znous

Look at me mom!
Your son is now a man
One little hair has grown
in that armpit
In that place, the little sausage has grown up
Thanks to you, who fed me yoghurt and macaroni
You brought me as a little lizard
Today I turned into a big snake!
I put on my shoes and I go for the attack
I promise you I will win it all
Wearing my helmet, holding my little worm
Look at me mom!
Check me out!
Look at me mom!
Check me out!
Look at me mom!

In my combat uniform
This boner is for my people
I grab it like a gas pistol
Well, that is all I own…
All I got from this life
Police of dicks since the times of Bourguiba
I got chains and a gun up my sleeve
When am I supposed to get laid?
I am about to explode!
The testosterone went all the way up to my head
I am getting out of control…!!!
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Look at me mamma!
Look at me
Look at me mamma!
Look at me

It’ s a fucked up era and it shall pass
Just like all the other stories
All what has been hidden for years
deep down these sick, garbage people
Has shown up again in these hard days
And made them even harder
This is the legacy of the people of the state
So old, from the times of the “beys”

This people carries the seeds of its demise in its guts
An ancestral damnation
This people carries the corpse of a dream
Lost and dead inside of it, again and again
Becoming an orphan people

It’ s a fucked up era and it shall pass
Then this rat will go back to the sewage
Hassling with no chance for a loaf of bread
Humiliated and beaten like a coward
Playing his role in this world
Watching passively, filling the void
Blowing his life away
Wondering why it is all fucked

This people carries the seeds of its demise in its guts
An ancestral damnation
This people carries the corpse of a dream
Lost and dead inside of it, again and again
Becoming an orphan people

I came to congratulate
Those who stole the light from my eyes
Those who planted frustrations in the hearts
I came to congratulate
Those who set fire into my chest
and the chest of the afflicted people
Congratulations for taking our land
our soil you polluted
For the tears of our youth
you displaced all around the globe
Congratulations for taking our land
for the souls of all the young people
you threw away in the Mediterranean sea

I am not forgiving
no past and no present
I am not forgiving
as long as I carry a soul
and even when my soul would wander and roam
It shall keep cursing, repeating these words:
I am not forgiving
no past and no present

I am not forgiving
for the right of the oppressed
for the soil of Tunisia
and that you stole
I am not forgiving

I came to congratulate
Those who carved the word
“Alienation” on my forehead
and covered my sun with all these clouds
I came to congratulate
Those who raped the dreams in my night
and in the night of the damned generation
Congratulations for taking our land
our soil you polluted
for the tears of our young people
you scatted all around the globe
Congratulations for taking our land
our soil you polluted
for the soul of our young people
you drowned in the Mediterranean sea

I am not forgiving
no past and no present
I am not forgiving
as long as I have a soul
Even when my soul would leave
and roam this universe

It shall keep cursing and repeating these words:
I am not forgiving
no past and no present
I am not forgiving
for the blood of the martyrs
For the soil of Tunisia (Alkhadra-The green)
and all that you stole
I am not forgiving

(Reinterpretation of the Tunisian national anthem)

O defenders of the Homeland!

Rally around to the glory of our time!
The blood surges in our veins,
We die… We die… We die…

The night has fallen
So did my morale
Dopamine has fallen
And thoughts are getting darker
You dream to fly while you are more of a buried corpse
Your body is desintegrated
Your soul is a mirage

Mirage
Mirage

There is no fire left in my volcano
There no images or word left
Your cage bars are in steel
Your country is your jailer
Bidding farewell what is left in you as a Human

Just another human pest in the swarm
Just another broken nest in the storm
Resurrecte
From the ashes
Resurrecte
From the fragments of depression
Resurrecte
From the darkness
Resurrecte
Beyond space and time

Dwelling inside of you
Lurking behind you
Breaking your wings
With poverty and police brutality
You must wake up
Stand and fight

The war of liberation
The war of deliverance

Deliverance
Deliverance

I wonder if the Earth still spins
Or if it’s me, numbed and dizzy, gazing at it
Sahara…devouring my crops, burying the living alive
Sahara…consuming my land as we pray for rain

I wonder why people bring forth children?
To mature amidst the state’s afflictions, the people of the state, and the sewage?
A state… one arsehole departs, another arrives, and yet another returns
A state… quenching the hotels’ thirst, while the land’s owners remain parched
Tell me?

Have you seen the bird that used to migrate to us? it no longer visits.
Have you seen the orphaned palm tree, its springs desiccated and forlorn?
My veins are strain against my skin and my dwelling lies entombed beneath the shifting dunes
Nothing is left from the ancestral heaven, but salt, dust and thorns

We’ve wrought this upon ourselves and those who follow
A mindset of greed and exploitation
Ask those who purchased us, who acquired it all and the baby gazelle
And those who gave up our sahara and our awakening to the Arabian Gulf

Stand and contemplate the quicksand
Arises to bring down the rest of your fate
Rotting in slow decay..
Stand and contemplate the ocean
arises to wash out your hate with the waves
Rotting in slow decay…

I wonder if my words carry any sound
Or if I am adrift in my own sea, conversing with fish
A wave… devouring my shores and burying the forgotten history
A wave… devouring my land, sold to the highest bidder

I wonder why people bring forth children?
To grow amidst the much of the state, the people of mules and the machine
A state… one arsehole departs, another arrives, and yet another returns
A state… exporting fruits and dates and importing the filth of italians

Have you glimpsed the bird that once graced our skies? It no longer graces our shores
And have you witnessed the bird that departs from us? It shall never return
One soul pleads with the angel of death for a fishing rod
While another trawls and scrapes the womb of the sea
Big fish will always eat little fish

