[Matt Q]

Janice has today's poem at New Verse News.

Janice, I liked this one a lot. I found the repetition of "When war comes to your country ..." very effective, forcing the reader (O.k., me) to consider what it might be like to be in that situation and to be faced with those choices. At the same time it challenges the assumption that war could never happen to us. Nicely done.

-Matt

[Janice D. Soderling]

Thank you, Matt.

Please click on the link below the photograph. That is where the real story is.

There are two thousand refugees arriving each day, EACH DAY, in Sweden. Moreover, in the past week the neo-Nazis have burned down five buildings intended for refugee housing.

And last week a young man dressed in Star War's garb attacked armed with a sword and knife invaded a school attended mostly by immigrants killing two and severely wounding two. The police arrived within five minutes of the emergency call--I hate to think what might have been the result in a pre-cell-phone world.

[Ed Shacklee]

That drives it home, all right. Very sad, quietly angry, and eloquent, Janice.

Best,

Ed

[Siham Karami]

Thank you so much for writing this, Janice!!! And thank you, Matt, for posting it. Janice, you put in words what I was feeling, wanting to say. And there is more, of course. The world ignored Syria. So now Syria is coming to, and entering into, the world. Who is blaming Bashar now? No, they blame the victims. They blame people that they bravely rose up and demanded democratic reform, the dismantling of an oppressive dictatorship. The West always said, why don't you rise up for democracy? Why not peaceful demonstrations like Gandhi? They ask the Muslims to not be violent, to try to be more like "us." But no one wants to understand anything, ever. When they rise up and peacefully protest, and Bashar sends out his assassins, thugs, and snipers, then tortures children, the West is silent. There's no oil! In Libya they weren't silent, but it didn't work out there either. Removal of a dictator is radically different from removal of a colonial power (one that is "civilized" in some way) or removal of a weak monarch. They literally wage war on their own people using entire armies. It's happening in Egypt, yet the West continues to report that "Egyptians like Sisi," which is an outright lie. The truth is so much harder than lies, until the aftermath, when the problem with lies shows up. Sorry.

Siham

[Mary Meriam]

Great work, Janice. Reminds me of this Somali proverb: nabad iyo chaano (Without peace, there is no milk. Without milk, there is no peace.)

[Janice D. Soderling]

Thanks Ed, Siham and Mary.

Two more attempts at arson last night to burn refugee housing, but they were extinguished before they did major harm.

[Rob Wright]

Thank you, Janice for this poem. I found it powerful and forthright. My prayers go out to those people whom the idiots are trying to burn out. In fact, my prayers go out for the idiots as well: to be motivated by hate and fear is not at all a good way to live, as I know firsthand.