For over three decades, we have bombed and shot each other, split our tears and shed them only for ‘our own’, split our joys and celebrated as ‘their’ mothers, wives and children cried. This war will not end when the last shot if fired.
Let us not wait till the last shot is fired. Let us not wait for tomorrow… for the ‘war’ to ‘end’ to realise that we are but branches of the same family tree. Those who would have been our friends, and relatives if only we had not let murderous guns separate us, lie without shelter, unclothed, maimed, bloody and hopeless. They need us now.
So even while those on many shores protest and shout slogans, let us unite in our own communities, and use the power already devolved to us – not by any constitution or law, but by our inalienable inheritance – to collect clothes, food and other essentials for our fellow countrymen and women and children. Perhaps we still need a “political solution” for the “ethnic conflict”… perhaps warm embraces and sincere smiles would be the best start.
Let this be the moment that defines us.