O’ Samma – O’ Bamma – O’ Daffi

Bring a man to justice
as it’s done in Westerns –
it is a good and noble thing.
Hang him high, if need be,
send him flying –
not nice but satisfying.
Ceauscescu, Mussolini.
Pity that Adolf got away and one
Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili,
aka Stalin.
To go in firing from the hip
O’ Bammabammabamma,
mowing down this evil man
O’ Sammasammasamma
taking his family in our stride –
and the children, don’t mind their cries –
bomb them O’ Daffidaffidaffi
with all their other riffandraffi,
wife child dog cat and canary –
this evil brood condemned they be.
And we return to be applauded.
For having returned evil with evil.
Is this a time for jubilation?
The price for justice is too high
where death on death feeds celebration.
Unaffected we may not be.
The time has come for ruthless
self-examination
of values East and values West.
Pitiful a people without respect for life or death.
Best be we all condemned for our shouts of joy.

Pardon for the dark tone of these lines, but the enjoyment of Osama bin Laden’s killing and the bombing of of the family home of Gaddafi cannot be left without a comment. We in the West have no moral supremacy over any other region in the world. And the time has come for an in-depth examination of all our values, be they African, European or otherwise. There is no moral supremacy anywhere. Look at Mugabe’s cheek in attending the canonization of Pope John Paul II – gives us all something to think about.

With love from Walter & Colleen
Betty’s Bay, Thursday May 5, 2011