Pulse on Martin Niemöller
Alexander Opicho
Pastor Niemöller sang of those who kept quiet
When peddlers of terror came for Jews, Socialists, trade unionists
And also the Communists, but those to speak out kept mum – because
They were not one of the victims of circumstances, until they came
For them and no one was left to speak for them,
Then they came for black people
Razing them up through Caribbean enslavement
And then African colonialism before having
Them on the universal slaughter-slab of Neo-
Colonialism – but we all kept quiet as if we were mute
Because we are not black in our skins,
Then they came for Arabs of Muslim persuasion
Hunting them out from their dens of faith and worship
On charges of being terror-peddlers, hunting them down
To Guantanamo bay for detention without trial in sight –
But we kept quiet because we are not Arabs nor Muslims,
Then the Israelis came for the Palestinians, dishing them
With terror of full-sized apartheid perfectly dehumanizing
All Palestinian populations on the streets of Jerusalem –
But we kept quiet because we are not non-Israelis in Gaza,
Then the Chinese came for Uighur Muslims, lynching them
With brutality of megalithic station, dreaming to recreate them
Into new human species acceptable for China’s Neighbourhood
But all was done in most cruel manner devoid of modern logic –
But we kept quiet because we are not Uighur Muslims,
Then they came for migrant workers, the workers running away from war
And ecological as well social climate unfit for human habitation
But labelled illegal migrants in the style of giving a dog a bad name
For sanctified flogging, thrashing and pummelling with hostility –
But we kept quiet because we are not those looking for a new home,
Then they came for African-Americans, kneeling on their necks
Until they can’t breathe for their insignificant black lives
As if black lives don’t matter in the white world of America –
But we kept quiet and very aloof from demos of black-lives matter
We backed-off because we have never had a knee of a policeman on our necks,
Then post-colonial politics of Africa came for the powerless and
Poor citizens, looting from them in exchange of mediocrous life in all avenues
Forcing the people down the hell-hole of poverty, want, disease
And collective despair. The hopeless sons and daughters of Africa –
But we kept quiet because we are not citizens of Africa,
They came for Gays and Lesbians just as they did to all the gender-fluids
Terrorizing them with a cult of ignorance dressed in the gear of homophobia
Denying them space and right of freedom to choose feelings and pleasure
Totting them with public violence, verbal hostility and irrational loathing – but
We kept quiet because we are not lesbians, gays, intersex, transgender or bi-sexual,
Then Idi Amin Dada came, he chose to serve the instincts of black inhumanity
At mercy of British racketeering, out to muffle commercial voice of India in Uganda
He converted Ugandan Indians into pathetic refugees, victims of state-funded terror
Wallowing up and down in the mire of hopelessness with no roof on their heads –
But we kept quiet because we are not Indians in Uganda under Idi Amin Dada,
Then they came for women, enslaving them to the tether of patriarchal taste
Rendering them powerless before the cult of virginity-test on the wedding night
As domestic violence freely exchanges position with gender-pay gap in the arena
Celebrating foul history of cutting the clitoris short in service to purity myth
As if the terror of beauty myth in the red tent has never served patriarchy well –
But we kept quiet because we are not women within the realms of Patriarchy,
Now they have come for us in our kingdom of negative silence
Exterminating the aged among us at slaughter-house of vaccine nationalism
To oil and grease voracity of conveyor belts of corporate greedy
For those own and know, knowing better to a station of tyrannical experts –
But the world is now silent, no one has been left to speak for us,
Our kingdom of negative silence swallowed all that could speak for us,