'I am your Spy'
The Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu,has been re-arrested, charged with breaking the restrictions on his activities conditional to his release from prison. Vannunu's crime ? He spoke to journalists from around the world regarding Israel's nuclear program. Israel possesses weapons of mass destructions, an estimated 200 atomic bombs and missiles.
During the 1980's Vanunu worked in Israel's ultra-secret nuclear program, near his home in Beersheba. Concerned with the dangers of the nuclear program, and its consequences for the citizenry of Israel and its neighbors, he decided to alert the world.
In the spirit of America's Daniel Ellsberg (the pentagon papers), Vanunu took extensive pictures inside the underground facility where he worked, and his story was subsequently published on October 5, 1986 in the London Sunday Times.
After serving 18 years in prison, he was released earlier this year, but Vanunu has been unrelenting in bringing pressure to bear on Israel to discontinue its nuclear bomb making program.
While in prison he wrote a poem entitled, "I am Your Spy", we publish it here in its entirety. Mr. Vanunu's main language is not english, and thus the grammar is off, but what matters is the message which comes to us from a truly heroic human being.
I Am Your Spy
by Mordechai Vanunu
I am the clerk, the technician, the mechanic, the driver.
They said, Do this, do that, don't look left or right,
don't read the text. Don't look at the whole machine. You
are only responsible for this one bolt. For this one rubber-stamp.
This is your only concern. Don't bother with what is above you.
Don't try to think for us. Go on, drive. Keep going. On, on.
So they thought, the big ones, the smart ones, the futurologists.
There is nothing to fear. Not to worry.
Everything's ticking just fine.
Our little clerk is a diligent worker. He's a simple mechanic.
He's a little man.
Little men's ears don't hear, their eyes don't see.
We have heads, they don't.
Answer them, said he to himself, said the little man,
the man with a head of his own. Who is in charge? Who knows
where this train is going?
Where is their head? I too have a head.
Why do I see the whole engine,
Why do I see the precipice--
is there a driver on this train?
The clerk driver technician mechanic looked up.
He stepped back and saw -- what a monster.
Can't believe it. Rubbed his eyes and -- yes,
it's there all right. I'm all right. I do see
the monster. I'm part of the system.
I signed this form. Only now I am reading the rest of it.
This bolt is part of a bomb. This bolt is me. How
did I fail to see, and how do the others go on
fitting bolts. Who else knows?
Who has seen? Who has heard? -- The emperor really is naked.
I see him. Why me? It's not for me. It's too big.
Rise and cry out. Rise and tell the people. You can.
I, the bolt, the technician, mechanic? -- Yes, you.
You are the secret agent of the people. You are the eyes of the nation.
Agent-spy, tell us what you've seen. Tell us what the insiders, the clever ones, have hidden from us.
Without you, there is only the precipice. Only catastrophe.
I have no choice. I'm a little man, a citizen, one of the people,
but I'll do what I have to. I've heard the voice of my conscience
and there's nowhere to hide.
The world is small, small for Big Brother.
I'm on your mission. I'm doing my duty. Take it from me.
Come and see for yourselves. Lighten my burden. Stop the train.
Get off the train. The next stop -- nuclear disaster. The next book,
the next machine. No. There is no such thing.
-written from Ashkelon Prison, Israel
URL: www.thecitizenfsr.org SM 2000-2011
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