‘Pulse on Martin Niemöller’ (Poem)

Summary

Pastor Niemöller sang of those who kept quiet

When peddlers of terror came for Jews, Socialists, trade unionists

And also the Communists, but those to speak out kept mum – because

They were not one of the victims of circumstances, until they came

For them and no one was left to speak for them,

Then they came for black people

Razing them up through Caribbean enslavement

And then African colonialism before having

Them on the universal slaughter-slab of Neo-

Colonialism – but we all kept quiet as if we were mute

Because we are not black in our skins,

Then they came for Arabs of Muslim persuasion

Hunting them out from their dens of faith and worship

On charges of being terror-peddlers, hunting them down

To Guantanamo bay for detention without trial in sight –

But we kept quiet because we are not Arabs nor Muslims,

Then the Israelis came for the Palestinians, dishing them

With terror of full-sized apartheid perfectly dehumanizing

All Palestinian populations on the streets of Jerusalem –

But we kept quiet because we are not non-Israelis in Gaza,

Then the Chinese came for Uighur Muslims, lynching them

With brutality of megalithic station, dreaming to recreate them

Into new human species acceptable for China's Neighbourhood

But all was done in most cruel manner devoid of modern logic –

But we kept quiet because we are not Uighur Muslims,

Then they came for migrant workers, the workers running away from war

And ecological as well social climate unfit for human habitation

But labelled illegal migrants in the style of giving a dog a bad name

For sanctified flogging, thrashing and pummelling with hostility –

But we kept quiet because we are not those looking for a new home,

Then they came for African-Americans, kneeling on their necks

Until they can't breathe for their insignificant black lives

As if black lives don't matter in the white world of America –

But we kept quiet and very aloof from demos of black-lives matter

We backed-off because we have never had a knee of a policeman on our necks,

Then post-colonial politics of Africa came for the powerless and

Poor citizens, looting from them in exchange of mediocrous life in all avenues

Forcing the people down the hell-hole of poverty, want, disease

And collective despair.