Pity the Nation
POETRY FORMAT, 25 Oct 2021
Mazin Qumsiyeh | Popular Resistance – TRANSCEND Media Service
Poetic Reflection – 17 Oct 2021
Whose citizens do not have time to reading… especially the serious reading that can make a difference
Whose leaders care about their villas and privileges and not their people
Whose young people of affluence and do not know the meaning of hard work
Whose middle class has no kindness… not even to their family
Whose healthcare system is falling apart while its police forces are armed
Whose poor are angry but feel helpless to change
Whose children are not connected to the land
Whose elderly are not valued
Whose education system is a regurgitation system
Pity the nation
Which produces waste and damages its environment
Which eats junk food packaged in plastics or sprayed with chemicals
Which cares to build houses of worship more than houses of education
Which does not teach the value of time, the values of respect (for ourselves, for others, for nature)
Which lives in concrete “jungle” while not protecting its forests
Which does not know the taste of real freedom
…. Freedom from oppression
…. Freedom from guilt
… Freedom from hate
… Freedom from self-pity
… Freedom from powerlessness
Pity the nation
That has more cars than bicycles
That is crowded but has so much loneliness
That has more houses than homes
That imports its food, cloths, and tools
That does not know how generous is its land
…if only it is tended
That has few bird watchers and few hikers
That has many talkers and few listeners (to nature) and doers (of good deeds)
We must chose to be different
…to rebel
…to fight
…to work
…to love
…to respect ourselves, others and nature
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Mazin Qumsiyeh, associate professor of genetics and director of cytogenetic services at Yale University School of Medicine, is founder and president of the Holy Land Conservation Foundation and ex-president of the Middle East Genetics Association. He won the Raymond Jallow Activism Award from the national Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee in 1998. He is co-founder and national treasurer of Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition, and has written extensively about the Middle East. Qumsiyeh is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment, author of Sharing the Land of Canaan and Popular Resistance in Palestine, a professor at Bethlehem University and director of the Palestine Museum of Natural History in Bethlehem. http://palestinenature.org
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Tags: Poetry
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