Poetry: Ashraf AboArafe
Ilham Aliyev spoke,
His voice calmer than gunfire,
Stronger than steel.
We are not the shadow of others’ wars,
Nor a rifle
Carried by proxy
Across fields of ruin.
We ask before we move:
What mandate is this?
What kind of peace is intended?
Is it peace that guards the gates of fear,
Or peace that breaks bones by force?
Ilham Aliyev said:
We know the difference,
We carry it in the memory of blood.
Keeping peace
Protects life.
Imposing it
Trades in death
With diplomatic language.
In Iraq,
In Kosovo,
In the mountains of Afghanistan,
We stood by installations,
Not firing bullets,
Not counting bodies.
Our soldiers returned
With their names intact,
No missing hands,
No portraits
On walls of loss.
And Ilham Aliyev said:
Gaza lives in the heart,
But the heart
Does not hand over its children
To open fires.
We are a people
Who tasted aggression,
Who drank loss in Karabakh,
Who learned
What it means to stand alone
Before predatory maps.
Every citizen,
To Ilham Aliyev,
Is a complete homeland.
No nation wins
By losing its sons
In others’ wagers.
We stand with Palestine,
With her right
To a state,
A sun,
And borders.
Yet he said:
Arab causes
Are best solved
By Arab hands.
Wisdom is
Not to outrun the tracks.
And when it was said
That Azerbaijan agreed,
Ilham Aliyev answered
Without shouting:
We did not.
For blood
Is not a permit,
And Azerbaijan
Does not lend its veins.
