You tell me - a poem by Dr. Kyi May Kaung

You tell me --

(After Faiz Ahmed Faiz as translated by Naomi Lazard)

If you just signed a peace accord
on a scrap of paper
but you didn't stop shooting
and you didn't stop
rape as a weapon of war,
how will there be peace?
You tell me.

If you continue using fossil fuels
and credit cards and going out shopping shopping
while China owns all the national debt
and may one day pull the rug out from under you
how will you climb out of the debt hole with a high ceiling
as a sovereign country?
You tell me.

If you continue speaking in tongues such as rent-seeking for plain old corruption, and your debt has moved from one account to the other, but is still 11 billion, how do you propose the economy will take off?
You tell me.

If you released hundreds of political prisoners
but still arrest people to use as bargaining chips
when will foreign countries lose patience?
You tell me.

If you keep inviting FDI and FDI
and still can't get
your own shit together
and all your bureaucrats in all your ministries
are still trying to Increase regulations to get more baksheesh or tea money,
how will you streamline the economy?
You tell me.

If you still keep grabbing land
screwing your laborers literally and figuratively
and they are crying out as just before the French Revolution
what will the future be,
how will you make things better?
You tell me.

If the advisers tell you to reduce your money supply, or at least don't increase it so fast, and you can't because you need quite simply to buy support
how will you battle inflation?
You tell me.

If your karmic misdeeds have accumulated
at compound rates since 1962
and you have tried to compensate
think you can compensate
by throwing rose petals at Gandhi's grave
receiving a gift of his statue in a transparent plastic or glass cage
- or something like retrieving the massive bell
sunk in the river 300 years--is
a good use of money
while people are starving,
how do you think the trap door of hell can remain shut

if you yourself prop it open
with your booted feet?

You tell me.

Copyright K.M. Kaung.
11-15-2013