Requiem For the Dead in Lampedusa

Requiem For the Dead in Lampedusa

Tekle M. Woldemikael

(Written on November 3, 2013 on the Africa Union’s Day of Mourning of the victims of the Lampudesa’s tragedy)

Today as we remember the dead of Lampedusa, I want t invite you to listen to this song with me

Please listen to it with a clear heart and open ears and search inside you for a moment to remember the young men and women who died in Lampedusa.  Allow the sadness hidden inside you to come out and emerge to the surface and listen to it with your heart. I am asking you to mourn their death with your brothers and sisters in Africa today. Please mourn for them one more time.  Even though you and I could not attend their funerals, we can listen to this dirge done in one of our tradition of lamentation for the death.  Allow yourself a moment of silence for five minutes and twenty-one seconds with the song playing in the background.  Let your imagination go deep, deeper into your inner soul, recess of the private thought, the private you, the you that grieves without anyone else seeing you.  And just for a moment allow your tears to flow freely and wet your face; for those who died this ghastly, horrifying death are you and I.  Yes, they are the person you see when you look at your image in the mirror.  They are part of you and me. For some of us, they are younger versions of us.  But they are we.  There is no way of denying this truth.  And like you and me, they dreamt of a better life and a safer life, a better future for themselves and their families. Just like you and me, they were hopeful of their future.  To be hopeful is not a crime.  To be young is not a crime.  To be young and hopeful is not crime punishable by death. To go after your dream is a virtue, (or so we have been told again and again in many ways than once). They heard it well and clear.  Those who vanquished remind me of my younger years when I was seeking for a secure, fulfilling and zestful life.  Like them, I was a risk taker too.  Even when I hear tragedies befalling others, I thought I would be an exception.  It is unthinkable to consider that your life can be taken away from you in your youth.  You can die in a minute without realizing what is happening to you. Each and every person in the boat never expected the sudden turn of events that took his/her live away.  They were almost there.  They can see land; they can see people walking or working near the coast.  They can see movements of people and life of safety not far from them.  They almost reached their destination. Almost.

This song touches on their humanity, individuality and aspirations for a better life. They meant no harm to anyone and they wanted to be able to lead a normal life without complications. Yes, their lives in their homeland were too complicated, too heavy burden to bear for their young age.  Yes, it was too much to bear at a tender age.  Their peers in other lands do not bear the same obligations, the same burden.  History has been too cruel to them for it expected them to limit their horizon within the legacy of the their parents’ past and pay for it through self-sacrifice.  They have a life to live too, just like their peers anywhere, everywhere, and elsewhere.  Do not you all see!   They are just ordinary youth, with desires, feelings, and ambitions. This song captures what they expected.   It is a show of a human spirit at its highest level.  It bears witness of the will power of healthy and optimistic youth who expected a generosity of spirit from the bigger world (the larger world, the other side).   Yes, generosity promised in many ways, but it did not apply to them.  They were told freedom and liberty was the most cherished value a person should aspire.  They were cheated of their lives because they believed it.  The world looked away, the sea looked away, the fishermen and boats looked way.  They did not even pull them out of the sea when they needed rescuing, when their lives were about to be snuffed out of them in their tender age.

Sadly, they never were told how precious, fragile, and beautiful human beings they were in their land of birth, their homeland. Yet, the World and the Sea conspired to deny them too.  This song is not about blaming anyone and trying to find the cause for this tragedy.  We will have enough time and have capable people to do that in the future.  We will dice and slice the causes of this tragedy endlessly.  Let us not go there yet.  Not yet, it is too early.  It is not even the past. I do not want to go there yet and I want you to stay with them, stay with this young people for a moment, and feel their fears and the horror of their last minutes on this earth.  Do not dismiss them as dead yet for in my mind, in our collective mind, they still are here in the waters, they are here, drowning, drowning, drowning; gasping, gasping for air; swallowing, swallowing the salt water; gripping, gripping for something solid for anything that can give them safety, life.  I envision their arms flaring in the air to grip to something, anything, and someone to save them. I can see them frantically, helplessly splashing water around them.  I hear them wailing, wailing, wailing for help. The last moments of hopelessness of these hopeful youth is haunting.   It is going to haunt us for a long time. For it has not ended yet. There will be, God forbid, other ghastly moments like this in near future. I pray not. In our obsession to be on the right side of history, we fail to see the beautiful young women and men, and boys and girls, and parents vanquished, and who will soon be forgotten.  They are already being seen as a statistic (is it 350 dead or is it 359 dead), a number added to the dead refugees in high seas. Do not let that happen to you yet. Think of one person and focus on one person or two, her and him. See that person is you, may be in a different time or different place. Please allow this dirge to evoke feelings, and make you dig deeper inside you, for their lives have been cut short and they are never going to be seen and heard again, for they are gone! Gone! Gone! Forever.  As a requiem for them, will you listen to this song with me, again and again, just by yourself, will you? Will you!