What You Oppress, Eventually Conquers You
You carved your names on lands not yours,
With iron, blood, and sharpened laws.
You drew your borders through ancient homes,
Then called it peace, while looting thrones.
You came with Bibles and muskets alike,
And taught the wounded not to strike.
You spoke of order, wearing steel —
But left no room for us to feel.
China wept through a century’s chain,
Opium smoke in every vein.
Africa’s gold fed your feasts and wars,
While her children died behind locked doors.
You sold black bodies across the seas,
Then wrote of freedom, as if with ease.
In India, salt turned into screams,
As bullets shattered Gandhi’s dreams.
Japan still hears that mushroom cloud,
A silence too deep, too proud, too loud.
You burned the skies, split open ground,
And now blame others for what you found.
You call us savage, you call us poor —
But built your empires on our door.
You fanned the flames of industry,
Now curse us for the dying tree.
But karma walks with quiet feet,
It does not beg, it does not plead.
And when the wheel begins to turn,
Will your palaces not also burn?
We do not cry for vengeance loud —
But truth shall rise from every shroud.
What you oppressed, now grows its name —
Not for revenge, but to reclaim.
For justice sleeps, but never dies —
It stirs beneath the global cries.
And when we rise, as rise we will,
Will you remember the time you killed?
Copyright ©
Chanda Katonga
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