Tell the Pacifists of Your Land — A Poem by Quratulain Qureshi
June 12, 2021
Quratulain Qureshi presents a poem that sends across a message that the poet summarizes clearly, without embellishments, and in her own words: “It is wrong and highly problematic to equate the fight of a people for their rights and dignity with that of the oppressive methods of their persecutors. Hence, this poem: an address to the advocates of such a ‘pacifism’.”

Tell the Pacifists of Your Land 

Tell the “pacifists” of your land
that their peace talks
sound null and void
to the oppressed of the world,
that the onus is on the Wronged
to resort to “methods of peace”,
while well-planned “fatality”
lingers around their homes,
waiting to knock at their doors
at any unanticipated hour

Ask the “pacifists” of your land
for the definition of “peaceful ways”
Ones,
that wouldn’t muffle voices
or silence them
or ones,
that would come with a promise
of a life of dignity for generations of the unfortunate to come
and a dignity, defined by no one else, but them.

Make the “pacifists” of your land aware
that the Wretched of the Earth
have been blinded,
“non-lethally”,
they can’t perceive the vision of the privileged,
that they don’t understand their talks and their “dialogues”
not because they are “innately violent”
but because they have been unfamiliar with peace
for a long, long measure
Tell the “pacifists” of your land
that their peace talks
are imperceptible, unsolicited, unasked-for
to the oppressed of the world.

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About the Contributor

<a href="https://www.inversejournal.com/author/quratulainqureshi/" target="_self">Quratulain Qureshi</a>

Quratulain Qureshi

Quratulain Qureshi is currently pursuing her postgraduate degree from Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi.
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