I Am Your Spy

by Mordechai Vanunu -written from Ashkelon Prison, Israel

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.

http://www.motherearth.org/prisoner/vanunu_en.php

Mordechai Vanunu

Mordechai Vanunu is in Ashkelon Prison in Israel, serving an 18-year
sentence for informing the public about Israel's secret nuclear
weapons program. Following his revelations about Israel's nuclear
weapons to a British newspaper, he was lured from Britain to Rome,
where he was abducted by Israeli agents. The hand in the logo
signifies the means by which Vanunu pressed his palm to the window of
a police van in Jerusalem, on Sep 30 1986, to inform the world of his
kidnapping.

Until Mar 12 1998, he was held in solitary confinement. This is the
longest known stretch in solitary confinement to be endured by
anyone. Within the past year, the campaign for his release has
intensified worldwide.

Vanunu was one of 11 children of Moroccan Jewish parents who emigrated
to Israel in 1963, when he was age 9. When he was a young man he
served in the Israeli army and then went to work in the Dimona nuclear
"research center" in the Negev desert near his home at Beersheba. The
facility harbored an underground plutonium separation plant operated
in strictest secrecy. As the years went by he grew increasingly
troubled about his work in the nuclear bomb program. In 1985, before
leaving Dimona, he took extensive photographs inside the factory in
order to document the truth for his countrymen and the entire world.

Traveling through Asia with the film in his backpack, Vanunu made his
way to Sydney Australia, where he found companionship in an Anglican
church social justice community. He shared with them the story of his
nuclear background. In Sydney he converted to Christianity, and was
baptized in July 1986.

A British newspaper, the London Sunday Times, learned of his story and
sent a reporter to Sydney to check it out. The newspaper then flew
Vanunu to England, where his photos and his facts were further checked
by British scientists familiar with nuclear weapons. Vanunu's story,
published October 5, 1986, gave the world its first authoritative
confirmation that tiny Israel had become a major nuclear weapons
power, with material for as many as 200 nuclear warheads of advanced
design.

Israeli agents got early wind of Vanunu's intentions. Even before
publication of the story, they had him lured from Britain. They
abducted him in Italy, and dumped his drugged body onto an Israeli
cargo vessel bound for Israel. In the following months he was charged
with espionage and treason, and was convicted at a closed-door trial.

In the 12 years between his kidnapping and his release from solitary
confinement, Vanunu was denied all human contact except with guards,
members of his immediate family, a lawyer, and a priest. His brothers
and sisters saw him only through a thick metal screen. Amnesty
International condemned his prison isolation as "cruel, inhuman and
degrading," and they have called for his immediate release. There are
concerns about the effect of this prolonged confinement on his
physical and mental health.

Released from Prison: April 21, 2004. Free at last. But still
silenced by government restictions.