I have mentioned this historic speech before and Saja kindly translated it.
"A Speech and Poem by Al-Jami’a’s Editor
Al-Jami’a
Part
8
Year
Six
p.
201
A
Social, Scientific, Historic Magazine.
Issued
in New York and Published in the East and West.
New
York, September 1908, Sha’ban 1326.
Speech
and Poem by Aljami’a’s Editor During his Trip.
Speech at a Waterfall, Poem at a Mountain.
This
speech was written at the famous Niagara Falls, depicted on the next page. He
started writing it at Mount Tom in Hokyoke, Mass. and completed it to the sound
of Niagara Falls.
1. The
Speech at Niagara Falls
Greetings,
Waterfall. Engage me so I may address you as I have traveled to you from the
faraway eastern lands, which have heard of you but you have not heard about. What
I’ve read about you in my childhood astonished me. As soon as I arrived in your
great land I hoped to visit you. I arrived in the town named after you. While I
was in the hotel I heard your sound fill the air and I couldn’t sleep that
night. Though your sound was like a mother’s voice calming her child, it galvanized
me in my bed and robbed me of sleep rather than soothe me.
It
appeared your sound was calling me. I decided not to postpone till tomorrow
meeting and saluting you. I dressed and headed in the dark of the night to the
park on your shores, between the electrical cords that decorate the road to
you; everyday their beauty renews as if they celebrate you forever. When I
arrived at your shores there were lovers kissing and American young women
looking around to see if anyone noticed those stolen kisses. Then I descended
on your water with endless joy as if I was descending on the greatest body of water
in the world and I immersed my hand and greeted you.
A
thousand and one greetings upon you. I came to ask about your great secret. I’m
tired though I’m no more than a third of a century old. But you’re not tired
although you’re hundreds of centuries old. What’s your secret, Waterfall?
I’ve
been tired since my youth. I mean exhaustion of the spirit, not physical
exhaustion. But now I have started to understand life (if you can smile, please
don’t) and I love it as it is inevitable, like one who enjoys something when it
is present but doesn’t miss it when it is absent. I am exhausted because I’ve
been pursuing something that runs well ahead of me. Perhaps this is why I am
tired after one third of a century while you’re not although you’re hundreds of
centuries old.
You
pursue nothing and seek nothing. You don’t know where your water comes from and
you don’t know where it flows with the force of lightning and the sound of
thunder. Your water doesn’t care about its fate or what happens to it or what
it does on its way. You have no purpose and no goal. However, while I have no
purpose I want to find one. This is what beleaguers me. Am I pursuing the
impossible? Or is my desire unattainable without great struggle?
I
climbed mountains and descended to valleys. I asked the evening breeze when I
stopped it in the forests. I spoke to the planets in the sky and asked the
residents of cities and towns about them. I found that they did not know. The
gods who know have gone away and will never return.
You’ve
coexisted with the planets for thousands of years. So tell me if they’ve told
you their secrets. Do you know what’s happening now and in the future?
When
Egyptian priests surrounded their temples with secrets and prostrated
themselves to cows; when Moses led his people throughout loss; when Alexander
conquered the east and the west; when Jesus campaigned against materialist
priests and branded their foreheads forever; when Muhammad preached for either
the sword or the Qur’an; when Buddha and Confucius and Brahma drew over two
thirds of humanity; when Napoleon conquered Europe, which united against him
only for him to defeat it with his armies; when science and philosophy trembled
among Kant, Spinoza, Schopenhauer, Hegel, Spencer, Nietzsche, Rousseau,
Descartes, Voltaire, Bacon and Darwin; and Renan offered everyone his
Jesus-like smile and says in his eloquent expression “each problem has two
sides” – while all this was happening, o Waterfall, you were running as you are
now. You existed at the same time as those great human beings. Tell me whether
any of them told you the elusive purpose of life. Did any of those philosophers
confide in you a secret that they wouldn’t trust to anyone else? Tell me so
that I may speak to you, grandfather of the world and esteemed waterfall. Tell
me what you know so I tell you what I know.
But
wait. Do not listen to me for I do not know. You speak first, for giants take priority
over runts. Human beings are insignificant next to you, and they are ugly next
to your beauty. I sat next to you looking at myself and at your silver water
and I realized that I approach you to become part of you. I am with you forever
and do not leave you, and how could I? You speak first, our silent, articulate,
majestic waterfall, for I have nothing to offer.
What
can one who is a third of a century old tell one who is hundreds of centuries
old? What could one who has lived with the elderly avail from someone who has
lived with the young? Listen, majestic waterfall: would you give me your rocks’
strength and form me a solid self? If you can do that, I will tell you worthy
things. Otherwise, do not ask me what I cannot do.
This
is not cowardice, brave Waterfall, but it is a fear of pain and fear of leaving
this world. You can reside in your broad, beautiful bed alone like a great god.
