Are You Not Done Yet With These People? Poem by Raj Arumugam

Are you not done yet with these people?
Have your people not hunted them and killed
them like beasts and not shamed them enough?
Have you not taken and plundered too much already
that you must mock them and badger them and pursue them
even in their fallen state? Did not
those of the continent who set foot in the New World
cut natives limb by limb? Did not Jesuits and monks
witness that even those in the flock
impregnated pagan slaves for profit? What crime could be worse than enslaving another human being
with corrupt holy men justifying slavery?
Are you not allied to these
and yet you will point a finger at the defeated?
Will you judge them? Will you mock them still?
Are you not done yet with these people?
Have your people not hunted them and killed
them like beasts and not shamed them enough?
God forgive us all,
and Christ forgive you;
O no, you are not done with them;
you have not done with them yet
till you set right the wrongs.
Surely you are not done with them,
nor Christ with you.



(from The Migrant - notes of a newcomer (February 1997- July 1998))