Why Nations Fail; Pity the Nation

― Kahlil Gibran, a famous writer has said in his book "The Garden of The Prophet"

“Pity the nation that is full of beliefs and empty of religion.

Pity the nation that wears a cloth it does not weave

and eats a bread it does not harvest.

Pity the nation that acclaims the bully as hero,

and that deems the glittering conqueror bountiful.

Pity a nation that despises a passion in its dream,

yet submits in its awakening.

Pity the nation that raises not its voice

save when it walks in a funeral,

boasts not except among its ruins,

and will rebel not save when its neck is laid

between the sword and the block.

Pity the nation whose statesman is a fox,

whose philosopher is a juggler,

and whose art is the art of patching and mimicking

Pity the nation that welcomes its new ruler with trumpeting,

and farewells him with hooting,

only to welcome another with trumpeting again.

Pity the nation whose sages are dumb with years

and whose strongmen are yet in the cradle.

Pity the nation divided into fragments,

each fragment deeming itself a nation.”

~Lawrence Ferlinghetti; An American Poet has said following:-

(Book: Ferlinghetti's Greatest Poems https://amzn.to/49qBP5s)

Pity the nation whose people are sheep,

and whose shepherds mislead them.

Pity the nation whose leaders are liars, whose sages are silenced,

and whose bigots haunt the airwaves.

Pity the nation that raises not its voice,

except to praise conquerors and acclaim the bully as hero

and aims to rule the world with force and by torture.

Pity the nation that knows no other language but its own

and no other culture but its own.

Pity the nation whose breath is money

and sleeps the sleep of the too well fed.

Pity the nation — oh, pity the people who allow their rights to erode

and their freedoms to be washed away.

My country, tears of thee, sweet land of liberty. 

Pity the Nation by  Wang Ping ( Wang Ping has published thirteen books of poetry and prose.)

after Ferlinghetti

Pity the nation whose freedom melts faster than

Arctic ice

Whose justice defends sex predators & puts children

in jail.

Pity the nation that sells academia into corporate

fiefdoms

Whose presidents scream “Not enough” with their

million-dollar package

Who hike up tuitions to shackle students with debts

Who turn professors into adjuncts and intellectual

slaves.

Pity the nation branding youths with Divide &

Conquer logos

Who learn how to get rewards by ordering WOC

professors to “take down the syllabi!”

Calling them “racists & appropriators” as public

shaming.

Pity the nation whose education becomes “just

business”

Its giant machine squeezing hefty tuitions from

Chinese and other Asians

Who sell blood and kidneys to send their children to

America for a degree.

Oh pity the nation whose president churns lies like

popcorn

Whose students get presidential awards for libeling

Grandpas from the Rez

For yelling “you should feel lucky I find your words

good enough to plagiarize”

To her professors who try to teach academic integrity.

Pity the nation as her Lady weeps for children filling

up the cages along the border

Her torch stolen to slow-burn the soles, palms, and

tongues of defiant students.

Pity the nation that bans professors from campus and

rewards cheaters and mediocrity

That condemns poetry for “manipulating emotions”

That bullies truth into silence

That gags science, deletes data, exiles facts into

deserts

That wires classrooms with eyes and ears to break

spirits.

Oh pity the nation that builds its high tower upon the

bones of the Natives, slaves, coolies, Asian American

scholars, LGTBQ artists, immigrant poets . . .

Oh pity!

Oh let’s pity the nation with actions!

Let’s stand together for truth.

Freedom is never free.

Freedom takes courage, our flesh and spirit.

But it’s worth it.

It’s our reason to live—with tears of joy, joy of pride

In this land of the free and brave.