If you want to call youself a Human,
you will never stop fighting for peace and justice.
You will go on the streets, you will scream, your lips will bleed from the screams,
your face will bleed from the bullets but no step back.
Every scream is a stone on the windows of the warpigs
every gesture is like you demolish injustice.
And be careful : don't you ever lose your mind.
Think a bit of your childhood and you'll let thousand children
minced while playing unsuspected in the towns
if you look the sunset even for a single moment
tomorrow people will be dying in the night of war
if you, just for a moment, stop to dream
a million human dreams will become ashes under the shellbombs.
You do not have time,
you do not have time for yourself,
if you want to call yourself a Human.
If you want to call yourself a Human,
may need to leave your mother,your beloved one or your child.
You will not hesitate.
You will denounce your lamp and your bread
you will denounce the evening rest at your home
for the rough road which leads to tomorrow.
Nothing will cause your fear.
I know, it is beautiful to listen to a harmonica at night,
to stare a star, to dream,
it is beautiful, bended over the red mouth of your love, to listen to her dreams for the future.
But you, you have to say goodbye to all these and to begin,
because you are responsible for all the harmonicas of the world,for all the stars,
for all the lamps and for all the dreams,
if you want to call yourself a Human.
If you want to call yourself a Human,
it may be necessary to go in jail for twenty or more years,
but you, even in jail, you will always remember the spring, your mother, the world.
You, even from the one meter square cell of yours,
you will keep on your route on earth.
And when, during the utmost silence, at night
you will knock the wall of your cell with the finger
from the other side Spain will answer you.
You, no matter the years passed or your grey hair,
you will not getting old.
You even in prison every morning
you will dawn younger
because new struggles we will start in the world
if you want to call yourself a Human.
If you want to call youself a Human,
it will be necessary to be able to die one, whichever, morning.
At night in isolation you will write a big sweet letter to your mother,
you will write the date on the wall, your initials and one word:
Peace - like you have written the story of your life.
To be able to die one, whichever, morning,
to be able to stand in front of the six rifles
like you stood in front of the whole future.
To be able, above the burst that kills you,
to hear the millions of simple people who, singing, fight for peace.
If you want to call yourself a Human.
Tasos Leivaditis (1922 – 1988)
