When you put a flag
from a suffering country
on your window
When you sing
the songs of Kandakas
The ones of the river,
the mines and the sea
They weaponize your love
When you bring soups,
food and milk to protestors
When you open your home
and your land
to someone
who lost their own
They weaponize your love
When you create a space for
a shared language, skin, experience
or tears
When you tell their names
So no one can forget
They weaponize your love
They weaponize your love
To turn it into fear
Of losing everything.
Your job, your home, your life
Your mom, your kid, your mind
Yes,
they weaponize your love
A love that crossed
The borders they’ve drawn
The walls they’ve built
The laws they’ve inked
With hate they can’t contain
But
would they see your love
as a weapon they must use,
If it wasn’t powerful ?
ENG
At the end of a very emotional conversation with Black artists, researchers and
activists from Europe and beyond, we sat in our kinship and we discussed how we were navigating
pain, grief, frustration, anger and the required love in our resistance. I got teary and said “But they
weaponize our love”. I couldn’t stop thinking about how many laws and bills have been passed these last years and months, in here, to criminalize every human gesture towards the collective, and how we must remember that hate is not only a feeling but designed violence machine against us and the marginalized.
There was a silence, a felt one, and we were able to digest everything we shared. We hugged, we talked, we laughed, we sang afterwards, and here I am, unable to sleep because these words wanted to come out in a language that is not mine, but that was a tool to share this love with them.
FR
Au terme d’une conversation très émouvante avec des
artistes, chercheurs et activistes noirs d’Europe et
d’ailleurs, nous nous sommes retrouvés, unis dans nos
liens, et avons évoqué la manière dont nous gérions la
douleur, le chagrin, la frustration, la colère et l’amour
indispensable à notre résistance. Les larmes me sont
venues aux yeux et j’ai dit : « Mais ils instrumentalisent
notre amour. » Je n’arrêtais pas de penser au nombre
de lois et de projets de loi votés ici même, ces
derniers mois et années, pour criminaliser le moindre
geste humain envers la collectivité, et à la nécessité de
se souvenir que la haine n’est pas qu’un sentiment,
mais une machine de violence savamment orchestrée
contre nous et les personnes marginalisées. Un silence
pesant s’est installé, un silence que nous avons pu
digérer. Nous nous sommes enlacés, nous avons parlé,
ri, chanté, et me voilà, incapable de dormir, car ces
mots réclamaient de sortir dans une langue qui n’est
pas la mienne, mais qui fut pourtant l’outil pour
partager cet amour avec eux.