Gods always live alone. But humans are social by nature and nurture. Can you
leave your riverbed and join the hills around you? How, then, can a man like me
leave his familiar paths to climb a mountain that is higher and more
treacherous than your hills?
I
remember, Waterfall, the day your shores were home to those poor Indians before
the Whites arrived and viciously invaded this land. I’m sure you remember this because
the Indians worshipped you. Those poor, naïve people would hunt alligators in
your waters naked, wearing only feathers on their heads and carrying axes and
bayonets. They lived on hunting and they had more happiness and peace than the
Whites who traveled to your shores from around the world and built illustrious
cities, luxurious houses, lustrous gardens, electric carriages, steamboats and
strode in beautiful clothing and satin hair as proudly as peacocks. Believe me,
majestic Waterfall, the Indians were more peaceful-minded and less malignant
than those.
The
White [settlers] have changed your land and its inhabitants, o majestic Waterfall.
They think they improved and decorated you and the land. Their beauty is like
the appearance of an ugly woman; external decoration and surface colors.
Scratch the paint and you’ll find it underneath it a rotten corpse. I believe I
am not mistaken that you were more beautiful then than you are today when your
shores were a refuge for wild animals; a battlefield for lions and tigers; a
pool for wolves and alligators; and a playground for bears and apes. In the
past your beauty was wild and natural and gave its viewers shivers. It was true
beauty. But today they’ve captured you like lions are kept in cages for people
to view. Your shores have become a hotbed for wolves, tigers, bears and apes of
a different kind; they share similar characteristics but they walk on two legs,
not four. A tremendous materialistic spirit has swooped and shaken people’s
principles and laws and crushed faiths and ethics. It drove people with an iron
stick and turned them into wolves. Nations today arm themselves to wage wars
much more viciously than wolves. The rich oppress the poor and the powerful
oppress the weak, as your fish do. Rockefeller owns a thousand million
[dollars] while millions of people do not have bread. He exploits them at cheap
rates to increase his fortune, which comes from their blood and sweat. They work
silently because they have no other choice. Authority has dwindled and has
almost collapsed. People have overthrown kings but replaced them with kings
which each have thousands of heads. This emboldened charlatans and preachers
who appeal to people then mislead them just like kings’ advisors used to appeal
to kings then mislead them. People fight and prey upon each other with their
hands, mouths and pens and wrestle over income and power. Down with such income
and power if the result is such belligerence and savagery. Where is the
civilization they claim, o Waterfall? What’s the use of your replacing your old
wolves with these new wolves? What’s this hideousness that they call beauty?
This is why a famous wise man said “o beasts of the land and snakes of the
forests take me to you so I eat from your food and drink from your water for
your companionship is much better than the companionship of human beings.”
Those
who are eager to embrace ideas or philosophy or virtues are considered naïve
among those wolves. The only virtues now are silver, gold and money. Those who
are dedicated to philosophy and ethics are forced to conceal their enthusiasm
so they are not chastised while the ignorant, opportunistic seekers of material
shout from the rooftops about their supposed sincerity and loyalty. Owls are
shrieking while nightingales are silent, o Waterfall. People fail to
distinguish the nightingale’s sound and the owl’s sound. People’s low values
are more like owl’s sounds. People are preoccupied with their stomachs, their
bank accounts, their selfish desires, so don’t engage them about anything else.
We do not talk to them about reason or literature. Do not bring to them the
gods’ and angels’ whispers from the sky. Do not translate for them the sounds
of nature or the emotions of noble souls. These things do not appeal to them or
move their hearts because they move only to their stomachs, accounts and greed.
Their voracity, ignorance and arrogance have united against them and enveloped
them with steel wires that tie them to the ground, preventing them from
ascending to the horizons where noble spirits reside. Tell me, o Waterfall, which
of the two groups are actually the rogues and fraudsters? Who are the victors?
Tell me so I learn and inform others. I wish to rip that mask off with a hand
of steel.
O
Waterfall, I am from a small country many of whose residents have come to your
land to seek opportunities and progress. Many of these values have infiltrated
into their countries before they migrated to you. After immigrating those
values increased tremendously. They lived among other eastern nations fifty
years ago with the simplicity, solidarity, peace and respect for social order
of a child sleeping in its mother’s bed. When your people’s values infiltrated
their country they changed as all eastern countries change with the advent of
your people’s values. Tell me, esteemed Waterfall, what to tell them so we know
whether we are on the right or wrong path and which of these values work and
which don’t. Rest assured that I’m not afraid to convey your message though it
disturbs the dead in their graves and infants in their cradles. Don’t worry
about burdening me for publication is my profession. It is perhaps my
misfortune that I made publishing my profession in life.
