Engström begår en blunder. Dylan kan man använda till precis vad man vill i politiken. Men låt oss i alla fall fortsätta hänvisa till barden från Minnesota som vägvisare i dagsfärska politiska debatter. Häromdagen påminde mig en läsare om låten Neighbourhood Bully från Infidels (1983). Låten kommenterar Mellanösternkonflikten och the bully är såklart Israel. Är du fortfarande med på noterna, Mats?
Den gången var det Saddam Hussein som försökte göra kärnvapen genom
att skaffa material i atomenergianläggningen Osirak. Det sägs att Saddam
egentligen ville kalla anläggningen Osiris efter dödsguden, men att
fransmännen tyckte att det var lite makabert i överkant! Då förslog
någon Osirak, som en blandning av Osiris och Irak. Saddam blev förtjust.
Det blev inte Israel.
Idag är det Iran som försöker göra det samma. Även om de inte har
samma flair för spektakulära namn. Och Israel är inte förtjust nu
heller.
Bob Dylan meddelade vad han ansåg om saken då.
Neigbourhood Bully från Infidels:
“Well, the neighborhood bully, he’s just one man, His enemies say he’s on
their land. They got him outnumbered about a million to one, He got no place
to escape to, no place to run. He’s the neighborhood bully.
The neighborhood
bully just lives to survive, He’s criticized and condemned for being
alive. He’s not supposed to fight back, he’s supposed to have thick
skin, He’s supposed to lay down and die when his door is kicked in. He’s the
neighborhood bully.
The neighborhood bully been driven out of every
land, He’s wandered the earth an exiled man. Seen his family scattered, his
people hounded and torn, He’s always on trial for just being born. He’s the
neighborhood bully.
Well, he knocked out a lynch mob, he was criticized, Old
women condemned him, said he should apologize. Then he destroyed a bomb
factory, nobody was glad. The bombs were meant for him. He was supposed to
feel bad. He’s the neighborhood
bully.
Well, the chances are against it and the odds are slim That he’ll live
by the rules that the world makes for him, ‘Cause there’s a noose at his
neck and a gun at his back And a license to kill him is given out to every
maniac. He’s the neighborhood bully.
He got no allies to really speak of. What
he gets he must pay for, he don’t get it out of love. He buys obsolete
weapons and he won’t be denied But no one sends flesh and blood to fight by
his side. He’s the neighborhood bully.
Well, he’s surrounded by pacifists who
all want peace, They pray for it nightly that the bloodshed must cease. Now,
they wouldn’t hurt a fly. To hurt one they would weep. They lay and they wait
for this bully to fall asleep. He’s the neighborhood bully.
Every empire
that’s enslaved him is gone, Egypt and Rome, even the great Babylon. He’s
made a garden of paradise in the desert sand, In bed with nobody, under no
one’s command. He’s the neighborhood bully.
Now his holiest books have been
trampled upon, No contract he signed was worth what it was written on. He
took the crumbs of the world and he turned it into wealth, Took sickness and
disease and he turned it into health. He’s the neighborhood bully.
What’s
anybody indebted to him for? Nothin’, they say. He just likes to cause
war. Pride and prejudice and superstition indeed, They wait for this bully
like a dog waits to feed. He’s the neighborhood bully.
What has he done to
wear so many scars? Does he change the course of rivers? Does he pollute the
moon and stars?
Neighborhood bully, standing on the hill, Running out the
clock, time standing still, Neighborhood bully.”