A letter to a dead dog

Dear dog from al-Ahram Street,

I do not know whether you were relaxing, or panting in thirst, when your human owner approached you and took you to the scoundrels who beat you and cut you to pieces until your death.

What I do know is that you could not have imagined that in a country that specialises in committing crimes against humanity, a sweet and loyal animal like yourself would have such a depressingly atrocious fate.

I am writing to you because the killers of humanity in our country are now exploiting your case and utilising it to escape from their crimes against humans.

I do not think that you were aware that at the same moment in which your owner was committing his treason by leaving you to the depravity and vileness of the scoundrels, there was a human who was being tortured to death like
you were, a human whose tongue was cut off and whose body was torn apart until he died, leaving angelic children behind to face this murderous world alone, with no one to protect them except their young mother.

Dear dog,

The scene of your brutal victimisation at the hands of a group of humans has horrified us. We do not know where these humans came from, or know who the professional director that skillfully filmed your torture and murder was.

Dear dog, the scene of your brutal victimisation at the hands of a group of humans has horrified us.

We also do not know who produced and distributed the
scenes of your torture and passed it on to media outlets that are not too different from those who tied you with chains in the street, then killed you and desecrated your body.

I know that you are kinder and gentler than your torturers and more sensitive than those who employed the tragedy of your murder for their interests.

I imagine that if you were here and could borrow a human's brain and tongue for short minutes, and had witnessed the breaking news of the prosecutor-general ordering the swift apprehension of the perpetrators involved in the torture and killing of a dog in al-Ahram Street in the Subra neighbourhood, or heard security officials announce that they had caught the perpetrators of this "brutal and inhumane crime" - I imagine that you would let out a loud bark and wag your tail in disdain at those deceitful, hypocritical killers.

I believe that you would do so if you knew that those same people who talk about brutal and inhumane crimes had burnt 37 humans alive while they were in the closed iron box of a security transfer vehicle. Furthermore, they had also killed and burnt hundreds more people in public squares.

My friend,

I know that many people who have mourned you and cried for you are genuine in their sadness. However, there are others that are liars, because they celebrated and danced in delight when hundreds of humans were killed in a manner not too different to the manner in which you were
killed.

These people now weep for your death, wear black clothes and human masks, just like the masks worn by those who planted their knifes into your body before you closed your eyes and left this world. A world that is at the pits of insanity, not at the verge.

Do you know, oh loyal dog, that in the country in which your life ended, the people who killed you could receive harsher and more severe punishments than those who kill prisoners, rape detainees or burn 37 human souls?

They will not punish your killers because they love you and appreciate your loyalty, but because they want to take advantage of the emotions of a world that provides rights to its animals that are not afforded to humans in our country.

They want to absolve themselves of crimes against
humanity by taking up the case of a poor animal. They want to hide their treason against their revolution and humanity in the story of your loyalty.

They have confirmed the thoughts of the famous British poet, Alexander Pope: "Histories are more full of examples of the fidelity of dogs than of friends."

Finally, I would like to dedicate this poem written by Abbas Mahmous al-Aqqad, for his dog Bijo, to you:

 
This is an edited translation from our Arabic edition.