Cirenor

Genocide

All races of the World that do today predominate
Were built on genocide, of this make no mistake.
Give us but one advantage over neighbour tribe or state,
In metallurgy or speed, however slight,
And trust in our humanity to do the rest.
It is, for sure, the thing we do the best,
And, too many of us, perhaps, the most enjoy.

Caesar grew great by leaving Gaul a pile of ravaged skulls,
Doing to its peoples, in a few short years, that carnage,
In which they had so delighted at doing to themselves,
At more subdued a rate, for centuries prior.

The vicious children of the Pizarros and Cortez,
Hammered out a continent of shame and suffering,
Whose ignominy and injustice are still enjoyed today,
When the new-writ language of genetics
Has conjured forth a story, whose scale of horror
They can scarce believe themselves.

The avarice of hellish Leopold, of inoffensive Belgium,
Bought his darkness to the heart of the Dark Continent,
Yet to be lifted.

Hard eyed and minded men of Custer´s ilk
Bought apocalypse to the rolling Western plains.
With hot black iron, sly pestilence and vigorous slaughter,
They made them safe for habitation by ´decent folks´.

And the full opposing story,
Of all the wickedness that was done,
On endless Eastern steppes, by Tsars´ decree,
And the Soviet monsters who followed them,
Was never even told or written down.

The Abos of Australia were obliged, by Europe´s worst,
To retreat into a hinterland so harshly bright and empty
That they fell blind and lost, into stunned, perpetual dream
Of deepest monotonic history.

The cleansing of Tasmania
Was made into a Sunday´s sport,
Till, cornered at the island´s nether tip,
Just one accursed, final woman cowered,
Whom they cruelly, or was it kindly?
Left to live to comfortable old age,
As reminder of a job, so needful, done so well.

In such a light the Vikings, of so harsh repute,
Would seem a gentle folk, who, for a little gold,
Would kindly draw a line, and thus the land divide,
And keep, more or less, to their one side.

What English did to Scots and Irish
Finds parallel with what Hadrian, "May his bones´ be crushed",
Did to the Jews, dispersing them to the corners of the world,
Leaving a near negligible native remnant.

The Turks show rare decorum
In wanting to avoid discussion
Of their vexed Armenian question,
Whose tragedy all the world acknowledge,
But they in spite, dispute.
Why so sensitive, one wonders,
When nations of such great and good repute,
Have, in bloody power´s misuse, by far excelled them,
And yet today make no bones,
If that be the choice expression,
Of what, ancestrally, was done?

In these modern days of democratic sway,
Such methods now are met with popular opprobrium.
When such human made catastrophes emerge today,
´Tis fashionable to intervene,
After much unseemly bargaining,
Usually too late to make the vital difference,
For too many.

But when higher cause of state,
Or murky business, so requires,
There yet remain more wise and subtle paths
By which can be achieved such goals when still desired.
Done quietly, and without arousing
Unwelcome public interest or moral indignation.

There is always a lever, after all, by which
You can get these people to do these things to themselves,
Without the irksome spectacle of media´s spotlight glare.
A few guns, some whisky and a deposit
In some bank in happy Switzerland,
Are usually enough to do the trick.

So, if you find the heart to care,
Be a minute silent for these unnumbered slain.
Acknowledge what was done to them
By distant fathers, in your as yet undreamed of name.
Repudiate the arrogance, that grants itself the right,
To cleanse the world of this or that unwanted nation.
Then go about your busy way
Upon your civilising mission.