Together we must
HE was three years old
You killed him
And 50 others
Not in Christ's church
But a mosque
To save your blindness
Your fake whiteness
Not mine, yours,
YOURS
Inspired by the politicians
Who run Manus and Nauru
Concentration camps
Inspired by their hate press
Where Muslims are the whistled dog
Of Immigration, and race
And colonial settlers
And the lumpen proles
Who make up part of our nation
While they are One
We are united
We stand
Against the claxons of evil
Their hate, their fear, their lies
The Nazi enablers give them life
Give them reason
And reasons
Enough you evil bastards
No more games
Bring the refugees here
Welcome them
If you will not
We will,
Reclaim humanity
To be free
We will smash you
Grind you into the dust of history
Again
Conservatives, reactionaries, fascists
Your racist sewer survives
Thrives upon hating
The eternal other
Our Aboriginal brothers
And sisters
And the recent other
Jew, Muslim, African
Remember the gangs?
More lies to inspire hate, and votes
Our tree of life thrives on stolen land
We keep from the non-white man
And woman
The Muslim woman wails
Her husband is dead
Killed by the words
Of the media and the racists
Who inhabit high office
And the bullets of the followers
Not us, the mighty scream
As their words weasel out
And softly megaphone the hate
Enough! No more!
Stop these bastards now
The mass of us,
Together, we can
The time for tears
Has come
Where theirs drown ours
Disempower the haters
Empower ourselves
Black, white, yellow, brown
Muslim, Christian, Jew,
Buddhist, Hindu
And no religion too
Together, against their rotten system
Of racism, murder, war
Making us poor
Together, we can
Together, we must
You can follow Canberra correspondent John Passant on Twitter @JohnPassant. Signed copies of John's newly released second book of poetry, 'Whose Broken is this? and other poems', are available for purchase from the IA store HERE.
Support independent journalism Subscribe to IA.