HISTORY TEACHES US NOTHING
The seeds of war
Lay dormant in the
Crucible of history...
Seething, breathing-
Waiting for the
Spring of discontent
For grapes of wrath to bear
And all across
God's green hectares
People of goodwill
Caught in the throes
Of the enterprise
Of commerce and politics
Awoke to the gloom and doom
Of bombs raining over Kosovo.
Beyond the premise
Of rational discourse
And intended tidings...
The cooing ditties
Of the lady dove
The vulture she lured
To the bounty of war.
Lay dormant in the
Seething, breathing-
Waiting for the
Spring of discontent
For grapes of wrath to bear
And all across
God's green hectares
People of goodwill
Of the enterprise
Of commerce and politics
Awoke to the gloom and doom
Of bombs raining over Kosovo.
Beyond the premise
Of rational discourse
And intended tidings...
The cooing ditties
Of the lady dove
The vulture she lured
To the bounty of war.
Still in the rounding hours
That future broods...
This fate would know
Like those of holocausts past-
Grim reminder that...
History teaches us nothing
By
Hope Kalé Ewusi©
In 1999 I, like many others, from the comfort of our living rooms, watched in horror as the war in Kosovo unfolded.The bombings.....the gore.....the share ugliness of war astounded me,I saw hails of bullets and bombs shattering lives - people scampering for shelter....there was hunger...there was pain - anguish and despair as people tried to make sense of their tattered lives.....and then there was the the palpable helplessness of the children of Kosovo - innocent victims of war.
This sight was deja vu - it evoked vistas of WW II - the holocaust and other wars before and after. It is stated somewhere that if we humans do not reckon with the lessons of history, we're doomed to repeat our mistakes.In a moment of quiet contemplation, I wrote the aforementioned poem " History Teaches Us Nothing" inspired by the war on Kosovo. Prior to Kosovo was the Rwandan genocide and since Kosovo we have witnessed massacres in Sierra Leone, Liberia ( captured in the movie Blood Diamond) and Congo. We are currently witnessing the unraveling of Syria and the picture posted below attests once more the massacre of innocent children in Syria -a grim reminder that history apparently teaches us nothing; What's going on?
In 1999 I, like many others, from the comfort of our living rooms, watched in horror as the war in Kosovo unfolded.The bombings.....the gore.....the share ugliness of war astounded me,I saw hails of bullets and bombs shattering lives - people scampering for shelter....there was hunger...there was pain - anguish and despair as people tried to make sense of their tattered lives.....and then there was the the palpable helplessness of the children of Kosovo - innocent victims of war.
This sight was deja vu - it evoked vistas of WW II - the holocaust and other wars before and after. It is stated somewhere that if we humans do not reckon with the lessons of history, we're doomed to repeat our mistakes.In a moment of quiet contemplation, I wrote the aforementioned poem " History Teaches Us Nothing" inspired by the war on Kosovo. Prior to Kosovo was the Rwandan genocide and since Kosovo we have witnessed massacres in Sierra Leone, Liberia ( captured in the movie Blood Diamond) and Congo. We are currently witnessing the unraveling of Syria and the picture posted below attests once more the massacre of innocent children in Syria -a grim reminder that history apparently teaches us nothing; What's going on?
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