At the June Justice Luncheon, "Renewing the Campaign Against Torture," Crystal Keshawarz, the Muslim respondent, shared this poem she wrote about her familial and personal experience with torture.
When she asks me not to speak
I remember memories I never had
I have visions of things I've not seen
Grandfather, prison, torture, disappearance
Great uncle imprisoned, tortured, assassinated
The uncle I never knew, a child of 16
Disappeared off the street
When she asks me not to speak
I see my mother arrested, interrogated
I see her preparing for her own execution
Resigned to the fate of a revolutionary
I see my uncle crossing the most dangerous
Battlefields of Kashmir for a chance at life
I see my grandmother walking with
Tattered clothes through winding
Mountain passes, a young widow at 35
When she asks me not to speak
I wonder why my mother doesn't hear
My ancestors' voices screaming
From beyond the veil,
Hands beating at their chests
Spirits in distress as they declare-
"Isn't that why we gave our last breaths?
Isn't that why our bones are now earth,
And our atoms are now stardust?
To speak freely, live freely, breathe freely-
Isn't that why you broke the earth in half with broken feet?"
So you see dear mother,
It is not for unheavy reasons that I speak.
I speak because I am the manifested hope,
The unrealized dreams of those who came before me;
When I speak my ancestors speak,
And they remind me not to let them die in vain.
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