Communal Riots have broken up in Aligarh again, and as curfew is clamped in most parts of the town, I wonder...
Mass Crime
When a single mancommits a crime,
He has to pay the price:
His life,
–An eye for an eye-
by capital punishment,
Facing gallows, or the guillotine.
Or, he is imprisoned for life,
So that he can no longer be
dangerous to other living men,
and cannot take yet another life.
But, when a mass of in-humanity
Commits a mass crime
Of loot, arson, murder and rape,
A mass of thousands
chases a single man
and lynches him,
And does not care a dime about
Mercilessly trampling
Women, children, old people alike ...
the most vulnerable sections of society.
When Ethnic Cleansing takes place,
In the name of religion, cast, or race,
When mighty wars are fought,
Killing thousands of innocents,
Then it is not a crime.
No one is convicted,
Not one person is tried,
No one faces punishment.
When a faceless mass of in-humanity
Has committed a crime,
Then it is not a crime!
I wonder....
What happens
to those people?
What happens to them, deep inside?
Do their conscience prick them,
Do they spend sleepless nights?
Do the apparitions of those they killed
Visit them in their minds,
Do they ever hallucinate?
Do those terrible visions
trouble them in their sleep,
Does the smell of human blood,
haunt them in the night,
Does the stench of burning flesh,
Clogs their noses and their minds?
I often wonder....
Do they become emboldened
To such an extent,
That they continue to commit
their crimes in some other forms;
Brazened, without fright; gloating
with triumph, and the sadistic pleasure
they derive from each and every act?
Or,
Do they justify their actions
As they become hardened with time,
And start believing
That wrong is right,
When they give a new meaning to
Words, such as
Humanity,
Compassion,
And Crime,
And go on playing the dangerous Game
of proving that wrong is right
The Sophists of our times?
I often wonder....
Does their end ever come?
Do they ever get punished?
Do they ever reap
The harvest of the seeds
of murder, crime and greed
they've sown?
I often wonder...
Is Mass Crime not a Crime?
I often wonder....
Do they ever kneel
in front of God
in a shrine?
Author: Zoya Zaidi
Aligarh (UP), India
Copyright©: Zoya Zaidi
Poetry by Zoya Zaidi
Read 1780 times
Written on 2006-04-22 at 21:08
Tags Riots
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