A Poem in Honor of Christchurch Mosque Attack Victims | Eman Tai Ahmad
Channel: Muslim Community Center - MCC East Bay
Date: 18/03/2019

Eman Tai Ahmad reads a poem in honor of the victims of the New Zealand terrorist attack. She also lists the shooting victims.

Sister Eman spoke at the MCC East Bay on Sunday, March 17, 2019 during a vigil called "United in Grief: Remembering Victims of the New Zealand Attacks." Watch the community gathering at https://youtu.be/XaoE9L0aPMs

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- More Sr. Eman: http://mcceastbay.org/eman

A poem in honor of the victims of the New Zealand terrorist attack
By Eman Tai Ahmad

Hearing the stories of people we’ve lost
Sends me spinning
Spinning golden threads of memories
Laced with tears
Tempered with fears
Searching for meaning in their post-truth tombs
Wading through the sands of time with a comb

It’s the almost excessive access to the horror
That oppresses my dome
My domain of private soul space
Where every person in the human race
has their rights and their place
At a table of inalienable grace
Served up not false nobility
But by Divine soliloquy

So
It can’t just be me
I can’t be only one who senses
Who sees
Hears, feels my heart peel
like an onion so strong
It burns through the smoke
of this terrible yoke
Of hate and bigotry
Of political idolatry

Home of brave… land of the free
We lost our way far at sea
I mean when you’ve got more Black men in lockup
Than the entire South African roundup
And more souls livin in the City streets
Than the entire Mendocino county beat
But all we ever hear in the news are
The crews from right who think their might
Makes them right when all they are
are four ways of wrong
Singing an old song

of oppression and privilege
Of dashed dreams
And dribblage

They turn us all into terrorists
with a flick of the wrist
We end up on no-fly lists
Or bunch of undocumented criminals immigrants
All without a second thought
And not for naught
They raise their red and orange alerts to
Steadily assert their sense of reality
And readily pervert our sense of morality
Then all this can mean is nightmares
have supplanted our dreams
And laughter been supplanted by screams
As shots ring in our churches,
synagogues and mosques
We must all understand the costs

And I all keep thinking is
what can I do?
What choice can I make?
What chances am I willing to take?
Will I fear to be me?
Will I fear to speak truth in poetry
or will I walk with dignity

So echoing the call of our creed
I say serve human needs
serve another with compassion
Whether or not its out of fashion
remember
The unknown soldier’s worthy of remembrance
Precisely because no one knows his name
His cause is his moniker and his end game
Would he have fought less valiantly
Would he have thought it’s gotta be all about me
Or did he give his life to see
The best there is in Lady Liberty

We must all be the heroes we’re destined to be
In our everyday choices
With our average voices
We must call out for what’s right
And shun the wrong
So that in these darkest nights
Through this crucible of pain and fright
We can find the strength to stay our path
And reach for Light

Forty-four people were killed at the Al Noor Mosque and seven at the Linwood Islamic Centre; almost all were male, and their ages ranged from three to 77 years old. Thirty-five others were injured at the Al Noor Mosque and five at Linwood.

Who were the victims?

- Mucaad Ibrahim, 3
- Naeem Rashid, 51
- Talha Naeem, 21
- Haji Daoud Nabi, 71
- Muhammad Abdus Samad, 66
- Husna Ahmed, 45
- Khalid Mustafa, 44
- Hamza Mustafa, 16
- Junaid Ismail, 36
- Mohsen Al Harbi, 63
- Areeb Ahmed, 26
- Lilik Abdul Hamid, 58

- Muhammad Ata Elayyan, 33
- Jahandad Ali, 34
- Haroon Mahmood, 40
- Amjad Hamid, 57
- Osama Adnan Abukwaik, 37
- Muhammad Suhail Shahid, 36
- Abdelfattah Qassem, 60
- Ali Mah’d Abdullah Elmadani, 66
- Kamel Mohd Kamal Kamel Darwish, 38
- Maheboob Khokhar, 65
- Arif Mohamedali Vohra, 58
- Ramiz Arif Bhai Vora, 28
- Ansi Alibava, 23
- Ozair Kadir, 25
- Mounir Guirgis Soliman, 68
- Ahmed Gamal Eldin Mohamed Abdel Ghany, 68
- Ashraf el-Moursy Ragheb, 54
- Ashraf al-Masri, 54
- Matiullah Safi, 55
- Muhammad Zeshan Raza, 39
- Ghulam Hussain, 67
- Karam Bibi, 64
- Muse Awale, 77
- Abdukadir Elmi, 66
- Hussein al-Umari, 35
- Mohammed Imran Khan, 47

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