poet: unknown
Translated by Aziz Isa Elkun
Hot like fire, red like blood,
The city furthest from the sea.
The tears of the Uyghurs,
Never stop day and night.
Hands were fractured, heads were smashed,
Lives dedicated to suffering.
My food tastes like poison
With my last breath I say My country.
I live far from my homeland,
Tears wet my pillow.
Allah created us with mercy,
Look at what we have become.
Adil Tunyaz*
Translated by Aziz Isa Elkun
Dedicated for A.I
Finally we met
First on the phone –
Then as fast as before dusk falls
A red taxi parked next to us
Left no trace of misery,
But a thorn was left in our tongue…
Your blessing belongs in a foreign language
Your two daughters as white as snow
And they have no worries
They flew with English language for a while
With their semi-transparent wings.
They have fallen down
Into the Uyghur language –
That language that God blessed
There is a sky underneath, and its top covered tight
Its meaning forever and the letters can reach.
Asianimage 6th April 2021
A UK based poet and academic has spoken about Chinese atrocities towards the Uyghur people in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region of Western China.
Aziz Isa Elkun is a researcher at SOAS University of London and has lived in the UK for the past 20 years. Members of his family are victims of Chinese aggression including his sister who was held in an internment camp for more than a year. He lives in exile in North London.
According to recent reports, Uyghur Muslims in China are being forced to denounce their faith, while China has destroyed 70 percent of mosques in the Uyghur Autonomous Region. The Uyghurs prefer to call their land ‘Uyghuristan.’
Since 2015, it has been estimated that as many as three million Uyghurs have been detained in so called ‘re-education camps’. These are basically internment camps where mainly Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims are brainwashed and indoctrinated in Communist ideology.
