They say that darkness is simply the absence of light and is not an entity in itself. Much like evil, it only exists when the do-gooders of the world are apathetic and silent. It makes me wonder, where were all the Jews during the 10 plagues in Egypt?
In Parshat Bo my main man Moses is on a mission from God, not the Blues Brother kind, rather one based on vengeance and justice. No one could ever question the necessity of the freeing of the Jews from the oppressive Pharaoh but did the means justify the ends and was there any humanity in the process? I don’t know if this is for me to decide or not however I will take any opportunity I can to talk about the bystander, to talk about the Nazis just following orders, the men who walk past a homeless man on the street, the people who buy cheap clothes knowing full well a young family lost their home to build the factory it was made in 2’000 miles away. It’s really easy to point the finger at the big oil corporations destroying our planet, but why is the finger never pointed at us for not buying electric cars?
When God decided to kill all first born Egyptians where were all the Jews protesting the immorality of it all? When Jews were being punished and abused, where were all the Egyptians protesting the immorality? The status quo is a funny thing.
If they say that the darkness is simply the absence of light, where and who is the light in this world?
I wrote this poem on my Poland journey way back in 2012. Written through the eyes of a dissatisfied youth on the idea of the bystander and what our conscious will let us ignore to suit our own gains.
Who are we?
Who am I?
Do I see the light and stand to fight go eye to eye with the man insight?
Maybe, but still…
Who am I? I’m just a guy.
I try and teach but do not preach in fear my words will fade away with bleach.
Who am I? I’m just one guy.
But I can’t stand by just shrug and sigh, let the people that I love and care for die inside. Why can’t they see that ‘let it be’ just doesn’t sit very well with me?
But who am I? I’m just one guy. So now…
Who are you?
You can search through and through to find the meaning that is true as blue to you, Without all that, tell me, who are you? You’re like me too.
How can you sleep at night knowing just out of sight a fight is on? Don’t just glide along or just roll on, don’t even get me started why that’s so wrong.
Ring the gong and sing your song, rally the troops before all hope is gone.
But then again, who are you? You’re like me too.
So who am I? I’m just one guy, and who are you? You’re like me too and if the equation is right that now makes two.
So who are we?
We are the free that’s left to be, the free to see what life should be, the free to change the free seek the free to act upon what we believe.
If we believe and we conceive you better believe we can achieve.
So find a cause, fight the laws and fuck the wars. What we seek is not applause.
Our war doesn’t have guns in a field, just right and wrong which shall not yield.
Let’s all take a stance not do a bullshit dance, step on the toes of what we think we know.
It blows my mind to think what we will find if equal love was given to all humankind.
We will grind and grind to a state of mind where rising up isn’t left behind.
Who am I? I’m just one guy and who are you? You’re like me too and if my equations right that now makes two.
Who are we?
And when I say we it’s not just you it’s not just me, it’s all the people in front of me I see.
So who are we? We are the builders of freedom.
Al tikra lanu banayich ela bonaich
We must create the foundation, pick up from each station for the creation and foundation that will build this fucking nation.
So who are we?
Freedom fighters, freedom writers what will be said in history about us.
All we seek is the 3 lines in which we speak. We have…
“The wisdom to see,
The courage to want
And the power to act”
Aleh Vehagshem
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