A poetic drama (One Scene)

( Egypt’s parliamentary farce)

(The spokesperson on the presidium strikes the table with a wooden hammer and asks for order. Participants become quiet.
Raise your hands and reflect your views on today’s point of argument— The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD ) on Blue Nile. Various people representatives raise hands,
The spokesman says let us start with Mr. Hydrologist over there.)

Egypt’s globally
Topmost voluminous
Underground
Reserve of water
We could use later.
So via our media outlets
It is better
We dupe
The global community with
Much-touted chatter
“To Egyptians
Demand of water
To cater
Blue Nile is
A life and
Death matter!
As thicker than blood
Is water! ”

Of course,
From the Mediterranean
Or Red Sea
We could extract, desalinate
And use water,
But why should
We talk about that?
We better
Ask on Blue Nile
A farfetched exclusive right.

Though hydropower dam
Has no significant harm
We shall flout it
In a way it runs
Out of charm.
As  the Nobel peace winner
Premier  Abiy Ahmed put it
"Almost all Egyptians
Enjoy the supply of electricity,
While over half of Ethiopians
Are thirsty of such necessity.

Tragically, to date
Using a lamp
Covers most of Ethiopia's map.

For the rational,
It is a source of worry
Innumerable Ethiopian mothers
Still on their backs carry
Backbreaking firewood
So that go to school
Their children could.
What we say
Is if you  are remiss to help
don't stand on our way
While we're flapping wings
From fettering poverty
To break away!"


Also via a conduit
Diverting Blue Nile
Across the Sahara desert
A financial return
Egypt could get
That delights its heart.
The water from
Upstream countries
We do not buy
But paradoxically sell it
We shouldn’t why?

Like Israel
Using drip irrigation
Must not
Draw our attention.
We shall be extravagant
For Blue Nile’s water
Is abundant.
Unchecked lavishly
It must flow!
Pertaining to that
We have to remain adamant.

Also, the
Silt accumulation
In Aswan dam
Could be disastrous
The outcome,
Yet we have
To cry foul
This challenge-averting
GERD must not soon
Generate region-
much-needed power!

Though it is 50 % of the
Annual trans boundary
Water outflow
Other water-generating countries
Are willing to let go
Unwilling anything below,
Kind Ethiopia ventures
Holding only 13% of
The yearly flow to follow,
However, ingratitude
Must feature our attitude.
This may
Provoke a  dismay
But attention
We shall not pay.

(A tumultuous applause shook the parliament. Once more the spokesman asks for order. Then he invites a former diplomat saying “ it is your turn.”)

Once, by famine hit
When Ethiopia   asked
“Help me not why?”,
While others extended help,
Mocking, we did turn
A blind eye.

As our former bent
Whenever Ethiopia
Seeks  grant
From international
Development Institutions
On grounds of
Fighting poverty and drought,
Greasing palms  
We shall bring
Ethiopia’s plans to harness
Blue Nile to naught!
Use we shall
Many a phony diplomat
With a tongue of honey
And a heart of gall.

Tact we do not lack
So cautiously,
Our sanctimonious mask
Our targets
May not hack,
All out
We shall engage in
Self-selling talk!

From all things that fall
In the technical matrices
We shall make a sham politics.

(He sits enjoying a standing ovation. The spokesman invites a representative with a military background.)

We shall blow our
Trumpet in the air
“In lieu of
The reasonable 3 years,
Cooperatively,
From 4 to 6 years
To fill the dam
If Ethiopians dare,
War on it
We shall declare!
Barefacedly claiming
Fifteen to 20 years
Is what is fair!

In such infeasible way
Before it sees the day’s light
GERD will suffer blight.”

(He hiccups and continues)

“With a bellicose bent
To remind ourselves
Deliberately we shall fail
So many times Ethiopia
Chased out every
Egypt’s invading army
Between its legs
Shoveled its tail.
(Ex. Isma'il Pasha/ 1874 –1876
Gundet &Gura March 7–9, 1876)
But why should we care
Arsenal support
Hypocrites, who want to exploit
In the Middle East
Egypt’s political purport,
Will bring to our port.
The current catchphrase
"I can't breathe"
Demonstrates hypocrites'
Justice has no teeth!

We shall
Continue to brag
About GERD’s full actualization
Foot to drag.
I’m afraid
If we strike GERD,
On Aswan dam
Ethiopia will certainly inflict
A similar harm.
Its infantry
Acid-tested hero
Within finger-counted days
Will march into Cairo.

Its top official or
One from its mob
Cold blow up in Egypt a bomb.

We have to understand
As its former PM
Meles put it
“It is not
Its football squad
Ethiopia will deploy
On the terrain rough
When the going
Gets tough!”

