17 pages • 34 minutes read
Fatimah AsgharIf They Should Come for Us
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2018A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Individualism and Identity
In “If They Should Come for Us,” poet Fatimah Asghar works against the idea of a racialized and homogenous Muslim identity. The speaker catalogues her “people” (Line 1) as a community comprised of distinct individuals. The speaker doesn’t profile any of the individuals; instead, the speaker observes them, reporting the observations in the poem for the reader. The reader sees traditional clothing like “the old woman’s sari” (Line 6) blowing in the wind, comparing the bindi on her forehead to “a new moon” (Line 7). The image of the toddler’s head, “a fountain of dandelion seed” (Line 11), conveys fragility, movement, and life. The non-devout Muslim man “sips / good whiskey” (Lines 18-19), displaying a taste for the finer option. An auntie in traditional dress wears comfortable American “crocs” (Line 21) while a “muslim teenager” (Line 25) graces “the subway platform” (Line 27) in urban wear. Through fine details of physical description, clothing, and other personal choices, the reader can imagine the humanity of each character.
Asghar employs a different sort of detailing and specificity with her use of non-English words that draws attention to the individual identity of her people. There are only six words in the poem that are of a language other than English: azan (Line 17), maghrib (Line 19), khala (Line 20), kurta (Line 21), mashallah (Line 28), and dupattas (Line 35). Most of the words are Arabic or have Arabic roots, while kurta (Line 21) may be associated with Urdu and dupattas (Line 35) has origins in Sanskrit. Asghar does not translate the non-English words for the benefit of the reader. The poet does, however, provide context through tone and detail. There is mystery behind “maghrib” (Line 19) if the reader is unfamiliar with Islamic prayer practices. That said, the word provides an opportunity for curiosity, and supports Asghar’s notion of a community made up of individuals with differences, which do not require literal translation or assimilation to be accepted.
History’s Tendency to Repeat Itself
The poet makes several references to the Holocaust, the genocide of Jewish people in Nazi Germany. In present tense, the speaker says of an elder woman in a sari, “I claim her my kin & sew / the star of her to my breast” (Lines 8-9). This visual image recalls the yellow star badge that was sewn into the clothing of the German Jewish population to single them out in Nazi-occupied countries. In this case, the speaker embraces the woman for her difference—“the star of her” (Line 9)—in an effort to avoid the decimation of the Muslim population through apathy or dismissiveness.
The phrase “if they come for you they / come for me too” (Lines 31-32) recall the prose poem of Martin Niemöller, enshrined in a quotation observable in the Permanent Exhibition of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, which begins, “First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— / Because I was not a Socialist.” The prose poem goes on to list others for whom the speaker did not speak out, until “they” come for him, and there is no one left to speak on his behalf. Asghar reminds the reader of Kristallnacht with the line “we hear the glass smashing the street” (Line 39), an image that compares the 1938 attack on Jews with other countless other violent acts across history.
In Asghar’s poem, there is the fire of persecution, wherein “our names” (Line 41) become “this country’s wood” (Line 41), or fuel for public fury. In this poem, Muslims have long suffered and “survived” (Line 43) and face “the long / years yet to come” (Lines 43-44). History is continuous and repetitive, the poem says. It says, as well, that there is another kind of light, a “lantern long / ahead” (Lines 45-36), that can illuminate another path forward, indicating the poet’s belief that the repetition of history need not take place.
Diversity and Difference
“If They Should Come for Us” proposes that there is strength in difference. On “the street” (Line 2) where the speaker observes the various members of their chosen community, the phrase “my people” (Line 4) covers a wide range of generations, geographies, and philosophical points of view. The phrase and variations of the phrase “my people” (Line 1) are repeated nine times throughout the poem. The speaker asserts a claim on community, a community made up of individuals with differences, from different places of origin, but who share core concerns and/or touchpoints. The man who gets out of his automobile to pray shares space with the “muslim man” (Line 18) who drinks alcohol when he shouldn’t, “at the start of maghrib” (Line 19). The auntie in her “kurta with crocs” (Line 21) is as much a “compass” (Line 23) for the speaker as the cool teenager. The apologetic Sikh is an “uncle” (Line 13) despite the historical violence between Muslims and Sikhs, and his apology for enacting airport security measures has a double meaning.
Solidarity and courage are strong themes within the poem that align with the overarching theme of diversity. It is easy to judge, the poem says; it is easy, as well, to simply overlook the differentiated and common humanity that is before one every day. “I claim her for my kin & sew / the star of her to my breast” (Lines 8-9), says the speaker, and enacts a gesture of bravery in service to her community. The speaker says, “if they come for you they / come for me too” (Lines 31-32), and in so doing makes the material of her community stronger by allying herself with the individuals she observes. The speaker lets the reader know that even nature supports this position: “I follow you like constellations” (Line 38) the speaker says, taking their cue and direction from history, from legacy, from “the long years we’ve survived the long / years yet to come” (Lines 43-44).
