Peace and Justice Post

By Badri Raina

Since every scribe is telling it,

it is best that we tell the truth ourselves.

So here is how it is:

Saudi Arabia

You know that we know that you

bankroll terrorism, that fifteen of the nineteen

who knocked down our towers

were Saudis, all Sunnis to boot,

that you run torture chambers

to which our own Guantanamo

is no more than a wimp,

that your women exist only in name,

that nothing is further from your

political kitty than democracy,

that dissent in your country is a one-way

ticket to  disappearance and  mortality,

that you run Mecca in Spartan white

of simplicity and renunciation,

but serve in gold plates the least oblation—

all that and more we know,

but we also know that you have oil

more than any;

and that our need for guzzling the same

gives America its name.

Be thou secure then from  what rhetoric

we unleash about terrorism, democracy,

human rights upon imbecile nations

whose ripostes may be rational and  kosher

but, being non-oilsome, live out

of god’s  and Imperialisms’  favour.

Then it is no small thing that on your

sacred soil  you let our jackboots

perform their ordained toil.

Egypt

You stood by us, and kept both

Hamas and democracy at bay,

protecting the Zionists and the promised land,

but, having no oil, it was best

that we notched  a favour with

the millions who screamed ‘down

with dictatorship; give us democracy.’

Thus we prove that given the circumstance

we may have the cake and eat it too.

Bahrain

Is it a small matter that our fifth fleet

finds such welcome digs

in your waters and on your land?

Or that your Sunni despotism

keeps the Shia hordes of your populace

in their proper place?

That being the case, what is their revolt

for democracy and freedom

but sheer anarchism,

threatening to widen its insane dance

in an embrace with the Shia recalcitrant Iran?

Thus Hamas and Ahmedinijad

may be their people’s  choice,

but what is there to rejoice

in electoral mandates

if they do not favour the United States?

So, O the bulldozer of Bahrain,

bolstered by conscientious Saudi tanks,

you belong to our puissant ranks.

Yemen

Same goes for thee;

poor, mangled, and miserable

your people may be,

any despotism is better

than a people’s outcry if an Al Qaeda

is waiting by.

Syria

You may be secular to the bone,

O Baathist modernists,

your women may  breathe freedom,

you may have, like the old Saddam,

held your country together

against schism and sectarian mayhem,

we know how you remain suspicious

both of Israel and of us.

We know how you dare to keep alive

your links with Hezbollah and Iran.

We know how you aspire to take back

Your own lost Golan.

Such sentiments despoil your modernity,

and justify the unleashing of democracy

within your climes.

Thus for thee the bell chimes.

Iran

So what if you had no hand in 9/11?

So what if our own Saudis

spawned those men?

Your crimes are beyond the pale—

you are Shia, and you fear not

the Imperialist dragon’s  tail.

The Saudi’s may be the Wahabis

who feed a Pakistan, an Afghanistan,

who banish music, merriment, books,

who torch mosques, churches, temples,

schools, and relegate to the farthest nooks

laughter and women, who contravene

every article of faith on which

the Americas began,

they are not the fundamentalists whom

we fear; indeed, we hold them dear.

It is you, who may have a Persian history

replete with  poetry, philosophy, speculation,

and other gems of humanist  creation,

who are the fundamentalists of menace extreme,

because you have the cheek to pursue that dream

of independent existence and national culture,

who call the vulture what it is—vulture.

You we will pursue and hunt

till the Saudis are fully content

that Fukuyama will never knock at

their door; that history may end

elsewhere, but not where our own

Sheikhs and Mullahs contend.

Libya

Gaddafi, O Gadaffi, we know you

did many good things by your people;

we also know that for four long

years you stood by us, in nuclear

dismemberment and in oil,

but, alas, we had to do what we did

for two reasons: one, to take

the world’s mind away from Arab

troubles, and to win some battle

while Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan

we fail to settle, however we may

bomb and  blast, however our generals

yap yap and dress in fine fettle.

We knew that Idris, whom you dethroned

in 1969, had his loyal tribes in the east

of your realm; thus it was proper that

we sold tribal mayhem as call

for democracy, so that once dethroned,

the Russians and others no longer got to see

a drop of your oil which should all ours be.

Conclusion

Thus, O beloved Arabs, understand

once and for all:

dictatorship, monarchy, or democracy,

these are handmaidens that remain on call.

It all depends on how our cookie crumbles;

We do not give a shit

who speaks reason, or justice, rights

or reformations, who approves or grumbles.

We will decry fundamentalism when it

makes of us an enemy;

and we will call it democracy

if it says “let that be which suits

Wall Street, Pentagon, and the GOP.

This entry was posted on April 7, 2011 at 9:39 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.