Opinion Editorials, May 2009

In Remembrance Of James Miller

 A Poem

By Ali Al-Hail

 ccun.org, May 20, 2009

 
James Miller:
Was one in a million
 "The apple of every free journalist's eye"
The Gaza 's martyr
 
The heeler of its bleeding wounds
The registrar of its anger in May:
In the face of the occupier
 
Anger withers away..But, in Gaza , for some reason
Anger comes back everyday
 
The purveyor of May roses and flowers
The whole faraway
From the ' Hide Park Corner'
To Gaza 's beautiful toddlers
   
 
James Miller: The journalist of England
The facts finder; The truth lover; the film maker
The devoted image shooter
 
The (IDF) put him on the list: Wanted sooner the better
Number 1 ever wanted photographer
The (IDF) branded him: An "outlaw" in Gaza
Just because he conveyed the truth in a picture
louder and clearer
 
To Gazans, James Miller was everybody's in-law
Their beloved one for ever and ever
He's rooted in their collective memory as the sand of their beloved land
  
 As a Gazan farmer lifts his spade just after dawn
Rising Early as the Gaza 's birds 
Lifting with it: 61 heartbreaking years of occupation
Before the sun rises yet once again:
like bighearted Gazans - on the resistant green fields:  
 
One day in May, six and a half years back away
James Miller Lifted his camera on his shoulder
His both "angels blessed his deed," indeed
Four angels happened to be working in a team - in a harmony together
 
In his heart James Miller was hiding his country's sense of guilt – Balfour's sinful promise
Most embarrassed by it  
 
Always was bothering him as a thorn in his toe
Since he was a little boy
Thought and thought until he decided to go beyond that troubling thought
 
James Miller on that De-day in May:
Said his farewell to his dearly loved mother
and his tall headed father:
 
"I will miss you" sorrowfully, said his mother
"Go ahead, son, do what you should do, you will always have our support," said the father
 
Gallant James Miller had a gracious cause
To unveil to the 'deceptive World'
' Israel 's' false face
 
Long ' Israel ' was hiding behind the "Holocaust" phase:
For six decades, murdering innocent Palestinians
Burning their green fields
 
Demolishing their homes, diminishing their hopes  
Slaughtering children, Orphaning, widowing before the 'World's eyes'
 
James Miller documented: how a stone
Could defeat an armed soldier
How a Merkava would be frightened
 of a kid - stone thrower
How an image from a camera would change the World
 
James Miller .. James Miller .. James Miller
I urge you: Remember the name; remember it : for ever
 
Hold it with your eyelids:
 "beauty is in the eyes of the beholder", said the story teller
 
Tell it to your children, teach it at schools
Perhaps, one day, we could have another and another and another: James Miller  
 
I swear on my heart tonight: This Northern knight  is worth far much more than that
 
Hail the name; salute his soul more and more 
 Never Forget this great story teller: James Miller
 
 
An 'English castle' from the North: tall, free and spectacular
 Fluent as The ' Thames river'
 anxious as a sailor, precious as the 'Trafalgar' 
 
Gave his oath:
To tell the truth and nothing but the truth
"Let The Truth Be Told," like "the lion of Palestine *" roared James Miller
 
  The truth register
For the sake of the truth
 James Miller paid the ultimate tariff ever:
paid his life; the down payment for the truth:
 
To prevail, to sail, to travel free
As a wave of an air
 
James Miller gave his oath
To tell the truth and nothing but the truth
 
_________________________
 
 
* James Miller, the British photographer, was murdered in cold blood by the (IDF) i.e., Zionist Offensive Forces during February 2003, while shooting a group of Gazans' uprising against the Zionist occupation. He was murdered twice, as a matter of fact.
 
   The British government of Tony Blair, then, traded with his blood, by agreeing to the (IDF) to pay 3 million sterling pounds to James Miller's family, for dropping the case against his IDF's murderers.
 
   Just imagine if an Arab-Palestinian killed an Israeli, what Israel , backed by Britain , the rest of the EU's states and of course – the U.S.A. would do? I leave the answer to the respectable reader.
 
 
* Abdul Azeiz El-Rantiesi, assassinated by the Zionist occupation in 2005. He was called "The Lion Of Palestine ."
 
____________________________________________________________
 
Professor, Dr. Ali Al-Hail, Professor of Mass Communication, Twice Fulbright

Award Winner, Fulbright Visiting Scholar, Vice-President Of Qatar Fulbright Group, CSR Award Judge and Board Member of AUSACE, ASC, IABD, NEBAA, BEA, IMDA and EAJMC American Associations.
Can be contacted via: a.alhail@yahoo.com