We shouldn't worry
We have no history
Of battle front victory.
Poking our nose here and there
(Sudan, Somalia, Yemen,
Libiya, Palestine, Israel)
We shall make political trouble
As we are averse to self
-politics burgeoning dabble.

(He sat after enjoying a heartwarming laughter from the audience. The spokesman himself could not help unzipping his lips and invites a hoary headed historian.)

Subjects of colonization
It is our
Historic right
For the hanging-over
Mentality of predators
To fight
“Gobbling down
All resources
Is our right!”
We shall espouse
Unjust and inequitable deal
“Ethiopia fairly
GERD must not fill!”
We must gamble
Regarding the water division
There has to be a deal
That serves our colonial
Legacy a sign and seal.

There is nothing we hate
Than the following sentiment
Pan Africanists activate.
"We have to get
Behind our back
Days dark!"

(He sits accompanied by an affirmative nods. The spokesman invited Miss Environmentalist "it is your turn." "Thank you for the opportunity,"  she said and  standing she scanned the congregants
before speaking)

In parrying evaporation
GRERD being built in a gorge
Than Aswan Dam
In the desert
Draws better attention.
Though logical,
This we do not wish to hear
So we shall turn a deaf ear
Saying
“Your nuisance
We no longer bear!”

Of course
To avoid siltation
In GERD
Also to ensure
The continuous flow of water
Towards Green development
Ethiopia is making an unprecedented &
Unflagging movement.

Yes , Yes
Green development
Draws rain
Though that is
To our gain
From expressing
Appreciation to
Ethiopia’s timely move
We shall refrain.

From the voice of
Sagacious leaders of
Africa
It is better
To heed a hypocrite
From America;
That could not be a shame
In the political game.

(She takes a seat enjoying a high five. The spokesman invites a parliamentarian who is a member of the Arab league.)

As Sudan poses
A rational gait
Its voice has weight.
Our sugar-coated talk
It may not buy
Hence, the fuel-intoxicated
Gluttonous Arab League
Its voice
Needs to raise high.
White supremacists
Must try hard
To sweet talk Sudan
To our side.
Otherwise
Creating political heat
In to two its people
We have to split
To unseat
Its incumbent president
Popular support that ride.
This  insidious tide
From Sudanese mob
We have to hide!

We have a toy League
That doesn’t ask itself
“ Why
War-fleeing Arabs ,
Shunned by Arabs,
Seek a safe haven
Under Ethiopia’s sky?
Why  of all
In Prophet Mohammed's eyes
Ethiopia stands tall?”
That no one could deny
But we must
Neither wonder  nor ponder
“Why
For own advantage
Arabs-eating-Arabs
That commit  
Political suicide
Could not
Stand by
The reasonable
Ones’ side?”

Creating this and  
That pretext
We shall derail
The all-out task
To bring GERD’s to end,
At long last
To make it
As good as dead.

Why should we care?
If Ethiopia or the region is
Thirsty of hydropower
In so far as
Our conceited
Pride remains
In glory tower.


Moreover if soured
Pushed to the end or angry
Reflect  we must not
Ethiopians could tame
Its this or that tributary.

(When a wealthy merchant raised his hand the spokesman gave him a green light to speak.)

Pampering with money
Fifth columnists cruel
Let us keep on using
In Ethiopia
As runs the adage
Divide and rule,
Along ethnic
And religious lines
To  drive a wedge
So that Ethiopians will not
Come to the same page,
While turmoil in their country
Opts to rage.

We could ignore the fact
Ethiopians soon display
Unity and solidarity
When threatened gets
Nation’s  sovereignty.
In Ethio-Somali war
Ethiopians Karamara’s Victory
Talks loud such history.

I'm afraid
Our  divisive action could
Bring together Ethiopians,
Be it on left or right end,
Their sovereignty to defend.


Robbed of
Their alluvial soil
By a prodigal river
Ethiopia’s  farmers
Undergo a hard toil
If we are asked for that
Compensation to pay
“No!”
We  have  to say.

Note that
Using industrialization
Like Japan
Develop we can
Than irrigating  
A- scorching-sun
-smoldered land
Full of sand.

As the  jealously insane
What should worry Egypt
Must not  be what  it could lose
But  Ethiopia gain.
What I fear
In the diplomatic arena
With GERD Ethiopia
Will come forth
Shifting gear.
When Ethiopians' development
Proceeds apace
Ethiopia could Egypt displace.
So on its development
We  have to pose a roadblock
Or a spoke.
.

(This much  farce is enough for today .Parliament is dismissed says the spokesman.)////////

Allowing a wall
Before their rational
Thinking stand,
Inured to their heinous deed
Of every brand,
From head to toe
Involved in corruption grand,
Also while fellow citizens
Gasp for air,
Not giving an ounce of care,
Barefacedly they dare
Unjust war to declare!
"Valorous,wiping you out
We shall make the land bare!"

