Wounding the Dark

Wounding the Dark AmerHanna Fatuhi Like a creeping slug came thepitch-black and like fingersskilled in theartofpickpocketing All the lightsof our soulswere extracted tobe leftcirclinga space of darkness and emptiness A man ofblood A man of flesh And a woman a dream a home Or a home a dream a woman Of glowing coal Of charcoal My home refreshes me like theEuphrates Or theTigris A hyena enjoying pulling outmy rightfoot's toenails Putting out his cigarette stub Inmy side Raining onme "my homeland's pimps" with all kinds ofpain For just a sketchor aword I travelbetween alienation and theaffinity My home is a spike and I am a sparrow fromBabylon with irisesofpalm fronds who does not care about the thirtysilverpieces or a traitor who would hand me over to thehangman with a kiss It is wounded: thathome, thedream, the tattoo and I'm bleeding words bleeding paintings making light thatdarkness is afraid of Suddenly awhite dot opened awide wound in thedark Translationfrom the Arabic ByAmer FatuhiwithDaniel T. Ames Amer Hanna Fatuhi (www.amerfatuhiart.com), a native Iraqi (Chaldean Babylonian) artist, historian, professional writer, activist, and co-founder of the IraqiArtists Association, was detained and tortured several times during the reign of Saddam Hussein. He was asked to do a portrait of Saddam but refused, didnotparticipate intheannualBaathParty exhibit (1974-2003),and refused, as headof thevisualarts magazineFunoon,toglorify the regime by writing articles about Saddam and his sons. As a result, he was sentenced to death three separate times. After fleeing Iraq and living inexile formany years, he iscurrently finalizing an exhibition between his hometowns of Madison Heights, Michigan, and Baghdad, entitled "Iraq . . . Love, Death, and Beyond." He isalso inthe process of translating his book, The Untold Story of Native Iraqis: Chaldeans 5300 b.c-Present (2004), into English, and completing the manuscript forhisnext work,The ArtofNativeIraqis. November-December 2009 i6i SPECIAL SECTION Freedom of Expression around the World: CHINA In2009 the climate for freedom of expression inChina remains troublesome. Despite continued pressure, both internal and external, on the government of the People's Republic of China to improve its record on human rights, littleprogress has been made in reversing the tide of China's strict censorship policies. China's efforts to control the country's increasing Internet access have been stepped up in response to the use of social networking websites to spread news of riots and protests within the country; in recent months, websites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Blogger have all but disappeared from Chinese Internet,while the Chinese government has covertly instituted a requirement that users must register their true identities before commenting on news articles, ensuring that authors of subversive comments can be held personally accountable. The consequences are dire for those found expressing opinions deemed subversive by the Chinese government. The official stated policy of the republic provides for the blacklisting ofproblemjournalists, jeopardizing thecareerand livelihood of anyoutspokendissident; yetthereality for such offenders isoften much worse. The PEN American Center detailed the situation of the country's most recent literaryprisoner, writer and critic Liu Xiaobo, who was detained inDecember 2008 and held for sixmonths without charge for his involvement indrafting the "Charter 08" promoting human rights and democracy inChina. Liu currently remains imprisoned, now charged with "inciting subversion of state power" and likelyfacing many years of continued imprisonment as a result. For the Chinese writer, the pursuit of a free and open public debate within the country remains a riskyand dangerous one. Other high-profile cases of creative writers on the PEN International 2009 case list include lham Tohti, Shi Tao, Nurmuhemmet Yasin, Zheng Yichun, Mehbube Ablesh, Tsering Woeser, and Ven. Richen Sangpo. Formore information, visit the Independent Chinese PEN Center website at www.penchinese.com/ wipe. CompiledbyJustin Archie Freedom of Expressionaround the World: CUBA This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of Fidel Castro's revolution inCuba, but unfortunately twenty-five writers remain inCuban prisons, arrested for their allegedly anti-government positions. Twenty-two of the currently imprisoned writers have been in jail since March 2003, when a group of thirty-five writers and librarians?among them some of the country's most significant journalists and poets?was arrested ina crackdown on cultural dissidents. During that period

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