RUSAFI 59of the Constitution of 1908, and then in powerful language expressed his
bitter disappointment and fiery anger at the way in which it had been sub-
sequently flouted and liberties denied to the people, as can be seen in 'Com-
plaint to the Constitution' (p. 397). In a poem written to celebrate the
deposition of Abdul Hamid (p. 385ff.), he boasts 'If a tyrant goes too far we
rise and hurl him down' and adds the threatening comment, 'Abdul Hamid
was not unique: many are those who resemble him.' With the fall of the Otto-
man empire Rusafi was fully aware of the danger posed by the presence of the
British, whom he never trusted, but rather regarded as the most cunning
nation in the world (p. 467). He was the most vociferous foe of the British
mandate and he bitterly attacked the sham independence granted to Iraq by
Britain:
A Flag, a Constitution and a National Assembly!
All these have been distorted here.
They have become names, words only, their meaning
Not known to us (p. 461).The mock cabinet formed of collaborators with the imperialists came under
the merciless fire of his tongue: ministers, he once said, occupy 'seats which
from excess of shame have nearly collapsed under them' (p. 463). On another
occasion he wrote:
Many are those in government who look like masters, but are in truth
slaves.
Dogs owned by foreigners, yet towards their own people they act like
lions (p. 460).
The sight of Iraqi ministers who gave themselves the airs of governors but
were in fact themselves governed behind the scenes by the British always
filled him with scorn and anger, best expressed in his excellent poem 'The
Guilty Cabinet' (pp. 464ff.). Among the remarkable poems in which he at-
tacked imperialism is a short piece entitled "Freedom under Imperialist
Policy' (p. 448), in which he comments on the intention of the western powers
to divide up the Arab world after the First World War. In this poem he com-
plains that under tyranny, because of the threat of force, all values are
completely reversed: the only people who prosper are those who willingly
forgo their reason, understanding, speech and the sense of hearing, to say
nothing of the desire for happiness or justice, in short those who willingly
give up their humanity. Full of bitter sarcasm, barely-suppressed anger and
self-laceration, and gathering force until it rises to a powerful crescendo,
this seething political poem definitely gains from the monorhyme and mono-
metre of the qasida form, which helps create a feeling of inevitability, of