whilst he was in power. During Al Bashir's rule more than 300,000 people were murdered and millions forcibly displaced. With sustained popular uprising over 30 years Al Bashir was ousted in 2019. Both RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) were part of the coup. With a military transitional government put in place there is now a battle between RSF and SAF for power over the state and her resources.
The RSF is now better armed than it previously was as the Janjaweed militia. It holds more sophisticated weapons, primarily supplied by the UAE and the Wagner group, but including Israeli and US made weapons.
Two of the states who have an interest and interference in Sudan are Israel and the US. Their desire to consolidate Sudan's position in the Abraham Accords has emboldened and empowered militaristic authoritarianism in Sudan. And their interests in controlling who takes power are against a civilian-led transition.
RSF supremacist genocidal violence continues to be focused against the Maslit, Fur and Zaghawa people who have suffered from supremacist genocidal intent for decades. Over 10,000 civilians have been killed and 6 million people displaced since April 2023.
Mohamed Idris Boush is a Zaghawa writer and teacher from Sudan. His work has been published in Writing Through Fences: An Archipelago of Letters, Southerly, 2022, and Our Beautiful Voices, Mark Time Press, 2014. Boush is exiled from Sudan as a result of the ongoing genocide against Zaghawa people, amongst others. As a result of Australia's 'Operation Sovereign Borders', Boush spent 10 years in immigration detention prisons and in limbo in Indonesia. He now lives in the United States of America, originally known as Turtle Island.
Ray Liversidge chose to foreground Mohamed Idris Boush's work.
Ray Liversidge
palestineisrael
if i/you/we were to put the word israel into the unscramble app
it would find (among others) the words ails rail raise arise slier liars
for palestine it would find (among others) the words antisleep
penalties for palestineisrael it would find (among others) the words
antisleep penalties repellent parentless and for stopthewar it would
find (among others) the words wreaths pathos hopers postwar phew
Ray Liversidge’s latest book is Oradour-sur-Glane published in 2017 by Littlefox Press. A French/English version of the book was published in 2019. His other books are: no suspicious circumstances: portraits of poets (dead); The Barrier Range; The Divorce Papers; and Obeying the Call. He also appeared with two other poets in the first issue of Triptych Poets. His verse novel The Barrier Range was adapted for stage and performed as Seeking Fabled Waters at the 2010 Melbourne Writers Festival. In that year he also won the Bruce Dawe National Poetry Prize and was recommended in the Rosemary Dobson Prize. His poetry has appeared in over 100 journals and anthologies here and in the US, Canada, the UK, Scotland, Ireland and Spain. Ray is currently trying his hand at flash fiction and flash memoir. A book of short poems and flash fiction pieces is forthcoming from Ginninderra Press.
Olive branches with a few olives reach across a pink-red sky.
