Our Plight By Hiba Babiker (@hiba.bxbz)

We are forgotten.

Unknown

Anonymous

Black and brown faces

Painted in agony.

Children starving

Mothers crying in anguish

Women assaulted indiscriminately

Men’s corpses litter the ground.

What has changed?

Our suffering has never been surprising

The world is silent

We get a small section in the newspaper, 

A footnote in the history of human suffering 

Cities burn like wildfires, 

Our cries of pain and despair

Are the backdrop of bombs and bullets

Do you think we are bulletproof?

Or are you used to our pain?

We’re just trauma porn 

Pictures used to pretend you care,

My people deserve dignity

They have died with honor

Not for this-

We’re not going to beg you to care

How could we?

Have we sunk so low?

Or did we just overestimate our place in the world?

I know we are nothing but a source of entertainment for some…

Or the poster board for tragedy in a third world country,

One that had been through many wars

Genocide

Scheming neighbors

And false friends.

They want to exploit us,

Claim colonialism is a thing of the past

Then tell me why my people die for freedom;

Everyone stands in the way of what we want

Political stability?

Do we know that?

Foreign influence and interests not taking precedence over the people?

A bad joke

Unity?

Have we ever had that since you came to our land?

The birthplace of humanity 

Is a graveyard, 

Violated by atrocities

And people who claim they have morals

It’s been two years-

No it’s been more

Since 1956

What have we had for ourselves?

False borders

Civil war

Massacres

Genocide

We are strong

We have fallen 

But we will rise up

With or without you 

This belongs to us 

Our plight.