Lebanon Must Kill, Even As She Bleeds

As Lebanon bleeds, it kills.It kills our conscience every single day,as we carry on with our mundane plansto further petty bourgeois career paths as usual.Lebanon kills our ability to reason with truth,as we carry on with ourCNNand BBCand New York Times.Lebanon kills our faith in human good,as we rationalizethat it is human nature to sustain warfare.Lebanon kills our trusts in our own potential to rise up,look into our comfortable shining mirrors on the walls,and discover how unabashedly wretched we must lookif we smile to ourselves today.Lebanon kills all that is beautiful,all that is innocent,all that is glorious,all that is humane,all that is kind,all that is generous,all that we mean by understanding for social good.Yes, Lebanon kills, when it bleeds.Lebanon kills our sense of empathywhen children of Beirutare massacred in name ofdemocracy.Lebanon kills our feelings of cooperationwhen we indifferently watchhapless humans murdered in name offreedom.Lebanon kills our pride in our identitiesas we stoically listen toblatant propaganda against Islam.Lebanon kills our amicabilitythe moment we buy intomedia definition of terrorism.Lebanon kills our cognitionwhen we start believingthat there ever was akidnapping of Israeli soldiers.That such kidnappinghas anything to do with the waragainst humanity.Yes, Lebanon kills, when it bleeds.When we overlook Israelas one of the biggest militarist regionsof the planet,Lebanon kills.Lebanon kills our intelligencewhen we start assuminga national defense establishmentis protector of anything human,be it the armed forces of India,America,Pakistanor Israel.Lebanon kills our sense of proportionwhen we mistake the grievingagonizedand affectedpeoples as the terrorists.Lebanon kills our basic values of decencywhen we have angerat the defenselessand supportfor Abu Gharibs.Because we thinkthe Iraqi prisonerswere terroristsand invading military rapistsare victors,Lebanon kills.Lebanon kills our childrenand their childrenand theirs,because we have taught them the historyinvented byRupert Murdorch,not historyrelived byHoward Zinn.Lebanon kills our fathers,and their fathersand theirs,because they did not teach usnot to discriminate peopleor disown gods,and Lebanon kills us,because we have still not learnt enough.Yes Lebanon kills, when it bleeds.When the so-called world leaders calltheir lavishly delicious meetingsand use profanitiesto address the suffering people,Lebanon kills.When the leaders perpetrate military raceby aiding Israel’s quests,Lebanon kills.Lebanon kills our memorywhen we conveniently forgetthat Israel is the only country in the worldthat practices Apartheid even today.When its lost on us that Israel has not one,or two,but 11 different classes of peoplewho are required to carry identificationswith their ethnic categoriesso that they can be officially discriminated,Lebanon kills.When its lost on us that Israel as a stateworks to benefit its “first class citizens”,whereas the rest arecondemned in different degrees,most even not allowedto own residence innine-tenth of the country,Lebanon kills our knowledgeof contemporary racist history.Lebanon kills our curiosity to know and grow,when we conveniently ignore the factthat Israeli citizens of thelower classes are routinely arrested,and torturedwithout trial for indefinite periods,by Israeli ruling classjust as the fascists ever did.Lebanon kills our power to look beyondwhen we do not think twiceeven as Palestinians have been living under unethicalinhumanmilitary occupation since almost 60 years now,without land,without rights,without hopes,and any sense of belongingin a land that rightfully belongs to themand wrongfully occupied now.That we do not pauseto think 60 years is a human lifespan,Lebanon kills.Yes Lebanon kills, when it bleeds.We, the torchbearers of freedomand trumpets of libertyand voters of democracyare fittingly comfortablewithin our definition of these wordswhereas using these wordswe mandate our leadersto go ravage millions of innocent womenand childrenjust because they do not wantour shallow words in their dictionary,and that is why Lebanon kills.We the killers of Edward Saidand annihilators of Mesopotamia civilizationare so proud of our conquering heritagewhile leaving behind no history for “terrorist