The Obvious Truth

There was a bomb blast just yesterday,

More than a hundred people died,

And somewhere far away,

A million more cried.

Cuz a Muslim took all the blame,

His group was behind it all,

Everyone accepted the claim,

None dared question the call.

But the Muslim community was plunged in fear,

Every Muslim looked down upon with hate,

People loathed them, it was clear,
Hatred and pain had become their fate.

But they forgot something important to tell,

That every person who died that day,

Was a Muslim as well,

So what more do I have to say?

You all have closed your heart and mind,

Closed your eyes to the truth,

But if you look around you'll find,

Every Muslim is just like you.

Islam is a religion of peace and love,

It doesn't teach us to fight,

We do have to strive for the One above,

But we can't take innocent lives.

The ones who say they're Muslims at heart,

But have innocents' blood on hands,

Muslims and they are a world apart,

Together we would never stand.

They use Islam as an excuse to kill,

But I bet they never touched the Holy Book,

And they call themselves Muslims still,

They need to give Quran another look.

For their ideas are all wrong,

And their ways even worse,

They're breaking the community once so strong,

On Muslims they've put a curse.

We suffer for the crimes they've done,

We're tagged terrorists for evermore,

Millions pay for the mistake of one,

Punishment and blame always wash up on our shore.

So take some time out to recognize,

The truth between wrong and right,

For once open your eyes,

And don't punish us for every fight.

Reviews

[Tallulah]

I love this because every word you wrote is so true. Unfortunately many people are looking at Muslims as a whole as though they are all terrorist and that's a truly horrible thing to say and think. I always correct people when they call Muslims terrorist because its just not right to treat a whole religion as terrorist especially when its not true. I love this poem because every word is true and I think that maybe you should send this in to a a magazine or newspaper for the whole world to read and see how wrong they are.
You all have closed your heart and mind,
Closed your eyes to the truth,
But if you look around you'll find,
Every Muslim is just like you.
^ I really love this part because so many people seem to be separating Muslims and the rest of humanity and you are just reminding us that they aren't. They are people just like the rest of us and they feel pain and betrayal that comes with the whole situation as well. I love this and thank you for putting such an important issue into such beautiful words. I really hope you send this in somewhere.
Much love,
Tallulah

[Saba Sharif]

Being narrative lyrical, opening lines set the whole atmosphere of the poem in contemporary setting quite concretely. I like the very obvious rhythmic way it transcends from immediate consequences to the ppl suffering beyond the scene, the victims beyond the obvious ones: all of us.

The basic Idea has a special significance in history: Dogmatism, enslaving the human minds and conscience so that human beings question no more, whatsoever the prevalent ideas. Made me think of Arther Miller’s play The Crucible with insane witch-hunt n George Orwell’s hunt of the sinners n other million parallels in history. This insane hunt always springs out of the common ground of fear, terror, hatred n indignation. Now, here, both are insane: the ones who are doing it n others who are blaming it on muslims over all. There is only a thin line between the two.

You know what, any lie told again n again becomes the accepted truth with snares unseen. Blame game makes it so easy to take in. It captures the human mind so as to incapacitate it for liberal thinking. Collective conscience, as we may call it, has a history of such incapacitating half truths that paralyze the progress of liberal thinking in general. Scapegoats!!! That is exactly what is needed the most in a dogmatic society to clear us all out of our guilt. Blame every one n Crucify every one, all of a community, to get a clear conscience and a false sense of justice.

Ending of the poem is quite concrete but I don’t like the word “please” there for some reasons. I think it gives a weak feel to the whole argument above. One doesn’t need to plead to let anyone see their own stupidity that is so obvious.

Recheck the following:
Looked down upon*
Hatred and pain*
Ummah would be a better alternate for community.
+ all the linking verbs there in esp. the use of But* that’s recurring.
+ what if you unite stanza 4 n 5 as they have same thought. Same goes for stanza 7 n 8. It will give this whole poem a unified strong impact. At least I think so. :)

Regards:
SABA

P.S. It’s my first review here. Hope I didn’t over-do it!