November 2002

Views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of the AFSC.

Editor's note: While space limitations prevented our reprinting the entire text of "Somebody Blew Up America," we encourage you to look it up at Amiri Baraka's web site (www.amiribaraka.com), and also to read there the full text of his statement on the recent controversy surrounding the poem.

We have tried to include here enough of the poem to at least give a sense of its breadth, as well as to show the lines that have caused so much controversy. In the excerpts of Amiri Baraka's statement on the facing page, we have again chosen not just his words on the contested lines but also some of what he offers to the urgent, ongoing discussion in the US about silence, speech, and power. On this topic Amiri Baraka has a valuable perspective and keen insight for all of us, whether or not we share his assessment of the facts surrounding the September 11 attacks.

We do not believe that the poem is anti-Semitic or that it expresses hatred for any group of people, or we would not have printed it. However, as with all of the material we publish, the opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of Peacework or of the American Friends Service Committee.

.They say its some terrorist, some
    barbaric
           A Rab, in
    Afghanistan
It wasn't our American terrorists
It wasn't the Klan or the Skin heads
Or the them that blows up nigger
Churches, or reincarnates us on Death Row

Who the biggest terrorist
Who change the bible
Who killed the most people
Who do the most evil
Who don't worry about survival

Who have the colonies
Who stole the most land
Who rule the world
Who say they good but only do evil
Who the biggest executioner
    Who/Who/Who
....
Who own the oil
Who want more oil
Who told you what you think that later you find out a lie
Who/Who/???

Who found Bin Laden, maybe they Satan
Who pay the CIA,
Who knew the bomb was gonna blow
Who know why the terrorists
    Learned to fly in Florida, San Diego

Who know why Five Israelis was filming the explosion
    And cracking they sides at the notion

....
Who locked up Mandela, Dhoruba, Geronimo,
Assata, Mumia, Garvey, Dashiell Hammett, Alphaeus Hutton

Who killed Huey Newton, Fred Hampton,
    Medgar Evers, Mikey Smith, Walter Rodney,
Was it the ones who tried to poison Fidel
Who tried to keep the Vietnamese Oppressed

Who put a price on Lenin's head

Who put the Jews in ovens,
    and who helped them do it
Who said "America First"
    and ok'd the yellow stars

                WHO/WHO/??

Who killed Rosa Luxemburg, Liebneckt
Who murdered the Rosenbergs
    And all the good people iced,
    tortured, assassinated, vanished

....

Who set the Reichstag Fire

Who knew the World Trade Center was gonna get bombed
Who told 4000 Israeli workers at the Twin Towers
    To stay home that day
Why did Sharon stay away      ?
...
Like an owl exploding
In your life in your brain in your self
Like an Owl who know the devil
All night, all day if you listen, Like an Owl
Exploding in fire. We hear the questions rise
In terrible flame like the whistle of a crazy dog

Like the acid vomit of the fire of Hell
Who and Who and WHO (+) who who
    Whoooo and Whooooooooooooooooooooo!

From a Statement by Amiri Baraka, New Jersey Poet Laureate, 1002:

The most offensive phrase in the poem to my various attackers is, "Who told 4000 Israeli workers at the Twin Towers/to stay home that day/Why did Sharon stay away?" To infer that I am accusing Israel of committing the atrocity is disingenuous slander and character assassination. But I do believe, as I stated about England, Germany, France, Russia, that the Israeli government, certainly its security force Shabak knew about the attack in advance.

[This] is a poem that aims to probe and disturb, but there is not the slightest evidence of Anti-Semitism, as anyone who reads it without some insidious bias would have to agree.

The Anti-Defamation League, by attacking me by distorting what my poem is saying, is doing its usual ugly, as a well-known running dog of imperialism, particularly by attacking anyone who takes an independent position or is critical of Israeli Imperialism and its attendant ideology political Zionism.

So now, it's my turn. Using my poem, they are going to spread the Big Lie, distort what the poem says. Cover the fact that this poem actually is an attack on Imperialism, National Oppression, monopoly Capitalism, Racism, Anti-Semitism.

NO, I WILL NOT APOLOGIZE, I WILL NOT RESIGN. In fact I will continue to do what I have been appointed to do...publicize and popularize poetry and poets throughout this state. We will ask that poets POET ON!

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