Masters of war
The writer is a lawyer with a Master’s degree from Northeastern University
You forcefully enter their lands, equipped with the latest armory. You ransack their homes, you loot their treasures, you dislocate their families. You don’t even show mercy to their children. You gather your nationalism and place on their lands your advanced artillery and infantry. You kill them in the name of patriotism fuelled by your deluded nationalism. You glorify your killings by labelling them terrorists. These terrorists, from whose land you extract minerals and leave them nothing but sand. Whose children are born with no socks on their feet but when they grow up, they walk on gold.
You enter through their rich coastlines and you exterminate their fishermen. When the term terrorist doesn’t work, you label them as traitors and accuse them of orchestrating anti-state activities. You rid them of their pastors. Pellets of poison flood their waters. It’s the place where people are many and their hands are all empty and it’s where the damp dirty prison has an executioner with his face completely hidden.
You camp in their mountains and you cause chaos. You exploit their resources and give them nothing. These terrorists, they fight and they resist. They resist your strength and they protect themselves. These traitors, they protect their land from the mighty hands of those who claim ownership upon it. These traitors live under inhumane conditions due to unavailability of education, basic amenities and infrastructure. These yokels, how dare they protect their own land with their sweat and blood?
You force them into self-exile. By the scruff of the neck, you tell them they are no good. You drag them in courts, you accuse them of sedition. You exterminate their existence from the root. You encourage uprisings on their lands and order the locals to be killed. You see these people as obstacles to your nationalistic pride. You thrive on their poverty and enslave them. You put these traitors to work, you give them promises of profits but when push comes to shove, you jostle them aside.
These dissidents, holding myopic views and suffocated ideals, protect their lands in the name of God. You deliberately deprived them of education and look what you’ve created now. Hordes of fighters who won’t lay down. Fighters who will go all to all lengths, to keep you away from their territory. You refuse to accept these lands as indigenous and these people as natives. You claim to own their land but what have you done for them? What have you done for ‘your land’? When they retaliate and kill you in self-defence, you reply with more fervour and more backlash.
Resultantly, you face rebellion. The fire you started starts to spread beyond your control. You lose patriots in return. You pledge ‘eye for an eye’ and your people support your chauvinistic ideal. To curb mass rebellion, you abduct and ‘disappear’ people. You take away the informed youth, you kill the natives in numbers. You do everything you can, for years, to wipe these traitors away from their lands. And then you punch in the air and ask God for support. You brush off their blood from your tyrannical conscience and you march. You pledge and you vow to march and tremble till the heavens fall. You kidnap their children and enslave their families. But when they kill one of you, you ask for sympathy and in glorified martyrdom, you persist against these traitors. You pray and you beg. You shiver before God and you kill with more zeal.
But then, in an epiphany, you realise their lands and their minerals are worth more to you. So, you make promises to them. You promise them what the gems you find. Once you dig out what you need, you kill these murderers. Upon your voyage, your morals and your values don’t stand. But everything’s fair in love and war, right?
About time we learn from the cruel acts of Christopher Columbus and his fight against the traitors. Dare I say, quite relatable, isn’t it? History should not repeat itself.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 22nd, 2022.
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