Sunday, April 17, 2011

Poem for Libya: Liberation through self-determination


The war on Libya’s a humanitarian disaster,
Depleted uranium fired by imperial masters.
Supposed salvation for the people of Benghazi,
While they murder Afghan, Palestinian and Iraqi.

How can it be, they ignore demands for medical supplies;
While Libyans die, the only help is bombing from the skies.
You can’t deny, we need asylum for refugees;
Instead they let them capsize and die in open seas.

Hypocriseas, it doesn’t take Hippocrates to see
The cure for Gaddafi is not those who sold arms to Tripoli.
Sarkosy bombs Libya while banning clothes for Muslim women;
Scapegoating them with islamophobic venom.

Don’t let him. And Obama’s bombs, a vehicle for AFRICOM:
Continuing 100 years of imperialism in Libya, it’s wrong.
Those who killed Omar Mukhtar don’t belong, have nothing to offer
But saving the profits of BP and SNC-Lavalin coffers.

Stephen Harper, joined the liberation of Libyan oil,
Using “Humanitarian intervention” to divide the spoils.
Makes my blood boil, the counter-revolution,
Those who armed Gaddafi—the source of persecution—are no solution.

Revolution of the Jasmine flower is what makes tyrants cower,
It wasn’t NATO that toppled Ben Ali and Mubarak, but labour power.
Now’s the hour, to continue liberation,
Bahrain, Yemen, Syria, which is the next nation?

Or perhaps Iraq, after 8 years of occupation,
Inspired by Tahrir is demanding liberation.
That’s the only salvation from this conflagration.
Real liberation comes through self-determination.

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