Ahmed - LowKey, Mai Khalil

His young life was as delicate as the wing of a butterfly

And as fragile as a spider’s web

For him we cry because when he dies we all do

Did Ahmed not deserve a life?

Ahmed never hurt a fly

Ahmed never knew the politicians he was murdered by

Certain times Ahmed wished that he could be a bird and fly

Beyond the sky, escape the curse of birth that he was burdened by

Ahmed never grew to let your racism internalise

Water poured from every pore in his corpse while the nurses cried

Ahmed was a beautiful person like you or I

But are we?..

Ahmed could have been a doctor, lawyer or an engineer

Could have been a superstar but his life ended here

Guess he was a shooting star, burn bright and disappear

To some he seems to represent a menace in this hemisphere

Let me here make the very essence of this message clear

He was precious, many die like him every year

Ahmed was a victim of resentment and relentless fear

Now his soul surfs the waves, I wish we could have kept him here

The sea, the sea, the sea, it holds our secrets (holds our secrets)

The sea, the sea, the sea, it holds his soul (holds his soul)

They call him Ahmed

The sea, the sea, the sea, it holds our secrets (holds our secrets)

The sea, the sea, the sea, it holds his soul (holds his soul)

They call him Ahmed

Ahmed’s ancestors introduced to Europe Greek philosophy

Brought with them irrigation, mathematics and astronomy

Symbolically, irony of this horror isn’t lost on me

Trying to get to Europe via Greece is where he’s lost at sea

Ahmed not Achmed, it’s Ahmed, he’s that dead

Toddler lying lifeless on the beach with his back bent

Arms spread, reaching the direction that his dad went

If he made it here, would have been bullied for his accent

He was captured by the ocean, paralysed and frozen

While these parasites sat and typed, analysing clothing

Now for resources we all compete beyond the talk of war and peace

And talk of porous border there is corpses on the shore of Greece

They found a teddy next to where his body was found

The sea swallowed him, politics has swallowed him now

And those responsible, Ahmed’s ghost will follow them now

To the family all we can say is we are sorry he drowned

Because…

The sea, the sea, the sea, it holds our secrets (holds our secrets)

The sea, the sea, the sea, it holds his soul (holds his soul)

They call him Ahmed

The sea, the sea, the sea, it holds our secrets (holds our secrets)

The sea, the sea, the sea, it holds his soul (holds his soul)

They call him Ahmed

They say let him drown, let him drown, let him drown

What have you done, don’t let him drown, don’t let him drown

No what have we become, don’t let him drown

No, don’t let him drown

And they say

Let him drown, let him drown, let him drown

What have we done, don’t let him drown, don’t let him drown

No, what have we become, don’t let him drown

Please, don’t let him drown

Ahmed could’ve been you, and Ahmed could’ve been me

We need to understand the policies that put him in the sea

We need to understand why it is the beach is full of dying kids

A colonial Metropole people want to reside in

If he did would he make it or fall to something that’s deeper

End up like Jimmy Mubenga or Khaled Abu Zarifa

A picture by Javier Bauluz on the beaches of Tarifa

Made me see, some would grieve more if Ahmed was a creature

With four legs, then they would consider him legitimate

Those like him braving barbed wire burning off their finger tips

Balfours alien act, that mentality still exists

Is privilege the difference between an ex-pat and an immigrant?

For Ama Sumani and Osman Rasul Mohamed, when you take others humanity,

it’s only yours that’s stunted, not a swarm

They’re our sisters and brothers, that’s the sum of it

The cockroaches here are in the media and the government

Not the sea

The sea, the sea, it holds our secrets (holds our secrets)

The sea, the sea, the sea, it holds his soul (holds his soul)

They call him Ahmed

The sea, the sea, the sea, it holds our secrets (holds our secrets)

The sea, the sea, the sea, it holds his soul (holds his soul)

They call him Ahmed

Ahmed never knew the politicians he was murdered by

Ahmed never knew the politicians he was murdered by

Ahmed never knew the politicians he was murdered by

And they all laugh at him…