Pardon
me, Waterfall, and do not reprimand me for saying “misfortune”. Do not
misunderstand. Birds of the sky are content with a drop of dew and a grain of
wheat. We are the birds of imagination and are content with as little, too.
These birds live in peace physically and spiritually in the smallest, driest
land as they live in luscious gardens and they sing the same heavenly melodies.
I desire no material gain, only literary gain. Our profession is ill-fated in
our country. Those who pursue it for its own sake are forbidden it. One is
forced to acquiesce to corruption and condone those who harbor delusions,
superstitions and enslavement. One abandons friends and befriends enemies and
confuses the noble with the hurtful. It involves calling degradation progress,
and seeing ignorance prevail but remaining silent, and seeing truth disappear.
If passion and righteous indignation were to flare up in those souls, cold
reason silences those thunderbolts with apathy before they strike. Reason warns
rebellious souls against naiveté and arrogance and implores it to remain in its
place. The soul becomes like your water. Part of the soul is rebellious like
your falls that cannot be contained by dams or touched by tyrants or gods.
Other parts flow smoothly and quietly like a pond children play by. Between the
revolt and the tranquility are the power of the gods and the pain of death.
You’re
powerful and you can balance the revolt and the tranquility. Your greatest
strength is this balance. Inspire us to become as stable. Had you stopped
flowing a year or a hundred or a thousand years ago you would’ve been a relic
of the past. The Amazon, the Mississippi, the Nile and the Tigris would’ve
mocked you and filled the valleys with laughter. It is admirable that you have
withstood the test of thousands of years. Everything around us changes. Our
friends betray us. Our loved ones leave. Our grandfathers, fathers and sons
depart. Our enemies are hostile towards us both for reason and without reason.
Nations go extinct while others appear. Lowly people ascend. Powerful people
fall. Sultans quiver on their thrones. Everything on earth staggers including the
principles we’d thought eternal. The earth we walk on trembles. Yes, everything
changes but you. God bless your steadfastness and resilience.
O
spirit of Niagara, I’ve seen you with my own eyes. From now on I’ve come to
believe you have a spirit like mine. I don’t mean immortality, as you are
immortal since your history has shown it. I realized you when I immersed my
hand in your water and saw a beautiful rainbow. Life was beautiful when I saw
your rainbow as if you were welcoming a tired man who finds no solace in the
world besides your beauty. Upon seeing your rainbow, hearing your water thunder
like the sound of distant drums, hearing the birds chirping on your trees,
seeing flowers sway on your banks with butterflies dancing around them and your
water rushing somewhere I don’t know and neither it knows – I imagined that
your spirit was present in this great natural celebration and that it had
welcomed me, replied to my salutations and prepared to answer my question. But
then I saw a squirrel in one of your trees; he looked at me and shrieked as if
to mock me. A crow on a distant tree cawed sounding like a widow mourning. I
stood before you confused. I tried to beckon you and them to speak; I imagined
that their laughter and cries were a response to my request to you. It appeared
my journey to you was a mirage. Between the hope I took in your spirit, which
manifested as a rainbow, and the despair I felt from your squirrel’s laughter
and your crow’s caw I fell silent and no longer felt joy or pain, despair or
hope. My soul almost became as inanimate as you.
Yes,
o eternal waterfall, you will remain forever. Human beings will approach you as
they did before me for as long as the land and the sky exist. There will be
newly weds who visit you to spend their honeymoons in the hotels that oversee
you. There will be the lover who uses the shadows of your trees to hide what he
steals. There will be tourists who have no work because they belong to the
elite classes. They approach you to kill their time because others work for
them. They know nothing of you except for the flow of your water. There will be
mediocre-minded people who hear of your beauty and use their free time to visit
you and then distract themselves from you at puerile nightclubs. Others are sad
or beleaguered or exhausted or heartbroken. They come to you carrying their
pain and seeking strength in your shadows. Everyone (who came in the past and
will come in the future) visit you like priests visit temples and stand before
you trying to understand your secrets. You disappoint these and send them back
because you do not open to them your hidden secrets, and you inspire others.
I’ve
visited you and asked you but you didn’t reply. Now I’m going to leave.
Farewell, o majestic Waterfall. In the future remember a man who came to you
from the far east and on your banks he felt a strange mixture of the east and
west and thought of ideas that may deserve neglect and apathy but not mockery.
If you mock my thoughts, go ahead for time has already done so. But before you
mock remember that such mockery is the result of your people and their
ancestors. We are your students. Believe me: change your course and head to my
land. There you will run unknown and untainted by old or new wolves. People
wouldn’t cage you to make you a tourist attraction. Instead, you would run separate
from people. You will hear the sound of cedar trees and the pyramids’ winds
will breathe on you and flowers will adorn your banks. If people see you, they
will revere you. Do not ask me, majestic waterfall, why I came here from my
land in that case; one’s situation has its dictates.
