All these people so upset about Ukraine,
I have little time or understanding for their
newly found fervour; they neither know
or care abou the conflicts I remember
from my childhood and which still
break and end lives, and yet they think
that this one conflict they care about
is unique and special, and no one
has ever cared about a conflict
devouring lives like they do.
Some say they are innocent
or ignorant, naive or gullible,
I say they should know better
and care more, feel fervour
for long conflicts that have
marooned entire generations
on refugee camps and in exile,
and see their fellow human beings
in those that don't have pale
pink skin, fair hair and so forth,
those signs they attach to.
Take Burma, longer than I
have lived the armed rebel groups
have fought the military junta,
generations have lived as refugees
in Bangladesh, India and Thailand,
and now, now finally the junta
is losing its grip, cities and towns
and villages liberated, decade
after decade of fighting
at last ripening the fruits long
watered with human blood.
What is mere ten years
compared to over sixty
years of struggle in Burma,
in West Papua, almost eighty
in Tibet and Palestine, half
a century in Western Sahara?
Mere ten years, supporters
of Ukraine, mere ten years,
while generation after
generation has fought,
lived in bitter exile
and you, you neither
knew or cared or care.
03.-05.03.2025
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