20 Point Manifesto for Women Living in Genocidal Times by Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan
31 Days of Poetry: Day 31.
For the month of August I participated in The Sealey Challenge and read a book of poetry every day (or at least a poem or two), and every day I shared a poem with you. I really hope this series afforded you an opportunity to discover some new favourites or revisit some old ones.
The final poem of the month is ‘20 Point Manifesto for Women Living in Genocidal Times’ by Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan, which was published in her 2019 debut collection, ‘Postcolonial Banter’ (Verve Poetry Press).
20 Point Manifesto for Women Living in Genocidal Times
1. Ask which women just came to your mind.
2. Ask which women did not just come to your mind.
3. Look in the mirror
know you are not all of us
know you are one of us
know the genocidal times began long before you
though.
4. Know you are not your body but your body is yours
so kiss the mirror sometimes
even if it is cracked - especially if it is cracked.
Do not wait to become a fashionable trend
it is faster just to love yourself.
5. Do not believe the exhibitions.
100 years for who?
Some women stood on the round darker bellies of others
just to get a taste of the pie.
Know there were feminists before their feminism
there was history before Europe
"progress" before
"progressive values" were coerced onto the world
there were working mothers before there was applause
there were fields and bending knees and factory night-
shifts and silence
for the history of the world is not a history of Great Men
or Nation-States
or Civilisations
or Wars
it is a history of women.
6. Do not want equality with men whose power comes from
their subjugation of others
wish for more than being the other side of the joke
wish for more than putting someone else into the
capitalist punchline
for more than making cracks about small hands and
orange skin.
If it takes emasculation to bring down the ones in power
then we concede that being less 'man'
is being humiliated
and being more 'woman' is being a joke.
7. The master's tools will never destroy the master's house
after all
women CEOs don't mean much for the women working
for them in low-wage, precarious, life-threatening
conditions.
8. Do not go alone.
9. Do not go alone.
10. There is always space for everyone.
There is no reason we must queue for freedom
some women perpetually at the back
it is all or nothing
so stand in a row instead.
11. You do not have to climb over me to climb upwards.
Hold hands with the women you don't know
not just the ones you respect
not just the ones you don't avert your eyes from
not just the ones you get.
You do not have to climb over me to climb upwards.
12. Do not let yourself be reduced
they will try to split you
look for more than representation
call for reparation.
13. Ask the questions that scare you
ask if the liberals are really so different from the fascists?
The liberals will say they stand for freedom of speech
whilst restricting what Muslims can talk about
the fascists will cut our tongues out instead.
But what's the different when we're silenced?
What's the difference when it still means a drone
dropped on your home?
What's the difference when you're still in Guantanamo
Bay?
What's the difference when you're tortured?
What's the difference when your body is still suspect?
What's the difference when we're dead?
14. Liberation is not a door that opens from the inside
do not wait
do not ask permission dress up pretty blink your eyes
and ask to be let in,
kick it down.
15. Realise liberation is not a door at all,
not something you walk through and enter
but something that's in you
your sharp tongue, big heart and weeping eyes.
16. Liberation did not come from the ballot box.
Liberation will not come from the government.
Know the state will placate you as it dehumanises you.
Know "women's rights" only count is they see you first as
"woman".
There are women who will never be "woman".
They are sitting in refugee camps
in detention centres and under rubble.
They will tell you these women were victims to their own
societies
had they only made it to the West they would have been
free
like you,
had you only invaded their countries to save them they
would have been free
like you,
know you are not free.
Know this is only progress the way wrapping a rope
around your own neck gets you closer to death.
17. Know that genitals aren't necessary to bring us together.
The revolution doesn't need to be pink.
The reclamation doesn't need to be naked.
What makes us oppressed in not that we are the same
but that we are in pain.
18. Do not be afraid of the questioning,
just because it feels bad doesn't mean it is
wonder if your comfort is more important than her
freedom.
19. Do not point over the ocean to say it is worse in America.
We are killing the darker ones here too
we just let them die under suspicious circumstances in
custody rather than. outright assassinate them on the
street.
We are separating the babies from their families here, too
we just hide it better and point the camera elsewhere.
We are killing civilians overseas here, too
we just sell the bombs for others to do the dropping.
We are barricading the border here, too.
We are surveilling the Muslims here, too.
We are murdering the marginalised here, too.
We are groping the women here, too.
We are excluding, dehumanising and destroying.
20. Fight.
Love uncompromisingly.
Hone your weapon - your voice, your hands.
Go forward and grasp,
but do not go alone,
you won't make it alone,
we won't make it.
Come together - you too
it won't be easy,
but we were trained for that,
we are women, after all.
I revisited Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan’s Postcolonial Banter today because 20 Point Manifesto for Women Living in Genocidal Times just seemed to connect so perfectly with so many of the themes that emerged this month, as well as the state of the world and our current concerns more broadly. Manzoor-Khan read this poem for the first time at the 2018 Anti-Trump Women’s March and wrote the manifesto ‘as both a rallying call and a caution’ to the audience she anticipated would hear it. Like so many of the poems in this collection, it cautions against viewing any issue as a single-issue because our every struggle is connected and our freedom is inextricably intertwined.
So, there we have it. Thirty-one days of poems completed. I had no real plan going into this month and I honestly have no idea how I kept up with these posts but I’m also so glad I did because I’ve read (and reread) some incredible poems and I hope you feel like you have too.
Thank you for following along, for sharing your own reflections, and participating in various other ways - it has been so lovely to connect with so many of you. If you have a favourite poem of the month and you ‘re happy to share, I would love to hear it.
Right, back to regular scheduled (if not a little sporadic) programming.
See you when I see you,
Tasnim
What an accomplishment, writing for 30 days continuously. I love your poem, extremely well done and thought provoking 💕💕
Tasnim, you’ve introduced so many courageous and articulate poets to me this past month. Thank you!
I went on yet another exploratory trail today after reading Suhaiymah’s poem and found this video. I hope you don’t mind me sharing it.
…Manzoor-Khan gives us her vision of a feminist peace through the performance of two poems "20 point manifesto for women living in genocidal times" and "British Values". -YouTube-
https://youtu.be/Yq7S5jPMyMk?feature=shared