What kind of world would it be
I have to wonder
If the western powers
Had not carved up
The less developed world
Along arbitrary lines
For greedy gain
No respecters of ethnicity
Language or cultural boundaries
Nor historical territorial claims
Nor even history as a whole
What if we’d allowed Mossadegh
To remain and lead
A nascent Persian democracy
Rather than disrupting Iranian sovereignty
Toppling a popular and benevolent regime
To install a puppet Shah
What if we’d allowed the people
Of the region to flourish
Under self-governance
With their own rich culture and heritage
To guide them
What if we had stayed true
To our stated aspirations
Rather than succumbing
To avaricious ambitions
And appetites
What if Operation Condor
Had never been hatched
And Latin America had been instead
Supported in democratization
Self-determination
And freedom movements
Regardless of ideological underpinnings
If Pinochet and Peron
And other ruthless dictators
Had never been ushered to power
In service of proxy struggles
Of a Cold War world
Or the insatiable lust and greed
Of allied and colonial powers
Governments, corporations, and captains of commerce
Carving up the world like a cake
To be devoured hungrily, wantonly
By extraction interests and others
Seeking to make the human and natural resources
Of other nations their own
Where purported powers touting freedom
Undermined their own words
By actions that enslaved and oppressed
Extorted and extracted
Destroyed and desecrated
Displaced and annihilated
Propped up petty tyrants
And carved up territories
To create subservient nation states
Where once there were none
Divvying up entire continents and regions
Asia, Africa, the Middle East
Latin America, Native America
Under the thumb of western nations
For purposes of wealth and control
For short term greedy gain
Where now would the Ayatollahs be
Whither the Taliban and Al Qaeda
The Islamic State
The Wahhabists
The Khmer Rouge
The Viet Cong
Fascists and Maoists
The brutal dictators and tyrants
Even the oligarchs
Enmities and hatreds of so many varieties
Perhaps they would never have arisen
With any substantial force or passion
And extremism would have died
Lacking fuel for the fires of division
Envy and grievance and resentment
In the presence of universal opportunity
Hope, equality, prosperity, and flourishing
But we will likely never know
This side of eternity
Which we should anticipate
Fearfully and in dread
For surely our fate
Has been sealed
The die has been cast
Our reckoning sure
Justice waiting patiently
But inexorably
In the wings
Certain
And damning
D. Gee, Spring 2023
Father, please forgive us, for we know not what we do (but sadly I think we do know — at least those most responsible have known all along).
I decided to share this today (the day after 9/11) in honor of the deep loss and suffering experienced by far too many on September 11 in 2001 (USA) and in 1973 (Chile) and in the associated aftermath in both countries with echoes around the world.
Sadly, I see a few historical threads woven of that seemingly insatiable human appetite for wealth, influence, and power that connect both events (the activities of the CIA in Afghanistan and Latin America during the Cold War being but one notable example) and extend well before and well beyond to the causes of many other pains among many other peoples in many other places. Much to grieve in terms of both cause and effect, then and now. I have to wonder what might otherwise have been. Certainly nothing perfect, but perhaps something notably more just.