"Chained, cruel and corrupt
Honest - thieves and cut-throats
Us,to court you took
To punish us by the book
Such a move by hook or crook
We shall abort
Haven't it dawned on you the import?
--the select few
From the palace to port
As autocracy is our wont,
And zone of comfort
If stripped of this right
For us it will not be all right!

Though finger countered,
We hail from an ethnic group,
Marked brave
And which we could mobilize,
As our selfishness and brutality
It seems oblivious to realize.

Though during our hay days
Its plight we failed to mollify
Massaging its ego
The call for unjust war
We shall amplify
Unrepentant ,
We should
Wage a fight.

Though some of us
Are on the run,
As blood is thicker than water,
With the credulous
That fight for us
Emerge victorious we can.
To reinstate
Rule of the gun
On which
The international
Community
Has put a ban.


But
"To flee pang-of-conscience
How fast be the pace?
No need  it is no where in place"

Cognizant that to
Crosschecking, the credulous
May not pay serious attention,
WHO’s Director General
Abusing your position,
As a hoodwinking trick
Tears trickling down
Each of your cheek
I saw you expressing
A cooked up idea,
An interviewee,
On a so called
Reputed media.
A reputed media
Ironically and terribly
A probing knack
That does lack.
To media weak
Unwilling
To cross examine
Whether the whole
Truth you speak.
“Why your likes—
Terrorists TPLF juntas—
Fired rockets
To a neighboring state
Intent a terror to create?
Why you did the same
On Eritrea
To create
In East Africa hysteria?

“Why in Mia kadra
Your likes
—Genocide perpetrators—
Massacring the feeble
And unarmed civilians
With a machete
Expressed to what extent
The Amhara race
You hate.”
“Why your likes
—traitors—at
The Ethio-Eriteria border
You stabbed in the back many
A national army member
In the back,
Worse waiting till
It gets pitch dark?
Salivating for arsenals
Must you
Your siblings attack?
Is it to invite
Self-defending soldiers
From the border’s other side?
Or is it running amok
To enjoy in Eretria a free ride?
Now playacting a victim
Why you try the truth
To hide?”

“Why the likes of you
—lechers—
For about 3 decades
You bled
The country dry,
Forcing millions
Lamenting their fate
With empty stomach die?
Why including those who
Hail from your ethnic
Background, on safetynet
Leaned for existence to date?

I wonder how now
You dare
To show affectation
Humanitarian issue
In Tigray is in
Your radar of care?

With
Laundered dollars,
Abroad, stashed away
Lavishly dishonest journalists
You buy as it isn’t hard
To get such guys today.
A spoiled brat
Mercenaries you hunt.

Now, barefacedly
Must you cry?
“ ‘Doves are my
Likes and I
How failed you
To pity us? Why?’
Akin a crocodile
Loud you cry?”

“Why atavism of
All-brand
The likes of you—
Mafias— spread
Throughout the land.
While the blood
Of the innocent is
Fresh on your hand,
You dream how
For reinstating
The despotic regime
Another chance
You could stand?

“Why mentally sick
The likes of you—
Colonial legacy mongers,
Vanguards of common wealth
White supremacists –
Disgustingly ingratiate
In a way
Unheard of to date
Ready to receive
And A to Z execute
What they dictate?
And to historic enemies
A hand you lend
A sign moral-wise
You are clinically dead.

“Why the likes of you—
Political thugs—
**** was your
Characteristic feature?
Mr. Director General
To spice the interview
Leave not
Your ****** exploits
That you most remember.
Of course, tell us you can,
While in power
How many
**** victims’ demonstration
In Mekle
You and your friends
Conspired to ban.
Yes **** is a
Worst crime
But registered weres
Many such offences
In your time.

Yours ,sham media
And dishonest lobbyists
Unholy marriage
Provokes the
Innocents’ rage! ///

I saw the shamrock fall,
I saw the shamrock mourn and rot
for Ireland's children, noble beings,
succumbed to England's scorn.

The mother's arms are open,
her children run from her breast
for the English started hanging us
for the wearing of the green.

O' Ireland, your tears have spilled
and reddened your pretty Celtic eyes,
you're full of forlorn and pain
for the Ires die away.

The English rag arises,
the cross barefacedly waved;
the ****** red, left-right strokes
have been drawn on Ireland's chest.

She was stripped of a family,
all bleeding and alone;
now she's fallen to the ground
where her children also fell
when they broke their necks
or when their air was gone;
now all that's left is the wonderful grass
where us fallen lay beneath;
our loving mother is back,
protecting us wearers
the wearers of the green!