We’ve wrought this upon ourselves and those who follow
One day, we will pay for what we did to “the others”
Inferno in Tabarka mourning the thirst of the parched souls
Today marks the final chapter of the ‘Gabes Chernobyl’ book

Stand and contemplate the quicksand
Arises to bring down the rest of your fate
Rotting in slow decay..
Stand and contemplate the ocean
arises to wash out your hate with the waves
Rotting in slow decay…

On a long road filled with thorns
In this desolate world, I’ve chosen to be an outcast
My voice is a nightmare in the head of all the kings
Waking their nations up from their sweet agony

In a vast planet among the people of earth
My homeland is plundered, ruled by a rabid lizard
And my people remain dormant, as time does its job
They recognize things only when it’s too late

Through deep streets, where people are swimming for their lives
Drowning in despair, can’t find anyone to blame anymore
Is it Ben Ayed? Meddeb? Bouchamaoui? Or perhaps Loukil?
Mabrouk? Ben Yedder? Or maybe Elloumi? Or Idris?*
(*Name of families literally owning Tunisia)

I am not forgiving, and you shall perish
In a prison of hell or handcuffed in heaven
You shall pay it back as I praise our blessed ancestors
The sweat of Tunisian women in your farms and your mines

On a long and rugged road, with sandstorms
In an insane world, I chose to keep my sanity
To party poop the lives of patriarchs and their kings
To undermine the oppressive system until it collapses

On this vast planet, Planet America
Sons of colonialists, the Aryan Super Whiteman!
The alpha male who rapes all human rights
Not caring about Gaza, Congo, or Sudan

In the streets I was born and there I shall be buried
Living just to piss off the capitalists and the zionists
And why would I live if I do not use my voice?
To wake our nations up from their sweet agony

On this dark and moonless path
In a world like a Merkava (Israeli Tank)
I chose to be a Shawwad explosive device
Shouting these words to be the voice of the oppressed
Shouting the dream—today, the dream is Palestine.

(The mantra of the Tasfih ritual for girls)
“I am a wall (I am impenetrable)
The stranger/man is a thread.”
“I am a wall (I am impenetrable)
The stranger/man is a thread.”

My grandmother appeared to me, calling out among the girls
She told me today is not like the past
The darkness of the cellar and seven lashes haunt me
My blood drips from my leg like embers

My eyes have seen what other eyes has never seen
Many years of torment went on
My body is taken hostage as my soul wanders

Talismans inside my head and lamentations

(The mantra of the Tasfih ritual for boys)

“I lock you, levitated
Not to touch a girl of any woman”
“I lock you, levitated
Not to touch a girl of any woman”
“I lock you, levitated
Not to touch a girl of any woman”

Translation:

The eloquent words have lost their taste
The (studded) words have lost their taste
And the shiny letter has lost its sharpness
And the shiny letter has lost its sharpness

Look how you have been broken by humiliation
Bless you my dear
Look how you have been erased by humiliation
Please my lord
and the word “please”
does not take away the pain

Oh son of Adam…
(often conveying Human)

Keep your feet on the ground
Put on your bridle
(metaphor for self-control)
Keep your feet on the ground
Control yourself, you are lost dreaming away…

Ooooh
Oh son of Adam
How can I endure this while you add to the flames
of the fire that burns my heart?
Oh dear god
What have I done wrong? – Oh dear god
Burning my heart – Oh dear god
What have I done wrong? – Oh dear god
Oh son of Adam!

The eloquent words have lost their taste
The (studded) words have lost their taste
And the shiny letter has lost its sharpness
And the shiny words have lost their sharpness

Look how you have been broken by humiliation
Bless you my dear
Look how you have been erased by humiliation
Bless you my dear
and the word “Bless you”
does not spare you the pain

Oh son of Adam
Your lord is watching
Stop the destruction!
Your lord is watching
Hide your secrets if you want to be safe

Ooooh
Oh son of Adam

They put me in a place, deep like a grave
full of agony
I must resist

Oh dear god
I must resist

Oh son of Adam!

Background:
Omar Laabidi, 19 years old Tunisian football fan who jumped into the waters after being terrified by police brutality has lost his life under the infamous police quote “learn how to swim” sadistically addressed to him by policemen as the youngster drowns.
Long years after investigations, the murderers got sentenced to only 2 years in jail as the corrupted court deemed the case to be “manslaughter by mistake“. Police community and syndicate  in Tunisia can equally terrify and influence the judiciary system.
Zarzis, a town in southern Tunisia has been protesting for a month now after the state refused to help families find the corpses of their children, drowned in the mediterranean as they failed an immigration attempt.
The Tunisian state and the local authorities have buried some of the drowned youngsters without informing their families in “the cemetery of strangers/aliens” which was originally initiated by locals to bury unidentified corpses of sub-saharan immigrants (mostly without any ID). There are considerable suspections around the involvement of the local authorities in the murder of these young Zarzisians, explained by their passive investigations and rejection to exhume the graves of the deceased for legal autopsy and a decent burial by the hand of their own families.

Lyrics translation:

“By Mistake”

Screaming out until their last breath
Injustice has transcended the edge of helplessness
And the edge of anger
The stench of death arises
We are the fire and we are equally that which burns
Here we live and then we die like strangers under the dirt of our motherland
Here we live and then we die like strangers and “by mistake”…

Our hearts are overwhelmed
As they harden after the storms of pain
Nothing remains out of my land and my people but my coffin and this flag
All nations on earth can see their oppressor so they fight back for real
Except for us, we meet death fighting a ghost

Here we live and then we die like strangers under the dirt of our motherland.
Here we live and then we die like strangers and “by mistake”…