Just Suitably Blind!

My countrymen,

When we spoke with puritanical take:

About others', ‘their’ history and ‘their’ dreadful trend,

Saying: how could ‘they’ do that? ‘How could ‘they’ be blind?'

We failed to look into our own mirrors' scornful allusion,

How the shy hatred we chewed,

 Silting up in our hearts for decades is now smirking bold;

And how love for fellow men was dimming politics shrouded,

How brothers and sisters loving, sets us offended,

How we stood fooled;

Fooled with denial nurtured assurance;

That ‘we’ constitute matchless feats in the annals of nations;

That 'we' are immune to the paths ‘others’ threaded;

That ‘we' stand on a unique -sublime' morality-rock-solid'

How we stand fooled;

We lived for decades swamped in naked politics of vengeful trance,

That insists to distill enmity among brothers and sisters;

We stood fed each day with a suitable mix,

Of brewing language difference into enemy front lines,

Of preserving own at  neighbors' expense;

Of being less unique than more ready to rude-awake,

Just that suitable blindness sought oblivious;

For the final whistle of vengeance blown calling for a strike,

We are not being unique but weak!

When we dared say:

‘How could ‘they’ do that?’

Our puritan fingers at South Africa's Apartheid page;

While we exact same to a brother of a different language,

In our own cities, towns, and village;

Yet sufficiently labeled for us by the propaganda dosage;

Of those self-proclaimed saviors of our ethnicity, our language, our village, our 'self',

Who for decades drugged us with the unearned privilege to shield their power greed,

Veiling us from the ethnic apartheid pillage run on our behalf;

And still dare say:

'How could ‘they’ be blind?'

Our fingers at Rwanda for a dreadful human carnage,

Brothers cutting each other’s throats;

While we trained for just that through neglect,

For injustice of painting brothers as ‘the others’,

Sharpening the machete of compliance in our hands,

Let us not fool ourselves;

Apartheid, genocide, fascism are but human guile,

‘They’ are ‘we’ in the mirror of history staring at us with scorn;

When with silence we stand indifferent, tolerant of ethnic bigoted voices,

Shredding human solidarity to buy wounded ethnic peace,

And pushing brothers on the altar of sacrifice,

We are seeking just the suitable blindness to start cutting throats;

Fooled with denial nurtured assurance;

That ‘we’ constitute matchless feats in the annals of nations;

That we are immune to the paths ‘others’ threaded;

That ‘we' stand on a unique 'Ethiopian' morality-rock-solid'

We just stand fooled;

Till our delight isn't derived out of our own brothers' pain,

Our security isn’t distilled out of our own sisters shirking agony,

Our privilege out of the ravaged poor's penny,

 Our guiding compass out of the politicians' genocidal litany,

My countrymen, we stand fooled,

Machete of compliance in our hands.

.............................

By TAE

(For the injustice currently being visited on millions of Ethiopians by their own government; as the mass, stood complicit with our silence because the ruling elites for the past 25 years defined our own brothers and sisters as 'others'.)