When the first reports of the shootings in Ireland came through at the week-end my first reaction was one of dismay and horror at the futility of it all. However, I was heartened to see the people in the North turning out in their thousands, united against violence and was reminded about this poem by Adrian Mitchell.
No More War: Adrian Mitchell
As War eats more and more of its victims
Growing huge and strong on foreign flesh
Quiet ladies and gentlemen in grey suits
Will ask you to learn the killing trade.
Maybe you’ve got no hope of work
And the Army sounds like a steady job
And you’ve seen Ross Kemp in Ultimate Force
Wasting the terrorists. Tell them: No.
As War multiplies and War and its children
Start to devour our own parents and children,
Your friendly postman will hand you an order
To leave your home and go learn to kill.
Its simpler to go when you’re told to go.
Maybe you’re worried what you’re family will say.
Maybe you’re frightened by their prisons
Designed for crushing men and women. Tell them: No.
Prepare you’re defence. Explain to them peacefully
Why you refuse to kill or die for them.
Call you’re witnesses - Martin Luther King
Or Ghandi or Jesus or Buddha
Or your own loving heart.