children”,that Lebanon kills.We visitors to mocking war memorialsand lying history museumsand readers of western civilizationsthat validated slavery in name of godsare so muted by our ignorancethat Lebanon kills.We fanatic supporters of colonialand imperial powers of Europethat forced the Jewsand compelled the Arabsand enslaved the blacksand looted the working men and womenof the entire world,are so happy to be psychologically numb,and its so sadthat Lebanon kills.Lebanon kills those that refuse to acknowledgethat revolution is the prerogative of the landlessagainst the landgrabbers,just asreactionary military occupationis the prerogative ofthe religious-military-industrial nexus.And to those of uswho side by the authorized militaristsand take them for agents of freedom,Lebanon kills.Lebanon kills uswhen we start believing in nationalitiesas ends to human aspirations,not as temporary meansto solve the question of bread,so temporarythat after bread,landand peace,we should know no nationsin order to embrace the worldwide working class.And worldwide working classshould knowno national boundariesand ethnicitiesand religions,because these are tools of the oppressors,if it must come together,and many of us refuse to believe this,and hence Lebanon kills.Lebanon kills uswhen we blindly lend our supportto the orchastrators of global terrorismin order to divide and rule our world,and install their undivided Empirethose who for six decadesnow in the name of waragainst Communismand “terror”,had been workingto in fact cause warsagainst working class humanityin Korea,in Vietnam,in China,in Italy,in Greece,in the Philippines.Alsoin Albania,in Eastern Europe,in Iran,in Guatemala,in Costa Rica,in Syria,in the Middle East,in Indonesia,in British Guiana,in Soviet Union,in Cambodia,in Laos,in Haiti,in Algeria,in Ecuador,in The Congo,in Brazil,in Peru,in Dominican Republic,in Cuba,when the militarist combines assaulted societiesand bombarded destabilizationin name of promoting “democracy”,and yet we applaud their victories,Lebanon kills.Despite their illegal interventionsalsoin Ghana,in Uruguay,in Chile,in Bolivia,in Iraq,in Australia,in Angola,in Zaire,in Jamaica,in Seychelles,in Grenada,in Morocco,in Suriname,in Libya,in Nicaragua,in Panama,in Bulgaria,in Afghanistan,in El Salvadorand nowagainst the American working class,we keep silentand worship their billionairesand deride the working class communitiesof immigrantsand the blacksand the Muslims,it really sucks;and Lebanon kills.Lebanon kills when it bleeds,because through our callous indifference,and our reactionary supportsto the national defense forcesthat thrives on the military industrial complexesowned by a handful of global capitalists,we have allowed the free reinto exploit the indigenous,the poor,the working class peopleby infusing in usvast sea of ignoranceso that we would not challengethe structure.In factLebanon killsour mere existenceas beingsas we so submissively let our mindsbe colonized yet again,by raising toast to their victory,by worshipping their gods,by using their profanities,by playing by their rules,by spreading their hatredamong ourselvesin the name of their religions,their moral standardsand their male supremacist,heterosexist,individualistic,self centered,nationalistic,oppressive,religious,capitalistic,god-fearing,inhumanecorporate orders.Lebanon killsbecause we live comfortablyin our racist,anti-Islamworld of lies,and we let our world leadersorchestrate occasions,deliberately neglect law and order,and find reasonsto commit genocideof innocent peoplein months ofSeptemberand Julyand rest of the year,in London,New Yorkand Mumbaiand rest of the cities,so thatthey can carry on their own agendasto conquer country after country,oil fields after oil fields,economies after economies,peoples cooperatives after peoples cooperatives,tribal lands after tribal lands,indigenous peoples after indigenous people,forests after forests,and in fact declare our world as theirs,as a capitalistic,patriarchal,conservative structure.And hence Lebanon kills,so thatwhen we are no more,our children will at leasthave got rid of us alland a ravaged Lebanonwill guide a new world,full of hopebecause all despairs are getting rid of now,each moment.Lebanon must kill,even as she bleeds.-Saswat Pattanayak, Peoples’ Poet, 2006