2003-08-12:
A World on Fire - A Global Burning
Today we enjoy a good meal but many go hungry
People starve on burning stomachs.
This child cries for milk beside her dead mother,
Callously shot by soldiers.
This child longs to go to school,to grow in learning,
But the schoolhouse has been bombed.
The young virgin pines for her lover
She wants to caress him and make love,
But he disappeared in waves of invading troops.
Parents shed tears for their son,still missing,missing....
They fear he lies in a mass grave along with thousands..
Everywhere foreign invaders kill,rape and plunder wealth,
They burn the soil in their greed for gold,for iron,for oil.
We enjoy a good meal in peace. No poor country comes
To invade Britain,Germany,France,America,Portugal or Holland.
We enjoy a tasty meal while invaders set up puppets
To run their colonies and kill their own people.
With one hand they give food,fertilisers and money,
With the other - war munitions and planes.
The first woman Premier! Universally received with a red carpet:
But state leaders walk on carpets of bloodied soil.
Hiroshima to Bagdhad,the world is bombed and burning.
Oilfieds burn black,forests roar with burning.
Seas bubble with pollution - mammals,birds and fish
All burning in careless global pollution.
We enjoy an evening meal while Socrates drinks the poison,
While Jesus is crucified nailed to a cross,
While Martin Luther King and Gandhi fall to bullets.
Puncturing the ozone layer with cool drinks to celebrate
Our invasion of the moon,we burn poor livelihoods on rockets.
Over a full English breakfast,we plan wars on a global scale
With home-made armaments for sale.
Using banners of democracy we excuse the killing of people.
Holocausts of the past were justified on Christian and Moslem texts,
As the Bible and the Koran spread their words.
Do we refugees enjoy a good meal?
Who in fear of life,in fear of guns and shelling left our own lands:
Through jungles of fear left beautiful homes and farms of rich sandy soil
Only to be branded "Refugees" - labelled like criminals and slaves.
From Australia to America refugees are burning.
Human hearts are burning,the globe is burning for an end to wars,
For the end of facism and one man as Master of the whole world.
The days of human slaves chained hand and foot must end,
Only facists would justify such domination.
Who could deny refugees their sustenance
And still enjoy a good meal on wealth off the poor.
I A (Siva) Sivanantham
A translation of Siva's refugee song
by Len Baden 19/06/03
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