Freedom Is A Thing Poem by Francis Duggan

Freedom is a thing you can't impose
By bomb or bullet or at the point of the gun
A Government led by a Dictator foreign powers may over-throw
But freedom for the people in that way can't be won

They may not want a Western style democracy
To us they look at life quite differently
They resent outside interference in their Affairs of State
Of our brand of freedom they wish to be free.

Freedom is a thing you cannot give
If the intended recipients of it refuse to take
The marvellous gift you feel that you offer to them
How can you explain to them we bombed your cities just for freedom's sake?

The little bird that is born in captivity
You open up it's cage to set it free
But then you find it will not fly away
It's tiny space is it's security.

We bomb their cities just to set them free
To set us free of what is all they say
Your sort of freedom we do not desire
We look at life in quite a different way.

Their way of life we never could embrace
And they prefer their ways by far to ours
You spray the weeds when the garden is in bloom
And in so doing you too poison the flowers.