Everyday Genocide

Nowhere to run,
Nowhere to hide
Born into bondage,
endlessly trapped inside

Just a drop 
in an ocean of woes
Desperately looking for allies,
as their fate draws close

Their pains and cries
are not televised
Don't ask questions,
you are advised

And who will see them,
who will bear witness?
Is this a testimony 
of evolutionary fitness?

As the world keeps silence
we carry on with the violence
The butcher washes his hands
in cold-blooded innocence




Yet who is to blame
for all this upheaval?
Is it the mere
banality of evil?

When they cease
to be an individual,
ending a life
becomes business as usual

Reduced to numbers,
their names not disclosed
Taken by the machine,
the bodies simply disposed

The ubiquity of iniquity
is desensitizing
As we inflict moral injury
it keeps traumatizing

Driven by greed,
suffering becomes epidemic
Covered by ignorance,
the injustice is systemic




How to stop
a faceless murder?
Where do we go from here,
is there a way further?

How can we help
those beyond hope?
Can my verse
be more than a trope?

Is there reason or rhyme
to the nature of these crimes?
Or am i last for words,
is this a sign of the times?

If this is illicit
then is it implicit,
that our quiescence
makes us complicit?

As they act with impunity
to destroy a community,
how long can we hide
behind diplomatic immunity?



How many have died
in the time you read this?
How many more deaths
can we dismiss?

Is this what genocide looks like?

 

 

And what about this?

What if genocide is not some extreme event that you read about in history books, but something that happens everyday? What if the violence is so embedded in our society and world order that it is omnipresent? What does that do to our psyches? Is this something we can grow accustomed too?

This poem was written thinking of the slaughtering of millions of farmed animals every day (what if this is a genocide too?), and the ongoing genocide in Gaza (and Darfur, and all other places that don't even make it to the news). What is the violence you are concerned about? Please share in the comments.