War

Photo by Max van den Oetelaar on Unsplash ** It feels somewhat trite, given what is afoot in the world, to be riled up about life in my gilded prison corner of the world. The Ukraine and Russia conflict looms large of course, but for all the outpouring of support - and some might say posturing - it feels more like a cause célèbre, than anything else. As others have pointed out thousands more have lost their lives in Yemen,. The Iraq and Afghanistan wars were hardly less gruesome for ordinary civilians. Closer home, it seems like Nigeria teeters more on the edge of imploding, with power, security and the general hardship levels all running away in the wrong direction. Of course, concurrent occurrences of bad things does not make any of them less ‘bad’. One can only hope that the energies expended in mobilizing and blanketing the air waves with the plight of Ukrainians is also extended to other (blacker and browner) bodies. ...

– Cry for the riven country. For the ones for whom doom descended from the skies in Douma, spreading death in the wake of its yellow green tendrils. Cry for the dead and the dying. For the ones culled from the living, whose blood, like a libation rejected pools at the altar of the sixth fleet. The whine of drones, swish of tomahawks and boom of hellfires pounding earth into tired dust assail their ears, lighting up the night sky. ...