To hold onto faith
When your sheikh starts to dance
Your leader speaks sweat romance
Softly nudging neighbours to cheer on
As friends and lovers break their bonds

When the television wants you dead
Without a moment to eat your bread
All the microphones in the presser
Ask you to have sympathy for your oppressor
And we do because we know
That love is the sword of the righteous

Sounds familiar, right?
This is now our brothers’ plight
and it’s been so for decades
But once, we shouted hurreya
in the same desperate way
Funny how yesterday’s oppressors
Call themselves freedom fighters today

And you resist the urge to remind them
of how they used to want you dead
I do not seek to break our unity
I just remind you that if, today, we were actually free
Maybe we could’ve stood by our brothers
And not hold our heads in shame

Just remember
The belly dancer’s companion
Is a lousy liberator