by David Betteridge
The hand of Vengeance found the Bed
To which the Purple Tyrant fled;
The iron hand crush’d the Tyrant’s head
And became a Tyrant in his stead.– Image and motto text by WILLIAM BLAKE
from The Book of Urizen & The Grey Monk
Dialogue:
State Powers versus Citizens
State Powers:
We will root out the enemy.
We will root them out
from their every stronghold.
We will leave no hiding place.
We will pursue them to the building-tops
from where they aim their lethal fire,
and, with superior force,
we will penetrate the deepest tunnels
where, like rats, they have their nests
and runs, and where their chiefs-of-staff
conspire.
We will root out, not the enemy only,
but the enemy’s friends as well;
and, where these extend beyond our reach,
we will scorch the earth around,
and make their lives a living –
or a dying – hell.
There is one law only, and that is: win.
Our enemy and each last fool
who dares not turn against them
will feel our full wrath.
We, not they, will live to fight
all coming wars, and win.
Citizens:
Win?
You have rooted out,
not the enemy,
but your own intelligence rather,
and, with self-harming violence,
you have rooted out
your soul as well.
State Powers:
Would you speak to us
in the weak language of appeasing?
Would you have us offer a soft throat
to carnivores?
No, we have learned from history,
to counter the threat of fire
always with compelling overkill.
Citizens:
Are you blind and deaf,
as thousands of your victims are?
Can you not see the mutilation
that your operations cause,
along with or instead of death?
Can you not hear the screams
and weeping, and the curses
of the many hundred-thousands
whom you displace, bereave,
and dispossess?
Of course you can.
The evil that you do, you mean,
and plan.
You have cold stones
where your hearts should be.
You have a monomania in your brains,
where once a rounded mind could think
and feel what your ears hear
and your eyes see.
You commit us to a chain of crimes,
of paying-back and pre-emptive strikes,
killing and being killed,
to be continued bloodily
through generations
yet unborn.
There is a limit.
Stop!
No more!
A Chorus:
Peoples of the World
Gaza proves, and proves again,
remorselessly, each day,
each worsening hour,
a hard fact: as long
as ancient hate endures,
and rank injustice reigns,
our future politics are warped
within the evil template of the past.
Citizens of all sides,
with single voice,
though in our different tongues,
we join in a great insurgency of thought
and deed, resisting every genocide
by war, as every domicide.
Standing as allies now,
instructed by state lunacies,
we speak our peace to the violence
of power:
There is a limit.
Stop! No more!
We renew a long march
and a long search
for a strong peace
that needs no war.
