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# Christopher Columbus has words from the other side of death for Captain John Whyte...
- URL: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/article-1148jsp/
- Published: 2003-04-10T23:04:00.000Z
- Updated: 2019-02-14T22:47:25.000Z
- Author: Ariel Dorfman
- Tags: #en, #Migrated, #Import 2026-04-09 19:08

I know something about names, Captain.  
  
  
Those who conquer must always have a name ready.  
Even before the sword, before the gun.  
  
  
I saw the island and called it San Salvador.  
San Salvador because we had been saved.  
  
  
I did not ask the natives  
they were friendly, they were almost naked, they were brown under the  
tropical sun I did not ask them what they called that place themselves  
I did not ask them what they called their home  
  
  
And I did not tell them that they would all die  
I did not tell them that nobody would ever know  
what they spoke  
how they spoke  
the words would be swallowed  
 like boats are swallowed in the tempest  
 of a sad sea  
like bodies are swallowed in a mine  
  
Now they teach me their words and their songs  
here in the dark of forever  
I study what they called the moon and love and good-bye  
I listen to their Carib whispers  
and I purse my lips and I whistle and I soften the air  
with the language no one has spoken on that island  
for over five hundred years  
  
  
This is my penance  
  
  
And then Quechua and then Maya and then Tzotzil  
and then the thousand and ten tongues that were once alive  
in the lands that would not be called my name  
that would be called by someone else’s name  
Amerigo America  
and then the learning will go on  
Navajo and Guaraní and Nahuatl  
and the sounds that once filled the ears  
of lovely maidens  
to bring forth the crops  
and no one today even knows their name  
learning learning  
until they have taught me to pronounce each last word  
how do you say friend  
how do you say death  
how do you say forever  
  
  
how do you say penance  
  
  
they will teach me how they say penance  
in their thousand and ten tongues  
  
  
your penance, Captain?  
what awaits you?  
  
  
You said you came to bring freedom  
  
Freedom. When another can decide for himself.  
  
You said you came to bring democracy.  
  
Democracy. When another can control for herself.  
  
You said you came with liberation.  
  
Liberation. When the people who made the world  
name that world and themselves.  
  
  
Freedom. Democracy. Liberation.  
Words.  
Your words, the words of your leaders.  
  
  
And then you called the airport by another name.  
It is ours. We took it. We’re here.  
We killed the men who called it by that other name.  
We can call it now what we will.  
Under a sky full of bombs another name.  
Baghdad now. Not Saddam.  
  
  
Saddam Airport.  
Not a name I like, we like, here on the other side.  
a name cursed in the cellars  
where the fingers are crushed  
where the head is split  
where the teeth are pulled  
  
  
rooted out  
  
the roots of that name Saddam  
the striker of the blow  
the one who resists  
the one who gives grief  
the one who prohibits  
  
  
all all all crying out inside that name  
  
  
but not for you, Captain,  
to change  
not for you to decide  
  
  
your penance?  
  
  
they wait for you, John Whyte,  
here in the glorious dust of words  
they once scrolled on paper parchment stone  
here in the dark light of death  
  
  
they wait for you  
the poets of Iraq  
  
  
Abu Nuwas and Hariri  
Mutanabbi and Buhturi  
waiting like the rugs they used to sit on  
waiting like the founts they used to drink from  
  
  
all the words you did not think to use  
Captain John Whyte  
all the names you did not know  
not even your own  
white barakah  
barakah related to barak blessing  
  
you will have to learn  
pronounce as I have had to pronounce  
word for word  
  
the Arabic you did not care to know  
like the Nahuatl I never knew  
like the Cherokee I never knew  
  
  
you will have to learn  
  
  
starting with the hundred words  
that pour forth from Allah  
  
Rahman The Compassionate  
Rahim The Merciful  
  
  
Rahman International Airport  
Rahim International Airport  
  
  
can you hear them  
even now as you advance towards Baghdad  
can you hear their voices  
  
  
Rahman the Compassionate  
Rahim the Merciful  
  
  
Rahman Rahim  
and Salam  
  
  
Salam  
Peace  
  
one of the attributes of God  
  
  
your penance  
John Whyte John Barakah  
did you never think  
  
  
they will treat you with mercy  
on the other side  
  
  
that the people of Iraq  
might want to call their land  
with the names of Salam  
the many names of peace?  
  
  
your penance  
oh white one  
  
  
it will take you and your leaders  
forever  
 and forever  
 and forever  
it will take you forever  
  
to learn the word for peace