Are we really defenders of human rights?
Are we — now hysterical — the true ethical opponents of the bedraggled turbaned ones?
Where were we when our remote control warplanes obliterated a thousand civilians?
Where were our grand platitudes about the right to education, when our drones wiped out little children?
Where was our concern for a nation when hellfire missiles took out yet another wedding party?
Where our wondrous gestures when we made another nation a theatre of war despite diplomatic alliances?
How are we any more moral than the tyrannical folk we condemn en masse?
Because we execute men, women and children by remote control alone?
Because the blood is not on our own hands directly, but outsourced to men and women in industrial warehouses, making decisions in front of computer screens?
Or because, in the near future, we will abdicate responsibility to AI and machine learning, programmed to differentiate between worthy and unworthy humans?
Are we, who go to war over a racist grudge, truly better than the zealots we despise?
Where was the humanity in shock and awe, and in bombing a nation back into the stone age?
Where our great ethical precepts, promulgating lies upon lies to justify the unending wars planned long ago?
Blessed are the peacemakers. That’s what I learned in Sunday School.
By their fruits you shall know them, we were taught.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
But who of us now cares for that sermon on the mount?
Who is there left that will lend an ear?
Blessed be the meek.
Last modified: 21 September 2024
